As I noted in this post at my New Covenant blog, Princeton bioethicist Robert George, in his article Obama’s Abortion Extremism, stated,

That post, and the follow-up A Comprehensive argument against Barack Obama, were intended to expose Obama’s truly pro-abortion position, for any non-Christians that may have stumbled upon this site. Imagine my surprise when, the very week after I posted, I found myself in an argument with a Christian friend who adamantly considers Obama to have a distinctly pro-choice position.

I was astounded to hear my friend, a professor with probably close to 40 years in academia, make (what I consider) arguments typically promulgated by liberals and liberals within academia. Perhaps, in retrospect, given the fact that my friend has spent so much time within academia, regardless of whether or not it was secular academia, I should not have been surprised to hear liberal arguments.

Initially, I was informed that Obama was pro-choice and not pro-abortion. Upon my asking what the difference was I was given the argument that Obama is “personally opposed to abortion, but…”. I was about to offer the suggestion that one take that same personally opposed statement and substitute the word “slavery” or “rape” for “abortion”, and then see how absurd it sounds, but I was immediately informed that Obama has said he would sign on to a ban of partial birth abortions would they only offer an exception for cases of rape or incest. (note: Robert George’s article shreds such claims. More on that later.) I was then told that it was essentially not pro-life to allow a woman with an ectopic pregnancy to die rather than remove (abort) the “fetus”.

Do you see the problem with these arguments? They play with words (e.g., “personally opposed”). They use the exception as determiner of the rule (e.g., cases of rape or incest). They ignore the humanity of the unborn (e.g., referring to the unborn child as a “fetus”).

In further conversation with my friend, attempts were made to compare the devastation of the war in Iraq as not indicative of the Republicans truly having a pro-life position. Of course this is nothing more than diversion. Even if such a claim were true, how does that, I wonder, have anything to do with the devastating fact that 4,000 unborn children are aborted every day?

I was given this website to refer to as, supposedly, an objective basis for determining the position of Obama. I noted, to no response, that the website makes multiple references to Obama supporting a “woman’s right to choose”, yet never completes the statement (i.e., a woman’s right to choose to kill her unborn child).

I offered the article by Robert George, an article by Steve Wagner (Stand to Reason), as well as the National Right to Life Committee’s recent interaction with Barack Obama, as information outlets to help one understand Obama’s actions with regards to the abortion issue. Unfortunately, my friend considers third-party sources to be hopelessly biased and, as a result, would not even reference my recommendations, preferring to simply listen to what each candidate states themselves.

Are there other Christians who have turned a blind eye to the actions of Barack Obama with regards to the abortion issue? Are there other Christians who don’t view the issue of abortion as a major concern?

Greg Koukl, in his Oct. 20th weekly radio show, recently stated (28:30 into the program),

It seems to me, based on what Robert George has written, the lesson is this: If you are radically pro-choice, Obama is your man. But, if you think that abortion in all its forms, the garden variety of abortion, plus partial birth abortion, plus large scale production and destruction of embryos for embryonic stem cell research, plus allowing babies who survive abortion to die, plus having the government pay for all of this with your tax dollars – If you think this is wrong, because of the wanton destruction of defenseless human life. Then it seems to me you better invest your vote elsewhere. And if you believe God cares about these things, I don’t know how you can vote for Obama, and then stand before God and say, “I made the good, right, moral choice…”

If you are not aware of the candidate Barack Obama’s actions, with regards to abortion, I invite you to take a look at the data presented by Robert P. George, and see how it squares up with the statements made by the candidate Obama. It should be (painfully) clear that Obama is no friend of the unborn.

While surfing around on a few sites tonight I ran across an ad for the Barack Obama Test. The premise of this test is to help you determine how your views match up on key issues with Senator Obama.

It didn’t surprise me all that much that I disagreed with Senator Obama on every single issue. I’m a conservative and the Senator is extremely liberal.

But what surprised me more was what else I learned from the results. After you answer all 48 questions you not only get to see how your answers match up with Senator Obama but you also get to see how other Americans responded to the same questions. The poll questions were pulled together from several issues-oriented opinion polls that have been conducted throughout the campaign. On every single question, more respondents took a contrary view on the issue to Senator Obama’s.

I’ve long thought that this election was more about personality than about issues. Voters seem to like Senator Obama more even though ideologically they don’t line up with him.

Take the test for yourself and see. Just click the button below.

Note: I’ve updated this post to more accurately reflect the context of Obama’s statement regarding his two daughters.

