We’re Going to Need a Bigger Tent
The moment in the movie Jaws where we first get a glimpse of how huge that shark really is, occurs when Chief Brody, shoveling chum into the water, is surprised when the shark surfaces and the beast’s mouth looks like it could swallow Quint’s boat with very little trouble.
“We’re going to need a bigger boat,” says Brody.
Such a moment may have arrived for many conservatives. The size and scope of the problems facing America, facing the Republican Party, and facing conservatism could finally wake up many on the right who have been kidding themselves that conservatism and the party through which its ideas and principles are made flesh would find revival in shrinking its numbers rather than expanding them.
We’re going to need a bigger tent if the GOP and conservatism are going to make a comeback.
Not exactly an earth-shatteringly original idea, but you’ve got to crawl before you can leap tall buildings in a single bound. And since this is one of the fundamental debates about “whither the GOP” and “where goeth conservatism,” we should never tire of bringing up the subject nor flag in our efforts to reach a consensus.
The reuniting of social conservatives and libertarians as a necessary step in making conservatism relevant again was one of the conclusions drawn by an interesting gathering of conservative politicians, pundits, and intellectuals at a symposium sponsored by the Hudson Institute’s Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal last week. Entitled “Making Conservatism Credible Again,” a stellar panel that included Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (one of the more interesting conservative politicians in the country in my book), American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks, conservative writer Yuval Levin, and the longtime editor at the National Review, Rich Lowry. Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan also addressed the group but had pressing business on the Hill and couldn’t stay to participate in the panel discussion.
Both Ryan and Daniels believe in a more pragmatic brand of conservatism and there have been whispers about both possibly throwing their hat in the ring in 2012. Daniels will no doubt get a serious look by the party. He’s a populist without being a class warrior. He’s conservative but uses a different vocabulary to talk about his principles and beliefs than anyone else that comes to mind. He reminds me a little of Sarah Palin in how he can connect to working class Americans.
But at the moment, Daniels has quashed any such speculation, saying during the symposium: “I’ve only ever run for or held one office. It’s the last one I’m going to hold.” Not exactly Shermanesque in its certainty, but good enough for now.
Presidential politics aside, the group was diverse enough to make the discussion a worthwhile attempt to examine the state of conservatism from several different points of view and come up with a rough consensus on some of the things that Republicans could be doing to get back in the game.
The event got underway with each participant giving some opening remarks and after reading them, you would be excused if you felt you needed a double dose of Prozac. All agreed that the Republican Party had a long way to go to become viable again. All agreed that in order to regain credibility, conservatism had to first reunite the warring factions (something it was pointed out that Reagan did successful following the defeat of Gerald Ford). Beyond that, all agreed that conservatism had to become credible again by addressing the needs and concerns of ordinary Americans.
Again, nothing very radical or surprising. But I found that reading over how each participant saw conservatism, how they defined it, to be a wonderful exercise in positive reinforcement.
For instance, here’s Rep. Ryan on “the great conservative purpose of government:”
Nowhere was the Western tradition epitomized more memorably than in our Declaration of Independence. By “the laws of nature and of nature’s God,” all human beings are created equal, not in height, or skills, or knowledge, or color, or other nonessentials, but equal in certain inalienable rights — to live, to be free, and to fulfill their best individual potential, including the right to the “material” such as property needed to do this. Each individual is unique and possesses rights and dignity. There are no group or collective right in the Declaration. Nor does basic human equality imply “equal result.” It means “equal opportunity”: every person has a right not to be prevented from pursuing happiness, from developing his or her potential. The results should differ from one to another because “justice” or “fairness” is giving each individual what each has earned or merited. That’s what fairness is.
The great conservative purpose of government is to secure these natural rights under popular consent. Protecting every person’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness should be the great and only mission of legitimate government.
Ryan also gave one of the best rationales I’ve seen for why the social cons and libertarians need each other:
A “libertarian” who wants limited government should embrace the means to his freedom: thriving mediating institutions that create the moral preconditions for economic markets and choice. A “social issues” conservative with a zeal for righteousness should insist on a free market economy to supply the material needs for families, schools, and churches that inspire moral and spiritual life. In a nutshell, the notion of separating the social from the economic issues is a false choice. They stem from the same root.
Both great wings of conservatism need each other. They complement and complete each other. A prosperous moral community is a prerequisite for a just and ordered society and the idea that either side of this current divide can exist independently is a mirage.
Some of the best thinking coming from the symposium occurred when panelists gave rational and reasoned critiques of the “shock and awe statism” of the first few months of the Obama administration. PJ Media blogger Roger Kimball was at the symposium and summarizes Arthur Brooks’ thoughts on Obama’s attacks on free market capitalism:
Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and the panels moderator, articulated two core points: 1) a defense of the capitalist system has to be made primarily in moral not economic terms and 2) conservatism needs to offer not only criticism of left-liberal policies but also practical answers to real-life questions.
The meaning of debt?
Start counting dollars as minutes or hours in the trillions and the scope becomes insanity in math vs. reality checks. What was earth like 5 trillion hours ago? Amoeba dance? Hell, what was earth like 5 MILLION years ago?
Is there a fiscal conservative in the Repub party who is willing to fight the good fight for our Country? The Repub-Lite ‘big-tent’ crowd just further us towards a ‘one-party’ system. I’m not too keen on detaching myself from everything I believe so that we end up with another McCain part deux. Yaknow?
“…conservatives must find a way to connect with ordinary Americans again.” Find a way? Gee, a puzzle, or does this just reveal a mighty disconnect between intellectual masturbation and reality. Stop with the condescending attitude. Wither the GOP is a game for James Carville and David Frum. Like the poker guys says, don’t play the other guy’s game. Us peasants already know where we want to go. The Beltway GOP will be the last to figure it out. Who can rally the conservative base, appeal to independents and working class Democrats? Who inspires such affection and confidence that people will happily wait in line for hours to fill an arena to hear their standard bearer? Who freaks out the snobs of both parties with a wink and annoys the hell out of The Messiah and His minions? You know who.
In Europe right wingers are making huge gains by being fiscally conservative and moderate on social issues. We should do the same.
The GOP is going to have difficulty bringing conservatives and libertarians back into the fold as long as it keeps putting eunuchs into leadership positions.
Every year there is more regulation, more erosion of sovereignty, more nanny-state intrusion. As long as the GOP sales pitch is to give away the farm at a slower rate, count me out. I won’t stand with jellyfish, because jellyfish can’t and won’t stand up.
The political cowardice the GOP displays is pathetic. Try being proactive on America’s founding principles and less reactive to a hostile and malicious agenda driven media for a change. They might be surprised by the results.
I’m not gonna support a bunch of eunuchs because ‘the other guys are worse’ anymore. What a betrayal that turned to to be!
If I see another of these “why we need to be a big tent” articles, I’m gonna puke! See how well it worked in the last election w/ demo-party light. See how well it worked in CA w/ AAARH-nold… This is a permanent way to lose elections. Enough already!
Another article on another day that clearly illustrates that the Republican Party is not even close to being ready to lead our country again.
In fashion similar to those who, through time, find God’s Commandments and His Word a little too restrictive, they divide themselves up into small groups, or church denominations that “adjust God” in order for Him to better suit their ideas and ways of living.
In less than 4 months Obama has given the Republican Party huge opportunities to unite our nation like a rock into one single voice of electoral rejection. But, as indicated within this article, the established GOP continues to demand that the best way to clean a house is fill its rooms with more and more trash.
Alas, the last hope now is that Obama’s actions will punish the liberals themselves into getting rid of him and his administration.
How well the ruling GOP can adjust to a governing body of brother against brother, sister against sister and mother against daughter remains to be seen.
“Conservatives are out of power in Washington in a way that we have not been in a long time — fifteen years or so.” During the period from 1995 to 2007, when the Republicans held Congress and/or the White House, what conservative reforms were there? Did government shrink? Did freedom expand? Or did the same trend toward bigger government and less freedom continue, albeit at an arguably slower pace?
Conservatives/Republicans need some principles and goals – such as those embodied in the 1994 Contract with America. We don’t just need to get back into power, we need to seek power for a purpose, and that purpose has to be more than just expanding the number of government jobs held by Republicans.
Americans have been too content to have Washington and the state capitals run their lives. There is little public appreciation for the moral and pragmatic superiority of capitalism and freedom. Conservatives/Republicans will not make real progress until they begin to sell the Freedom Gospel: Salvation through free people and free markets, not through comprehensive government control directed by a Messianic leader.
> [Ryan] “A ‘libertarian’ who wants limited government should embrace the means to his freedom: thriving mediating institutions that create the moral preconditions for economic markets and choice. A ‘social issues’ conservative with a zeal for righteousness should insist on a free market economy to supply the material needs for families, schools, and churches that inspire moral and spiritual life.”
I think libertarian conservatives hate religious conservatives as much as liberals do. That seems like a shame to me, especially since religious conservatives are mostly trying to raise their own kids with their own values, trying hard not to allow overbearing government and the popular culture to undermine their hard work.
Though abstrusely worded, it seems to me that Ryan sees what I see: libertarianism is not the morally-neutral paradigm libertarians seem to imagine it is. The proposition that people should be as free as possible, as unencumbered by government decision-making as possible, is due to a belief that freedom is worthwhile both for its own sake, and more productive from an economic perspective. But buried within that are twin notions of the dignity of mankind and a demand for respect for that dignity. As such, this is a moral vision. Because there are always those who do not respect the rights (itself a moral concept) of others, there will always be a need to *impose* that moral vision on others who, in practice, do not share it.
