The American Spectator

Tim| 6.10.09 @ 2:28PM

It's all lies and bullshit. Newspeak and doublethink.

Jumpin' Jellybeans| 6.10.09 @ 3:10PM

Who cares about a P.U. poll anyway? They wouldn't know a social conservative from a wise Latina who knows more than white males.

Bob| 6.10.09 @ 3:10PM

"Educated" social conservatives? Let's try to calculate that. We know that 22% of voters are Republicans and that about 20% of Republicans have college degrees. That would mean about 4% of voters are "educated" social conservatives. That's why Palin is so popular among the rank and file.

Avalon is precisely right in his analysis notwithstanding the fact that you are also right in your statements. However, the likelihood of social conservatives, who value belief over reason and currently control the Republican party, adhering to a big tent strategy, is rather small. Obama is getting pressure from his economic team and Bernanke -- especially Romer -- to start controlling spending. If they come out for entitlement reform, as he promised during the election, they will get the independents. Watch for Obama to do this as he is an excellent politician. If I'm right, the timing will be by next summer in order to affect the 2010 elections.

jim rice| 6.10.09 @ 3:13PM

God, yes. I will never vote for a socially conservative candidate if that person is unable to separate their social goals from political ones no matter how much I dislike "big government" as an idea.

I should be able to write/read/publish anything I want.
I should be able to marry whoever I want.
I should be able to smoke/eat/drink whatever I want.

However, there is no such thing as universal guidelines to good vs. evil. There is only the law. When people try to attach moral value to man-made law, they've already lost. The laws of this nation, as far as I'm concerned, should do one thing: Protect the freedom (first) and safety (second) of its citizens as a whole and as individuals. That's it.

Come on, Republicans... join the Libertarians!

Angel| 6.10.09 @ 3:33PM

No thanks, Rice--it ain't gonna happen. Libertarians worship at the altar of individual rights with none of the attendant responsibilities.

I, for one, view you as morally self-indulgent. Individual liberty is just one side of the same coin on which personal responsibility also rests .

You can't win without us. We are a stubborn lot--principles really do matter.

Sorry.

Bob| 6.10.09 @ 3:37PM

Jim, a consistent belief in limited government would include both fiscal and social issues. I want the government out of my wallet and out of my home/bedroom. Social conservatives are inconsistent in that they want government to interfere into social issues. Giving someone a choice is not interference. Seeing gays marry is not going to affect my marriage -- or that of my children. Let gays have the pursuit of their happiness.

Bob| 6.10.09 @ 3:42PM

Angel, where do you come up with these things? Libertarians generally believe in individual RESPONSIBILITY. Most Republicans believe the same. Libertarians are just as principled as you -- it is just that the principles are different. YOUR principles are based on the bible -- that's what you are really saying.

And sorry, with Republicans only numbering about 22% of voters, YOU can't win without us... The difference is that you will almost always vote for the Republican, and we will vote for the better person no matter which party he/she is from. So you need us far more than we need you.

jim rice| 6.10.09 @ 3:46PM

Bob, it sounds like we agree... mostly...?

and, Angel, I'm not sure I disagree with you either... you're absolutely right. Personal responsibility is important... and required to ensure both freedom and security. But it should be exactly that... PERSONAL responsibility. Let the government print money and raise an army, but until I'm invading someone else's rights, then stay out of my life. At the very least, leave it up to the states to decide. We've decided that the long-term success of this experiment of a nation is more important than the happiness and freedom of its citizens. Both parties are equally to blame, yet I find the Republicans' sins to be more egregious.

Bob| 6.10.09 @ 3:59PM

Jim, I'm a true libertarian when it comes to social issues, but I do believe there are some things where the federal government should play a role. For example, we should have them look at the food supply, product safety, and the electrical grid. There is no need for them to get into education. Furthermore, I do see a purpose for LIMITED entitlements. Libertarians want to repeal social security and medicare. I'd like to reduce them, but not repeal them. Furthermore, I am more aggressive than most libertarians when it comes to national security. However, we should only go to war when we are attacked - i.e., not Iraq.

jim rice| 6.10.09 @ 4:06PM

Right on... I'm with you on pretty much all of that. Nothing is really as black & white as these arguments/discussions sometimes tend to go.

And no. Iraq should have never happened. *thumbs up*

Roy| 6.10.09 @ 4:20PM

Re:Bob: Yes, educated social conservatives, you bigoted little snot.

As far as jim rice..the logical consequence of "the government should print money and raise an army, and that is it" is not "we should be able to marry who we want" but the abolition of government marriage(I don't see "maintaining a system of government marriage" anywhere in printing money and raising an army..)

The truth is this type of person generally assumes the truth of the moral principles they wish to preserve, and then asserts the rest to be based on religion, as if that weren't also the case about the principles they accept. Try arguing with a college anarchist about why he should respect your right to private property.

Crusader| 6.10.09 @ 4:36PM

Roy, I've often called for the end of gubmint-approved marriages. Why is it the gubmint's business whom I marry? (Hmmmm, where have I heard that before?) Anyway if they just got out of the marriage business and left it to the churches, where it was for about the first 75 years of of this republic's existence, this whole "gay marriage" garbage would end.

