Does Obama roll the dice on abortion in 2012?

So, I'm looking at the 2012 calendar trying to pick the date Obama goes all-out on abortion.

He won in 2012 by closing the Democrat's historical gap with white voters, but now it's back down to where it usually is -- except among white women with college degrees, where he's at 56 percent.  He's going to need a MONSTER turnout among that demo to win, which means Democrats will have to employ some serious smear-and-fear tactics.

I mean, telling women (Insert name of Republican nominee) will put a spy camera in your uterus.  Think that's silly?  They're already telling women there's a secret Republican plan to arrest and jail them if they have an abortion and don't report it on their taxes.

The catch, beside the obvious and usual backlash? 

A majority of young voters are now pro-life, with 58 percent saying it is "morally wrong"  Fifty-one percent of them consider it a "very important," while only twenty-six percent of pro-abortion young feel the same of their opinion, which means Obama begins losing the youth vote if he pushes the abortion.

Obama also risks eroding his overall support among women.  Despite the propaganda of the pro-abortion industry, the fact is not only are Americans more likely to be pro-life than pro-"choice," women are more pro-life than men. 

And while women are more pro-life than men, white women without a college degree gave 41 percent of their vote to Obama in 2008, which helped him close the Democrats' traditional gap with working-class whites.  They are also among the women most likely to be pro-life.  Right now their support for Obama has slipped to 38 percent.  Any move by Obama to push abortion further erodes that number.

If Obama heads into late 2012 with the same numbers he's facing now, he has to make a decision.  Does he play it safe on abortion and hope he doesn't lose enough youth and overall female voters, or does he abandon the youth vote and risk eroding his overall female support by going all-out on the abortion scare tactics, hoping it will drive turnout among college-educated females in large enough numbers to not only overcome the backlash, but nudge his total white vote upwards enough to push him over the finish line?

Archbishop advocates conscripting 'the rich' into forced labor

"The rich and powerful should be required by law to spend some time every year helping the poor and needy, says the Archbishop of Canterbury," the Daily Mail reports today.

"Rowan Williams said a return to the medieval tradition when monarchs ritually washed the feet of the poor would serve to remind politicians and bankers what should be the purpose of their wealth and power."

While I certainly appreciate His Grace's intentions, where in the Bible did Christ advocate the use of force to impose His teaching?  Where in the Bible did Christ go to Rome to lobby the Senate to enforce His teachings?  The Bible is filled with warnings to men to avoid the lure of State power.

"Because the duty to serve would be compulsory, those involved would not be able to claim credit for doing it, he added," the Mail also reports.

True, but if it's compulsory, then it's not God's will -- it's the State's.  That's why He did not send Christ to Earth as a king.  It is also rather ironic, given the fact one of the Bible's great villains is a head of state who conscripted God's people into forced labor.

His Grace also overlooks an important historical fact.  In Christ's time wealth was not mobile.  Men did not become rich by finding ways to be of use and benefit to their fellow man. The rich of Christ's time got rich by either being of use to the State, or being born into the State.  Wealth was not earned, it was a barometer of political power.

As His Grace notes, such a law dates back to the time of monarchs, people who amassed their wealth through the power of the State.  The relationship between the "rich" and the "poor" at that time was not one of voluntary, mutually-agreed upon exchange.  The law was largely an attempt by "the rich" of that time to use an empty display of one-time subservience to mollify "the poor" who, in a world where wealth was fixed and not earned, had no recourse other than the axe.

But the money of today, which His Grace seems to speak of disparagingly, has transformed our world into a more peaceful place.

The "rich" His Grace speaks of today earned their wealth by providing jobs, homes, goods, medical care and a standard of living inconceivable in Christ's time.  If "the poor" feel they are being mistreated by a member of "the rich," they simply take their business to someone else.

If you think "the rich" should do more to help "the poor," keep in mind that in a modern, capitalist, free market economy, money is a tool of voluntary exchange that changes hands when someone feels someone else provides a good of service worthy of that exchange. 

In such an economy, both parties benefit.  In fact this free market of voluntary exchange, of which money is the agreed-upon unit of measure, allows the poor to become rich and the rich to become poor.  This phenomenon of social mobility was inconceivable in the world of State control that existed in the first century.

In the first century and into medieval England wealth was the spoils of political power.  In our world, wealth is an one of the indicators of your value to your fellow man in a voluntary free market. 

So, who has done more to help the poor?  The bureaucrat who would run the compulsory work program serving dinners at a school, or the millionaire who became a millionaire by finding a way to manufacture enough of that food for everyone?

Yes, most of them will not be doing it out of a sense of responsibility to their Christian duties, but by advocating the use of State force to achieve the outward appearance of Christian charity, rather than inspiring to care for their neighbor out of a genuine Christian love, His Grace has already admitted motives are irrelevant.  And improving the life of your fellow man by making his food more affordable only to earn a profit for yourself is still more peaceful and better for the poor than a world where the State rounds up the wealthy and influential and forces them under threat of arrest to ladle out soup.

Want to see "the rich" do more to improve the lives of "the poor?"  Get out of their way and allow them to use their God-given mind to continue to create, innovate and produce.