Liberals have a moral vision, too, and you can’t defeat a moral vision without a moral vision. But sorry, the world is not values-free. Libertarians need to figure out which side will be more supportive or at least less destructive of the freedom they cherish and take a side. As for Christians, we have to render unto God what is God’s. I love this country and despise what is being done to it, but Christians have seen this before. The United States was a bold idea and has had a fantastically good run; I hope that run continues for a much longer time, but it won’t if we keep heading down this path. The U.S. has always looked permanent; now all of a sudden, it doesn’t. When Jesus was about to be arrested and crucified, He spoke of His world-wide church as if He knew what it was to become. Empires rise and empires fall, but the Word of the Lord abides forever.
Conservatives are, well, conservative. Majority of Americans lead conservative lives (except folks like David Carradine). This is all intellectual elitism. Imho, “libertarians” and “social conservatves”, where they exist at all, are in the tiny group of political pundits. The vast majority of non-pundits are mixed in every use of the term. They live in the real world of 8 t0 5 work. It would be really great if the pundits go build their little umbrella “tent” somewhere and argue with themselves – sort of like that old joke about one group in heaven thinking they’re the only ones here.
Elections are as much about who to vote against as who to vote for. With this nonsense of “big tent” you’d think you’d see the Democrats running folks like Hugh Hewitt and have a President that is pro-life. Or have folks that are anti-union. Or …
To emphasize the last part of what Bob #7 says…
From the article:
“Yuval Levin had this thought:
…
If we can make that case in a way that really explains what it is that they’re saying when they say that socialism makes more sense that capitalism, if we can explain what it is that we’re arguing about in these terms, and talk about debt in a way that speaks to their lives — I mean, it has always been a problem to explain the meaning of debt in the abstract, but we’re getting to a point where the meaning of debt is not in the abstract. The meaning of debt is very, very real, and the effect on the next generation is growing easier and easier to explain. It still makes for a kind of dull economic argument, but if conservatives can find a way to speak in the language of youth about the meaning and the effect of all of this, I think that will speak to some younger voters.”
It’s a 2-sided coin: not carrying the burden of federal debt AND freedom. Emphasize the connection.
Also: Emphasize the … ahem … “common enemy.”
Mr. Moran:
“Both great wings of conservatism need each other. They complement and complete each other.”
Perhaps so, but there won’t be any “complementing” or “completing” when the conservative base is served up a RINO like McCain.
You post, yet again, (and how many of these type of posts have you written now?), that the GOP needs a bigger tent.
That all depends on whether you want to start finding reasons to support conservatives and choose candidates that represent their agenda, rather than finding reasons to support democrats.
“…conservatism to make its way back to credibility.”
You’ve got it backwards…it isn’t for the conservative movement to re-establish its’ credibility, but rather for moderates to re-examine which philosophy best suits their aims.
I think the Alleged Hawaiian’s administration will go a long, long way towards helping that re-evaluation.
“All agreed that in order to regain credibility, conservatism had to first reunite the warring factions (something it was pointed out that Reagan did successful following the defeat of Gerald Ford).”
Reagan did surprisingly little to unite the GOP, Mr. Moran. The Rockefeller/career politician wing of the Party simply had nowhere else to go.
And Carter’s policies were bad enough that the electorate was frankly disgusted with his floundering around. Couple that with the mauling that Ted Kennedy inflicted on Carter throughout the 1980 primaries for not being “Liberal ENOUGH”, and Reagan’s victory was largely assured.
People tend to forget that we owe the Age of Reagan in no small part to Ted Kennedy’s candidacy.
A record debt hit a high in 2007. The economy is inherited from the last administration. Ronald Reagan was the first president to increase our deficit into the abyss. So shut up! Bill Clinton halted debt and we had a surplus before dopey George took over.
Republicans love, from what I have observed, wanting a 3rd world country, where there is rich and poor. They want unwed mothers without welfare, and they want war instead of peace, and it is everyman for himself-working meager wages without pensions, healthcare, or social security. They would just assume having a Christian government like the Taliban. This is a dark world my friend.
If you use the “DMV Medicine” argument, you won’t take New Jersey. NJ fixed the DMV a few years ago. Now you can get through in fiv minutes if you go at a time when they are not too busy.
As a social liberal (in most regards) and a fierce conservative otherwise, I don’t see how the social cons can play nice with the libertarians unless the two groups can ‘agree to disagree’ on the social issues, or at least find a balance whereas social cons won’t push for any expansion of government or of regulation in general to achieve their social goals, but rather are willing to work within a libertarian framework, for example to lobby for laws whereas the federal and state governments will agree it is none of their business to regulate social behavior and the libertarians will (naturally) agree that they won’t get involved in expanding any federal regulation of social issues, and will leave such issues to the states.
Both parties can be pleased if the states are given primacy over the federal government, so as each state can vote for the norms and social policies they want so long as they aren’t in opposition to already established federal laws.
The main goal of both the social cons and the libertarians should be to stop the growth of federal government, which is the poison that will destroy both groups. As the government assumes the roles traditionally left to church and family, social cons and libertarians will both see their interests smothered by the nanny-state. It’s time to take the power back and give it to the people, to the states. Otherwise, our boats are sunk.
Nobody wants anymore go along get along Republicans.
And nobody wants anymore CONservative governMENt.
They both paved the way for the left by compromising.
Does anybody see any compromise from the Democrats or Obama?
The GOP message was nothing but BS, and the current leaders are still hosing the people they are suppose to be serving.
Teensy tent. Itty bitty tent. Iiittty biittty teensy tent. Just big enough for some pent-up rage and a couple of Glocks. Maybe a bag of Cheetos and a baloney sandwich with real American mustard.
Back in the days of Barry Goldwater, “conservatism” was too small a movement to parse between “libertarians” and “conservatives.”
Identifiable new-comers piling on to the Goldwater bandwagon were groups like YAF who later came to be known as “social conservatives.” Goldwater held his nose and welcomed them.
Today these social conservatives point a finger at disillusioned “liberals” turned “conservative” and deride them for “neocons.” The social conservatives proudly style themselves “paleocons.”
Everyone knows that neocon is a euphemism for Jew that brings both “liberals” and “paleocons” to foaming at the mouth. Less openly acknowledged is that “paleocon” is a euphemism for Roman Catholic.
Underlying subtleties of distinction include the facts that that “neocon” are, in the main, non-practicing Jews while “paleocons” are, in the main, active soldiers of the Church.
Today “social conservatism” has come to include Christian Evangelicals. The Protestants were brought aboard through a vigorous, well funded anti-abortion campaign by mass-marketing savvy Catholics. Abortion is the single issue that unifies social conservatives.
To a “conservative” Jew like me the issue of abortion doesn’t resonate. I have three daughters and I don’t expect any of them to ever need an abortion. If any of them they did I’d expect her to follow her conscience.
“Pro life” is not how this Jew views a celibate priesthood who traffic in relics and stood deafeningly silent and complicit while millions were gassed burned. Christian Evangelicals, who practicing Jews view with affection and no small amazement, may choose to bed down with such. This “conservative” Jew does not.
My father was a European-trained rabbi who lived under communism. He called socialism godless Christianity and warned me off it as a boy.
So, thanks-but-no-thanks for the offer of shelter under your big tent, Rick. There’s an old YAF guy in there named Pat Buchanan and I find his stench offputting.
Call me misanthropic but I’ve got a tent of my own.
Rick, it seems to me that you are missing a pretty big point and that is that it isn’t conservatism that needs to find credibility again, it is the Republican Party that needs to find credibility again. There is nothing wrong with conservatism, thank you very much; but there is PLENTY of flaws in the Republican Party.
I’ve never advocated throwing out the libertines (losertarians) and their ilk. They constantly in the most abjectly negative terms advocate expelling me and mine ( pro-lifers). Don’t tell me I gotta give up living for what is right and true and good so the pubbies can win elections. Better dead than red.
Nope. Secession is a better idea. The big tent folks can stay with the DC crowd. If we have to have a civil war so be it as well. It ain’t just politics any more. We’re being enslaved. Shoot, we ARE enslaved.
Back in the days of Barry Goldwater, “conservatism” was too small a movement to parse between “libertarians” and “conservatives.”
Identifiable new-comers piling on to the Goldwater bandwagon were groups like YAF who later came to be known as “social conservatives.” Goldwater held his nose and welcomed them.
Today these social conservatives point a finger at disillusioned “liberals” turned “conservative” and deride them for “neocons.” The social conservatives proudly style themselves “paleocons.”
Everyone knows that neocon is a euphemism for Jew that brings both “liberals” and “paleocons” to foaming at the mouth. Less openly acknowledged is that “paleocon” is a euphemism for Roman Catholic.
Underlying subtleties of distinction include the facts that that “neocon” are, in the main, non-practicing Jews while “paleocons” are, in the main, active soldiers of the Church.
Today “social conservatism” has come to include Christian Evangelicals. The Protestants were brought aboard through a vigorous, well funded anti-abortion campaign by mass-marketing savvy Catholics. Abortion is the single issue that unifies social conservatives.
To a “conservative” Jew like me the issue of abortion doesn’t resonate. I have three daughters and I don’t expect any of them to ever need an abortion. If any of them they did I’d expect her to follow her conscience.
“Pro life” is not how this Jew views a celibate priesthood who traffic in relics and stood deafeningly silent and complicit while millions were gassed burned. Christian Evangelicals, who practicing Jews view with affection and no small amazement, may choose to bed down with such. This “conservative” Jew does not.
My father was a European-trained rabbi who lived under communism. He called socialism godless Christianity and warned me off it as a boy.
So, thanks-but-no-thanks for the offer of shelter under your big tent, Rick. There’s an old YAF guy in there named Pat Buchanan and I find his stench offputting.
Call me misanthropic but I’ve got a tent of my own.
It’s all about turnout. I would definitely identify more with the libertarian segment of the political spectrum (I view politics through the lens of the Public Choice and Law and Economics schools and think all other political analysis is unsophisticated tripe, including any and everything the Left has to offer), but to get real numbers of people who would otherwise not vote, I think you do need a fire-breather like Palin.
