Choosing Candidates

For me, the right to privacy is paramount. I see it as underlying so many of the civil rights we are fighting to obtain and/or keep. I will not watch another Samuel Alito nominated to SCOTUS. I will not vote for a Dem who voted for cloture.

This is a deal breaker for me. I won't live in a theocracy - I don't pray to male deities, and I sure as hell won't be limited by the violent, hateful monotheism that is ruining this planet.

To me, this is a twin to the Right to Privacy. Your connection to the divine is the most private aspect of your life, and can influence all of your life decisions, so you should be absolutely free to determine your own path without external input.

Support the Women's Autonomy and Sexual Sovereignty Movements!

I agree, that's the dealbreaker.

as a non-negotiable political issue? If politics be the art of compromise, that seems oxymoronic. . .

Principles ARE (ought to be) non-negotiable though.
Does the Democratic Party have any? Whether it does or not, do we?

Seriously, can we articulate, clarify and consciously commit to a few essential principles we share? Maybe this already has been done somewhere to everyone else's satisfaction. Then we could simply reiterate those principles here and apply them to key political issues, to see where to dig in our heels the deepest. But I doubt it, it ain't easy!

For example, we choose to unschool. I consider the principle under which we do this to be something like, "Private, personal freedom of choice (from learning to eating to loving to reproduction, expression and worship) means that not even a governing political majority can define and impose arbitrary rules on autonomous individuals for how that choice must (or mustn't) be exercised."

OK - I just made that up on less than my usual caffeine intake, obviously it needs work. But the essence of non-negotiable "choice" is there, so can we all agree this is non-negotiable for all pro-choice advocates?

Not. Plenty of pro-choice advocates blithely (blindly?) justify compulsory schooling. They believe the various regulated opt-outs society permits to a small percentage of families (like mine) are dangerous to our common good, that my choice may be a burden to theirs so they must make moral arguments against it and stop it or at least strangle it with red tape. (Sound familiar?) Stanford professor Rob Reich even argues the choice to home educate is "ethical servitude" (My own choice principle tells me the opposite, that not having the choice in the first place is ethical servitude.) Thus their choice principle differs from mine, something telling them to take my choice away or at least force me to "negotiate" it with them, to the extent of whatever political power and control over me they can muster.

And on the flip side -- homeschoolers and other conservatives defend school choice but see society threatened by most unregulated private choice, from academic freedom to what to read from the public library or watch on tv. . .much less who, when and whether to marry, or once married, to unmarry.

Speaking of which, what about no-fault divorce in New York? If the women can't agree and even feminist lawyers are reversing themselves on the political and policy issues as these issues unfold, it looks pretty negotiable and incremental, can we learn anything about principles from this?

Looks like the factors and strategies to be balanced (negotiated) are the same here as in other complex social issues like schooling and education --
individual versus institution, time, money, authority, language,
process, truth-integrity versus fiction versus fraud. Incremental
change. Public frames. What's best for the kids. What does God want us
to make the other guy do. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/07/nyregion/07divorce.html

Some Roman Catholic and women's groups have historically opposed
no-fault divorces, and in recent years conservative groups have been
pushing for more restrictive barriers to divorce. But in New York there has been a shift in sentiment in favor of no-fault divorce, with the Women's Bar Association reversing its opposition in 2004.

JJ

Homeschooling and Abortion rights have nothing in common. Education issues affect the quality of a society, but they aren't going to cause women to die horrible deaths. You may or may not have the right or even obligation to choose how your child is educated, but you most definitely have a right to control your own body. You seem to consider "unschooling" to be a privacy issue, but it just doesn't compare to requiring due process, protection from unreasonable search and seizure, etc.

And yes, there is such a thing as a non-negotiable political issue. Politics is about governing, which means providing for the general welfare of the people. If you want a list to focus on, start with the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They're quite adequate to resolve most issues people are in conflict about. The line "equal protection under the law" covers most of them.

