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Remember when people were responsible for themselves? When good decisions led to good results and bad ones were met with negative consequences? Unless your parents were absentee or simply awful, you likely learned as a young child. Now a major political party is doing all it can to counteract those valuable lessons; to appoint itself Pope and grant absolution, without confession, for any bad choices people make. Absolving people of the consequences of bad behavior will only ensure more of that behavior.

Democrats are in love with abortion. Everyone has their fetishes. For them, it is the termination of human life in the womb. They celebrate it, they cheer it, and now they want you to pay for it.

Since 1976, the Hyde Amendment blocked federal tax dollars from paying for abortions. It was never really controversial, while the parties disagreed on the issue of abortion, majorities on both sides agreed that forcing people with religious objections to the ending of a child’s life was not only wrong but immoral. Anyone so inclined is free to donate as much as they want to abortion providers, but forcing those with the First Amendment protected freedom of religion to pay for something in direct conflict with their faith was a bridge too far, even for Democrats. Now doing just that is a litmus test.

Joe Biden swore his support for the Hyde Amendment was based on his deeply held Catholic faith. Always pro-abortion, the handsy former Vice President drew the line at forcing others to fund it. The core principle of his was tossed aside this week to appease the worshipers of his new religion.

The easy access to abortion serves to free people of the obvious consequence of sex. The push to force everyone else to pay for it is an attempt to absolve them of any responsibility.

Getting pregnant is as easy to avoid as being hit by a train – if you aren’t on the tracks, your odds of being run over are reduced to near-zero. Birth control is as available as candy, and just as affordable. You almost have to try to get unintentionally pregnant. Yet Democrats insist the last measure of responsibility be removed from this by providing taxpayer-funded abortions.

To complete the progressive fetish, the reason given for this push for federal funding is racism. “Poor women, especially women of color” are unable to afford a procedure Planned Parenthood says can cost as little as $350, so it’s racist. Condoms, birth control pills, and the morning after pill are significantly cheaper, and free in many cases, yet somehow these “poor women of color” somehow can’t afford that either. Could Democrats have a more condescending, racist attitude?

Of course they can afford it, some simply choose not to. They can decide to have sex but not be responsible? Same goes for the men. They’re quite capable of obtaining any or all of these options too. If you can’t, or won’t, why bother when the government is there to offer to “clean up” for your mistakes?

Abortion is a much more complicated issue than I can lay out here, and so are all the other ways in which the political left offers absolution from responsibility. But there is a constant: If you remove consequences from an action you will get more of it. As drug use has been legalized or decriminalized, the streets of liberal cities have devolved into minefields of needles and human feces.

Remove the threat of enforcement of immigration laws and you get ever-growing waves of illegal aliens. Remove punishment for states and localities defying federal immigration laws and you get sanctuaries from coast to coast. Remove the repercussions of bad life choices and you get more people looking to the government to absolve them of everything else.

Insulation from consequences perverts the soul. The Democratic Party is offering blanket absolution; If your life is not what you think it should be, it’s not a result of the choices you’ve made or actions you’ve taken, it’s the system that’s rigged against you. But don’t worry, the people in positions of power who’ve created the system are there to bless you with promises of more -- only this time it’ll work.

The fact remains that, with very rare exceptions, if people want to point the finger of blame at the cause of most of their hardships and problems then they need only find the nearest reflective surface. No amount of pandering, flip-flopping, taxpayer money, or political promises is ever going to change that.

Derek is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe! Friday’s show featured a great interview with Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center, check it out here) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses. It’s available now in hardcover, the paperback will be released June 18.