What if one day you went to work one day and looked out of your office window to discover a demolition crew. To your horror, you discover that they’re getting ready to tear the building down. With you in it.

You can hear the crew outside talking with the owner about the details of the plans to destroy the building. In anguish, you yell out at the top of your lungs to try to let them know that you’re in there. But they don’t hear you. You try to open the windows. But you discover that you’re not strong enough to get out.

Thankfully, some people do know you’re in there and they go to talk with the building owner. They tell her that there is somebody inside and that it’s not right to tear the building down with somebody in it. She doesn’t seem to believe that there could actually be anyone inside and is assured by the demolition crew that the building is empty except for some worthless furniture. They discourage her from checking for herself, insist that it’s empty and try to hurry her along so that they can get paid.

The people who know you’re in the building don’t give up. They go to court and file a motion to halt the demolition on the grounds that you are in the building, which you are. But the demolition company files a counter-motion on behalf of their client, the building owner, and insist that the people trying to help you are attempting to restrict the owner’s right to do what she wants with her property. The court sides with the demolition crew and the building owner, ruling that there is no evidence that anyone is inside the building and that no one has the right to stop someone from tearing down their own property. The owner and the demolition crew rejoice that justice has been done and their rights have been protected. The news media reports that the owner’s property rights have been protected against the people who tried to take them away.

Back in the building, you nervously look outside the window as the wrecking ball begins to move. You had never planned on being in the building for long and just want to be able to be allowed to leave safely. You instinctively hope that someone will somehow help you. But the owner has most likely been deceived into thinking that you’re not there. In addition, the court has determined that the owner has a right to destroy the property. They ruled this way without even considering the possibility that when the owner allows the demolition crew to destroy the building, they will also be ending your life in the process.

Anyone who bothered to check the building would conclude that there is a living person inside of it. But even this is no longer the issue that concerns those watching. Your struggle to avoid being demolished is now viewed by many as the struggle to allow the building owner to have control of her own property and to prevail against the people who want to stop her from destroying it with you in it.

The wrecking ball swings over and over again. Eventually, the building falls and tragically, your life is ended.

The story you just read does not have a happy ending. But what is saddest about it is that this is exactly what happens every day to thousands of unborn babies whose moms have been convinced by “demolition crews” that there is no one in her “building” - her womb. The courts have declared that mom, the property owner, has the right to do what she wants with her “building” - without fully exploring the question of whether or not anyone is in there.

There is one main difference between this story and the story of the million unborn American babies who face the wrecking ball each year. The unborn babies can’t yell.

If you are pregnant and scared or know someone who is, please know that you have a lot of people who care about both the mother and baby and that there are alternatives. For example, there are a lot of organizations (Life Choices for example) that can help you or refer you to someone who can. There is somebody else in your building.

“The Values Voter

“Sure, he’s a wonderful person … He’d make a great vice president.” - Mitt Romney, December, 2007

