Pro-life = "Torture"

C-FAM reports:

The United Nations (UN) committee charged with monitoring compliance with the Convention Against Torture has declared that Nicaragua’s full protection of fetal life violates the country's obligations under the Convention. This is the first time this committee has reviewed Nicaragua since that government outlawed abortion for any reason three years ago.

Do I really need to say anything else here?

--Shack

Priorities and consequences

Over at What's Wrong with the World, Lydia McGrew ponders:

It is often said by conservatives, and rightly, that ideology is a great danger. The ideologue gets hold of one truth and makes it into the only truth, the only thing that matters. He sacrifices all else to that one thing. That one ideal might be equality, beauty, health, or love, but when one makes second things first, the second things always turn vicious, and horrors follow.

But there is another point, compatible with that point, that must be made too: When second things are made first, they destroy themselves. The ideologue does not even know what is best for the ideal he professes.

Take love, for instance...

It's been said times without number that the sexual revolution wasn't really about love. But there were people who thought it was. If you had told them that the revolution they were founding would ultimately destroy love, even romantic love, even sexual love, they would not have listened. They would not have believed. Yet it was true, as numerous broken-hearted, broken-bodied men and women, men and women who have tried sex without honor can attest.

And now, in this our day, health is another god, another second thing made first. In the name of health we harvest the dead, we destroy embryos, our scientists promise us cures of all diseases if only we will dispense with ethical limitations on research. They are wrong, of course, and much of the promise is hype. But beyond that, we are in the process of losing all sense of what actually constitutes health. Doctors are under pressure to cooperate in the destruction of unborn infants as part of their profession. How is that serving health? Suicide on demand, for any reason whatsoever, assisted by doctors, is all the rage. What does that have to do with the medical profession's job of helping people to be healthy? Yet restless people whose relatives have had trouble finding people to cooperate in their suicide would actually like writing suicide prescriptions to be mandatory upon doctors. Bodily mutilation of healthy limbs is being considered as a "treatment." This is not serving bodily health and integrity.

In other words, the utilitarian attempt to elevate health as a good above innocent human life and above all ethical restraints has turned out to be profoundly anti-human and, consequently, is undermining the medical profession and the very notion of health itself.

The same thing is happening in the environmentalist movement.

--Shack

Playing politics with religion...

...in the view of some, at least.

Hilaria Neveus reports:

MEDIOLANUM, May 20, 390 (Ille Curator) - The Catholic bishop of Mediolanum has been accused of "political grandstanding" by some bishops and representatives of other Christian denominations, after he expelled the Western Emperor, Theodosius, from his cathedral on Friday - apparently a response to the recent alleged killing of 7,000 in Thessalonica.

Eunomius of Cyzicus, a leader in the Arian school of Christianity, and bishop Palladius of Ratiaria have distanced themselves from Archbishop Ambrose, saying he has engaged in an unnecessary public clash at the cathedral that was ill-befitting his position as a Church leader. Palladius said that refusing to allow the Emperor to enter except as a barefoot penitent was an "extreme and unpastoral" approach, that it had been "hasty" and was tantamount to "using the Holy Eucharist as a political weapon."

Bishop Palladius said, "If the emperor had come to my cathedral, I would have greeted him with compassion, not condemnation. I would consider it my duty to dialogue with him first before making any dramatic public confrontations.

"I feel it is our business as bishops to teach and I do not believe that the Holy Eucharist should be wielded as a political weapon."

Archbishop Burke must be so proud.

(For those who didn't get the joke, here's another account of the incident.)

--Shack

(H/T: What Does The Prayer Really Say?)

From the clueless wing of the Court

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg offers up to the New York Times this stirring, albeit disastrously flawed, defense of citing foreign case law:

Justice Ginsburg said the controversy was based on the misunderstanding that citing a foreign precedent means the court considers itself bound by foreign law as opposed to merely being influenced by such power as its reasoning holds.

“Why shouldn’t we look to the wisdom of a judge from abroad with at least as much ease as we would read a law review article written by a professor?” she asked.

You mean aside from the fact that the judge, unlike the professor writing the law review article, is working from and issuing opinions based on a different country's constitution and statutes?

