"Saving babies is not my primary concern"

Alan Maricle \\Back to the "Hyper-Calvinist" smear\\
Yeesh, you sound like Sye. Please quit with the "smear" verbiage.

You misrepresented my position.

\\when Toby appeals to God's activity in human affairs, that must be counterbalanced by God's inactivity vis-a-vis abolishing abortion. That's not "Hyper-Calvinistic" or fatalistic–that's just responding to Tony on his own grounds. \\ 

What you're leaving out is God's standing commands to His people to correct oppression.

You're confusing our activity with God's activity. 

\\But not doing more than I could do is not a moral compromise.\\ 

Sure, I agree. 

\\If I settle for less because it's not within my power to do more, that's not a moral compromise\\ 

As long as we don't equivocate on the meaning of "within my power". 

\\He did as much as he could, under the circumstances, even if it falls far short of the ideal.\\

In the case of incrementalist legislation about when it's OK to murder babies, 

Alan, that's the way critics attack the Bible. Unless the Bible forbids something (e.g. "slavery"), then the Bible must be "OK" with what it didn't prohibit. 

If we can't successfully ban abortion across-the-board, that doesn't make murdering babies "OK." There are many moral evils in the world which God hasn't given Christians the power to eradicate. 

1) you never know whether you can pass abolition until you try

I don't object to trying to do more. 

2) with that in mind, why try for anything less?

You're assuming that doing more hasn't been tried before. 

3) when you pass laws that say "fulfill conditions X, Y, and Z, and then it's OK to murder babies", you educate the culture that babies are actually expendable and not made in God's image.

Once again, laws that ban abortion in some cases don't mean it's okay to murder babies in other cases. You can only pass a law you have enough votes for. Or in some cases, enough extra votes to override a presidential veto. That's the nature of the legislative process. 

4) abortion is sin, and the answer to sin is the Gospel. The Gospel does not command us to taper off an adulterous relationship, sleeping with the mistress 4 times a week instead of 5.

Not doing what can't be done isn't equivalent to doing wrong. You keep resorting to manifest fallacies. 

\\Is (your goal) to save babies, or is it to be "uncompromising"? \\ 

It is to glorify Jesus Christ in all things. I don't see how He is glorified by saying "just make sure your needles are clean and then it's OK to murder babies."

Alan, are you so dug into your position that you can't bring yourself to argue in good faith? 

\\Should lawmakers not attempt to save any baby unless they can save every baby?\\ 

Common canard.blog.abolishhumanabortion.com/search/label/incrementalism

Alan, it's not a common canard when you keep hurling accusations of "compromise" and "worldly pragmatism." 

\\. The Amish are very uncompromising.\\ 

Obviously one can be uncompromising on wrong things in wrong ways. 

\\you're failing to distinguish between civil disobedience and the duties of a civll magistrate. A private citizen can disobey the law. \\ 

So can a civil magistrate, and what's more, he OUGHT to obey God's law, which is higher than man's. He can do what is right. The "or else" is that he MIGHT lose his job. Oh well. 

If a Christian magistrate loses his job, he can't do the things for good that only someone in a position of authority can do. If he loses his job, he can't use his lawful authority as a civil magistrate to mitigate evil. 

On the one hand you say a civil magistrate should break the law to do good. On the other hand, you say he should be prepared to lose his job. Well, which is it? If he loses his job, he can't take advantage of his job to do the kind of good that only someone in authority can do. 

\\If he breaks the law, he delegitimates his own authority.\\ 

That happens all over the country and I don't see people rising up to call that out. The people are so apathetic that you might as well be talking in the abstract, but the problem is that in the abstract he ought to disregard sinful laws in order to obey higher ones.

You're admitting that there's a lack of popular will to make things better. But in that case the abolitionist movement is a pipe dream. You can't propose a very ambitious social agenda while you simultaneously say there's no public support for your agenda. Your cynicism cancels your optimism. 

\\Why should private citizens obey a lawless magistrate?\\ 

He should obey the highest law available on the given issue.