1. His Experience and Record: He has ten and a half years experience running a government as the Chief Executive. This is a longer tenure of governmental Chief Executive experience than any other 2008 Presidential candidate and is longer than the tenure of any current governor of either party. In 2005, he was named by Time Magazine as one of America’s five best Governors.As Governor, Huckabee managed to deal with many of the major issues that Americans are asking the next Administration to handle. He was the first Governor in his state’s history to institute a broad-based tax cut and was criticized for refusing to raise taxes at a time of budget deficit. He created a program that offered health insurance to poor children. He reduced the percentage of uninsured Arkansans so that it was a fourth less than the national average. He cut welfare rolls in half and even with all of these things, his state’s economy grew at a rate faster than the national average.
2. His reputation among his peers: He was trusted by his Governor peers of both parties to serve as the Chairman of the bipartisan National Governor’s Association, one of the nation’s most respected public policy organizations.
3. His Chief Executive experience: Because historically, Presidents who have been Governors have performed better than those who were not, McCain would be wise to pick a long-term Governor like Huckabee. Presidents who never held Executive offices but who had running mates who did have performed better than Presidents who never held Executive offices but did not have running mates with Executive Experience either.
4. His Youth: Although he has more experience running a government than any other national politician, he is actually less than six years older than Barack Obama. And in spite of this, his presence on the ticket won’t blunt McCain’s argument that Obama isn’t experienced enough (the “if experience is important, how can you make this person one heartbeat away from the Presidency” response). Despite their closeness in age, Huckabee has four times as much experience as Obama.
5. His Clean Lifestyle: In a time when many politicians of both parties have been ensnared in tawdry personal scandals, Huckabee has a very stable family life, having been married to the same woman for 34 years and being the father of three grown children who are still close to him and who have helped run his campaign.
6. His Leadership Capabilities: In addition to his long experience in Government, Huckabee has a variety of leadership experience outside of politics. He was a successful and popular Pastor and was also elected to be the President of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. He is also the author of six books and is in the process of completing his seventh.And as the national Republican Party is still suffering image problems in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Huckabee is an example of what people want their leaders to do in a time of crisis. During the disaster, Huckabee’s government helped do all that it could do to accommodate the evacuees. It helped make room in hotels and motels for needy families. Huckabee released state funds to assist some of the shelters. He also provided free emergency prescriptions and access to dialysis machines to those who were in medical need.
7. Their Combined Electability: There have been five bellwether states - Ohio, Missouri, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Arkansas - that have correctly predicted the winner of the General Election for each of the past eight elections (dating back to 1976). Of those, in the GOP Primaries, Huckabee won the popular vote in two of them (Arkansas and Louisiana), coming in second to McCain in the other three. McCain won the popular vote in three of them (Ohio, Missouri and Kentucky), coming in second to Huckabee in the other two. The margin between the two in the state of Missouri was extremely narrow. And in the state of Kentucky, Huckabee even managed to come in second to John McCain three and a half months after he suspended his campaign and endorsed McCain. So, the McCain/Huckabee ticket is the one that performs best in the places that matter the most.
8. His Long-Held Support Among Conservatives: Huckabee’s national support among conservatives is not just a recent phenomenon but a constant. In 1998, Huckabee came in second (to John Ashcroft) in a Christian Coalition Presidential Straw Poll. (He actually came in higher than then-Governor George W. Bush). Edward Walsh wrote for the Washington Post on 2/17/1998 that “It’s settled. The Christian Coalition has surveyed its leadership and decided that Sen. John D. Ashcroft (R-Mo.) should be the next president and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) should be his vice president.”
9. His Support among Influential Politicians: J.C. Watts, who represents both the concerns of Evangelicals and conservative African Americans, has expressed dismay at the Republican Party’s failure to reach out to both groups. But the inclusion of Huckabee on the ticket would do a lot to shore up this support and even lure voters from some traditional Democratic groups to the Republican ticket.
10. Even His Enemies Want Him Around: Remember the Club For Growth and their endless attacks on Mike Huckabee? Isn’t it interesting that some of these same people, who called Huckabee a liberal, were begging him to run for the U.S. Senate – or even to become the head of the RNC – within a week of him ending his Presidential bid. One might ask “why would self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives want a liberal to take over the party?” The answer is that their opposition to him was not substantive in nature. And just as they wanted to promote Huckabee into higher levels of responsibility, they would very likely get behind a McCain/Huckabee ticket, no matter how much they’re kicking and screaming now.
11. His Geographical support: With Barack Obama making progress in the south, Mike Huckabee, as a long-term and popular southern Governor, secures this backbone of Republican support. There was even a story in the news about some Alabama politicians almost fighting over which one of them would get Huckabee’s endorsement.
12. His Media Savvy: Mike Huckabee has many years of experience in communicating with the public over the mass media. His first job was reading the news on the local radio station at age 14. He started two full-time television stations at the churches he pastured and has recently been awarded a contract at Fox News.
13. His ability to win in hostile environments: He achieved cross-party popularity, becoming only the second Republican Governor of Arkansas since Reconstruction and remaining in the job until term limits forced him out. He won two elections for Lieutenant Governor and two as Governor – in the heart of the Clinton political machine and at a time when Clinton was a popular President who supported his opponents.
14. His success in winning many voter segments: In Arkansas, Huckabee won with voters of every age group, all voters making more than $15,000 a year, and won or nearly tied voters of every education level. He also won almost all Republican voters, the majority of Independents and more than a third of Democrats.
15. His unusual (for a Republican) success with black voters: He has the greatest support among African Americans of any national Republican politician in decades. He won 48% of the black vote in Arkansas. He is very highly regarded by black voters nationwide. Since several of the southern states that have large black populations are showing surprising strength by Obama, Huckabee would appeal to these many of these voters who are conservative, disagree with Obama on the issues, but feel rejected by the Republican Party.
16. Many fiscal conservatives actually do like him: In addition to Evangelicals, blacks, blue collar voters and southerners, Huckabee is a favorite of the ultimate fiscal conservatives – supporters of the Fair Tax. These are the people who don’t just complain about the unfairness of the tax code but actually want to do something about it.
17. He brings social conservatives and then some: As some journalists who have bothered to actually talk to Huckabee supporters have discovered, we’re not all Evangelicals. Huckabee won four million votes but did it without even getting the majority of the Evangelical vote, which was split among multiple candidates.
18. His loudest critics realize that he resonated with voters: Even Huckabee’s harshest critics, such as Rich Lowry of the National Review, grudgingly acknowledge that Huckabee would be “just the right Republican for this particular moment, when pocketbook concerns are looming so large.” Even though they continue to slam him and question his economic credentials, they clearly understand that his message has resonated with the public that is so disenchanted with the status quo.
19. His success in dealing with the health care crisis: At a time that the nation is concerned with health care, Huckabee is both an advocate for preventive health through a healthy lifestyle and an example of it – he lost 110 pounds after being diagnosed with diabetes. He wrote a book on losing weight and launched a childhood obesity campaign with the American Heart Association. And he even offers a personal example of lowering health care costs – he stopped needing to take diabetes medication when he lost weight.
20. He knows how to campaign competitively while at a financial disadvantage: Huckabee spent less money per vote than any candidate in the 2008 Campaign and perhaps less money per vote than any candidate in the past three decades. In a time that McCain finds himself severely underfunded in comparison with Barack Obama, Huckabee has experience in capitalizing on free media and stretching campaign dollars to the extent of outperforming better funded rivals.He also never had to take any campaign loans and ended his campaign in the black - after outlasting and outperforming almost all of his better-funded rivals.
21. His online grassroots network: On any ticket that includes Huckabee, his bloggers come with him. Huckabee has a massive web of grassroots activists, including Huck’s Army, a dedicated group of volunteers who like to share with other people why we think this guy is so cool. We aren’t paid. We spend some of our valuable free time advocating issues that are important to us, doing lots of research and in some cases providing the type of good press that no ad agency or political consultant can buy.During the primaries, whenever anyone said anything false about Huckabee, we were on it within minutes. We also ran phone banks, made our own bumper stickers, etc (and yes, thank you, we actually do have lives). And if our guy is on the ticket, we will work just as hard for McCain/Huckabee as we did for Huckabee.
22. His other grassroots networks: It’s not all about Huckabee’s online supporters. There are also truckers for Huckabee, Homeschoolers for Huckabee, conservative blacks for Huckabee. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. While a good number of these people might vote for a ticket that didn’t include Huckabee, they definitely would vote for one that would include him. And more important than that, they would get out and fight and work hard for it. In a close election, there is a big difference between having a good number of lukewarm supporters and a greater number of fired-up supporters.
23. He knows how to campaign with class: Huckabee’s urging of his party to approach their differences with Senator Obama with civility and focus on the issues instead of personal attacks has earned him praise from a wide variety of groups whose support will be important in the General Election.
24. He is liked even by people who totally disagree with him on issues: Although Huckabee has unshakable socially conservative credentials, a lock on the south, and support from many who oppose the Federal Tax Code, he is also personally liked by many who disagree with him on almost every issue. On the liberal blog the Huffington Post, Drew Westin wrote “from the first time I watched Huckabee, he made me nervous, because I disliked most of what he said but I liked him anyway” and called him “the most politically intelligent of the candidates on the Republican side in 2008” and praised his “sense of humor” and “genuineness.” Many Democrats have spoken kindly of Huckabee especially as he urged his party to campaign against Obama on the issues instead of through personal attacks and as he defended Hillary Clinton against pressure to drop out.
25. He has shown class and respect to McCain - even when they were rivals: He hasn’t made statements against McCain that could be used against McCain by the Obama camp during the General Election.

and …

There actually is one more very important reason for including Huckabee on the ticket, beyond the factually verifiable reasons listed above. Chuck Norris wants him on the ticket. Stop smiling - he means it. (You didn’t just read this last reason. Chuck Norris just read it to you.)

“The Values Voter”

(This article also posted at Real Clear Politics and Digg)

Back in the eighties, there was a great movie about a kid who traveled back in history in a time machine made out of a De Lorean. He was able to go back and meet his parents in their younger years and straighten out a number of issues that would have affected his family in a negative way had he not gone back and intervened. Good flick. I’m sure you’ve seen it.

With all the talk about rolling back the Bush Tax Cuts - the ones that basically every Democrat says helped mainly “the rich,” I started to do a little thinking. How would the future life of the average American family be affected if they were suddenly, with today’s costs and obligations, thrust back eight years and made to live under the tax rates of 2000 - the rates that were in place before Bush cut them?

As the oddball scientist who likes to do some tinkering in my spare time, I imagined what it would be like to have a time machine that could transport a typical American family - we’ll call them the Smiths - back eight years to experience what life would be like for some non-rich people who need to pay today’s expenses without the Bush tax cuts. Let’s pretend that they’re loaded into the time machine with the destination set on 2000. They take with them their 2008 salary and their 2008 bills but need to pay their Federal Taxes with the 2000 tax code - the last tax code before Bush cut them “for the rich.” This way, we can get an understanding of how the Bush Tax Cuts affected regular, non-rich people. And hey, maybe by going back in time to learn the truth about the tax cuts, we can get some information that can help our family avoid hard times in the future. Let’s rev up the engine.

(Eh. I don’t think they make De Loreans anymore. I wanted to build the imaginary time machine with a Lambourghini. But the gas is pretty expensive these days. Mind if we use a Prius?)

Before the Smiths go back to the tax rates of 2000, let’s talk about their life today. The census bureau says that in 2005, the average income for a four person family was $67,019. In today’s world, assuming that they take have two kids, take the standard deduction, and pay an average state tax rate of 5.71% (using the Wikipedia numbers), they pay $5,626 a year in Federal Taxes, $4,155 in Social Security taxes, $972 in Medicare taxes, and $3,827 in state taxes. After taxes, they’ve got $52,439 left over every year. And using the 2005 figures from the Census bureau on the average household expenditures, the Smiths spend $32,444 of that in essential living expenses. Of course, these average figures assumed annual gasoline expenses of only $1,610 and annual utility bills of $2,697 (hmmm … I think they might be a little higher now). But with the 2008 tax rates, our family has some leftover money to pay some of the difference in inflated gas and utility bills, to save some cash for their kids’ education and for retirement, and to buy clothes, go on vacation and grab the occasional pizza.