Ginsburg goes on:

She added that the failure to engage foreign decisions had resulted in diminished influence for the United States Supreme Court.

The Canadian Supreme Court, she said, is “probably cited more widely abroad than the U.S. Supreme Court.” There is one reason for that, she said: “You will not be listened to if you don’t listen to others.”

Uh-huh. And the US Supreme Court should have influence abroad...why, exactly?

Its job is to interpret the Constitution and laws of the United States. Any foreign influence should be coming from the laws the Court is interpreting, not the Court itself.

Last, but certainly not least, there was this little gem:

American hostility to the consideration of foreign law, she said, “is a passing phase.” She predicted that “we will go back to where we were in the early 19th century when there was no question that it was appropriate to refer to decisions of other courts.”

She cannot be serious. Please tell me Ginsburg is not serious, here.

In the early 19th century--in the early 1800s--the "decisions of other courts" she's talking about were English common law. These were the legal codes of the United States' direct predecessor, adopted as the building blocks of American law.

If Ginsburg can't see the difference between citing English common law back then and citing the rulings of foreign judges in interpreting the Constitution today, then the Court is in even sorrier shape than I could have imagined.

And just think--on the liberal spectrum, Ginsburg is considered a moderate.

--Shack

"Deregulation"

Thomas Woods, Jr., author of Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, spoke recently with InsideCatholic's Brian Saint-Paul.

The whole interview is well worth the read, but I found this bit particularly interesting:

So you're saying that the "breakneck deregulation" we've heard so much about is largely a myth?

Most of the alleged deregulation people complain about is completely phony. Suppose you have a government monopoly like the post office and say, "Ok, we're going to deregulate the Post Office. From now on, the Post Office can charge $100 for a stamp." That's not really deregulation. Full deregulation would say, "We're going to deregulate the mail business so that no-one is prevented from entering it by regulatory barriers." Now that would be real deregulation. Try selling $100 stamps in that arrangement and see how that goes for you.

What we've had in recent years is phony deregulation. Banks are allowed to engage in riskier behavior than they were before, but the government will continue to guarantee their deposits with deposit insurance. How is that deregulation? In effect, you can do riskier things but the public is still on the hook for your errors. Real deregulation would say that you can do risky things, but you're on your own. We haven't had that. We've had the worst of all possible worlds.

It's been my experience in looking at issues like abortion and global warming that you're on the right track when your reasoning leads to conclusions that neither side is particularly happy about--and based on this interview, I'm getting a feeling that Woods is on the right track. (The "phony deregulation" he describes above is, by and large, a product of the Bush administration--and elsewhere in the interview, he systematically dismembers the popular right-wing claim that the Community Reinvestment Act is primarily to blame for the collapse.)

I wasn't aware of Woods' book before, but it's definitely on my reading list now.

--Shack

Fatigue

I haven't posted much here recently.

There have been things that I think should be said, but other people have already done a pretty good job of saying those things (see my blogroll for a few of them).

More than that, though, I'm just tired--especially when it comes to the actions of the Obama administration.

The people who didn't vote for him are appalled. They see that his actions are leading to disaster.

The people who DID vote for him are thrilled--they think that his actions are just what the country needs, and it's quite clear that nothing anyone says will convince them otherwise.

So the ballooning deficit is going to happen. The economically crippling carbon cap-and-trade is going to happen. FOCA is going to happen (if not all at once, then piecemeal, under the radar--the same way the Fairness Doctrine is going to happen). A re-empowering of the unions--whose achievement of the "middle class lifestyle" in the '50s and '60s owed a heck of a lot more to the rest of the world being in ruins from WW II, leaving the American economy predominant, than to anything they did--and subsequent hamstringing of US businesses in the global market is going to happen. Double-digit inflation is going to happen. And much, much more.

It's all going to happen, and the naive fools who voted for Barack Obama are not going to be convinced we're headed for a disaster until that disaster has already come to pass.

Given that, when I see something I might comment on, my first impulse is to ask why I should bother playing Cassandra.

It's going to be a long four years.

--Shack

That "pro-choice" electorate

You take your silver linings where you find them.

