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This episode could be mistaken for the Three Martini Happy Hour, because this week’s episode comes with a tangy twist. John Yoo is away this week, so we brought in a ringer to take his place: Prof. Hadley Arkes! Thus this episode become a Positivism-Free Zone, in which we review the deepest ground of the natural law unencumbered by John’s usual alarums, excursions, and errors.
The episode comes in three parts: Hadley made some news yesterday, celebrating the retirement of the noted Notre Dame Law professor Gerard V. Bradley, who will be joining Hadley at the James Wilson Institute on Natural Law and the American Founding.
From there Hadley proceeds to answering the question that we’ve been kicking around ever since the Dobbs decision, namely, just how should pro-life politicians break out of their self-imposed muteness about abortion. Hadley has the strategy.
Finally, we spend some time toward the end getting down some of Hadley’s “origin story” that brought him to Leo Strauss’s classroom at the University of Chicago back in the 1960s, and key friendships made along the way—especially our late friend and unsung hero Michael Uhlmann.
Note: We had some internet glitches while recording this episode that weren’t easily edited or smoothed over, so we ask listeners’ indulgence with these hiccups, in return for which we’ll present this installment ad-free.
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Week in and week out, this is among the best 60-70 minutes I spend each week.
Thanks you…all of you…each of you.
Lucretia could probably hear my shouts of affirmation all the way across the country when she mentioned the young people who always say, “I feel like…” instead of “I think….” Drives me mad.
Interesting discussion on the abortion issue. I agree that the Republicans (to the extent they can with the media deck stacked against them so thoroughly) need to define the terms of debate. Make them defend the born-alive abortion position, and, as Hadley said, work back from there. As Lucretia said, the Dems will try to defend that extremist position, but they will turn off a lot of people when they do. Make them defend it the way they always seek to make us try to defend the no-exception for rape and incest position. Good analogy from Steve on Lincoln calling to prohibit slavery in the territories.
Hadley is a great guest and I hope he can come back. That said, I also missed John. Not once did I say, “Oh, come on!”
The government can’t force anybody to provide a decent level of prenatal care. Leave it at 15 weeks and drop the subject. Otherwise, this is stupid and it’s political suicide. That’s what it comes down to.
Right on on the feeling instead of thinking, Lucretia!
I hear from students sometimes that abortion in the case of rape is ok (even if the fetus is a human being with rights!) because the woman is just trying to deal with the consequences of her trauma.
It’s pretty lousy thinking. I’m sure they don’t think the poor woman has a right to kill the rapist if she thinks that will help with the trauma. But for some reason she has the right to kill her baby instead?????
Very likely this is a result of having some feels about the abortion issue and trying, inartfully, to covert them to thoughts.
We don’t have a T.V. Recently, we stayed at a hotel and there were many commercials for Planned Parenthood which never mentioned abortion. It may not be as winning an issue as the Dims would have you believe.
I think the point (which I was hoping to make on the podcast, but things moved along too quickly) is that abortion is a winning issue for Democrats only as long as they frame the issue without reference to the fact that abortion is killing a human being. The left is masterful at hiding from their own supporters the extremism underlying most of their policies. This includes not only abortion, but “trans-rights,” criminal justice reform, DEI, Black Lives Matter, etc., ad nauseum. I see this constantly among my academic “colleagues,” who are often shocked and in disbelief when presented with facts regarding the leftist agenda; the left takes full advantage of the self-indulgent guilt of casual progressives, leaving them rather clueless of any of the ramifications stemming from their support and their virtue-signaling.
As Professor Arkes emphasized, Republicans often have the winning argument, appealing to shared anchoring truths grounded in basic common sense. But they almost always refuse to make it—which is why we are always losing.
Too many Republicans feel the need to apologize for saying ‘Hey…let’s NOT kill the babies”.
That being the case, they hand the argument to the Left.
My daughter was told that abortion was a solid and perhaps best option when her pregnancy showed ‘TTTS’ –Twin To Twin Transfusion Syndrome.
At 16 weeks the Doctors (same ones who suggested the abortion!) at UCSF/San Francisco did an intrauterine procedure wherein they used cameras and a laser and oblated 8 blood vessels that were connecting the twins (no conjoined limbs, thank God!) . One twin was essentially parasitizing his brother….
One boy was given a 50/50 chance of survival.
The other was given a ZERO ( 0.000) chance.
They just celebrated their 7th birthday …100% happy, healthy,bright,athletic, loving grandsons and in love with their BIG 10 year old brother and (especially their Grandma!)
My brother-in-law is a rabid Democrat. PhD in a practical, helpful area. This has exactly been my experience when he actually engages intelligently with me. Unfortunately, this has ended because the last time we talked, he made the announcement that he doesn’t know anything about public policy and he’s not going to talk about it anymore. Literally, all I said was the average Medicare patient takes out $300,000 more than they put in and that Government Is How We Steal From Each Other™
The other dynamic that wouldn’t be present in most situations is, I have completely cornered his mind on the fact that inflation is bad and they don’t measure it, right. (Lawrence Summers, PhD, democrat economist has just published a research paper that it actually peaked at 18% in the last three years and it’s now at 7%. That is exactly what Felix Zulauf says.) He’s not going to argue it. So what does he have left? They love, political and government force, and they just make up things to push everybody around. Then everybody starts stealing from each other with government. It’s insanity.
Inflation is bad and 80% of government is non-public goods which is total insanity.