But, once they ride back to 2000 and find themselves facing the tax rates of that era, they find that making the same money, they would pay $10,161 in Federal Taxes. That’s a $4,535.00  dollar increase. Even though they’re not rich, they clearly were reaping a pretty nice benefit from the Bush Tax Cuts - the taxes that were waiting for them in 2000 were 81% higher than the ones they left in 2008. In this strange world, they now only have $47,904 left over after taxes - instead of today’s $52,439. They still have at least $32,444 in essential living expenses, plus a need for a considerably higher amount of gas and utilities. But now they have less cushion than they had in 2008 to pay for these increased costs. It very well may be that something else has to give - maybe the savings for education or retirement. Maybe the clothes. Maybe the vacation or other entertainment.

Hey - wait a minute, buddy. I’ve always heard that the Bush Tax Cuts were just for the rich!

My response: (knock knock knock). C’mon. Think, McFly!

Although many politicians verbally slam the Bush Tax Cuts, the facts are that these cuts were not just “for the rich.” They benefited taxpayers of different income levels. And if they were repealed, the increase in tax rates would affect taxpayers of different income levels.

If the Bush tax cuts are reversed, it will hurt families who are not rich and who will have one more big fat bill that they can’t choose to not pay - the Federal Tax Bill that would in some cases be nearly twice what it is today. They might have to choose to not pay other bills instead, which will in turn hurt all the businesses that depend on disposable income (places which often employ other non-rich people who depend on the business to survive so that they can have jobs). I am not an economist and cannot speak to what exactly will happen on Wall Street if taxes are raised. But the prospect of a tax increase - through the rollback of tax cuts - will hurt the economy here on Main Street.

In case you’re wondering, you don’t need to worry about how much the family would be able to tuck into the savings account each year if taxes are raised. Savings accounts? Where we’re going, we don’t need … savings accounts.

“The Values Voter”

Obama considers himself to be a spiritual person and though I don’t at all understand how he can have some of his positions, I don’t make it a point to question anyone else’s faith. In fact, if I were Obama, I can imagine what I’d be praying right now. I’d be praying for my opposition to listen to the suggestions of the pundits who have been influencing the Republican process up to this point in time. Here’s a snippet of what I can imagine Obama is praying:

Grant me this year the serenity to have my message of “change” accepted. Grant not my opponents the courage to change from bad tactics to good ones - or the wisdom to know the difference.

I pray that many of those who oppose me will waste the next four months making fun of my middle name and taking personal shots at my wife. This way I shall be spared from having to give answers for my positions on late-term abortion, domestic oil drilling, and tax increases. In this I take comfort.

May my opponents become so blinded in their dislike of me that they do nothing but verbally attack me - from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same. Let them play rhyming games with my last name. Talk about my former church. Spread unproven rumors. Voice various insults. May they become so focused on attacking me the person that they both lose favor with the public and also forget to challenge me on the issues. Lest the manifold problems with some of my positions be laid bare before all.

I pray that the other side will forsake their first love - the Evangelicals. May they forget them who helped their party to win five of the last seven elections. May they assume that these voters will vote for them no matter what. And if they should ignore this great multitude, may enough of them stay home that I might prevail. Or even, if possible, I pray, may my refusal to ignore these same voters convince some of them to vote for me instead.

May the desires of the other side to win new territory grow so strong that they should forget to protect their own. May their dreams of turning Michigan red be so great that they forget about keeping Georgia and Mississippi from going blue.

I also request that they assume that all black voters will vote for me. May they act on this false belief so that they refuse to even ask for their votes. And may this not only become a self-fulfilling prophecy, but may the perception it causes also alienate many white voters as well.

May they give heed to the advice of the conservative media establishment, whose abode is in states that I shall win handily. May they follow all of their advice in how they choose to engage me, how they choose to campaign and how they choose to complete the other ticket.

And I give many thanks for those in the other side’s establishment and media. Their actions have filled my heart with gladness. They have spared me from facing an opponent who could easily beat me in a debate, who is less than six years older than me but has four times the experience, and who is every bit as charismatic as me but carries less baggage. Yes, they sheltered me from someone who could have given me a serious run for my money in every demographic category. They treated him with spite and even now hurl insults at him. I pray that they are successful in keeping him off the ticket as he makes the other side look pleasing to the eyes of the voters who will decide this election. (Amen!)

May they become so eager to please their media pundits that they pair my honorable opponent with someone with no more experience in government than I. Or someone unknown. Or someone who shall not win in the south. Or a “safe” pick - someone who is beloved by their media and establishment. I pray that my opponent shall pick a partner who will be highly favored by the National Review, the Washington establishment and others who spend less time with their voters than even I do.

And, lastly, I pray that the voters - all voters - trust not in their own research but in what the media suggests. Let them trust what the liberal media says about me and what the conservative media says about how to defeat me. If this happens, I will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.

Amen!

The Values Voter

Once upon a time, there was a farmer named Sam. Sam owned and operated a huge farm. The farm was so vast and rich with stock and other resources that it was the third largest farm in the world. Sam’s huge farm had dairy cows, poultry, sheep, and lots of vegetation. He could grow his own food and even knit his own clothes. He had not only enough resources to take care of everyone who lived on his land but was able to trade what was left to the supermarket chain that had a store not far away.

Sam had a very large extended family. Being a fair man, Sam tried to incorporate everyone’s opinions in the way that he operated the farm. Over the course of time, some members of Sam’s family began to have strong objections to the way he ran the family business.

Some thought that Sam had no business milking the cows. They thought that to continue doing so was disruptive to the serenity that the cows enjoyed while grazing on the land. They also thought that the automatic milking machines were too noisy and that the system caused too much waste to be spread on the pasture. Even though Sam’s family liked to drink milk, Sam honored the request and stopped milking. He decided they could afford to buy milk for the family from the supermarket.

As soon as this decision was reached, some others in the family told Sam that they didn’t like the idea of continuing to farm chicken. They feared that the drainage wasn’t adequate and that it was difficult to protect the chicken from predators. They didn’t like the mess they created and feared the possibility of catastrophe that could happen with birds - such as the outbreak of the Avian flu that they heard about. Although Sam’s family loved eggs and could supply their own needs and the needs of others with the poultry farming, Sam again relented. They allowed the chicken population to die down and did not continue to grow more. Instead, they ate more cheese instead. And to get the cheese - like other milk products, they now needed to buy more from the supermarket down the road.

Sam’s family had a lot of specific concerns that, while valid in some ways, limited his ability to use the resources on his farm. Some didn’t like the idea of picking too many vegetables (the cattle needed them). Others didn’t like the idea of shearing the sheep for clothing (didn’t like the usage of the shearing board). And even though they had many opportunities to start farming different types of stock and livestock, they refused because they were able to get by with what they were doing at the moment.

Eventually, Sam was no longer able to sell anything to the supermarket chain but needed to buy a lot from them instead. And what’s worse is that, instead of scaling back on what they ate and wore, Sam’s family just bought more and more, eating and buying as much as they wanted because the prices weren’t bad.

The managers of the supermarket chain, not being able to buy from Sam, needed to get their supplies from other farms that were a lot further away. Those farms charged a markup and increased their prices as they realized the supermarket chain kept buying more and more. And to make as much money as possible, the supermarket chain also added a markup of their own. Eventually, the dairy products that once were pretty cheap at the store started to become unaffordable for Sam. Sam’s family couldn’t eat or wear as much as they were accustomed to. And they quickly became furious at the supermarket chain.

They accused the chains of being greedy and getting rich off of their misery. They blamed everybody that they could think of. And while the supermarket chain and the faraway farms certainly were guilty of some element of greed, Sam’s family refused to understand that they weren’t doing everything they could do to help themselves. It was all somebody else’s fault.