Alan, you chronically miss the point. You think a civil magistrate should issue extralegal orders to ban abortion or "send military to padlock and guard murder facilities." The question is, why should soldiers or civilians obey unlawful orders? The only authority a civil magistrate has to tell other people what to do is lawful authority. When he exceeds his lawful authority, he has no more authority to order people around than one private citizen has to order another private citizen around.

\\"And he can send military to padlock and guard murder facilities."i) He has no legal authority to do that. \\ 

So?

i) Alan, you keep missing the point. What's the difference between a civil magistrate and a private citizen? A magistrate has the legal authority to make other people (under him) do things. The moment he steps outside his legal mandate, he's in no position to tell them what they must do. 

ii) You confuse doing the right thing with obeying civil authorities. If you just do the right thing, that's not because you were obeying orders. You were doing the right thing because it was the right thing to do.

By contrast, the only reason to obey an order is either because the magistrate has lawful authority over you, or because he can resort to brute force to compel compliance. The power of gov't derives from the implicit threat of coercive force, viz. fines, imprisonment, the military, police powers, confiscation of property. 

\\ii) That would create a backlash which would sweep all conservatives out of power in the next two or three election cycles\\ 

How do you know that? Maybe God would honor the man's faithfulness. 

"Maybe"? There's no biblical promise that if we do the right thing, God will back us up (in this life). Scripture is rife with examples of faithful Jews and Christians who are cut down for doing the right thing. We should always to the right thing, but not with the expectation that God will back us up (in this life). 

He needs to do the right thing and let God sort out the future consequences.

You keep begging the question of what's the right thing to do in that situation. 

\\And they'd use that to strike down any restrictions on abortion, nationalize voluntary and involuntary euthanasia, revoke religious liberty, revoke parental rights, ban guns, &c. \ 

You're dealing according to worldly wisdom here. 

That's one of your favorite tropes, Alan. An intellectual shortcut. 

A basic problem is that your position is self-contradictory. On the one hand you say you want to abolish abortion. Nothing short of wholesale abolition will suffice. And you think strategy and tactics of the prolife movement are too ineffective to achieve the goal. On the other hand, when people raise practical questions about the effectiveness of your alternative methods, you dismiss that as "worldly wisdom" or "pragmatism."

Well, which is it, Alan? Do you or don't you care about effective methods? You seem to care about effective methods when you attack the mainstream prolife movement, but when we evaluate the effectiveness of AHA, that's suddenly verboten. 

\\For instance, Planned Parenthood refuses to notify the authorities of statutory rape allegations. That's a huge legal liability. And that's hard for liberals to defend. \\ 

That's been known about for like 6 years, and look at the effect it's had. Virtually none.

Alan, your'e not arguing in good faith. The question is not whether it's been known about. The question at issue is not the effect of it's being known about. The question, as I framed it, is what would happen if DOJ or state attorneys general launched criminal investigations. 

\\iv) I'm sure abortion clinics cover up botched abortions. That should be investigated. \\ 

Don't be naive. 

Alan, you're not wiser than I am. You need to drop the spiritual pride and condescension. 

Those have been known about without doubt for decades. And look at the effect it's had. Virtually none.

Once again, Alan, you're not arguing in good faith. The question at issue is what would happen if that was subject to criminal investigation–and prosecution.  

\\To take a comparison, how many babies are saved by picketing abortion clinics?\\ 

1) Quite a few.2) "Saving babies" is not my primary concern. Glorifying and obeying Jesus is.

Well, Alan, that says it all. It lucidly and painfully illustrates my limiting case. Your ultimate objective isn't to save babies but to be uncompromising. If that's representative, then AHA could hardly be more self-contradictory. On the one hand it takes an ultraist position on abortion. It "demands" the abolition of abortion (as if demanding something will make it happen). On the other hand, the real priority is ideological purity, even at the expense of saving fewer babies or (in principle) no babies at all. 

\\Why is that legit, but legal restrictions on abortion constitute an unacceptable compromise?\\ 

For one thing, I don't say to people entering the abortion mill "it's fine if you murder your baby b/c it looks like you don't have very much money".

Alan, you constantly defame pro-lifers who are doing as much as they can.