President Obama, as widely expected, rescinded the Mexico City policy, which had cut off federal funding for overseas groups providing abortions. Pro-life groups, as widely expected, strongly denounced the move.

Gallup notes something that wasn't as widely expected, though.

Pollsters found that, of seven early actions by the Obama administration, the ending of the Mexico City policy was by far the least popular. It garnered an overall approval rating of only 35%--59% among Democrats, 8% among Republicans, and 33% among independents.

Only one-third of the swing vote approved of what is, without question, one of the mildest pro-choice steps our new President could possibly take.

The pro-life movement faces an uphill battle in the wake of the '08 elections, without question.

However, the hill may not be quite as steep as some (myself included) had feared.

--Shack

(H/T: Drudge)

Clarity is important

This little news brief has spurred quite a bit of conversation here and there:

As special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell heads off to the region to begin work on negotiating a cease fire between Israel and the Palestinians, President Obama has sat for his first formal TV interview with the Arabic cable TV network Al-Arabiya, ABC News has learned.

Now, I'm not being deliberately obtuse here, but I've read the thing about fifty times, and I'm still not clear--is the driving point that this is President Obama's first formal interview with Al-Arabiya, or that this is Obama's first formal interview as President?

Given the state of things in the Middle East, either would be newsworthy...which makes me wish Mr. Tapper had taken a bit more care with his words.

--Shack

Imagine the potential

(H/T: WorldNetDaily, via Death Roe Survivors)

1,251,921

I originally posted this last year on this date. Given the severity of the issue--and, especially, the nature of the new administration in Washington--I think posting this (with minor revisions to reflect the passing of time) will be an annual tradition on this blog.

------------------------------------------

Today marks the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. The 36th anniversary of the Supreme Court's determination that a right to privacy trumps a right to life through the first three months of pregnancy.

It is also the 36th anniversary of Doe v. Bolton, Roe's companion case. The 36th anniversary of the Supreme Court's determination that even after the first three months--indeed, all the way up to the very end of the pregnancy--an unborn child may be slaughtered under the most utterly flimsy of pretenses: the widest possible definition of the mother's "health," as determined by the only doctor who need be involved in the decision...the abortionist.

I am vehemently pro-life. It is, in my eyes, the most important domestic issue--the most important human rights issue--facing this country today. I have long been involved in the fight against abortion on various levels.

I am also a man.

And, as such--as I have been told repeatedly, vehemently, often in terms I would prefer not to use on this blog--I have no right to have any say on this issue. I am not a woman; I cannot get pregnant; I can't even claim the prerogative of a father (even though that prerogative is itself routinely denigrated and denied).

Therefore, I am told, it is none of my business.

I beg to differ.

There's a link to the right of this post. It reads, "My Axe." Clicking on that link will take you to a site called Death Roe Survivors. It is a site by and for the lucky ones.

The ones born after 1973.

The ones who could have been snuffed out in the womb without any legal repercussions--but were not.

The ones who are here only by the grace of their mothers, who chose to carry them to term.

I am one of the lucky ones.

I was born in 1979.

According to the CDC, there were 1,251,921 abortions in the United States that year.

1,251,921 unlucky ones.

1,251,921 of my immediate peers.

I repeat: 1,251,921 OF MY IMMEDIATE PEERS.

Taken together with live birth statistics, a little over 26% of pregnancies that year (excluding those that ended in miscarriage) ended in abortion.

My generation has been decimated. A little more than one in four of MY OWN PEOPLE were sacrificed in the bloody name of "Choice," their very HUMANITY denied. Had my mother decided differently, I would have been one of them.

None of my business? No right to interfere?

I have EVERY right to interfere. A wrong has been done to me and mine that can never be fully repaid, that continues to be visited on each succeeding generation after us.

All I can do is see that it comes to an end. That it MUST come to an end. I owe it to all those who weren't as fortunate as I was.

On this 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, I have 1,251,921 reminders of why I continue to fight.

--Shack

Alive

Just a brief update, to let my 2.5 readers know I'm still alive.

I haven't had much inclination to blog lately. It's part election fatigue, part personal issues that I really don't feel a need to get into here, and part overall dissatisfaction with the way I've been doing this--I consider myself a debater, but this blog has become, by and large, a forwarding station for political column excerpts. That needs to change.