Sam’s family found itself in danger of going hungry and not having enough to wear. But they still were hoping that eventually, the greedy supermarket people would show them some mercy and make the price of the milk - the milk they chose to buy instead of producing themselves - affordable again.

In case you haven’t figured it out already, the Sam mentioned above is Uncle Sam, the government of the United States of America. In our great democracy, we allow everyone to have a voice and to fight for the things that concern them. However, some people here have worked very hard to limit the ways we can use our own resources to produce more of our own energy instead of buying it from the global market. Others have just been lazy and complacent and haven’t worked hard to find new forms of energy. And meanwhile, most of us have refused to conserve and use only the energy that we need to use. We keep consuming more and more. We are Sam’s family.

There’s certainly plenty of blame to go around in the “supermarket” - the oil companies, the speculators, the foreign governments that are selling us their oil. But, like Sam’s family, we don’t have as much right to shake an angry fist at others as we think - until we’ve done all that we can do to help ourselves.

Let’s tell our elected officials that while we’re on the hunt for greedy bad guys, we also have to do everything we can to work our own farm. After all, this country is the third biggest farm in the world.

Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less.

“The Values Voter”

Imagine yourself in the bleachers of an arena observing a crucial competition between two challengers.

“La-dies and gentlemen, we are in for a treat tonight. The winner of this contest will be declared the leader of the free world.

In the right corner, our first contender, wearing red shorts, is a war hero who survived five years in solitary in a prison camp. He weighs in with twenty five years in Congress and is an expert in national defense.

In the left corner, in blue shorts, we have our second contender, weighing in with a mere three years in the U.S. Senate, eight years as a little-known state senator and … time as a community organizer (Jack, is this script right?).

Gentlemen … on my count … ready? May the contest begin!”

DING! DING! DING!

(Thud)

“And the winner is … the guy in blue shorts??”

Does this sound like an unlikely scenario? It’s not at all. Here’s how the more experienced, more seasoned competitor could get knocked out by the guy who many regard as a lightweight. All that has to happen is for red to follow the following keys to defeat.

Losing Strategy #1 - Do what she did.

Hillary Clinton is intellectually brilliant, politically mature and fiercely determined. She and her husband created a powerful political machine and, in the wake of the Democratic disasters of 1980, 1984, and 1988, should really be credited with saving their party from extinction. Her toughest competitor turned out to be a guy who wasn’t even out of high school yet when her husband started his first term as Governor of Arkansas. He came to the U.S. Senate only three years ago, was an obscure state senator for the eight years before that and held jobs as a college professor and community activist for the nine years before that. Many people from all political perspectives are still scratching their heads trying to figure out how she lost to him.

Here’s a partial explanation of how it happened. Clinton surrounded herself with a set of highly paid advisors from the party establishment - very smart people who knew how to win elections back in what feels like a long time ago. She didn’t establish a simple message that resonated with either her target audience or the public at large. And then she eventually alienated one of her most loyal constituencies, without which her party has not won a national election in decades. For all her talent and effectiveness as a politician, she took a lot of bad advice from people who didn’t understand what voters really wanted as much as they thought they did. And, unfortunately for her supporters, this is one of the reasons why she lost to the kid.

So, here’s the first way that McCain can lose. He can ignore his own instincts and follow the advice of the highly paid advisors from his own party establishment, the ones who knew how to narrowly win elections against less popular competition in years less hostile to Republicans. He can fail to establish a simple message that connects with the average voter. And he can alienate - or fail to connect with - the Republican Party’s most loyal constituency, Evangelical Christians and “values voters,” without whom the party has not won an election since 1972. For all his experience as a war hero and a respected legislator, he can also lose to the young man from Illinois.

Losing Strategy #2 - Depend on negative campaigning.

Simply put, John McCain and his supporters cannot win by spending all their time telling the American people why not to vote for Barack Obama. They need to spend time telling people why to vote for John McCain.

I know that we all hear from the political commentators that negative campaigning works. And it certainly works to some extent - except when it backfires. But it works best on willing victims - those who either help out their competitors by acting the part of the caricature the opposition painted them as - or those who don’t do anything to defend themselves.

In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson seemed determined not just beat his Republican rival, Barry Goldwater, but also to humiliate him. The Democrats charged that Goldwater was a warmonger who wanted to start a nuclear war (capped off with the infamous “Daisy” ad). They called him a racist. And they not so subtly implied that he was .. eh .. not all there psychologically. It would have been tougher for these attacks to stick if Goldwater himself didn’t help the cause by joking he’d like to lob a nuke into the men’s room of the Kremlin, that he wanted to saw off the Eastern seaboard of the U.S., and saying things like “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.” His own words made the job of Johnson’s “5 o’clock club” - his opposition researchers - a lot easier.

Just four years ago, in the 2004 contest, the “Swift Boat Veterans For Truth” launched a vicious public attack on the Democratic nominee. As the group gained more and more attention and their charges damaged Kerry more by the day, he did something quite unexpected for a Vietnam combat veteran who came under fierce fire. Absolutely nothin’! Many people think that his campaign’s slowness in confronting the attack may have cost him the election.

But Obama doesn’t say all that much that gets him in trouble. He’s a very good talker and can talk his way out of trouble. And he’s not afraid to fight back. Last summer, he seemed to be intimidated at the prospect of making eye contact with Hillary during the debates. But the long warfare with Hillary has made him a stronger candidate and he’s now pretty darn good at the counter punch - much better than you’d expect from someone so new to politics. I don’t think he’s going to just sit there and take a lot of shots. Not these days.

So, another way McCain can lose is to have his team overcommit to attacking Obama and making the campaign about just why he shouldn’t be President instead of giving a lot of reasons why McCain should be. It would work better if Obama were a goofball or such a pacifist that he refused to fight back. But he’s neither.

Losing Strategy #3 - Take too much advice from the establishment.

According to a Real Clear Politics article by Bob Novak, John McCain is finding himself under unwanted pressure from President Bush, Karl Rove and others to pick former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney as his running mate.

The Democratic Party would love nothing more than to paint the candidacy of John McCain as one that would lead to a third Bush term. Although Obama has targeted McCain with this tag line, the reason it hasn’t totally stuck is because Senator McCain has earned a reputation of taking orders only from Senator McCain. He is well known for refusing to simply fall in line to obediently do the bidding of the party establishment. However, if it becomes perceived that he is being coerced by important members of the current Administration to pick someone acceptable to them against his own wishes (and against the wishes of a significant portion of the Republican electorate), he will give legs to the theory that a vote for him is a vote for Bush. If this happens, those legs will kick everyone involved away from the Executive Branch of the government come this November.

Losing Strategy #4 - Either tolerate racial politics - or - simply concede the black vote

The very worst thing that the Republican National Committee could do in facing off against Obama is to tolerate any hint of racial politics. Failing to do so will do more than simply alienate the small percentage of black voters who do vote for the Republican Party. It will also alienate many white voters as well. Most people of all ethnic groups do not want to be associated with racism. Tactics such as the ad run against Harold Ford in 2006, the infamous Willie Horton ad, and anything like it, sadly may have worked in years past and in certain areas. But will lead to lingering disaster for the GOP if repeated in 2008. Disaster not just in this election but in many elections to come. Hey, wait, TVV. Are you saying we can’t say anything bad about Obama because it will look racist? Of course that’s not what I’m saying. His record, his associations and policies are subject to scrutiny and criticism just like anyone else’s would be. But there’s a difference between campaigning against a candidate who happens to be black and running against “the black guy.” Choosing to do the latter will do much more harm than good - for the Republicans, for the Democrats and for the whole country.

