Tipsheet

Harris: The First Amendment Must Take a Back Seat to This 'Fundamental Freedom'

In an interview with NBC News on Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris lamented America's divisive politics, arguing that her desire to 'turn the page' is really about "closing the page" -- whatever that means -- on "an era that suggests Americans are divided."  It's true that Americans are divided.  Figures in both major political parties and across the political spectrum bear some responsibility for that reality, including both her and her opponent.  Part of the polarization and acrimony is stoked and fueled for cynical purposes.  But a lot of it is simply a reflection of profound differences on policies and values.  Voters have divergent views on what they want the country to look like, what sort of leaders they want to wield power, and what our priorities should be.  Part of the genius of our founding is that America's system of government was designed to push many important decisions on such matters down to the state and local level, allowing people to shape their communities in alignment with their values.  This allows those disaffected by what's happening around them to either seek and make change close to home, or have an option to resettle in a community that may be a better fit.  

Kamala Harris holds a top-down, command-and-control worldview.  She is a California leftist whose vision for the country, as repeatedly articulated and illustrated during her start-from-scratch presidential campaign in the 2020 cycle, is to impose California's hardcore brand of identity-driven leftism upon the rest of the country.  She was a zealous advocate for bans, mandates, and all manner of state coercion -- as long as such blunt instruments served her ideological agenda.  During her current, truncated, election-nullifying, plug-and-play presidential campaign, she is trying to pretend the previous version of herself doesn't exist, or is temporarily irrelevant.  She doesn't believe any of those things anymore, or won't pursue them in office, anonymous aids assure us through journalists.  When given opportunities to explain -- really explain -- any of these supposed flip-flops, however, Harris has steadfastly declined.  Her answers are either vague and non-responsive, or simply non-existent.  She would very much like middle-of-the-road voters to believe that she's not the extremist she ran as last time (and the Senator she governed as).  She's more of a pragmatic Democrat who just wants to bring us all together, you see.  Kind of like Joe Biden promised to be.  But not quite like him, per se.  Let's not talk or think about him, please.  

She would also prefer to opt out of any insight into what she actually believes, or why, or why that has (ostensibly) changed so dramatically in such short order.  She does not appreciate your questions about it, thank you very much.  But amid her jarring policy makeover, and her phony hand-wringing about unity and "closing the page" on divisiveness, there's one issue on which she is truly passionate.  She is a fanatical enthusiast on unlimited abortion-on-demand, at any stage of pregnancy, funded by taxpayers.  She has occasionally been asked if she could name a single limitation or restriction on abortion that she might support.  She has deflected away from this challenge because the ghastly truth, based on legislation she has championed, is that she emphatically opposes any conceivable limitation.  Thus, in the very same interview in which she bemoaned our tragic divisions, she promptly rejected a modest abortion olive branch floated by the NBC journalist.  Might she be comfortable with 'religious exemptions' on abortion, Hallie Jackson asked, referring to allowing religious practitioners and institutions like Catholic hospitals to decline to provide, finance, or otherwise participate in abortions?  Answer:


As many people have observed, Harris frames unlimited abortion as a "fundamental freedom," but not religious freedom.  Her worldview, as modeled in her state, are deeply hostile to a core tenet of the First Amendment.  She and her fellow leftists eagerly would, and have, trample on actual fundamental American freedoms, in the name of unfettered abortion.  She is so, ahem, pro-"choice" that she believes all of us should pay for other people's elective abortions, without any restrictions, and that religious and other conscientious objectors to abortion, which literally stops a human heart, within the healthcare space must be forced to participate in abortions.  No exceptions.  No exemptions.  She even selected a running mate who repealed protections for infants born alive during failed abortions, and who eliminated laws barring coercing women into abortions.  "Choice," you see.

The Supreme Court, at least as it's currently composed, would likely have something to say about this radical, disturbing vision if or when Harris tried to crush the First Amendment in service of her abortion fanaticism.  But Harris has also embraced Supreme Court "reform," including expressing an openness to the Banana Republic madness of packing the Court by adding additional seats.  Her running mate recently confessed to leftist donors in California that they all know the Electoral College should be done away with, too.  Among many other reasons, when the 2024 Democratic ticket tries to pose as the guardians of institutions and "our democracy," they do not deserve to be believed or taken seriously.  It's also why when Trump-skeptical conservatives and independents are lectured about how 'important' it is to support Harris in this election, supposedly for the security of those cherished institutions and norms, rejecting those insulting sermons is an easy, principled, rational call.