So, seeing as I've already been gone almost a month, I figure I might as well take a break for the rest of the year while I revise my approach.

I'll be back come January. Hopefully, at that point I'll be sounding off again, rather than just echoing.

--Shack

The bishops flinch

The Catholic vote this past election was a mess, as usual. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship was twisted and abused to excuse voting for a rabidly pro-choice presidential candidate, to the point that a few bishops actually felt compelled to do their jobs for once and set their parishoners straight.

This (the bishops doing their jobs) being a radical new concept, it engendered confusion among the faithful, and the USCCB decided in September to take action. They would finally address the problem of pro-choice Catholics, come to a firm answer, and speak the answer to their flock with one voice.

Sure, they were going to wait until after the election to actually do something about it--but they were finally going to do something about it!

-Two months later-

...Um, hey. About that "finally addressing the problem" thing?

Yeah.

They chickened out. Big time.

Why am I not surprised?

--Shack

(H/T: Catholic Culture)

A tiny sliver of hope on the Fairness Doctrine

It's not much, but Carl Cannon, in his post-mortem on the election, puts forth the first plausible case I've seen for Barack Obama to not acquiesce to the demands of his base and reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine:

“Money is the mother’s milk of politics,” legendary California Democrat (and Reagan adversary) Jesse “Big Daddy” Unruh was fond of saying. Well, nobody in Sacramento politics, including Reagan himself, ever saw anything like the Obama fundraising machine of 2008. This is a campaign that raised more than $600 million—more than it needed, more than it could spend—which allowed it to campaign and to air ads in every part of Ohio, to run high-dollar get-out-the-vote drives in traditionally Republican states, to stage first-class outdoor events catering to hundreds of thousands of people, to emerge flush even in the wake of the most expensive primary campaign in history, to eschew federal matching money (breaking a campaign promise in the process), to outspend McCain in every swing state, and to buy half-hour infomercials on the major networks in prime time less than a week before the election.

Democrats, Obama included, have threatened to restore the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,” a dubious governmental regulation that supposedly supplied equal access to the nation’s airwaves. Bringing it back would be an appalling government intrustion into the marketplace of ideas, but now that Obama has won, I suspect the president-elect will recalibrate his stance on that—just as he did on accepting federal campaign finance limitations when it became clear he could shatter all existing fundraising records. Why do I say that? Because if a “Fairness Doctrine” had been in place, the networks would have had to provide McCain equal time on television—even though he didn’t have the money to pay for it. Obama had a huge advantage, which he exploited ruthlessly and effectively.

Not much, as I said--but it's the first time I've seen an argument that it would be in Obama's best interest not to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine.

And that's about the only way it doesn't get reinstituted.

--Shack

Election post-mortem

About the only good news out of last night was that Democrats didn't get the filibuster-proof Senate they were looking for...I think. That should (hopefully) keep nightmare scenarios like the Freedom of Choice Act at bay for at least the next two years.

Other than that, though, the night was pretty much an unmitigated disaster.

In a concession speech filled with high-minded calls for Republicans to unilaterally disarm and bend over, John McCain did manage one moment of blunt honesty:

"The failure is mine."

Was it ever.

In a political environment that should have been insurmountable--but wasn't--McCain shot himself in the head. The moments where it was clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that he just did not get it were there in abundance, but it went far beyond that.

"Incoherence" was the watchword of this campaign. It started with the man at the top, and infected pretty much everyone--yes, everyone--on down the line.

There was never a consistent message. Brand new themes (Celebrity, The One, Experience, Judgment, Maverick, Liberal, Socialist, etc.) were picked up almost every week and discarded nearly as quickly.

Ten thousand attacks were ten thousand mosquito bites; never in the same place, never for very long, and as a result never doing much damage...if any at all.

If there is a defining moment for the futility of McCain's attacks, it was during the third debate, where he simply repeated the phrase "spread the wealth" over and over. He never linked it to Obama's policies. He never linked it to the real-life consequences of the philosophy behind it. He never even seemed to have any real grasp of why it was such a blunder for Obama in the first place.