A rundown, at HotAir, of candidate Barack Obama’s positions and history on abortion, taxes, radical associations, foreign policy judgment, disdain for the heartland, use of the race card, and lack of accomplishments.

Of particular concern, and what I would argue is evidence of the consequences of our country having state-sponsored killing of over 40 million unborn children, since Roe v. Wade, is this video snippet. This candidate, my friends, is someone who would consider his own grandchildren to be a punishment upon his daughters if they had the unfortunate luck to have been conceived while his daughters were still teenagers.

When we don’t view the unborn child as a human being, then it’s not so difficult to see it as a “punishment”.

Unfortunately, I think too many Americans are buying in to the rhetoric that Obama dishes out, with regards to his views on abortion. They consider him to be “pro-choice”, rather than “pro-abortion” (after all, so they say, who in their right mind would call him pro-abortion?). They trump the argument that we cannot legislate morality (to which I argue that virtually every law we have is a legislation of morality). They trump the supposed fact that Obama would sign on to abortion restriction laws were they to include an exception for the life of the mother (to which I wonder why they ignore the FACT that abortion is legal throughout the entire 9 month term of the baby?). They trump the comparison of the thousands of dead, due to the war in Iraq, and ask how moral that decision was (to which I ask, if they want to do some comparisons, how do those thousands compare to the 40+ million abortions since 1973?).

Can anyone be called pro-abortion? What if:

• someone would consider his own grandchildren, still in the womb, to be a punishment on his daughters?
• someone would, as his first act as President, sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which would “abolish bans on partial-birth abortion and parental notification laws nationwide while implementing tax-payer funded abortions” (quote via HotAir)?
• someone condemned the Supreme Court decision upholding a ban on partial birth abortions?
• someone considered that caring for an infant born alive, after an abortion, to be an undue burden on the original decision of the doctor, and mother of the child?
• someone stated, on the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, that “Throughout my career, I’ve been a consistent and strong supporter of reproductive justice, and have consistently had a 100% pro-choice rating with Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America.”?
• someone who, although he claims to be pro-choice, would strip funding from pro-life pregnancy crisis centers?

Yes, I’d call someone like that pro-abortion.

Turns out that Barack Obama’s connection to domestic terrorist Bill Ayers is deeper than everyone originally thought:

By 1995, Barack Obama had known Bill Ayers at least eight years since their shared involvement in the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools, if not longer. Bernardine Dohrn, once labeled “the most dangerous woman in America” by none other than J. Edgar Hoover, was also well known as the inspiration for the 1988 movie Running on Empty. Subtle terrorists they were not.

As noted in the New York Times, Obama has tried to minimize his relationship with Ayers, dismissing him as “a guy who lives in my neighborhood” and “somebody who worked on education issues in Chicago that I know.”

Axelrod also tried to excuse the extent of Obama’s involvement with Ayers, stating,
“Bill Ayers lives in his neighborhood. Their kids attend the same school. … They’re certainly friendly, they know each other, as anyone whose kids go to school together.”

It’s an obvious fiction pitched by Axelrod, since the Obama children are presently in elementary school, while Ayers’ children are all grown adults, but the Ayers-Obama family connection doesn’t stop at the imaginary connections between the children.

Bernardine Dohrn, Ayers’ wife, has largely escaped recent scrutiny, but that lack of attention doesn’t reduce her role as either a leader — and some may argue, the leader — of the Weathermen. Nor can it mask her ties to both Barack and Michelle Obama. It’s now a family affair.

The whole piece is worth reading as it goes into extensive detail about the Obama-Ayers alliance that has not been previously reported. Media apologists for Senator Obama have tried to downplay the connection but the fact remains that such friendships cast serious doubts on the Senator’s judgement. And Senator Obama is going to have a hard time convincing the public that he didn’t know Bill Ayers wasn’t a terrorist when Ayers has never hidden his past.

A recent commenter to my Comparing Alaska and New York City; Does size matter? post has taken issue with my extended comparison of infrastructure requirements between Illinois and Alaska, and how such requirements relate to experience in one who governs Alaska vs. in one who is a US senator for the state of Illinois.

Ansley stated,

…There’s not even 700,000 people in Alaska. The mayor of New York City has big fish to fry, my friend….each city has its own unique challenges, but the fact is, the more people you have in an area, the trickier things become.