Another key component to losing tip #4 is to simply assume that black voters are going to vote for Obama. I’m black. I’m very proud that a black man has earned a major party nomination for the Presidency. Am I planning to vote for Obama? No! He seems like a nice guy, but he’s way too liberal on social issues like abortion and marriage. And contrary to what many people assume, most black voters are not liberal. The reason most black voters vote for the Democrats is because: a) there has been a 48-year rift between the GOP and African Americans and b) even today, most Republicans don’t bother to ask for our votes. So, if McCain’s folks really want to up the chances they’ll lose the election, they need to tear out a page from the old Republican Playbook and just assume that we won’t vote for them and that they shouldn’t make a serious effort to ask. (It should be noted that in the key swing state of Ohio, where Bush wrapped up his victory over Kerry, he did better than his national average among black voters. The difference between his share of the black vote in Ohio over his national average accounts for one third of the margin by which Bush defeated Kerry in that state and won re-election.)

Losing Strategy #5 - Tick off your most loyal constituency

Every election in recent memory that a Republican has won the White House (which is pretty much every election in recent memory), which group has been the backbone of the Republican coalition? Is it the guys on Wall Street? The crew on Fox News? The Club for Growth? Well, those folks are all definitely important. But I’m going to think for a minute and try to figure out which group of Republican voters have been the most faithful and without whom the party is doomed on Election Night. Oh - I know. It’s the faithful.

If Evangelical voters stay home this fall because they’re discouraged, feeling neglected, or not actively sought out, it very well may guarantee a Democratic victory. Remember of course what happened in both 1996 and 2000 when Evangelicals stayed home? Dole lost the first contest and Bush would have lost had Al Gore carried his home state (which is something that even Walter Mondale did in 1984 and Mike Dukakis did in 1988). In 2004, Evangelicals came out in force, voted for the Republicans and that is of course the reason why the Republicans did not lose (the most common “most important issue” for voters was “Moral Values”).

So, how can McCain and the GOP blow this thing big time? They can refuse to adequately reach out to values voters. And I don’t just mean reach out with words and appearances. I mean reach out by balancing the ticket with someone who understands the issues that are important to us. Contrary to what many people believe, most of us don’t actually want a Theocracy and aren’t trying to use the government to push our beliefs on others. However, many of us have firm beliefs of when life begins (this backed up by science), the importance of family, and don’t want our kids to be taught propaganda and shown trashy content all the time. Many of us respect everybody but want to be given a little respect as well. If Mike Huckabee becomes John McCain’s Veep, the party will avoid one more way that they can lose on Election night. Of course, Huckabee helps as well because he also appeals to some Fiscal Conservatives (you know, the ones who actually like the idea of a 0% Income Tax), many blue collar workers who otherwise might vote Democratic, and conservative African Americans.

It’s a tough year for America and for Americans. The race could certainly go either way. But one way to almost guarantee that it won’t go McCain’s way is for him to conduct himself according to any of the above.

Most of us have a personal opinion in the highly charged debate about whether or not abortion should be legal. Whether we call ourselves “pro-choice” or “pro-life,” we have developed our personal opinion on the subject. It’s very personal to us and for many of us, we feel very strongly about our viewpoint. But I wonder how many of us have formulated our opinions based on presumptions that just aren’t factually true.

I consider myself strongly pro-life. Some time ago, I considered myself to be strongly pro-choice. I eventually came to the conclusion that abortion was morally wrong (if it’s wrong to kill a baby one day after birth, why is it okay to do so one day before?), but still assumed that most of the justifications I had heard people used to defend it were right. But after doing some study, I came to learn that almost everything that I had heard and assumed about abortion was wrong. Not just “we agree to disagree” morally wrong, but factually wrong. As in irrefutably and verifiably incorrect. And I’ve found that many other people on both sides of the “pro-choice”/”pro-life” fault line have been misinformed as well. That’s why I feel the need to debunk the things that just aren’t true.

Let’s examine the following commonly believed statements. Please be patient. There’s a lot of bunk out there.

• “Abortion is rare”
• “Abortion is only used as an extreme last resort”
• “Adoption is not always an option”
• “Roe v. Wade has saved many lives”
• “A lot of abortions are the result of situations in which women are pregnant as the result of rape or incest.”
• “A lot of abortions involve situations in which the mother’s life is in danger”
• “Abortion is safe”
• “Abortion is Constitutionally Protected”
• “The number of abortions in the U.S. is going down.”
• “The people having abortions are mainly poor teenagers”
• “Roe v. Wade has lowered the demand for abortion”

Bunk: Abortion is rare

Let me start off with one simple observation that you can interpret the way you want to. Bill Clinton is the person who popularized the phrase “safe, legal, and rare.”

The truth is that abortion is extremely common and very widespread. The government reports that for every 1,000 babies born in the United States, there are 239 unborn babies aborted. So, for every five babies born this year, another baby who would have been born within the next nine months has his/her life terminated in the womb through abortion. Another way of looking at this is that if you exclude miscarriages and stillbirths, 19.3% of all pregnancies result in an abortion. And for most of the 35 years since Roe v. Wade was passed, there have been at least one million abortions every year in the U.S. And if it’s “rare” here, it’s clearly “well-done” from a global perspective - there are about 46 million abortions per year in the world.

Does this fit your definition of rare? If so, I disagree. But, if you think this way, the really good news for you is that poverty, hunger, war and crime are all pretty rare as well.

Bunk: Abortion is used only as an extreme last resort

Many pro-life people claim that abortion is being used as birth control of the last resort. Many pro-choice people dispute this characterization. However, it is clear that a very large percentage of abortion patients are people who have had another abortion at some point in the past.

The facts tell us that 46.3 percent of the abortions performed in 2004 involved patients who had at least one previous abortion. 11 percent had two previous abortions, 7.7% had three previous abortions and 2.4% had an unknown number of abortions before the one they had in 2004. Although no one is suggesting that most people who have abortions are taking the decision lightly, it seems unlikely that such a large group of people are facing extreme life-or-death circumstances on repeated occasions.

The three most common reasons given for having an abortion are: “Having a baby would dramatically change my life” (74%), “can’t afford a baby now” (73%), and “don’t want to be a single mother or having relationship problems” (48%). Of course, all of these issues are mitigated by choosing the option of adoption.

Bunk: Adoption is not always an option

Actually, in every state except for Nebraska and Alaska, there exist some form of “Save Haven” laws that allow for you to hand a newborn baby to the state (generally at a police station or hospital), no questions asked.

Also, some people have claimed that abortion is good because there are too many babies waiting to be adopted. The opposite is actually true. In fact, one of the effects of the increased number of abortions is that there are now fewer American babies available for adoption than there were in earlier years, which is one of the reasons for the increased number of international adoptions.

Bunk: Roe v. Wade has saved many lives

This popular argument is so frequently repeated but yet so full of bunk that I need to take some time to dig through it. Yecch. What a mess!

Wanna take a guess at the number of women who died during abortions the year before Roe was handed down by the Supreme Court? 50,000 a year? 10,000? 5,000? A brigade of martyred sisters so great in number that we’ll never know how many there actually were?

Try sixty three. A few more than five dozen tragic cases through all of the U.S. in the year 1972 - the year before Roe was decided - out of at least 586,760 abortions that year. Oh, yeah, and I forgot a very important point. Of these sixty three abortion deaths, 24 of the victims died during legal abortions (abortion was legal in a few places before Roe).

So, did Roe make a difference to the fate of millions of women? Almost certainly not anywhere near as much as abortion advocates would suggest. Two years after Roe, the number of women who died during legal abortions had temporarily climbed to a higher number (29) than those who died during legal abortions in 1972. Meanwhile, during the first three full years after Roe (when there would have been no reason for “back alley abortions” because abortion was legal), the number of abortions rose by 29.44%.

