Saturday, December 22, 2007

This dates to January 23, 2006.

I am no fan of Daniel Patrick Moynihan. In order to avoid speaking ill of the dead, I'll simply repeat what I've said before: He was a man of powerful conscience, albeit not one that could ever get him to vote against his own Party with any regularity when there was a conflict between the two.


But, credit where it's due: He articulated something that we now take for granted: That over time, sins and moral weakenings are viewed as right and normal; or, in his memorable phrase, we define deviancy down.


And so, yet another innocent is being marched to the abattoir, her fate consigned by the State, despite signs of life.


Haleigh Poutre will die, ladies and gentlemen. This much is certain.


But what is increasingly certain is that she will die at the hands of the State, a State that arrogated the power to protect her from abuse and failed; a State that hid that abuse; a State that now wants to dispose of yet another inconvenient life. And make no mistake: A court is as surely an agent of the State as a police officer.


No "libertarians" in any numbers will rise up to demand that the State not exert its power over an unwitting innocent; no "liberals" will cry out in rage at the execution of an innocent (when there are so many misunderstood criminals duly convicted by their peers to gnash teeth over); and far too many "conservatives" will simply wash their hands of this much blood (what's a little more?), reluctant to wade into these waters again soon, or perhaps mutter something about federalism, as if that solves the moral issue involved.


Her blood on all our hands. And the blood of the next child killed for convenience, who maybe shows a few more vital signs. Yesterday's deviance is today's standard.

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