My first reaction would be to wonder whether or not the critic has been to Alaska and seen, firsthand, how they deal with the logistics of managing such massive sea and air travel, in such extreme locations and weather conditions? Winter conditions that shut down most US airports are simply business as usual in Alaska. While working in Valdez, I was sent home only once, due to weather (and that was because the snowstorm had been dropping snow at the rate of 1 foot per hour for more about 4 hours). It’s not unusual for a typical Valdez snowstorm to drop 4 feet of snow. Once, when landing in Anchorage, the pilot informed us that the current temp was 0 degrees F. He also noted that the current ambient temp in Fairbanks, where the plane was headed, was -43 F. Did you catch that? It’s -43 F, yet they’re going to land and disembark because… it’s business as usual.

Simply put, you don’t manage that type of infrastructure, in that kind of weather, over that expanse of territory, unless you know exactly what you are doing.

But, to address the nonsensical population argument, let’s take a nonsensical look at it in terms of how it supposedly applies to the running of various countries, states, or cities. First, let’s use the following population values, from Wikipedia:

• US = 305,312,000
• China (PRC) = 1,321,851,888
• India = 1,132,446,000
• Russia = 142,008,838
• Canada = 33,390,000
• California = 36,553,215
• Illinois = 12,852,548
• NYC = 8,274,527
• Alaska = 677,000
• Illinois(2) = 642,627

Using the Deepak Chopra / Ansley argument, it appears that running the US is roughly 1/4 the job of running China or India (I’ll give you 4 US presidents for your 1 Chinese premier – and I’ll throw in an extra president for half a dozen Chinese gymnasts). Yet, we see that running the US is about 2 times the job of running Russia (that must explain why Putin has the time to go tiger hunting!), 9 times greater than running Canada (yet another reason for our friends up north to hate us), 8 times greater than California (so former / current actors shouldn’t have a problem running Cal-ee-for-nee-uh?), 24 times greater than Illinois, 37 times that of NYC, and a whopping 451 times more complex than running Alaska!

Case closed? End of story?

Not so fast, census breath.

Isn’t the point here to compare experience levels with regards to being in charge of – as in – managing and running something (i.e., executive experience)? While Palin is actually running Alaska, Senator (did you catch that? – “Senator”) Obama is not running Illinois. In fact, he is only one of two senators, along with around 18 congressmen. Surely we can’t take Illinois’ total population of 12.8 million when comparing Obama’s responsibilities with that of Palin’s, can we? So, let’s do an Obamadjustment to the population of Illinois. First off, since he’s one of two senators, we need to cut the 12.8 million in half, to 6.4 million. And, since he shares responsibility with all those congressmen, let’s half the 6.4 to 3.2 million. Finally, since Obama isn’t really running the state (that’s left for the… ahem, governor), let’s take only, say, 20% of the 3.2 million. Now we’re left with an adjusted population (Illinois(2)) of 642,627 that we could reasonably attribute to Obama’s non-executive responsibilities.

Well, using our adjusted number, we see that running the US is 475 times greater than Obama’s current non-executive role. That puts him behind the governor of Alaska, in terms of population comparisons.

The thing is, Obama isn’t running for VP.

In Obama and the Palin Effect, Deepak Chopra states,

Now, that was an interesting comparison, wasn’t it? Chopra is arguing that because the number of Alaska’s 683,478 residents is about one-tenth the number of New York City’s 8,274,527 residents, the task of governing Alaska must also be about one-tenth the job of governing NYC.

But let’s take a look at this graphically. Below is a bar-chart histogram which compares both New York City (NYC) and Alaska (AK) with regards to their population levels.

Clearly, the population of NYC dwarfs that of AK.

However, what if we were to look at the size of NYC as compared to that of AK? The chart below illustrates this for us.

So, in terms of area (square miles), Alaska’s size (656,424 sq. mi.) so overwhelms that of New York City’s (469 sq. mi.), that NYC doesn’t even register on the chart. Simply put, Alaska is 1,400 times the size of New York City.

Using Chopra’s reasoning, this must mean that, in terms of area to govern, the job of running Alaska is expanded to the scale of running 1,400 New York Cities!

I wondered how these resource-based comparisons played out when comparing Obama’s state of Illinois to that of Palin’s Alaska. So I did a little bit of research. I found the results interesting.

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If Barack Obama loses the election this November (and at this point it’s impossible to say whether he will – it’s too close to call) it will be because of a series of unforced errors. They are missteps in the campaign that when taken individually don’t seem like a huge issue but when combined have the effect of totally derailing what would have otherwise been a hugely successful campaign.

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