Hey, wait one minute, TVV! There had to be a lot of other women who died through abortion whose deaths were covered up! Yes, I’m sure that there were probably some abortion patents who died but whose deaths were not properly categorized. But, for all our government’s faults, one thing it has always been pretty good at is knowing when people die. And when the people who die are women of childbearing age whose lives are cut short under mysterious circumstances, we’ve always tended to take a closer look at things like that.

But let’s take something into account here. According to a report by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, there were a lot more abortion deaths that took place in the earlier part of the twentieth century than in the latter part. In 1930, abortion was listed as the official cause of death for almost 2,700 women. By 1940 - long before Roe - the number had fallen to under 1,700. In 1950, the number of abortion deaths was slightly over 300. By 1970, it was under 150. A lot fewer women were dying as the result of abortion and it had nothing to do with Roe, which didn’t come along until 1973.

The CDC noticed something similarly else interesting with the number of women who didn’t have abortions but who died due to pregnancy complications. Just like the abortion deaths, maternal deaths were high in 1930. They decreased in 1940, 1950, and onward.

So, the rates for both abortion deaths and maternal deaths fell dramatically. Both fell dramatically long before the government legalized abortion. It certainly appears that the thing that helped save the lives of countless women was not legalized abortion. It was antibiotics and other medical advancements that made pregnancy safer for all women.

(Data Sources - Alan Guttmacher Institute and the CDC)

Bunk: A lot of abortions are the result of situations in which women are pregnant as the result of rape or incest.

Rape is one of the most gruesome and cruel crimes that a person can be victimized by. Because we all sympathize with rape and incest victims and are furious at those who commit these crimes, as many as 84% of us are estimated to not oppose abortion in these circumstances. However, because most of us are used to hearing pro-choice arguments that mention rape, we probably associate abortions and rape much more closely than they really are.

Very, very few abortions involve rape. According to a report by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a survey of abortion patients in 2004 indicated that only 1% were having an abortion to end a pregnancy that resulted from a rape. Less then 0.5% were aborting a baby that was conceived through incest. And what’s more, these numbers have not changed since the survey the organization did in 1987.

The other problem with the argument that many abortions involve sexual assault is that the number of rapes in this country is very small in comparison to the number of abortions. According to the FBI, in 2004, there were 94,635 reported instances of forcible rape. If every single assault led to a pregnancy that was followed by an abortion, sexual assaults would be responsible for 11.2% of the abortions.

What about rapes that aren’t reported? Even if only half the sexual assaults in this country were reported and every one of those led to a pregnancy that led to an abortion, rape would be responsible for 22.6% of abortions. But let’s not forget that abortions themselves are underreported by virtue of the fact that we don’t have data from California, New Hampshire and West Virginia (explained below). Since there have been more than 1.1 million abortions every single year from 1977 until some states stopped reporting in the late 1990’s, we can make a more accurate supposition that there were at least a million abortions. And if this is true, it would mean that even if rapes were only reported half the time, that every one of these crimes resulted in pregnancy and that every victim chose to abort - even in this most extreme situation - it would mean that 81% of abortions had nothing to do with sexual assault.

Bunk: A lot of abortions involve situations in which the mother’s life is in danger

The Guttmacher survey suggests that a very small percentage of abortions involve pregnancies that pose at least some risk to the mother’s life (12% according to the survey). But then again, because almost every piece of proposed legislation for limiting or banning abortion procedures makes exception for cases in which the mother’s life is in danger, this isn’t a logical point of argument - there is little disagreement between the two sides in situations of genuine danger to the mother’s life.

Bunk: Abortion is safe

Believe it or not, legalized abortion didn’t end the horrible prospect of the patient dying as the result of an abortion. As we discussed, there were 24 women who died as a result of legal abortion in the year before Roe v. Wade. 39 other women died that year from illegal abortions. From 1974, the first full year of universally legal abortion, through 2003, the last year available in the report, there were an average of 11.2 women who died as the result of a legal abortion.

So, women still die as a result of legal abortion. And because the numbers are relatively low, both before Roe as well as today, we can see although the numbers are lower, they’re not that much lower. Both right before Roe and long after it, the number of women who died in abortions - legal and illegal - have been in the double digits.

There are other potential health risks for abortion that are possible but not medically proven. There have been studies that have suggested a link between abortion and breast cancer (an early 1990’s Howard University study found a significant increased risk in women who have had induced abortions; two other mid-1990’s studies made similar observations with other groups). Other researchers believe that some women who have abortions face an increased risk of depression. To be fair, many in the medical establishment have made strong statements dismissing the potential link between abortion and cancer (it has certainly not been proven that abortion causes cancer). But since many in the medical establishment are absolutely adamant that there is no link between vaccines and Autism in some children - while at the same time having not being able to explain some apparent correlations in the cases of some kids - I take the stronger pronouncements of the medical establishment with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Bunk: Abortion is Constitutionally Protected

There is no mention of abortion in the U.S. Constitution. And just because the Supreme Court decides a case in a particular manner does not mean that the matter is definitely Constitutional and certainly does not mean that it is morally right. In fact, let’s bring a moment of unity to this deeply divisive subject matter. No matter who you are, I guarantee that you don’t think that one of the following U.S. Supreme Court cases was decided the right way - either from a Constitutional point of view or from a moral standpoint. One of these cases will make you agree that not everything the Court decides is right.

Bush v. Gore - ruled that it was unconstitutional for Florida to recount all the ballots in the 2000 Election

Kelo v. City of New London - affirmed that the government has the right to seize privately-owned property as part of a comprehensive development plan. Otherwise known as Eminent Domain (”It’s not your house, ma’am. It’s our 50-yard line!”)

If you take comfort that a case decided by the Supreme Court is always decided in line with the Constitution and is always morally right, I envy you. It must be nice to look at the news and sleep well at night in the knowledge that the government always gets it right.

Bunk: The number of abortions in the U.S. is going down. So, stop talking about it, you repressive “anti-choice” folks!

The number sure is going down. That is, if you only count 47 states and make sure California isn’t one of them. And come to think of it, the amount of beef consumption in the U.S. is way, way down. (I forgot to mention … I’m not counting Texas).

From 1973 until 1997, the CDC received data on the number of abortions performed from all the 50 states. Then, starting in 1998 onward, California and New Hampshire no longer reported its numbers. Alaska stopped reporting from 1998 through 2002. Oklahoma stopped reporting for two years. As of 2004, the year of the CDC study cited here, the agency had information for only 47 of the 50 states. Many of the people who insist that the abortion rates have gone way down are comparing the incomplete figures of this decade where the most populous state and several others are excluded with the figures in the late 90’s in which all 50 states were included. So, yeah, there is a decrease. But it’s not a real one.

Bunk: The people having abortions are mainly poor teenagers

Simply not true. Actually, only 17.4 percent of the abortion patients in 2004 were under the age of twenty. 82.6% of the abortions were had by women who are twenty years of age or older. Almost half (49.8%) were age twenty five or older.

Bunk: Roe v. Wade has lowered the demand for abortion

Do you know how you see a Starbucks coffee shop today. A week from now, it’s full. Then two weeks from now, the good folks from corporate go and build another Starbucks across the street. You think to yourself “they’ve got too many of them. There’s no way they’ll fill them both.” But surely enough, in a short time, both places are full of customers and they’re off to building a new one right around the corner.

Roe v. Wade actually increased the demand for abortion at the same time that it increased the supply. Here’s a graph of how abortions rose for the ten years after Roe.