I’m fine with that. I’d rather have 75% of what I want with someone like that in office than 0% of what I want with Obama and Co. in office.
With the support of 90% of the media Barack Obama is destroying America’s economy and position in the world and once again Moran writes about how Republicans need to build a bigger tent by weakening their core principles.
What’s needed is to kill the shark and restrict leadership positions to those who hold fast to the core principles not build a bigger tent that’s unable to even recognize the dangers posed by the shark.
Lead and the people will follow.
The Founding Fathers managed the trick of uniting social conservatives (which they mostly were) with libertarians such as Jefferson. They did not do it by working out a compromise on what prayers were to be mandated, they took the literally revolutionary position that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. They did it by showing social conservatives that political liberty was what was best for Christianity, and founding what became the most Christian nation on Earth, for over a century; despite the fact that all other Christian nations had state-mandated religions.
Christianity does not thrive when Christianity is mandated, it withers. No human government has ever gotten it right, nor ever will. But it would still wither even if our consciences were forced perfectly in line with God’s principles, because force impedes the development of our own consciences.
Christianity charity has withered in America over the past century as the government has mandated welfare. The Christian principle of temperance took a terrible blow from the WCTU and Prohibition. Christian love and decency are both hurt by assault laws; if I refrain from beating the crap out of Guy Cimbalo, it’s not because of my Christian principles but because I don’t want to be arrested. In a debate over gay marriage a friend said, “If it’s legal how will my kids know it’s wrong?” If anyone thinks that just because it’s legal it’s OK, he is going to be damned.
The clearest current example of this is gay marriage.
Christian marriage has already been terribly hurt by the government defining marriage, because of easy government divorce. The true, principled American way of dealing with this is not to legislatively allow or deny gay marriage, it is for conservatives to stop the government from claiming to define marriage at all. Judges should be not be capable of performing marriages under the First and Fourteenth amendments, only civil unions whether the couple is gay or straight. Marriage is God’s venue, not Clinton’s, Bush’s, Obama’s, or any judge’s.
There’s a more basic issue than that. As Walter Williams said, you’ll never win the argument against statism unless you make the case for the moral righteousness of freedom. The statists, aka “democrats”, view freedom as a disposable means to an end. They don’t believe that it has any intrinsic moral value. Until everyone understand freedom as a bedrock moral issue, the guy playing Santa Claus will attract the crowd every time.
Once you understand that, the right to free enterprise follows as a moral right.
We have a real problem with the extreme social conservative side (exemplified by Huckabee) because many don’t seem to understand the fundamental nature of this.
Trying to organize libertarians is like hearding cats. I gave up on the Libertarian party long ago. I think it may actually be best for libertarians not to organize under either party but to maintain a visible presence in both.
Social conservatives have been extraordinarily patient and extremely willing to utilize a big tent for nearly 40 years now, only to see the country go down further and further into the sewer while lip service is given to their concerns, but NOTHING is done to actually address them.
It is long past time for the libertarians, with their roots in elitistism, to start being willing to play nice with social conservatives. Most social conservatives are, quite naturally, also economic conservatives, but the reverse is rarely true.
One answer is sure to fail — the answer posited by the big tenters these last 20 years — that of ideological relativism. If we are going to be in a “big tent” (singular), then it must be understood that the “tent” stands for something, that it stands for a single principle or single set of like principles, and that all manner of people come into that tent of principle, leaving aside all ideas that are contrary to those principles. It cannot mean that everyone brings in their own principles if they are contrary to the tent itself. That would not be a “big tent,” but would, instead, be multiple tents (plural) fighting for the same space.
Make no mistake, the Republican Party was founded in a social conservative tent — the opposition to treating some human persons as utilitarian things to be disposed of as others see fit. The economic conservatives are welcome in that social conservative tent, but let’s be clear, it is a social conservative tent. And whenever some folks have torn that tent for their own relativistic purposes, it has spelled doom and defeat for the Party.
Social conservatives remain Republican only because that has been the best vehicle by which to protect social conservative principles. Social conservatives have NO desire for blood on their hands, which they would have if they pragmatically embraced an anti-social conservative party. Make the GOP an anti-social conservative tent, and you will see how small the tent would be.
Ronald Reagan in 1975 from Reason magazine.
If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.
This is the kind of story conservatives should be talking about, rather than engaging in stupid moranic navel gazing.
The Walpin Firing
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/06/023800.php
Obama is making the tent bigger and bigger all the time. What better person to drive folks to conservative principles than the shredder of the Constitution himself. All we have to do is to keep watching Obama keep doing what he is doing.
We will need no tent, the People’s Republic will give us comfortable barracks.
Lee Dise #8 and scott #19
I think you ought to read QuickRob #14. Hatred for religious conservatives? I don’t see it.
I’m a socially liberal, otherwise conservative Republican who’s willing to do exactly what QuickRob suggests: leave the social issues to the states. Even though I’m pro-choice, I’ll support overturning Roe v. Wade on the basis of its dubious Constitutionality.
Why can’t you live with that?
Gov. Sarah Palin is a western libertarian/conservative who happens to be a Christian.
She is the bigtent candidate for the GOP. If they united under her banner, both libertarians and conservatives would support.
Anybody who has studied Alaska and Palin knows she is a socon, but keeps to the Constitution of her state. She is the biggest proponent of business and free-market capitalism out there.
She also fits right in with the Tea Party Movement.
The planets are totally aligning for Sarah, the USA, libertarians, socons, and other conservative strains.
All this infighting among conservatives and Republicans seems to boil down to whether you guys want to embrace a more widely salable libertarian/Atlas Shrugged philosophy of minimal government, maximum personal privacy & liberty, and laissez faire economics; or instead something more narrow-minded but friendly to the religious right, which is now a very large and reliable core part of Republican support. Libertarians are to Republicans what progressives are to Democrats: if we had a parliamentary form of government, they would likely have their own separate parties and form alliances as needed or desired. But we don’t, and consequently 3rd parties always get marginalized as election day draws near (although they may act as spoilers, as Ralph Nader did in 2000).
It’s actually a not bad philosophical conundrum, as far as conundrums go,but it seems more and more obvious that giving the religious right too much sway, especially if they keep up their uncompromising, and relatively extreme viewpoints, will likely doom Republicans to minor party status for a while, especially if Obama does well riding out the economic mess of a bucking horse that was handed to him.
And to Terry Gain: Byron York has not been right (so to speak) about anything, ever, including now.
“Both great wings of conservatism need each other. They complement and complete each other.”
Not if “social conservatives” consider government the proper means by which to advance on the norms of personal conduct they value so highly.
As a conservative (and a Catholic), I value traditional wisdom about personal good conduct highly. As a libertarian, I reject and oppose the use of force to compel others to behave as I would prefer them to behave (except, of course, for the punishment of crimes of violence, theft, fraud, and abuse of the helpless). The “social conservative” who agrees with me is my beloved brother…but the “social conservative” who wants to use the police powers of the State to enforce laws against private sexual conduct, private use of intoxicants, private gambling, private irreligion, and the like is no fellow-traveler of mine.
Libertarians, in short, cannot make common cause with social-cons who don’t understand and appreciate privacy.
In recent years, “social conservatism” has begun to shed some of its indefensible political extensions, a positive development. Eventually, it will coalesce around wholly defensible positions and defensible uses of government power: banning second and third-trimester abortions, acting against the abuse of children, defending women against spousal abuse, and similar mala in se. At that point, there’ll no longer be a significant cleavage between libertarians and social-cons. Because, in case no one else has noticed, this isn’t Iran. It isn’t even 17th century Massachusetts.
Rick, You really need to stop pretending to be a conservative and go back to your true home: The Democrat Party. We do not need you.
The snake-oil you are peddling is a recipe for defeat.
@BC
if Obama does well riding out the economic mess of a bucking horse that was handed to him.
… to complete the metaphor, and in the interest of honesty, wouldn’t it be wise to acknowledge that the first thing this inexperienced horse trainer did was to put another dozen burrs under the saddle.
And BC your Byron York link ( mine was to Power Line who are very reliable) does not explain why Obama did not give 30 days notice to Congress of his intention to fire Walpin as required by law. I found find the letter from the Acting U.S. Attorney less convincing than you did. He points to his experience as the standard by which to judge Walpin’s actions rather than the statutory law which created the Inspector General Office and which I presume would define the powers and responsibilities, and the limitations thereon, of Inspectors General.
Moderates vs. Conservatives is feud being fought for no good reason.
This is the solution to make both sides happy:
BRING HOME THE POLITICIANS!
Enough of saying “Enough is Enough” It’s time to bring them home!
We, hereby, demand and will pursue the relocation of all US Representatives and Senators to spend no less than 75% of their time in elected office in our State Capitals to telecommute via secured phone, fax, email, and web conference with their federal counterparts.
On the Local level, State Representatives and Senators will be relocated to spend no less than 75% of their time in elected office in the City Halls or Court Houses of our Districts to likewise telecommute with their state counterparts.
This will essentially “embed” politicians among the people they’re supposed to represent
allowing them to always be informed with our communities’ positions on each issue and
be within close reach to voice our opposition when necessary.
Restores Balance of Power – Citizens are put back in charge of this country.
Nonpartisan – This plan favors no political party since all need to be reigned in.
Anti-Lobbying – Lobbyists spend most of their budget on travel expenses.
Reduce Corruption – Citizens/Local Media resume their role as government watch dog.
Cost Effective – The cost of upgrading state and local facilities for this plan is dwarfed by the savings from stopping out of control government spending.
National Security – Any natural disaster or assault on DC would be far less catastrophic because it would be taking down only one server on a grid of 51.
