People are mysteriously baffled…

…about my point concerning the falsehood of so-called conservatives calling “prudential judgements” what are, in fact, their actual policy core commitments.

Let me make this as simple as possible:

You only have so much money, time and energy. You have presented to you two goals:

1. Fight for the right to life for unborn children.

2. Fight against the Church to preserve the death penalty.

If you choose 1, you demonstrate that the dignity of human life really is your top priority.

If you choose 2, you make clear that you are full of crap when you say 1 is your top priority.

You further make clear that you are, in fact, so committed to this supposed “negotiable prudential judgement” that you will not only ditch the unborn, but defy the Church in order to cling to the death penalty.

So, for instance, if you are the “prolife” Catholic governor of Nebraska and you have $300,000 burning a hole in your pocket, you can use it to fund a lot of women in crisis pregnancies or you can use it to spit on the Church’s teaching and try with might and main to restore the death penalty when your state rejects it.

In short, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Movement Conservative apportionment of time and energy–again and again and again–makes extremely clear that abortion is not the *real* non-negotiable. On the contraary, the unborn are, for a huge number of Movement Conservatives, merely human shields for the real non-negotiables, such as zeal for the death penalty.  Given the choice, the money, time, and energy will go toward doggedly defending the death penalty, or other so-called “prudential judgments” and not toward the defense of the unborn.  The unborn only get trotted out to say “Vote for us or the baby gets it.”