Divisions Deepen

In the winter of ’65. We were hungry, just barely alive.
I took the train to Richmond that fell.
It was a time, I remember oh so well.

Like my father before me, I’m a working man.
And like my brother before me, I took a rebel’s stand.
He was just 18, proud and brave.
But a Yankee laid him in his grave.
I swear by the blood below my feet, you can’t raise a Caine back up when he’s in defeat.
The night they drove Ol’ Dixie down, and all the bells were ringing.
The night they drive Ol’ Dixie down, and all the people were singing they went
Na na na na na na na na.

The Night they Drove Ol’ Dixie Down – Joan Baez

…..

Last week’s decision by the United States Supreme Court on the Dobbs case, returning abortion laws to the states, was expected but still has generated much joy and anger around the country. I wrote a piece in these pages back in May after the leak of said decision came out entitled “Divisions Deepen.” For any of you new subscribers who missed that, I am reprinting it here. My views on this decision and its ramifications have not changed. I think we will know by the end of the year if the furor over this wholly correct ruling has abated or if we are heading to some greater divide. Abraham Lincoln did say in his famous “House Divided" speech: "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other." If you read my piece below, you will see that I think the parallels between slavery and abortion are great. Our country will now be half for life and half for abortion on demand. Can we stay that way?

…..

The leak of the Supreme Court draft decision in the Dobbs v Jackson abortion case has been front page news for the last couple of weeks. The Democrats and their allies in the Tech and Media Cabal believe this issue will motivate their base to come out and vote in November perhaps saving them some seats or even the majority in the Senate. Maybe. At the moment, it looks like they will run on a platform of January 6th and Roe v Wade because any of the issues pertinent to the daily lives of most Americans look bad for the party in charge. So, the cabal will keep the issue front and center through November.

As important as the November election is, I think there are longer lasting effects from this leak and the decision about which we should have some concern. One of those effects is from the leak itself. The other is from the decision, assuming it holds as drafted.

Let’s talk leak first. I have always pointed out that one of the things that makes a legislative body work (like Congress) is “honor amongst thieves.” Plenty of times in my 14-year legislative career, a Democrat and I would sit down to try to work through a problem or work out a deal. In doing this, we would each tell the other things that could be used against us. For example, I tell a Democrat that I see his or her point but I can’t agree to that because an important constituency in my district will turn against me. Knowing the real reason why I can’t agree allows the Democrat to try and find a way around it that maybe preserves the policy but protects my political concerns. When I tell my Democrat colleague this, I am being open and honest and trusting that he or she will not run to the NY Times and tell them that I am owned by this constituency with quotes from me. If he did, that would be a problem for me.

This trust amongst a class of people (politicians) that most of the public finds to be about as trustworthy as the devil is the currency that makes a legislative body work. Without that trust, it is exceedingly difficult to get things done. I experienced such trust many, many times in my career and I never broke that trust and neither did the Democrats with whom I negotiated. To be fair, I would not do this with anyone (not Adam Schiff for example) but there were enough names (many of whom would surprise you) with whom you could operate this way.

I suspect that the Supreme Court, albeit not a legislative body, works the same way. They still have an odd number of members some of whom have very different political and legal viewpoints and it takes a majority to get something done. This egregious breach of trust must have the justices wondering if they can share their opinions, written of otherwise, with their colleagues without Politico knowing all that was said.

Bottom line: In an increasingly polarized court, the ability to collaborate on decisions has been severely damaged. That could have a more consequential impact than the decision itself since that will affect all future decisions and the operation of the court years into the future.

Now, on to the draft decision itself. In my opinion, the argument is extremely well reasoned and written. That is why the propaganda media will largely ignore the actual decision. It argues forcefully that this is a divisive issue best decided by the political bodies in the country and not the courts. Bravo. It also calls upon federalism to let the states decide how they want to handle this rather than imposing a single national standard of dubious constitutional legitimacy. Double bravo.