“The Values Voter”

In the recent Presidential Compassion Forum, both Democratic Presidential hopefuls, Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton, were asked to explain if they believed life began at conception. Senator Obama stated that he wasn’t sure and Senator Clinton stated that she thought that the potential for life began at conception. So, since the next President will be making a lot of decisions that will directly affect the fate of the unborn in one way or another, I took it upon myself to try to help them think about the issue from another point of view (and by the way, Barry and Hillary, thank you for very much for checking out the blog. I know you guys are very busy).

So, here are the ground rules. We are going to focus on scientifically verifiable biological facts instead of having a discussion on spiritual issues. Also, instead of offering my personal opinions about when life begins, let’s use the opposite approach and list all the milestones that occur in the development of a human baby and eliminate all of the ones that can’t be the point at which life begins. Then, we can help them form more definitive conclusions on when life starts based on the things that we know don’t cause life to begin. Sound good? Great! Let’s roll.

OUR STARTING POINT (”DAY ONE”) - A NEWBORN BABY IS A HUMAN BEING. WHEN DID HE/SHE BECOME HUMAN?

Almost everybody believes that after birth, a human baby is actually human (I say almost everyone because I have talked online with very radical pro-abortion people who don’t think babies are actually people until age 10 or so). So, let’s make our starting point the agreement that a newborn baby is human. Let’s go backwards in time from this point.

POSSIBILITY 1: LIFE BEGINS WHEN OUR BIRTH IS RECORDED AND CERTIFIED (normally 38-42 weeks after conception)

Some people think that that great moment in time that makes us an official human being is shortly after birth, when we are weighed, given Social Security numbers, and given a birth certificate. These people think that being “official” and having our identities recognized by the government are the things that certify our humanity. But we all know that many people live in this country who have no official records or documentation. In fact, in the time it took you to read this sentence, another human being has crossed into the United States without having a social security number or any official documentation by the government. Therefore, we can make our first elimination. Being officially documented is not the thing that makes us human. So, a baby is already human before he or she gets “recorded.” So, let’s keep going backwards in time.

Some people have actually suggested that the issuing of a birth certificate or other legal governmental certification of birth is what makes us human and starts our lives.But many people are in this country who don’t have any documentation regarding their identity or birth. But yet they are all humans. So, documentation is not a prerequisite for humanity and we are human before we get documentation.

POSSIBILITY 2: LIFE BEGINS WHEN WE ARE NO LONGER PHYSICALLY CONNECTED TO OUR MOTHERS (38-42 weeks after conception)

So, other people think that what makes a baby a human is when the baby is no longer attached to his/her mother. At this point, say these people, the baby is now a “separate person” and this distinction is what makes life officially begin. However, let’s remember that for the first moments after birth, a newborn baby is still attached to his/her mother through the umbilical cord, which is still in the mother’s body. So, a newborn baby isn’t technically physically independent of his/her mother. But a newborn baby is human. And therefore, by this counterexample, we know that physical independence from the mother is not the thing that makes life begin. Because a newborn baby, a human, isn’t physically independent from mom for at least a couple of minutes after we’ve all agreed that they’re already human. Let’s go back some more.

For the first moments after a live baby is born, the baby remains physically connected to mom through a very tough umbilical cord attached to the placenta that is still inside of the mother.But yet we all agree the live baby is a human being already. And so the physical independence from the mother’s body isn’t the thing that makes them human.

POSSIBILITY 3: LIFE BEGINS WHEN WE ARE NO LONGER IN OUR MOTHER’S BODY (38-42 weeks after conception)

For many, the moment at which a baby leaves his/her mother’s body is the point at which the person becomes a human. But anyone who has either experienced a birth or seen a live birth knows that there often isn’t a “moment” but sometimes a very long set of “moments.” So, let’s consider the case of a baby who is on the way out of the womb - partially in the womb and partially on the outside. Such a baby simultaneously meets the criteria for being “part of its mother’s body” and outside of his/her mother’s body all at the same time. Is the baby a human when, for example, her head has emerged from the birth canal but the rest of her body is still inside of her mom? Or in a breech birth, the legs being out and the head still being in. Is the baby “part of the mother’s body” or an independent person? Nothing about the baby really changes between the time the baby is on the way out and when the baby is out. And since we know that when the baby is out, the baby is already a human, and the baby can’t be both an a human and bunch of cells in mom’s body at the same exact time, we can conclude that the baby is also human when he/she is on the way out. And so we know that the baby is human before the baby leaves the mother’s body. And so, a-back we still go.

If the argument is that a baby is human when outside the womb but “part of the mother’s body” when inside of it, a baby being born is both at the same time. Part of the baby is inside the mother’s body and part is outside.So, if the baby is a human when he/she is outside of the mother’s body, that same full-term baby is a human when he/she is partially inside of the mother’s body. And so we know that the baby became human before she completely left her mother’s body.

POSSIBILITY 4: LIFE BEGINS WHEN WE TAKE OUR FIRST BREATH (38-42 weeks after conception)

Some people might believe that the moment at when the baby takes his/her first breath is the moment in which they become a human and life begins. However, consider the case of babies who are born very prematurely and can’t breathe on their own. These babies, who are born and whose birth and identity is legally certified by the government, sometimes need pulmonary surfactant to be administered to them and in some cases for breathing tubes to be inserted in their tracheas. Are they not yet human until their lungs develop enough to function properly enough for them to take their first unassisted breath? Of course not. In fact, their births have been certified, they are physically separate beings from their mothers, and are outside the womb. But they haven’t yet really breathed on their own. So, therefore, we can conclude that the first breath is also not the thing that makes life begin. So we’ll still keep tracing this thing backwards.

Many very premature babies cannot breathe on their own for a while after birth. But yet they are human. So, being able to breathe on your own is not the thing that makes our life begin or the thing that makes us human.

POSSIBILITY 5: LIFE BEGINS WHEN WE REACH “FULL TERM” STATUS (35 weeks after conception)

So the next point to look back to is the point at which the unborn can be considered “full term,” which technically happens after 35 weeks. Is there something about this point in time that defines the line at which we make that journey from being a bunch of cells to being a human? Apparently not, because nearly four months before Amillia Taylor had reached this point last year, she was certified to be a human being when she was born at 21 weeks. And although it is very rare for babies that young to survive outside the womb (although medical advances are allowing premature babies to survive earlier and earlier), the limit of viability (the point in time at which a baby has a 50% chance of surviving outside the womb) is 24 weeks. And the point here is that reaching the status of full-term is not the thing that causes life to begin. So, we can scratch this off the list. Human life begins long before we are full term.

Amillia Taylor was born last year at 21 weeks and 6 days gestation - three months before unborn babies reach “full term” status. She survived and did not even stay in the hospital for an extended period of time. Another baby, James Gill of Canada, was born in 1987 at 21 weeks and 5 days gestation. And in general, by the time an unborn baby is at 24 weeks gestation, the baby has roughly a 50% chance of survival outside the womb (although Roe v. Wade allows for unborn babies to be aborted up to 24 weeks for any reason).This disproves the theory that becoming “full term” is the thing that causes life to begin.

POSSIBILITY 6: LIFE BEGINS WHEN WE REACH THE “FETAL” STAGE (8 weeks after conception)

The funny thing about the term “fetus” (which is simply the Latin word for “offspring”) is that by the time a baby gets to the fetal stage, at about 8 weeks after conception, a whole lot of the important things that make a human a human have already taken place. The baby’s heart has started beating three weeks after conception. By seven weeks after conception, the unborn baby’s brain waves are registering on an electroencephalograph (which is used on already-born people as a test for whether their brain is alive). And by the fetal stage, every organ that the baby will ever have is already formed and in place. Their ears have begun to form. Spontaneous limb movements can be detected by ultrasound. So there is no evidence that anything special happens to suddenly make the developing baby with the beating heart and the signaling brain and the limb movements and the hair buds to suddenly become human at the 8th week or at any other arbitrary moment during the pregnancy.