Reproductive rights affect MY right to LIFE as in "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" which are supposed to be the basic goals of government. Separation of Church and State means I can't be locked up or burned at the stake for practicing my religion. That's a big one for me, since the DOJ has been lax in prosecuting hate crimes against non-Christians. Privacy means I own what I own and I can't be locked up without reason and judicial oversight. Education of children doesn't become possible until we are secure in our homes and our persons. It's not an unimportant issue, but it isn't life or death.

Support the Women's Autonomy and Sexual Sovereignty Movements!

As a parent, am I not responsible for ensuring that my children have the ability to exercise their right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"?

All very personal, of course. (Who said that -- the personal is political or somesuch??)

Some people draw the "life" line sooner than I do. I am staunchly pro-choice (reproductive choice).

OTOH, if my child might be damaged or at the very least not happy and flourishing by public school, my "choice" is to homeschool. That's a choice based on the choice I made to have the kids and the responsibility that follows from that choice and I need to have that choice respected as much as any other.

Separation of church and state is important to us too. As non-believers we are very aware of the protection of minority rights.

How about the right to vote? C-Span had a caller this morning asking about a new poll tax being imposed in Georgia (or was it Alabama?). I think it was Georgia. Obviously, if true, an obstacle to voting for some people. So that's an important principle, right -- that our right to vote should not be blocked. (Ohio comes to mind. . .)

We might disagree about the relative importance of different issues but --

Top Ten issues/principles???

Privacy
Choice -- reproductive and other
Sep. of church and state
Voting rights
Tax reform
Budget -- the recent Fed budget, for instance
Lobbying

What else could Dems take a stand on? Respect each others' views on? Campaign on?

Nance

There's "nothing in common" between autonomy of the mind and autonomy of the body?

I've never heard any mother of a daughter old enough to face imminent political threats to both, distinguish one as essential and the other not so much, and I can't begin to conceive of a non-negotiable principle any woman could use to justify such a stand.

It is every woman's private, autonomous choice to conceive and develop meaning within herself, and to bring it forward into the world only if and when she so chooses, but only from her uterus, not her mind or heart?

Submission to force from the body politic is fine when it's unchosen IDEAS we're forced to conceive, implant, carry, nurture, protect, abandon and/or abort?

Not exactly a good way to reunite freedom-lovers under one flag . . .

Lesbians might object that their right to conceive and collaborate to create a viable, meaning-filled marriage can't be limited to mere reproductive biology, and mine certainly isn't. Why limit the political principle to one and not the other - surely not because it makes more sense that way! I find it incomprehensible and completely unjustified.

Public clinics to compel and control intellectual conception are no more permitted in the Constitution that are public clinics to compel and control physical conception. Neither reproductive nor intellectual privacy rights are constitutionally enumerated, conceivably because the founders could not have imagined as remotely constitutional,our modern threats against such natural privacy rights (hey, something else they have in common!)

It actually might be interesting to take both unenumerated types of private freedom to conceive (intellect and uterus) and go through the Bill of Rights, see which is better guaranteed in language and case law. I'll take the first, fourth, ninth, fourteenth, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, all the academic freedom precedents, etc.
If Roe could match for reproductive freedom the constitutional principles I see supporting intellectual freedom, it would be in no danger of being overturned imo, imo, although I haven't studied the two together from this angle, or heard of anyone else doing so. Anybody know?

"Ask MisEducation"

This made me think of our dialogue here, but I'm not sure what to think OF it . . .can I in good conscience cheer the second part, if the first part makes me cringe?

"The belief in the therapeutic and redemptive force of dialogue depends on the assumption (central to liberalism's theology) that, after all, no idea is worth fighting over to the death and that we can always reach a position of accommodation if only we will sit down and talk it out. But a firm adherent of a comprehensive religion doesn't want dialogue about his beliefs; he wants those beliefs to prevail. Dialogue is not a tenet in his creed . . ."
- Stanley Fish, FIU law professor in today's Times