He simply repeated the phrase, again and again, as if it were a mantra that would somehow magically unleash the voters' inner selves and cause them to transcend to a Republican plane of consciousness. (I readily recall McCain acting in much the same way when he brought up William Ayers and Obama's record on earmarks.)

The same thing happened during the financial crisis, and that pretty much sealed McCain's fate. He pinballed from trumpeting the soundness of the economy to denouncing Wall Street greed to publicly leaving the campaign trail (only to backtrack a few days later) to...well, to "spread the wealth."

Meanwhile, Obama and his allies were consistently hammering home the Big Lie that the Bush Administration and deregulation were to blame for the crisis. They told it loud enough, they told it often enough--and people believed it.

Even the one bright spot in the campaign--the national introduction of Sarah Palin--ended up a disaster. I'm not talking here about the politically manufactured scandals; I'm talking about her inability--one I strongly suspect was inherited/adapted from McCain--to respond to a direct question with anything other than a rambling, pre-emptive stump speech only theoretically related to what she was supposed to be answering.

For all the good her brilliant speeches at her unveiling and the RNC did her, her later performances undid that progress...and then some. Palin's reputation has been destroyed. She is the new Dan Quayle. Her political career on the national stage is effectively over; one of the GOP's brightest rising stars has been extinguished.

Where do we go from here? Nowhere fast.

Looking to the future, it's a near-certainty that we'll see the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, leading to the squelching of talk radio (and the economic ruin of the stations that signed personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to long, pricey contracts--an object lesson for the radio companies, in case some future Republican administration should ever rescind the Doctrine again) and leaving conservatives without any mass media presence whatsoever. Card check will revitalize the unions, key Democratic supporters.

FOCA is not likely (pray to God) to get past a Republican filibuster--but if it does, on top of everything else, that's effectively the end of the pro-life movement as a political force. The GOP's most dependable and committed group of supporters goes up in smoke.

Obama may well be a one-term president. But in that one term, he will very likely set the stage for Democratic domination for at least the next generation...assuming the country lasts that long.

--Shack

A Farewell to Poker

I had a fairly lengthy post-mortem of the election almost ready to go when my computer crashed, forcing me to start over from scratch. I'll hopefully have that up soon.

In the meantime, though, I note that Texas Hold 'Em Blogger, one of the more...unrestrained...members of the right-wing blogosphere, has been deleted.

It is unclear whether the "authors" noted in the deletion message refers to Peter--who on two different post-election entries displayed an upside-down American flag--or to Wordpress admins.

In either case, though, I doubt the blog will return.

The immortal words of Davy Crockett would seem to sum up Peter's reaction best:

"You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas."

--Shack

Planned Parenthood: Pro-Infanticide

Students for Life of America went undercover, and got the kind of brazen inhumanity we should be used to getting from Planned Parenthood by now:

The money quote:

"It's an actual delivery, but it wouldn't be able to survive on its own--so eventually, the baby does die."

Infanticide by exposure, ladies and gentlemen. Planned Parenthood's routine "safety net," so to speak, in case the abortion results in a live birth--which the PP rep freely admits "does happen."

SFLA is calling on Congress to investigate Planned Parenthood.

Given the track record of the likely President-elect and his followers, smart money is on Congress investigating SFLA, instead.

--Shack

(H/T: Catholic News Agency, via InsideCatholic.com)

The Economist to America: Go to Vegas

And I don't mean that as a euphemism for somewhere a bit hotter. The Economist, in quite possibly the single most idiotic endorsement of this presidential campaign, recommends that the United States "take a chance"--that's a direct quote--and elect Barack Obama.

The paper readily admits Obama's shortcomings. In short:

Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead.

Why? Well, at the end of the endorsement, they finally get around to answering that...kind of:

In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and discipline than his opponent.

In short: We shouldn't worry about his ambiguous beliefs, his microscopic resume, or the hypothetical nature of his backbone in the face of a Democratic Congress because...

...he campaigns pretty.

That's it.

Certainly, it matters how well Obama came through the presidential campaign. It's a trial by fire, the most rigorous of its kind (even without the media doing its job) and that's how it should be--a test of the candidate's mettle, his fitness on a personal level to be President. It's an essential benchmark to be cleared.

