Co-opting Conservative Organizations to Protect Politicians
The Thomas More Law Center has taken the extraordinary move of issuing a press release which questions the "claims of the National Right to Life Committee to represent the unborn". In this stunning press release, the Thomas More Law Center gives damning evidence that the NRTL committee teamed up with Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups to block a bill to ban abortions in South Dakota, unless they were needed to save the life of the mother. Other sources claim that the Ohio Right to Life Committee tried similar shennanigans in that state.
What is going on here? Why is the "National Right to Life Committee" working with Planned Parenthood to kill bills that would save the lives of innocent babies? Bear in mind I am not questioning the integrity of Arkansas Right to Life so long as Wayne Mays is President of the Board of Directors, but this story goes all the way to the top.
A cynic might say that once abortion is outlawed, the "professional pro-life advocates" would be out of a job. I don't think that is it. Instead, we should think a little deeper about the political dynamics behind situations like this.
What do conservative interest groups like NRTLC do? Conservative special interests groups exist to hold politicians that claim to be conservative accountable. For example, voters count on the NRA to tell them who supports gun rights and who does not. Voters count on the NRTLC to tell them who is pro-life and who isn't. Naturally, the politicians want these groups to "go easy" on them- conversely the grassroots members of these groups want their group leaders to advance the issues they care about, which means NOT going easy on the politicians. These conflicting goals produce a healthy tension.
Because of this, there is a balance between interest groups and political parties. Political parties want to use these groups to further their interests (getting their candidates elected) and these groups want to use political parties to advance their issues. Each uses the other to advance their goals. But what if something upsets that balance? Suppose one group gets infiltrated by the other?
(continued. Click "Monday" below and scroll down for rest of article, or if sent straight here just scroll down.)
What is going on here? Why is the "National Right to Life Committee" working with Planned Parenthood to kill bills that would save the lives of innocent babies? Bear in mind I am not questioning the integrity of Arkansas Right to Life so long as Wayne Mays is President of the Board of Directors, but this story goes all the way to the top.
A cynic might say that once abortion is outlawed, the "professional pro-life advocates" would be out of a job. I don't think that is it. Instead, we should think a little deeper about the political dynamics behind situations like this.
What do conservative interest groups like NRTLC do? Conservative special interests groups exist to hold politicians that claim to be conservative accountable. For example, voters count on the NRA to tell them who supports gun rights and who does not. Voters count on the NRTLC to tell them who is pro-life and who isn't. Naturally, the politicians want these groups to "go easy" on them- conversely the grassroots members of these groups want their group leaders to advance the issues they care about, which means NOT going easy on the politicians. These conflicting goals produce a healthy tension.
Because of this, there is a balance between interest groups and political parties. Political parties want to use these groups to further their interests (getting their candidates elected) and these groups want to use political parties to advance their issues. Each uses the other to advance their goals. But what if something upsets that balance? Suppose one group gets infiltrated by the other?
(continued. Click "Monday" below and scroll down for rest of article, or if sent straight here just scroll down.)
posted by Mark Moore (Moderator) at Monday, July 10, 2006
6 Comments:
What I mean by that is, suppose some individuals whose first loyalty is to a political party join the special interest group, move up the ranks, and seek out positions in leadership. Will that group still be in the business of advancing the issue, or will their purpose have subtley shifted to becoming simply a mouthpiece for a political party? Maybe the infiltrators came into the special interest group with the mission of subverting its original purpose, maybe it was something that just happended because they had more loyalty to the party than to the group. Maybe the leaders of the group got to the point where they liked having fancy power lunches with the high and the mighty. So much so that they were no longer willing to upset the apple cart by blowing the whistle when those politicians only went through the motions of advancing the cause.
The bottom line is that conservative groups must be constantly on their toes to keep from being infiltrated and neutralized by people who join the group with the intent of hijacking it into just another instrument of the party/candidate.
If the Thomas More Law Center is correct, it may be too late for the National Right to Life Committee. I am concerned about another well-known conservative group in this state that I feel has been partly neutralized due to infiltration by people who posed as servants to subvert its interests for that of a party. Another group, the NRA in Arkansas, lost a great deal of credibility by making an endorsement in the recent Republican Primary that could only have been based on something besides the record of the candidates on gun-rights issues.
People count on conservative organizations. The recent trend of their acting to preserve the status quo and preventing their issue from advancing in order to avoid hurting a given political party is disturbing.
Ultimately, if voters cannot count on the leadership of special interest groups to perform their function, those groups will have to be overhauled or scrapped. New arrangements to inform voters will have to be made.
Blam! Blam! Blam! The sound of conservatives shooting themselves because the arm chair quarterbacks who are not involved in the day to day leadership of such organizations think that buck privates know more than the generals about winning the war.
Your condescending comment supports the point of the article, in my opinion.
Benedict Arnold was a General too. He may have known more than the privates who served under him, but he was less loyal to the cause, and that is the issue here.
Where did you find it? Interesting read » » »
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