If not now, then when? From this day forth when you hear someone
complaining about the government, tell them to:
“BRING HOME THE POLITICIANS!”
Here’s the official site:
http://www.bringhomethepoliticians.com/
Petition site:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/bringhomethep…
YouTube promo clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHpJxRIh8hQ
Obama and the free market of capitalism is safe, simply because he is saving the system from itself. Patch it up with regulation, watch the greed factor from biting its rear end and rounding up the criminals. It may look like a socialist move, but in reality, it is turning the Titanic away from the iceberg. You do not see our capitalistic banks or auto companies saying they do not need any money?
And we still have a world wide 500 trillion dollar loss from the last eight years of prosperity (?)
Obama just entered into the picture of a burning economic hell. I am sure he did not want to start his presidency in a recovery mode. His methods of getting us out of the hole is opitimistic at best, with reality kicking us in the teeth when bad earnings or job reports hit the street.
As far as the tent; it is a circus tent that you speak? One with loose elephants and clowns running around not knowing with direction is safe…and people screaming, and running for the exit sign?
Get a grip!-Republicans are lost and looking for one good sign for themselves. After a floundering eigth years, with a president that half of this country was too embarassed to comprehend as president…I am so glad that era is over.
Everyone’s barking up the wrong tree. The problem isn’t fitting all of the Republicans in the Republican tent. Those who are reliable (R) voters have, by definition, learned to live with the entire coalition.
The challenge is how to not scare the rather large number of independents away. Sometimes this means not saying things, even when you think that they’re true.
Case in point: I think Bobby Jindal is brilliant, and exactly the kind of management nerd that we need heading up the federal bureaucracy. Note that I didn’t say a thing about his politics. But when he bites the bait set for him by the MSM, and says that ID is a viable theory, he’s doing exactly what the donx want him to do.
Sometimes brilliant technocrats are unbelievably inept politicians. Like it or not, an off-the-cuff (and honest) statement can send independents running for the tent with the cool kids.
The size and makeup of the tent is a distraction. What we need is a bull pen of people who won’t scare the independents. That takes an instinct for politics that’s rare. We need a communicator. A sharp mind; someone who can give an intelligent answer without a teleprompter and a rehearsal, would be a big plus.
If Newt could mellow, he’d be a good choice. The other rising star who would do well is Eric Cantor. I’m afraid that Jindal’s already crapped in his cornflakes, and Palin may or may not be rehibilitatable after the number the media on her.
38. acj,
Hey, unsinkable Molly Brown! No life-boat for you!
Girlie man Zero is steering the iceberg to the ship since he has no clue how to steer America even with all of his ‘vast’ job experiences prior to becoming Prez *cough-cough*. Backwards boy will be living high on the hog while you are treading water and yelling for help. Don’t say I never warned ya.
Happy drowning!
Oy gevalt, another hurdle for conservatives. If they don’t make nicey nicey with libertarians (that miniscule cuckoobird fringe) they’ll be on the outside looking in…forever! Wrong. Conservatives just have to be conservatives, unapologetic conservatives – not Rick Moran embarrassed to be conservative conservatives – and they’ll do fine.
scott said: I’ve never advocated throwing out the libertines (losertarians) and their ilk.
See, this is the problem. I hold no hostility to social conservatives whatsoever, and choose to practice most of their beliefs. But some of you social conservatives hate us to the core.
Most libertarians do not advocate libertine behavior whatsoever. We do advocate freedom and liberty, and agree with the Founding Fathers that these are inalienable rights given to us by our Creator.
We have the same enemy, folks: Statism. The soft tyranny of liberalism.
This is a theme that Rich Moran likes to beat on frequently. He tries to be subtle about it, as he is being in this op ed piece, but Mr. Moran really, really does not like conservative Christians and he sets up this dichotomy between libertarians and social conservatives as his way of registering his own personal protest against Christians.
I’m relatively new to the conservative movement. I did not start feeling drawn towards more conservative views until the late nineties and I did not switch parties until 2002. In early adulthood I was on the Far Left, so I’ve traversed some ground. Religiously, I’m a Catholic who is all over the map theologically, depending on the issue. Nevertheless, even though I am not a conservative, evangelical Christian I share some of their concerns and values. Others I do not. And I am not uncomfortable making common cause, where and when possible, with them. It really is not a big issue with me. I don’t fear them at all and do not see conservative Christians as a threat to me. I have more in common with them than I do with the Far Left post-modernist cultural Marxists (even though I once was a Marxist).
As for the libertarians, again, I don’t line up with them perfectly. I share some of their concerns and values, but not all of them. Again, as with the conservative Christians, we have a basis for a shared vision of America.
This isn’t rocket science, Mr. Moran. The fit does not have to be perfect. All one needs is a good grasp of the fact that generally smaller government and a more moral culture (and you don’t have to legislate morality; just teach it to your kids)make for a more prosperous and harmonious America than would the combination of European socialism and cultural hedonism.
The Democratic Party has nothing to offer me. I may share some of the concerns of more conservative or moderate Democrats, but now that party has drifted so far to the Left that I just cannot see myself ever going back there again.
So, the coming years are going to really clarify some things. Are we really now a more Left-of-center nation? Or are we in a period of confusion and trying to sort out who we really are. One thing is for sure: Generations X (56% for Obama) and Y (68% for Obama) are definitely Left-of-center, but this is reflective of the influence their educations have had on them.
Will life provide very different lessons for them and will they “get it?”
Most socio-cons I know lost their shirts in the financial meltdown (due to having faith in a corrupt system), are in debt to their eyeballs and support a monetary system that is in opposition to the “Bible” they want to use government power to cram down everyone eles’s throat. They seem intent on worshiping the very “money changers” that Jesus saw fit to attack
43. fred writes:
“..I’m relatively new to the conservative movement. I did not start feeling drawn towards more conservative views until the late nineties and I did not switch parties until 2002. In early adulthood I was on the Far Left, so I’ve traversed some ground..
..So, the coming years are going to really clarify some things. Are we really now a more Left-of-center nation? Or are we in a period of confusion and trying to sort out who we really are. One thing is for sure: Generations X (56% for Obama) and Y (68% for Obama) are definitely Left-of-center, but this is reflective of the influence their educations have had on them.
Will life provide very different lessons for them and will they “get it?””
Fred,
Firstly, you are to congratulated on a thoughtfully written post. There are so many nuggets to be dug out and valued. Clearly, the ground you have covered was done so mindfully. I believe the central question in your comment — will the younger generations retain their predominantly left leanings or will the become more conservative — can be answered by looking at your own experience.
Plainly put, these young folks will graduate, get jobs, marry, have children, and, for the most part, realize how intrusive big government — Obama style — is just not their cup of tea.
Again, thank you for your thoughtful commentary.
Yet another lunatic and lunatic and lunatic . . .
AP – Jason Eugene Bush, 34, Shawna Forde, 41, and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 42, have been charged with two counts each of first-degree murder and other charges, said Sheriff Clarence Dupnic of Pima County, Ariz.
The trio are alleged to have dressed as law enforcement officers and forced their way into a rural Arivaca home on May 30, wounding a woman and fatally shooting her husband and their 9-year-old daughter.
Forde is the leader of Minutemen American Defense, a small border watch group, and Bush goes by the nickname “Gunny” and is its operations director, according to the group’s Web site. She is from Everett, Wash., has recently been living in Arizona and was once associated with the better known and larger Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.
“This was a planned home invasion where the plan was to kill all the people inside this trailer so there would be no witnesses,” Dupnic said. “To just kill a 9-year-old girl because she might be a potential witness to me is just one of the most despicable acts that I have heard of.”
How many more is it gonna take, folks?
Libertarians and Democrats are somewhat different. I believe that Democrats will hold true to capitalism, and if need be go to war, and have the ability to make laws while stepping on others “freedoms” to save society as they see fit. Sound like Republicans? yea, but we are different and have futures for our peoples that are very different.
Libertarians, while a nice idea, if in power, would have to gain structure and direction that would lead us back to being democrat. Ha,ha. So I would still pick my party. This middle would have to be tried and true, red or blue, it’s up to you, have a history of making true.
#45 — Plainly put, these young folks will graduate, get jobs, marry, have children, and, for the most part, realize how intrusive big government — Obama style — is just not their cup of tea.
The old “when they grow up” argument, variation #672. It’s wrong. It was wrong back in 1502. It’s wrong now.
The reason why it’s especially wrong in this case is that the big thing keeping people from voting GOP is the social crap. Do you not get this? It’s why Moran keeps pounding on this. The GOP **without** social crap would appeal to at least 85% of the voters.
#46 — How many more is it gonna take, folks?
There will be things found that show they’re fans of the nazis. As per the other thread, readers here live in a parallel reality; the claim will be “these are leftists, stupid” or “your [sic] such a retarded asshat.”
do de doo doo do de doo doo (twilight zone theme)
Alston
Explain what you mean by the social crap . It’s an odd way to talk about human life so some here may not understand what you mean.
Libertarians and the conservative members of the Republican Party aren’t the problem. Both groups believe in smaller government, responsible spending of taxpayer money, and following the U.S. Constitution.
It’s those that CLAIM to be Republicans that the Libertarians and Conservatives have problems with. For those that CLAIM to be Republicans but vote for more government intrusion and expansion, vote for unmanageable spending sprees and treat the U.S. Constitution as a document that changes its meaning depending upon poll results are actually assisting the left move our country towards Socialism…
I want wayyyyyyyyy less government. I don’t want to pay for an abortion via tax dollars. If you get knocked up, pay for it on your own dime and live with yourself thus forward.
I’m anti-murder. I think ‘anti-abortion’ loses its gloss when we even use the word ‘abortion’ at all.
That being said, I want the government shrivel and give us the basics.