Phillips| 6.10.09 @ 4:42PM

"Social conservatives are inconsistent in that they want government to interfere into social issues."

You know what they say about a foolish consistency.

Most people get social conservatives wrong. Most people get conservatism wrong for that matter. Conservatism is not an ideological commitment to "limited" or "small" government although that is an effect of the correct application of American conservatism. Instead, conservatism is about conserving things. Go figure. Most social conservative are not out to make the world right via legislation. Most social conservatives in America follow a theology that doesn't allow for the perfecting of this world. What social conservatives are trying to do is halt the "progress" (or slide as they see it) toward secularism and godlessness and ideally restore a status quo ante that they feel was more overtly and self consciously Christian. In this respect, social conservatives are actually the most conservative, properly understood, element of the "three legs of the stool."

Opposition to gay marriage, which is a huge and entirely novel innovation, is the conservative position because it seeks to conserve the most fundamental unit of society as it is. Anyone who thinks that it is conservative to support gay marriage in the name of small government doesn’t get it.

John| 6.10.09 @ 4:43PM

There is no such thing as a Fiscal Conservative/Social Liberal. Period. They do no exist. The concept is a complete oxymoron, it is cognitively dissonant. The two cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

Social Liberals will always become Fiscal Liberals because they have no principles that ground them in reality. They are slaves to pop culture, and weathercock into the latest breezy social trends... which always entail leaving behind the fiscal conservatism to pay for the Social Liberalism.

PAYGO=SPEND...more, and TAX even more.

It's just that simple.

r/John-TMF

Bob| 6.10.09 @ 4:58PM

Phillips -- then a founding principle of social conservatives is NOT limited government since you are willing to expand government in concert with your religious beliefs. If "conservation" is a founding principle, then what about preserving species from becoming extinct and preserving our natural resources?

Let's face it -- the object of social conservatives is to legislate their religion for the rest of us. Reagan grew government and so did George Bush -- I guess they were good social conservatives.

The founding principles for REPUBLICANS should be limited government and personal responsibility -- not conserving religious beliefs. Like Marc, I would also like to see government get out of the marriage business.

Angel| 6.10.09 @ 7:20PM

Thank you, John; I've often called Bob an oxyMORON, too.

It doesn't matter what you think, Bob, Conservative principles mean more to me than power. I know that kind of integrity is difficult to wrap your puny little brain around, but it's true.

Looks like you're outta' luck, sport.

Angel| 6.10.09 @ 7:41PM

Too bad, Bob, looks like the democrats are too socially Conservative for you also. Both Hillary and Obama have come out big against gay marriage.

It must be sad for you not to fit in with either political party. I guess you could always go start one of your own.

That would get you a hundred votes or so. Ha ha.

Phillips| 6.10.09 @ 7:43PM

"Let's face it -- the object of social conservatives is to legislate their religion for the rest of us."

No it isn't Bob. You see what you want to see and don't get my point. Few social conservatives want to "legislate their religion." Most social conservatives have a theology that does not see that as productive or even possible. Most social conservatism is not proactive. Let's usher in the Kingdom of God by legislation sort of thing. It is reactive. Seeking to conserve and/or restore what was before. Seeking to proscribe certain behaviors. Proscribing behaviors has been the primary function of civil government since the dawn of man. Proscription of certain behaviors is the mark of a civilized society. And what behaviors ought to be proscribed HAS ALWAYS BEEN informed by the religion of the society. That it ought to have no part in law making is an incredibly novel and revolutionary idea from a historical standpoint. And is totally impossible to achieve.

If you don't think the government should proscribe homosexual "marriage" then fine. But I have little tolerance for snot nosed know nothings with just enough ideology to be dangerous telling me that conservatives who do aren't conservatives base on some asinine formulation that "government ought to stay out of the bedroom."

Angel| 6.10.09 @ 9:52PM

John and Phillips: Thank you, Gentlemen; nice to see some common decency around here.

Basil Plumley| 6.10.09 @ 9:58PM

Alrighty now, Bob is now a Libertarian. I hope there is someone keeping up with all of Bob's positions.

I see there is the usual chorus taking their pot shots of intolerance at Social Conservatives.
A thought exercise for you bigots; what came first, the proselytizing by the Social Conservatives or demands by certain segments of our society to do away with certain social taboos?

Social Conservatives by their very nature were/are concerned with only 3 issues: Crime-Welfare-Abortion.
They are also the most fickle when it comes to supporting the GOP. They were frustrated with the GOP in 1986 and stayed home. The resulting loss of Senate seats cost the GOP control of the Senate. Had the GOP not lost control of the Senate, Bork would have been confirmed and Roe v Wade would have been overturned.

We saw the same fickleness lately in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles. The GOP will not win when the Social Conservatives stay home.
The GOP take these folk for granted. They throw some "red meat" to the Social Conservatives in the form of DOMA and other half-hearted legislation to appease them.
Rove went as far as to say 'where else are they going to go?'
Well, we saw the answer in the last two election cycles; they stayed home.

Phillips is correct; outside of a few cranks (even Social Conservatives disavow them), Social Conservatives do not want their religion legislated. That does not stop the intolerant folks from spewing their hatred and bigotry.

BTW, an internet high-five to John. A very good post, sir.