But it's just the bare minimum. It's expected. It's a qualifier that should be used only to disqualify a candidate who fails to meet it. It is not a reason, in and of itself, to vote for one candidate over another.

But that's precisely what The Economist advises.

In the most important presidential election in recent memory, their recommendation to the American people is a blind leap of faith.

--Shack

The judicial president

This, from today's Wall Street Journal, is flat-out scary. There's no other way to put it.

One of the great unappreciated stories of the past eight years is how thoroughly Senate Democrats thwarted efforts by President Bush to appoint judges to the lower federal courts.

Consider the most important lower federal court in the country: the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In his two terms as president, Ronald Reagan appointed eight judges, an average of one a year, to this court. They included Robert Bork, Antonin Scalia, Kenneth Starr, Larry Silberman, Stephen Williams, James Buckley, Douglas Ginsburg and David Sentelle. In his two terms, George W. Bush was able to name only four: John Roberts, Janice Rogers Brown, Thomas Griffith and Brett Kavanaugh.

Although two seats on this court are vacant, Bush nominee Peter Keisler has been denied even a committee vote for two years. If Barack Obama wins the presidency, he will almost certainly fill those two vacant seats, the seats of two older Clinton appointees who will retire, and most likely the seats of four older Reagan and George H.W. Bush appointees who may retire as well.

The net result is that the legal left will once again have a majority on the nation's most important regulatory court of appeals.

The balance will shift as well on almost all of the 12 other federal appeals courts. Nine of the 13 will probably swing to the left if Mr. Obama is elected (not counting the Ninth Circuit, which the left solidly controls today). Circuit majorities are likely at stake in this presidential election for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeal. That includes the federal appeals courts for New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and virtually every other major center of finance in the country.

On the Supreme Court, six of the current nine justices will be 70 years old or older on January 20, 2009. There is a widespread expectation that the next president could make four appointments in just his first term, with maybe two more in a second term. Here too we are poised for heavy change.

Combine that with a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate majority, and you get liberal hegemony via judicial fiat for at least the next generation...if not for my lifetime (and I have yet to turn 30).

--Shack

Powell endorses Obama

Was anyone surprised by this? Seriously--was anyone surprised by this?

He says it's not about race, and I find it very easy to believe him. From a policy standpoint, Colin Powell has always been of the Schwarzenegger/Giuliani mold--i.e. liberal on social issues--and that came through loud and clear as he explained himself:

As a key reason, Powell said: "I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that's what we'd be looking at in a McCain administration."

That's the long and short of it right there.

--Shack

The Iron Butterfly?

An interesting article by Bob Greene on the CNN Political Ticker, highlighting a possible case of political chaos theory: One man's decision not to enter politics may have led to another man later being on the doorstep of the White House.

Recall: In 2004, Republican nominee Jack Ryan was forced to pull out of the Illinois race for the US Senate. The GOP replaced Ryan with carpetbagger Alan Keyes, and Barack Obama eventually won the election.

However, Keyes wasn't the party's first choice to take over the nomination.

That distinction belongs to former Chicago Bears coach "Iron" Mike Ditka, a self-described "staunch conservative."

Greene recounts:

A lot of people in Illinois thought Ditka had a pretty good chance to win, had he accepted the invitation to run. Remember: four years ago, Obama was a relative unknown. He was back in the state senate after having been defeated badly in a 2000 primary in which he sought to run for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Ditka, on the other hand, was one of the most famous– and in many, many places, beloved– people in the state of Illinois. He was controversial, yes, but that’s what his admirers liked about him. He was instantly recognizable in every corner of the state– he would have drawn enormous crowds to rallies. Mike Ditka, the icon, against Barack Obama, the novice?

“I am who I am,” Ditka told me. “People know that.”

Had Ditka run and won, there isn’t a way in the world that Obama would have been in the race for the White House now. And history would have been completely rewritten.

In short--sometimes, a butterfly not flapping its wings can cause a hurricane, as well.

--Shack

(H/T: Grandpa John's, via Dr. Sanity)