#49 — Explain what you mean by the social crap. It’s an odd way to talk about human life so some here may not understand what you mean.
Social crap: Many years back the culture warriors lost on school prayer. Nearly 50 years back your culture war brethern lost fighting against the pill. 36 years ago the culture warriors lost on the abortion issue, which was also part of the war against the pill. In the past decade or so a proposed amendment to ban flag burning was met with derisive laughter, as was culture warrior attempts to subvert science teaching in schools with “Intelligent Design.” Currently you are fighting a losing battle against gays and the questions are “when will you lose?” and “how backwards are you going to appear?”
Do you see a pattern here?
Has the social crap *ever* been won by you guys? No.
That social crap.
Everyone with a point of view north of middle-of-the-road should remember the common-sense, down-to-earth advice of Ronald Reagan, and then follow it: “You should vote for the MOST CONSERVATIVE candidate…that can WIN!” This means you swallow your all-or-nothing point of view when you have to but still work to get what you want before that. We have the true “big tent” and we need to remember that. Despite what conservatives say about Arlen Specter and his fellow liberal Republicans, it’s important to remember that they still are Republicans, and just being that takes a lot in the Northeast USA. Even if they vote only part of the time with conservatives, it’s smart to recall the smart words of Hubert Humphrey: “Better half a loaf than no loaf at all”. Enough said.
> In the past decade or so a proposed amendment to ban flag burning was met with derisive laughter, as was culture warrior attempts to subvert science teaching in schools with “Intelligent Design.”
The idea is to look for clues that indicate whether an intelligence is behind what we see. And the idea that we should not look for such clues is based on a presumption, not on science. The presumption is that there can be no such clues, that wherever evidence of evolution exists, it must be presumed that it happened all on its own. So what is *really* being taught is that science believes that God to be unnecessary. Of course, no one can *prove* God is unnecessary; He is just presumed out of the picture.
But in our God-hating culture, presumptions are science. This is what I mean when I have said, in other threads, that if libertarians and free-marketers want our help, we have to agree on who the enemy is. What religious conservatives want is to be able to raise our children with our values, not those of our liberal adversaries and the bankrupt moral culture that is foisted on us.
And while liberals are attacking our cherished institutions, they are attacking libertarians’ and free marketers’ institutions as well. You’d think they would want our help to fight their battles, rather than just heckle us from the sidelines while we both get our butts kicked.
So. Want our help? Or not?
#48 G Alston does us a favor by strapping away the cant and getting down to brass tacks: this debate is a proxy for talking about “the social crap,” read abortion and gay rights.
#47 acj does us a favor by pointing out that you win with parties and institutions.
My friend fred #43 does us a favor by bringing in the youth vote.
The Republicans lost, badly, last time around for 3 main reasons. 1) A financial panic coincided with a mass hysteria that was expressed as being about race and gender but was probably more likely a reaction to the cumulative toxicity of the political environment caused by the war. 2) Republicans lost the confidence of a significant fraction of “their” populists when they started bailing out bankers while 401K’s were getting cut in half. 3) The youth vote (and particularly single women) turned out massively for the Democrats, mainly on the strength of their feelings about “social issues” and social anxieties.
Right-of-center populists will be alienated from the Democrats soon enough (if it’s not happening already). Heavy handed economic meddling without meaningful results plus a flabby foreign policy is a deadly combination for these voters.
So the only meaningful question is really, “What is the Republican Party going to say and do to attract young women?”
This endless “libertarian” versus “social conservative” debate doesn’t do anyone but the Democrats (and their false-flag socialist wing) any good. It’s the wrong frame for the issue, and we should stop it.
Self-hating Boomer (39)
I agree with you that we’re barking up the wrong tree. Part of the problem to me is the whole raft of crap surrounding the creation of a platform. With Jindal, for example, what’s wrong with the party acknowledging that knowing enough to intelligently discuss pro and con on the topic isn’t as good as demanding that the party accept a single theological answer to problem the party has no business even touching? Jindal saying that’s what he believes shouldn’t be a problem either, not when the alternative is a party where Homosexuals write books about the revival of Goddess Cults being the solution to all of our problems. More people than most think are going to chose the lesser of two evils, they’re never going to actually be pleased with either one except in rare cases and then usually for their second term. The more the republicans fall for turning into democrap lite the less way there is to make that choice, so vote for the party of the Star you see every week at the grocery checkout, it takes a lot less thought and the republicans are mumbling too much to understand.
Beyond being the lesser of two evils, without being fiscal conservatives, don’t bother with the name Republican, that’s my opinion. The same is true for the size of government and the offensives into things that are none of the Federal business anyway. How a republican kept the lid on spending when Clinton was in and went plain old, slobbering, stupid, once Bush got in can be explained only one way. They let themselves be bullied into openly agreeing with the democrats time after time about Bush, so it was a habit when it came time to vote. I don’t care if they were planning to sneak in and paint Barney the dog pink in hopes of Bush having a mental collapse, or a drive by salting of his pet slug one morning when the SS took it for a walk. Until they were ready to pick their own democrat president to replace him, they should have shut up about Bush one way or another. They also could have shown what Republicans were “supposed to be like”, by just BALANCING THE BUDGET to the identical level they had under Clinton. Shuffling their feet and looking at the ground every time Bush came up should have been punished by the party, every time. A standard line like, “he’s the Commander of Chief and we’re at war, so we leave it to him unless it comes to the Congress at his behest”, some much better crap but you get my drift, would have been mocked, jokes would have flown from the MSM, etc., etc. Democraps will be going for the Republican groin all the time anyway, why spread your legs wide, grin like a clown, and shake your head yes? They joke, muddle, lie, practice character assassination, revise history, misquote, and so on, after you agree with them. Why not find 700 ways to say, “No comment” whenever you don’t control the interview?
As for independents running off over off-the-cuff remarks, I don’t know. If they’re rabbits, they’ll be running back the next time one of the many surplus democraps loud mouths blows a comment as well, wont’ they ? Gawd, the voters do have to think on occasion, don’t they? I believe what we need is a list of what viewpoints we think are important to the solving a problem or changing the way something is done as much as we need position papers. If independents see that we don’t think Gay Rights or Hate Speech are essential to the debate on which grease and Abrams tank needs, maybe they’ll notice the minor differences between the parties on other subjects.
Thanks for the post, sorry for the rant regarding one of my hot button issues.
Regards
The Reagan coalition was the consensus of people who won elections because they put their differences in perspective as minor compared to their shared values. Our insistance on the circular firing squad, blazing away at each other, destroyed the Reagan coalition and led to the dominance by the Alinsky coalition today. If we don’t stop “fragging” each other, no consensus majority or coalition leadership can possibly emerge, and the new left aristocracy will continue to rule. Time to realize we are not in a tent; we are alone together in a foxhole, and if we do not work together, we will lose America.
We don’t need a bigger anything.
We need a pared down, essentialized, easy to understand platform, and/or set of core principles and positions.
There is plenty that nearly everybody on the right agrees on. It’s enough.
What we don’t have is a leader with teeth, brains and guts. Somebody with a clear head, sharp focus and some decent presentation skills.
Everybody seems to have an axe to grind or an excuse to make or some weird burden of unearned guilt.
We are at this point more like Imperial Rome or Weimar Germany than revolutionary America.
Getting where we need to be will not be easy. And above all it will require great economy of thought.
Oh … here’s an example of what I mean.
EVERYBODY on the right agrees that the American federal gov’t should not be paying for abortions. EVERYBODY on the right agrees that the American taxpayer should not be forced to pay for other people’s abortions.
Good enough.
Some of us think that abortion is a right. Some of us think it is murder and atrocity in the eye’s of G-d.
NOBODY thinks that the feds and the taxpayer should be paying for it.
That’s enough for an electoral win.
But do we have a leader who could sell that?
I no longer call myself a conservative, or a libertarian, or a Republican.
I am a Constitutionalist. Keep it simple, stupid, and they will come.
You cannot legislate morality; by the same token, it is not the government’s role to sanctify immorality. Morality is not relative. Either we have morals or we don’t. Right and wrong are really very simple concepts and are not subjective.
The separation of church and state is very simple: no Church of America. It does not mean oppression of religion.
Our judicial branch has a very simple function: adjudicate – not set policy or legislate. The separation of powers is paramount to keeping tyranny at bay.
It’s called the Constitution, as a contract (not “negative rights”) between the government, who are in service to the people, not the other way around. The founders didn’t call it a Suggestitution.
Our only option, in overturning the siege under which this country now suffers – at the hand of an over-reaching, over-large, over-powerful government – is to lean entirely on the Constitution. It is in that document alone where we will find life, liberty, and the opportunity to pursue happiness.
38. acj: it constantly amazes me how often folks who support Obama and all he represents come over to conservative blogs (or go to PUMA blogs) to give their two cents worth. Why is that? Could it be, gee, they KNOW their guy isn’t doing too well? Because really, acj, if Obama was that great, why do you feel the need to preach his message here? Hoping to change our minds? Hahaha! It’s reassuring to know that the left is nothing if not predictable. They mock and hate that which they fear. See ya in 2010 and in 2012!
51. Delia:
Agreed!
58. joeblough:
“We don’t need a bigger anything.”
You mean like a bigger congressional delegation? That’s what a “bigger tent” is all about. If you don’t want a bigger voice in government, by all means, batten down the hatches.
“We need a pared down, essentialized, easy to understand platform, and/or set of core principles and positions.
There is plenty that nearly everybody on the right agrees on. It’s enough.”
20% of the voting population fits your description and agrees with the whole platform. That’s the GOP “base”. The only way the GOP wins a bigger share nationwide is by bringing in enough independent moderates to keep the Democrats outnumbered – not looking very likely if the tent keeps shrinking.