Federalism is good. Each state government being much closer to its people than Washington, DC, can decide theseissues for their residents. Many blue states will legalize abortion right to and at birth and will in some cases pay the expenses of residents of a pro-life state to come to the blue state for an abortion. California even has a bill that, while not specifically legalizing post-natal abortion, says that a mother will not be prosecuted for the death of her child in the first 7 days after birth. If that were to pass, I don’t know how you call that anything but legalized infanticide.

Some red states will ban all abortions at any point in pregnancy and even in the case of rape or incest. Most states will be somewhere in between, allowing abortions in very limited circumstances.

The impact this will have is to make the blue states bluer and the red states redder. It will increase the tendency of leftists to want to live amongst their own kind in blue states and conservatives with their own kind in red states.

While this is federalism and it’s the way our founders designed this great country and we are all free to move within the nation’s borders to a state that has laws with which we agree and will respect, this is not all good.

The divisions in this country are widening. This court decision will add to that trend. If we are to remain untied as a country, we will need something that unites us. Increasingly, that is harder to find. Abortion has been controversial and divisive for the last 40 years. But we were united by the flag, our military, the national anthem, our history, the pledge of allegiance, the original meaning of the constitution and so forth. We fight bitterly over issues like abortion, but in the end it is our mutual respect for the country and the system of government that brings us together. That said, that unity is fraying as the left continues to gnaw at all of those uniting symbols I just mentioned.

 The song that is the lead-in to this missive, is about the American Civil War and is a lament for the hardships of the citizens of the Confederacy in the final year of the secession. Joan Baez sang its most popular rendition. Although she recorded it over 50 years ago, the woke mob forced her to recant having anything to do with a song that is an ode to a period of history that the left wants expunged.

I didn’t pick this song because I think we are headed to a second civil war. At least not yet. But there are parallels. Both slavery and abortion are “moral human rights” issues. Pro-slavery forces did not recognize black people as being fully human. Pro-abortion advocates do not recognize unborn babies as being fully human. Slaveowners felt that they were protecting their property rights as pro-choice women feel they are protecting their reproductive rights. Their abolitionist and pro-life opposition hold their ground on the basis of human and moral rights. In the 1850s, the country tried to reconcile its divisions by letting some states be “slave” and others “free” and the Kansas-Nebraska Act attempted to create a new pattern for how new states would be admitted as one or the other.

 In the end, it didn’t work. The country had to go all one way or all the other, and a war over these “state’s rights” was fought in which 600,000 people died to resolve these divisions.

 Can we now exist as a single country, united by certain fundamental beliefs in the structure thereof, and coexist with wildly different laws in different parts of that country? Perhaps we can. It is important to remember that the United States is a “manufactured” country. Most other countries are unified by centuries of having the same populace, race, culture and geography. The French are French. The Japanese are Japanese, etc. The Ukrainians are now fighting for a Ukraine that has existed for centuries even when others called it Russia. The United States has no such background that defines us. Can we withstand these divisions within the country? I hope so.

I write this not because I think that this abortion decision (correctly decided in my opinion) is tantamount to the Kansas-Nebraska Act in putting us on track for civil war. I don’t. It is not the decision itself, but the issue that is “Another Brick in the Wall” (Pink Floyd) that is dividing the country into red and blue. Can we co-exist as red and blue states and people unified by the freedom to be either color? Can we come together on some of these divisive issues, likely abandoning the extremes of both sides? Or does one side or the other have to “win” either politically, culturally or through violence?

 My money right now is on the first option. I think what California is doing is abhorrent. But I choose not to live there. Many Californians think that Arizona and Kansas are backwards places populated by ignoramuses. Fine. They don’t have to live there. But to do this, we all do have to agree to support the structure of the constitution and courts and our military when threatened from abroad. That part is not yet a given.

I remain respectfully,
Congressman John Campbell
Drive fast & Live free