There is no evidence that at any arbitrary point in the human development cycle, including the point at which we stop calling that developing being an “embryo” (from Greek “that which grows”) and start calling him/her a “fetus” (from Latin “offspring”), suddenly makes that developing being a human.

THE UNPOPULAR POSSIBILITY: CONCEPTION

There is only one biological event that every person’s existence can be traced back to and that can be identified as the trigger for every other event in the person’s life. Regardless of your faith, your race, your gender, your nationality or your age, your heart started beating 21 days after you were conceived. Your brain showed evidence of functioning starting about 42 days after you were conceived. If you were a full-term baby, you were probably born sometime between 245 days and 280 days after you were conceived. If you were born prematurely, you were probably born sometime between 153-245 days after you were conceived. You can almost figuratively set your clock to it.

If you had not been conceived you would not have been born. And once you were conceived and implanted in your biological mother’s womb, your heart started beating about a week after she missed her period and has been beating continuously since then (unless at some point later in life your heart stopped beating and you were revived).

We know a newborn baby is a human being. We also know a lot of things that didn’t cause that human baby to become a human and to have his/her life begin. Everyone will continue to have their own opinions of when life begins, including our Presidential candidates, but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence for a belief that life begins at some point after conception and lots of reason to believe that it does.

And although I haven’t attempted at any point in time yet to tie in Scripture verses or other spiritual beliefs into the discussion, knowing that both Obama and Clinton go to church and are comfortable talking about the faith and values they’ve learned from their churches, I will throw in one Bible verse that maybe they hopefully will ponder as they think about questions like these. It is the Scripture Jeremiah 1:5 and it reads “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you …” Since they consider themselves people full of faith and values maybe they can consider that along with all of the above.

“The Values Voter”

Whenever we hear a politician talk about income taxes we almost always in the same sentence hear the phrase “the rich.” And any conversation about whether or not our tax policy makes any sense seems to sooner or later come back to talk about whether or not “the rich” are paying too much or too little. Let’s take a different course today and let’s talk about how the current tax policy, the 95-year-old Federal Income Tax, is unfair to all Americans, including the not-so-rich. And to talk about the not-so-rich, we’ll use the example of our two favorite “regular guys” that we all know and love - Doug and Deacon from the awesome sitcom The King Of Queens. Let’s have another look into the lives of these two guys and think about how the system affects them.

Our regular guys have regular jobs. They’re not part of “the rich.” In fact, because they’re so regular, we’re going to give each of their families the U.S. median household income (as of 2006) of $48,201.00. We’re going to pretend that they live in the state with the average level of income taxes (which, according to my spreadsheet, would be 5.86%, something between Idaho and Indiana). Because Doug and his wife Kerry have no kids and Deacon and his wife Kelly have two kids, we’re going to average it out and pretend that each guy has one kid. And we’re going to assume that they earn their $48,201.00 evenly throughout the year, that they work every weekday, and that they get off weekends and federal holidays.

Now before we take a look at how hard these guys bust it for Uncle Sam, let’s take a different viewpoint in how we think about money. We need to begin thinking about money in the context of the amount of time in our lives we need to invest in order to earn it. For example, if your family makes $50,000 a year, it means that it takes one year of your life to earn $50,000. It doesn’t mean that your life is worth $50,000, because our worth as people is incalculable, equal, and has nothing to do with how much we make. However, if you earn this salary, $50,000 is equal to a year of your life in terms of time that you could otherwise be spending with friends, family, doing hobbies, or resting. In a sense, time really is money and visa versa.

So, if you were somehow subjected to a tax rate of 50%, another way of thinking about that would be that half of your year would be spent working to pay taxes. If this were your situation (all deductions aside), you would begin earning the money that you need in order to pay your mortgage, buy food and gas, clothe your family, etc, on June 30th. What about a 70% income tax rate (don’t laugh - it happened in the 1970’s - and the top income tax has been as high as 94% at one point)? In this case, you would be working to pay taxes until September 10th and would be able to live on what you earned from then until New Year’s Eve.

So, here we come back to “the rich.” Being as bright as you are, you already know that the 35% and 50% tax rates are associated with “the rich” and not regular guys like our pals Deak and Doug. So, let’s figure out how hard and how long these guys work and for who.

With their current household incomes of $48,201.00, married filing jointly, these guys have to pay $4,000 each in Federal Taxes. Not so bad. When you figure in holidays, these guys earn $190.52 per day and it takes 21 days for them to be able to pay their Federal Taxes. They work from January 2nd only until January 30th to do this (including weekends and holidays). Awesome! We’re all feeling Heffer-vescent!

But now they’ve got to start working to pay their Social Security taxes (you know, the program that neither them or most of us will ever benefit from). They’ll be working until February 21st to pay that. And before break time on the 21st, they’ve got to spend a couple of days working to pay their Medicare taxes. They’re finally done with that on the 26th. But now they’ve got to pay their state taxes, which will have these guys working until quitting time on March 17th. All told, they’ve spent most of the first three months of the year working but not being able to keep what they earn, at the same time that the average living expenses are going up. They get to pay their mortgages, their rising gas and electricity bills, their food and clothing (as well as for Doug’s cool big screen TV), with only the money they earn from the spring until the end of the year. And in many places, they have to work longer for the government as many cities impose hefty local taxes as well. It’s far, far from ideal but it could be worse.

But here’s how it could get worse. Anyone who watches television at 6 PM knows that these guys live in New York City. And in New York, if you want some of the things that “the rich” have - like running water and heat - you need to make more than you’d need to make in other cities. This is something the Internal Revenue Service doesn’t take into account in determining who’s rich and who’s not. So, they decide to work time and a half throughout the year, raising their family incomes to a more New York-survivable $72,301.50. Now, what happens as a result is that they’re now working more than a week later into the year (taking everything into account) just to pay their taxes.

Let’s repeat something just for painful clarity. The problem is not just that by making more money they’re paying more. It’s that by making more money and by earning more per day, they spend more days a year working for the government and less days working for money that they get to keep. And when you get to the point at which you’re spending more time working for the government than working for yourself (which can happen when the tax rate goes above 50%), the line gets blurry between being a citizen and being forced to be a servant.

And let’s suppose that Deacon’s wife Kelly gets a part-time job bringing in half the annual median salary - $24,100.50 - to help pay for the expensive gas she needs in order to drive the kids around. Now they’re working into April. Just to pay the government. The more they work, the longer into the calendar year they have to work before they can keep the money that they’re working harder to get.

And the real irony is that no matter how hard the guys work to pay the government, the government will spend even more than all of us together give it. The government maintains a annual budget deficit and our leaders have refused to pay down the $9.4 trillion dollars in debt that we owe. All of this put together means that their kids will someday be working even longer into the year just to pay down the debt that the government is creating today.

The harder they work, the longer they work for the government. And the longer they work for the government, the more the government will spend even more than they pay to it. And with the lesser and lesser amount of money they have left after paying the government, the higher and higher their living expenses rise. And hundreds of miles away, thousands of folks who look and dress like Doug and Deacon’s boss, Supervisor O’Boyle, are working all day throughout the year to ensure that the guys comply with every nook and cranny of the tax code - a set of rules that has expanded from 14 pages long in 1913 to 4,766 pages long in 2004. It’s even longer than their union regulations!! All of this may sound like an amusing plot for part of Season 12 (which sadly never came to be).