Just on PJM, there are folks on the right that disagree on almost every part of the GOP platform. The public at large would actually be appalled at some of the things that it contains if they were brought to light. I do agree that a pared down platform would be an improvement – but the agenda behind the party is still the same. I’d like to see the GOP be a real loyal opposition party, but that’s asking a lot these days.
Peace.
DS
Lee Dise (54)
“And while liberals are attacking our cherished institutions, they are attacking libertarians’ and free marketers’ institutions as well. You’d think they would want our help to fight their battles, rather than just heckle us from the sidelines while we both get our butts kicked.”
I think they, and probably a lot of the republicans now in office, have a really deep personal hang-up they may not even recognize. They feel like they’re losing or behind, so they want so much to have that great feeling of victory they got hooked, they’ll argue over anything with anyone, just to try and be the “winner”. Like degenerate gamblers who are addicted to gambling, no matter how bad it gets, they want to place a bet. Right now, most republicans and all the libertarians I know are just like that gambler, it’s really bad but they want to make a bet with their tormentors on how many volts it takes to kill them instead of figuring out how to stop the pain by working together.
Regards
The people on this thread who are utterly opposed to being inside a big tent with Christians of all kinds (conservative, moderate, or liberal)as well as those who have some form of critique of the current culture really should not have cause to complain about it. They are a better fit for the Democratic Party, and I suspect that they are in fact Democrats who are just here to play around with our heads. While I am not a conservative Christian, I have acquaintances who are and just about every one of them has no problem with Republicans who are not Christians or conservative Christians. They’ve told me that they have no problem with being in the same Party with non-conservative Christians like me. They are willing to subsume their issues with the larger goals of a smaller government Republican Party. So, who really are the intolerant ones?
I think we are dealing with a straw man that the opposition has set up in order to sow division amongst us and to demoralize us. And when I was on the Left in the Eighties I saw them do it on just this very issue. Matter of fact, at that time I was one of those people opposed to the Moral Majority because I had theological issues with them and did not want those people to have political hegemony in the country. The reality is that these people were not and are not a threat to us. But I’ve seen the Left work this angle quite successfully for a long time now.
Quite frankly, from my experience, many (not all) of the anti-Christian people have an agenda which they are less than forthcoming with. Personally, I have absolutely no problem with a small government libertarian who is not religious in the Republican Party. As long as they are not hostile to us religious folks.
Wow – I left a comment at 7:49pm and it’s still awaiting moderation – it’s now 10:25pm. The moderator must have gone to bed.
joeblough has it right. I just want to know what your asking me to buy. I know what I believe in. I am not interested in a label like conservative but rather in a few set actions and underlying principals.
Remember Obama won saying he would give 95% of the people tax cuts. Ask about his tax increase on tobacco to a smoker and see if they make more than 250,000. Once everyone realizes Dems are going to tax everything and that he lied a bit more than the average bear, he should begin to appear toast like. Remember their ideas are nonsense and our politicians thought talk was all that was needed.
We need honest people with common sense and some real world experience that do not want to run our lives and destroy our God give rights. Have faith and work at shining the light on truth.
63. David S:
I am not interested in the GOP. I am even less interested in “independent moderates”.
And a political party dominated by middle-of-the-road types offers me nothing.
I am interested in my own rights and my own freedom. And that’s it.
Yeah, well maybe I have some interest in leaving a slightly better world behind me and the interests of like minded folk. But that’s definitely the limit.
I want my damn freedom back. There was little enough of it when I was born, and there’s even less now!
There is a limited but very substantial area of overlap between nearly everybody on the right, and a good many of the poor fools who consider themselves to be in the middle or center, whatever that is supposed to mean. And that area is the matter of our freedom, our rights, our ownership of our own damn property, and a few other not-too-hard-to-understand principles.
A good, sharp, aggressive politician who can sell that limited but meaningful area of overlap will take America back from the mental casualties that are spilling out of our brain-damaged schools and flooding in through our porous borders.
We do NOT need a slower friendlier Democrat party. And if that’s all the GOP has to offer, to hell with it. That’s how we got into this fix in the first place!
We need our damn freedom back.
At any rate, I do.
For some of us (very few), there is an inherent conflict with the libertarians, but I usually ignore it, figuring that libertarians will err on the side of too much freedom. The conflict is this: As a conservative, I believe our society’s success is dependent on accepting certain values and a certain amount of self-government. If the people cannot self-govern, then they will need more external government to keep the civic peace.
The size of our government reflects, in a large way, our collective virtue as a people. The Democratic Party, for example, gains power by undermining the conservative values that eliminate the need for big government, while expanding government into the chaos … often, in inner cities, institutionalizing chaos. Libertarians embrace, I fear, too much of that undermining of our cultural values.
But I take heart: Conservatives don’t have to win politically … we only have to win culturally. And we conservatives actually have conservative allies all over the political map.
I’m not explaining this well, but I gotta go … cheers.
noreen,
The Kulaks watched too, astonished to the end, at the sheer audacity of their overlords/executioners.
Sapwolf,
24/7 denigration and slander of Palin by the US Gov’t media will make her the touchstone, fershure. She will need unbelievable courage to withstand the onslaught; not sure there’s enough of US to provide the necessary commitment to support her. Why would she run in those circumstances? It would truly heroic, no?
Bringhomethepols@37,
Good start. However the incumbents of neither party want that, and they have the money and the guns, and they make the LAW. As a 90%+ majority band-of-thieves in this case, they will make even recall illegal. With the Left in the filobuster-proof majority, it’s assured.
Which suggests we eventually must run out of bodybags to deal with all the recalcitrant political-class incumbents in all three branches of gov’t, at every level. Or for our corpses, given at this point any voicing of displeasure, legitiate or not, brings on the kapo-wannabees and soon the goonsquads.
Without a serious sustained revolt soon, we inevitably lose. My best recommendation is a widespread tax strike. 50 million folks not paying up is the strongest and perhaps the only remaining peaceful message. And, there’s little the gov’t can do w/o “seizure,” so we might as well begin the fight there, to see where we stand.
I’m a pro-lifer; but banning abortion is unenforceable. We shouldn’t allow laws to be enacted that cannot be enforced. Pretty much what got us here. So my widest “tentflap” is to work toward laws banning using any taxpayer funds (local, state, federal) to perform abortions (except in cases of medical emergency) or euthanasia. EG, like the 62,000 NEW Federal Laws they’re due to pass this year, after passing 60,000 NEW Laws last year!
My approach would leave only charities/ foundations to support the practice of killing the unborn; and removes the subsidizing taxbreaks for all, including NGOs. Most of those voters we will ever hope to win over on this issue, can live with that for now. Those who can’t, simply wish to kill anyone they choose, at their option/command.
Conservative values will once again become attractive when this country arrives at a point where a certain threshold of pain will be reached by a significant portion of the non-Federal taxpaying populace.
I used to think that there just might have been some validity about how the left touted Obama as a brilliant man, but after watching him closely over the past few months, it has become painfully obvious that he can’t even catch the quoted historic errors within his own speeches. His speech writers have become even more careless as the press has all but abdicated on reporting the reality that is Barack Obama.
However, the reality of having an incompetent president, coupled with horrible leadership in Congrss, will only sink in when there is an ample amount of pain derived from the overall effects of incompetent leadership in Washington.
#54 — So what is *really* being taught is that science believes that God to be unnecessary.
Science and religion are both necessary in society, Lee. Nobody really disputes this.
And there’s no conspiracy, no ulterior motives: science is godless by definition. Science tells HOW stuff happens and HOW nature works, not WHY. Religion and philosophy deal with WHY, not HOW. There should be no collision.
Evolution tells us HOW we came to be. It also says that as we became intelligent we developed morals. The culture warriors claim that god gave us morals (a HOW issue) thus inventing a phantom to do battle with. Meanwhile what religion answers is WHY god figured that we’d need morals, and that’s a pretty good question.
At the end of the day, science tells us HOW it happens and we all say “cool, so that’s how god did it. Hmmm.” No collision.
Disputing HOW is a battle that cannot *possibly* be won. Not from any standpoint, and certainly not in politics.
You’d think they would want our help to fight their battles, rather than just heckle us from the sidelines while we both get our butts kicked.
False premise. The GOP without culture warriors would be much larger than the GOP with them. You seem to think that your numbers are significant. They aren’t. Most Americans go to church and believe in god. Yet the Dem voters outnumbered the GOP voters.
You can’t argue that people who attend church are solely your votes. They’re not. Church attendance aka belief aka faith does not a culture warrior make. As with the science stuff above, the culture warriors are inventing phantoms to do battle with and then wondering why they keep losing.
You want me to help you battle phantoms you invent.
Not happening.
65. fred,
I think you are right on the moula [as usual], fred.
Wolves in ‘sheeps’ clothing play this ‘game’ of ‘tit-for-tat’ on the daily. I’m always surprised that more people don’t see right through the ‘game’. “Looky, I’m a Repub but you’re turning me off with your views”, blah-blah-blah ad infinitum blah-blah-blah.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to discern left from right any longer. The margins have been blurred and they bleed far more into the left than into the right. If ‘that’ is ‘big tent’ thinking, please count me out.
“religious conservatives are mostly trying to raise their own kids with their own values, trying hard not to allow overbearing government and the popular culture to undermine their hard work.”
Since when? If religious conservatives were consistently fighting for the right to be left alone and live as they like, then libertarians would have no problem with them. The reason libertarians have a problem with religious conservatives is because they have always been trying to use the muscle of the State to coerce others into acting the way they want them to. As soon as religious conservatives give up the idea that they have the right to force choices on others, the better.
> Science and religion are both necessary in society, Lee. Nobody really disputes this.
Lots of people dispute the necessity of religion.
> And there’s no conspiracy, no ulterior motives: science is godless by definition.
Thank you for illustrating my point: God is just presumed out of the picture.
> Evolution tells us HOW we came to be. It also says that as we became intelligent we developed morals.
Developed? Or discovered? How you answer that depends on how you see God — non-existent, inconsequential, or having the utmost consequence.
> The culture warriors claim that god gave us morals (a HOW issue) thus inventing a phantom to do battle with.
I think that makes everything a “HOW” issue. Anyone who debates — including the both of us — does so because we believe something we call “truth” exists. We use rationality, logic, evidence, etc. to the best of our abilities because we believe they are somehow a reflection of something higher than us on the existential food chain, i.e., something authoritative. What we can’t explain in materialistic terms if how these transcendent things came into being. No one can explain how rationality, logic, and moral values, originated from the random clanging of molecules and beams of light in space. Either it’s all a conceit, in which case we have nothing to debate, and in fact are not debating at all, just emitting various words (aural or electronic) — or else something transcendent exists that is bigger and more authoritative than we are. Since you engage in the debate, you give tacit and at least unacknowledged approval for the later proposition.
> The GOP without culture warriors would be much larger than the GOP with them.
You’re dreaming.
Given the collapsing voter registration statistics of both the Republican and Democratic Parties, one must also consider the possibility that there will be a successful third-party challenge. The last time this successfully occurred, of course, was during the abolitionist movement when the current Republican Party came into being. A new party might draw primarily from independent centrists and crush the existing organizations. Such an outcome would, of course, render Nancy and Rush irrelevant.
After reading all of the posts above, I still have to agree with myself the most, but fred, as usual, has nailed some valid points. joeblough is basically saying the same thing I am saying, and IB Bill is also on the same page.
The one thing all “conservatives” have in common are the foundational principals outlined in our Constitution. Some “conservatives” are Christian, some are Jewish, some are agnostics, some are theists, some are atheists, some are gay, some are even left-handed. The word “conservative” simply does not do us justice any longer. The left have hijacked its original meaning – to conserve the Constitution – into something smacking of hatred, closed-mindedness, and racism.
A Constitutionalist, in its purest form, is simply one who adheres to the Constitution: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When we deviate from these principals, we gravitate toward socialism, which always ends up as a bankrupt system as it enslaves the people and grants an overabundance of power to the government. Ultimately it will become tyranny. It always has, it always will, because it is an unsustainable concept.
It can’t be sustained financially because it costs too much money to fund it; it can’t be sustained socially because people inherently want to be free to conduct themselves according to their own philosophy, not have their every move dictated by an inept and inefficient bureaucracy; and it can’t be sustained politically because people are also inherently greedy and those who purposely seek power in politics are ever grasping for yet more control over other people.
To Terry Gain: Is Obama really all that less experienced for that sort of thing than Bush, Clinton and even that old cowboy Reagan were at this stage? In any case, as far as the economy goes, the plan he’s executing is really just the consensus of most top economists. People on the right have been jawing off about what the costs mean per person, but they keep forgetting about that 65+ trillion derivative thing in the background that can essentially absorb all of this without a burp. It looks as though the plan is to get things back to where they were before things really started to get bad, and then deal with the more tricky infrastructural issues that built up over the past decade, mostly to do with derivatives and similar imaginary money instruments.
As far as Walpin goes, it’s obvious from that US Attorney letter, as well as some additional Googling, that Walpin was not exactly a good person for that position (Obama should really just assume the worst and sweep out all of Bush’s appointments). The procedure that Obama followed — asking for Walpin’s resignation, suspending him with pay for 30 days when he refused, sending the official notifications out that he will be terminated in 30 days — sounds kind of like standard operating procedure for dealing with such low-level nuisances.
77. Moogie,
Moogster, your sane, cohesive, well thought-out posts give me a strange sense of undeserved pride when I read you, because you make me proud and when I read you, I find myself nodding so much I have a neck ache. :LOL:
I would gladly pitch a pup-tent for you and I and a few others.
The thing is, I don’t want my views forced on anyone EVER and by the same token, I don’t want someone elses views forced one ME. If my taxes pay for abortion then that is blood on my hands that I just can’t qualify…EVER. It’s bad enough that murdering a child is legal at all but to even consider our tax dollars to pay for legalized murder is sick and twisted and WRONG.
This all goes back to LESS GOVERNMENT though. If we cut down on government expenditures like hefty, puffed up ‘livin’ large’ permanent politician end gamers who live off the gov. dole FOREVER, then maybe we’d make some leeway. WE the PEOPLE have been screwed by the skanky, lanky pettifoggers on BOTH sides of the isle and it is high time we revolt and take our Country back before it’s too late.
I’m able bodied, still good lookin’ and willing to do my part to help where I can. A ‘new party’ is not the answer though. That’s how we got Clinton. We have to use the Repub party for all it’s worth and then we can assemble a decent party if need be when we, the WORKING, THINKING, TOILING people have the upper hand.
By the way, Rick…someone should also point out that they didn’t get JAWS with a bigger boat…they bagged the shark with more explosives. That’s right: Brody and company moved to the RIGHT to get that job done, not to the left…
You guys can continue to believe that the “majority” of Americans are conservative, but there is simply no evidence to back this up. For the sake of argument, lets say that only citizens who vote get to have an opinion. The last time we had a vote, conservatives were in the minority. It’s as simple as comparing two numbers.
Go ahead and believe that one day Americans will start voting conservative again, but it’s not going to happen.
One more thing. Republicans need to do what Patton did, and read the enemy’s book. Alinsky’s “rules for radicals”. The instinct to manipulate seems to run in the donkey’s blood. That instinct really doesn’t exist in the elephant.
Case in point: wedge issues. The libertarian wing gets very annoyed at the gay marriage issue. They’re doing what libertarians do: following their principles. Social conservatives are also following their principles by opposing such a thing. What has apparently never occurred to the libertarians is that it’s a wedge issue that pits donkey against donkey, and should be an active issue for that reason.
Sorry if this sounds cynical, but the Republican party will lose every time until they learn to put the common goal above principles.
@72. G Alston:
Well, some of us might argue that religion is not strictly “necessary”, while science is most certainly integral to society. Every society will need to know “how” things work for practical purposes – but the “why” is unimportant. Religion is mostly just cultural baggage.
Peace.
DS
79. Delia . . . ” Moogie, I would gladly pitch a pup-tent for you and I and a few others.”
Wow, really? I think you DO need another vacation. I hope that doesn’t translate to “once” in 23 years if you know what I’m sayin and I think you do.
Gotta face up to it. Politics is not enough.
America was an anomaly in human history. Personally I believe God directed it so that The Gospel would be preached world wide. He cannot control a nation’s or a people’s destiny for long however. Free will and all that you know.
Just as he entered history in the time of Moses … his sojourn with men was brief. Again as the Messiah he spent 33 or so years with us and only 3 as His revealed self and then only in a self limited form and substance.
So America is being allowed to go her own way now. The way of man. The End.
Sheesh: shut up.
Delia: I agree with you: it pisses me off that my money is funding abortions for slutty little girls who are too stupid to understand that sex and love don’t mean the same thing to men that they do to women. And we can thank the government for THAT bit of insanity as well, since our money is used to teach those very same dumb sluts how to put a condom on a banana. WTF.
I will go one step further and say that government sanctioned and financed abortion is not only murder, it is illegal as hell and defies the Constitution, as it was “legislated” by the judicial branch which has NO business legislating squat. Hear that, Sonia??
Unlike you, though, I DO want to force my opinions and beliefs onto other people because I’m tired of the blatant stupidity of the vast majority of people in this country:
“I want free medical care!” Where the hell do you think the money to pay for that care will come from? It isn’t free, stupid. Not only that, it isn’t GOOD health coverage. What’s that you say? You have a heart defect and need a new valve? Bummer man… get in line or go to Government Motors for a new valve.
“I want a house I can’t afford, but oh dear! Now I’m defaulting on my loan! I want someone to pay it for me!” Where the hell do you think the money to pay for that will come from? ME. That’s where. Ever heard of a little thing called “common sense?” Try it, you might like it.
“I believe a woman has a right to choose!” Hey, I agree. She has a right to choose to either get pregnant or not get pregnant. After the horse has left the barn, she no longer has a right to choose. Why’s that, you say? Because she is now the carrier of another human life. Bummer she didn’t think about that when she was slutting around. Oh, and enjoy living with the knowledge, for the rest of your life, that you killed your own child. Nice, huh?
“I want my fair share! It isn’t fair that some people have more than me! I want! I want! I want!” Well, then get off your fat lazy arse and do something. If you think you’re going to grow wealthy from the government teat, then you’re not only stupid, you’re delusional. “Fair” is a fairy tale. Deal with it.
Yeah. The GOP wants to pitch a big tent. Underneath the tent? Teabagging? You want to get it together? Stop behaving like fodder for comedians and left leaning talk show hosts.
Personally, I *want* the GOP to be strong. And I want the Liberals to be strong. It’s a two-party system with checks and balances. Most of what is preached here is essentially fascism with the GOP controlling everything. We need both parties.
GOP: please dig yourself out of this whole because the liberals have free-reign right now.
#83 — Well, some of us might argue that religion is not strictly “necessary”, while science is most certainly integral to society.
Religion and philosophy are fungible terms in this context, hence my original statement.
#81 — You guys can continue to believe that the “majority” of Americans are conservative, but there is simply no evidence to back this up.
Actually you are more correct than you think — the evidence is the opposite of what they claim. Read the latest article from Mike Murphy, a GOP strategist and demographics expert. According to his analysis of the voting data vs birth data the GOP is in deep guacamole.
He says what I have said, that if Obama *really* screws the pooch the GOP may sorta kinda “win” in 2012, but in the long term the small tent “conservatives only” philosophy will turn the GOP into a regional effort at best and then one that may as well not exist by 2020.
What I said in #72 stands — “The GOP without culture warriors would be much larger than the GOP with them.” Even the GOP’s demographers agree, and they’re the actual experts, not random posters on a web site.
#7 Bob – What freedoms/reforms did we see under the Pub revolution from 1995 on? A balanced budget and welfare reform. They had to shove it down Clinton’s throat by shutting down the government. Remember? We were supposed to be tarred by this for a long time. But then, the economy took off, people forgot, and Clinton took credit. He still gets credit for it, but it was all Gingrich, a true conservative.
When Gingrich stepped down over some minor flap of dubious validity, the Pubs started spending again. Career politicians need a strong leader to keep them in line. Conservatism, standing for these principles, requires courage, and career politicians have none. Eunuchs.
Conservatism is the only thing that works. No more compromises. Compromising our principles is why we lose.
We had a moderate Pub in Bush 41, and he got clobberred because he raised taxes. The Dems got their tax hike, and blamed it on Bush. A two-fer.
Bush 43 is also a moderate. We got spending out the ying-yang. 7% increase each year. It got worse under the Dems (10%/yr), but that doesn’t get reported.
Both Bush’s were unpopular, because they didn’t adhere to the party (conservative) principles. People hate such hypocrisy. Reagan was popular, because he adhered to principles. Forget moderates. Hold that banner high, and they will come to it. Do not mumble our values into your shoes!
#12 acj – Reagan did not increase the debt. Every budget proposal he submitted was balanced. The Dem Congress added the pork. The economy boomed so much under Reagan, that the deficit shrank as a percebtage of GDP.
As a result, he was so popular, that he had the greatest re-election landslide ever, 49 States! Even the whole Kennedy clan voted for him, except Caroline and some cousin.
That is the answer. Stick to conservative principles; make them work; things will be great; and even the worst Dems will support you. Because it works. It is the only thing that works.
86. Moogie: . . . “Sheesh: shut up.”
How Von Brunnian of you.
You know … I cannot imagine a more demeaning activity than to hang out on the opposing team’s chat site and throw childish insults at them. Even if one were paid to do it it would be nauseating.
86. Moogie:
Moogster, as much as I’d love to ban abortion [legalized murder], I don’t see that ever happening [in my lifetime anyhow]. Will there come a day when people realize the horrors that we have legally ‘allowed’ in our country? I don’t know. I just don’t know.
I also don’t want to be forced into paying for medical insurance when I’m perfectly healthy and hardly ever get sick.
93. scott: Shut up.
> What I said in #72 stands — “The GOP without culture warriors would be much larger than the GOP with them.” Even the GOP’s demographers agree, and they’re the actual experts, not random posters on a web site.
You mean, as opposed to you?
Taking your post at face value, if the GOP demographers knew so much, why did they just lose the presidency and both houses of Congress, running the furthest thing from a conservative in the Republican Party who was not named Specter or Snowe?
#96 — You mean, as opposed to you?
I mean I referenced an article and an author in addition to my (obvious) random poster status.
Taking your post at face value, if the GOP demographers knew so much, why did they just lose the presidency and both houses of Congress.. [snip]
More actual data: a gallup poll released this week also shows a 2:1 advantage of people who self-identify as conservative vs those who self-identify as liberal. However, if I were on that poll (questions are online) I too would show up as conservative, not liberal. However, I’m not a culture warrior conservative. Different thing altogether.
Here’s the data:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/120857/Conservatives-Single-Largest-Ideological-Group.aspx
Taking these two things at face value (Murphy’s article and the Gallup poll) it appears that unlike here on this site the term conservative isn’t synonymous with culture warrior.
You culture warrior types will view this as proof that running a social conservative will win the day. Murphy’s article shows why this is wrong. Rather, he says what’s needed is a relaxation of much of the culture warrior issues to bring the party inline with what voters actually exist, not the ones wished or imagined to exist.
What I have said here online is consistent with this: 1) the GOP should not adopt social conservative issues as core planks of what the party stands for, and 2) social conservative pet issues ought to not be ignored, but fought at the state ballot initiative level.
The last set of graphs on the gallup article show why Murphy is correct. If you cross this with election data you’d see a clear picture of the lower age brackets trending toward more socially liberal and fiscally conservative status, whereas the culture warrior types aren’t as socially liberal.
In sum, I tried to reach a conclusion based on facts rather than random feelings or assumptions and posted accordingly. Certainly reasonable people can disagree on what the data is telling us.
There will be no reconciliation between the social conservatives and the economic conservatives.
The economic conservatives are anti-statist and want the federal government to leave them alone, but social conservatives are pro-statist, since they want a federal government to legislate Christian morality: outlawing abortions, enforcing mandatory school prayer, and generally destroying public education by forcing schools to teach religious bull**** alongside actual science as if they are actually competing theories.
See how well it worked in the last election w/ demo-party light.
However, McCain wasn’t libertarian; he was “moderate” (stands for nothing in particular). I think libertarians and conservatives can work together.
it pisses me off that my money is funding abortions for slutty little girls who are too stupid to understand that sex and love don’t mean the same thing to men that they do to women.
You know, many of them are 12, 13, 14, and often have no choice in the matter. My daughter is a social worker–and she more than occasionally is working with girls that age who are being pimped out by their parents to pay for meth.
Since when? If religious conservatives were consistently fighting for the right to be left alone and live as they like, then libertarians would have no problem with them. The reason libertarians have a problem with religious conservatives is because they have always been trying to use the muscle of the State to coerce others into acting the way they want them to. As soon as religious conservatives give up the idea that they have the right to force choices on others, the better.
Since when? If religious conservatives were consistently fighting for the right to be left alone and live as they like, then libertarians would have no problem with them. The reason libertarians have a problem with religious conservatives is because they have always been trying to use the muscle of the State to coerce others into acting the way they want them to. As soon as religious conservatives give up the idea that they have the right to force choices on others, the better.
Any libertarian who isn’t an anarchist is in no position to complaint about conservatives wanting “to use the muscle of the State.” Libertarians have a smaller list of such areas, but they still believe in the use of the government.
And in fact, social conservatives are far more in agreement with libertarians about the virtues of small government than libertarians are in agreement with liberals.
enforcing mandatory school prayer,
How many social conservatives can you point to who want mandatory school prayer?
Bummer she didn’t think about that when she was slutting around.
This is neither completely accurate, nor particularly useful.
There are kids who don’t know what they are doing. There are kids (and some women) who have little (or no) choice about whether to have sex.
There are women who have birth control failures. I don’t think this is even a large minority of abortions, but it does happen. It doesn’t make abortion okay, but to say that “she was slutting around” is hardly accurate.
There are catastrophic fetal disasters: Tay-Sachs Disease; anacephaly; a few other relatively rare situations where I have a very hard time being too upset about an abortion. These are a very, very tiny fraction of abortions, but they are truly disasters with no particularly wonderful results. Equating these “slutting around” is simply irresponsible and unloving.
Moderator: comment 101 was an attempt to quote someone, and I hit submit prematurely–as should be obvious from reading comment 102!
The last time we had a vote, conservatives were in the minority.
Actually, that’s not clear. About 35% of Obama supporters thought of themselves as conservatives. (Obviously not conservatives paying a lot of attention.) Or conservatives who let race take precedence over ideology. Blacks, for example, tend to be very socially conservative–strongly pro-life, and in the Prop. 8 election in California, overwhelmingly against gay marriage.
> However, I’m not a culture warrior conservative. Different thing altogether.
Different only in what is under attack. An economic conservative defends economic freedom; a culture warrior defends social freedoms — specifically, parental prerogatives in child rearing, but not just that.
You know . . . somebody who could really rally the base and bring in new blood at the same time? He’s young. He’s smart. Good family man. John Ensign. Think about it.
Yep, sheesh; John Ensign is a good man … and so is David Vitter.
Unlike the typical Democrat, they owned up to their failures to their wives before the Press got wind of it, and they did not try to blame the woman or run a character assassination campaign against her.
Compare and contrast the behavior of these two men to those paragons of liberal virtuousness; Jim McGreevey, Eliot Spitzer, Rod Blagojevich, etc.
Considering the already criminal nature of the Obama Administration, they seem like worthy successors to The One, don’t they?
Think (not so sure you’re familiar with the concept) about it.
109. Martin Knight:
“Yep, sheesh; John Ensign is a good man … and so is David Vitter. Unlike the typical Democrat, they owned up to their failures to their wives before the Press got wind of it.”
Wow, now that’s that’s a legitimate double standard. You sound like you’re on Ensign’s payroll, kind of like the son of his mistress. Tell me, do really think that Ensign and Vitter, inspired by conscience, chose to admit their fall from grace? Do you honestly believe that no one knew of their infidelities before they came forward? Have you forgotten about Vitter’s name being found in the client list of the DC Madam? As for Ensign, this odyssey is just beginning.
Next time you get haughty, pick something that is at least plausible.
My tent does not include those who peddle hate and are the pawns of the christian right. So I guess I can’t go back to that conservative tent…it’s a really scary place. Giving power back to the people should not mean that we have to be ruled by the dominionist ruling class of the christian right.
Conservatives have been trying to conserve the wrong things. “Just conserve the Constitution”, stop with saving socialism from the socialists, we need to call for a complete separation of economy & state, phased in over a 10-20 year period. So the short term/immediate goal should be, “To conserve the Constitution, not the New Deal, or The Great Society.” And the long term goal should be,seeing that through with an unapologetic phased unwinding of institutions like HUD,GSEs,SSA,FED,IRS,GOV EDU,ECT., planned in advance, layed out as a platform and hammered home until DONE. Attempting less will just keep us on this long slow ride to Leftist Dictatorship (see past 100 years), even with occasional swings to the right (ie:Reagans).
What an all ’round amazingly written blog post!!