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The Fiscal Conservative “Go It Alone” Strategy Failed

By: kipling (Diary)  |  February 9th, 2012 at 12:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

From the diaries by Leon…

Let me begin with two brief qualifiers.  First, I believe in fiscal conservatism.  I am a 100% fiscally conservative believer in small government.  I also happen to be 100% in favor of social conservatism and a strong national defense.  So, in short, I am a Reagan conservative.  The following diary is not a critique of fiscal conservatism but rather those fiscal conservatives who continually bash social conservatives while at the same time asking for their vote.  Second, those aforementioned fiscal conservatives were not exactly loners.  They simply wanted social conservatives to shut up and move to the back of the bus.  Despite their rhetoric, they still very much need social conservatives to triumph at the ballot box.

Throughout 2010 and 2011, fiscal conservatives loudly proclaimed that the upcoming presidential election was their election.  Jobs, the economy, and small government would be the issue.  Now was not the time, we were told, for a divisive cultural war or social conservative issues so we needed to call a truce and work with like minded Democrats to get the economy going again.  Now, less than 10 months away from the general election, we find ourselves hoping for the Sweet Meteor of Death to save us from our own potential nominees.  Where did we go wrong?  The fault lies with the Fiscal Conservative “Go It Alone” strategy.

The strategy first failed us in the area of leadership.  Surprisingly, in the year tailored made – we were told – for fiscal conservatism, no fiscal conservative leader stepped forward to take up the mantle.  Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie, etc. all shuck their heads and walked away.  Now, all three of our nominees can legitimately be called “big government” conservatives with establishment ties.  Way to go fiscal conservative leadership.

The strategy failed us again because it unnecessarily provoked a rivalry between fiscal and social conservatives.  Mitch Daniels provoked the struggle and ended his own candidacy with his call for a truce on social issues.  Others, here on RedState and elsewhere, have trumpeted that refrain.  Many fiscal conservatives [although not all] mocked and dismissed Rick Perry due to his social conservative credentials and for his call to prayer in Houston.  Articles abounded about how social conservatives were no longer a force in the Republican party.  Even a few days ago we saw articles about how Rick Santorum’s social conservatism was a liability that he had to overcome.  The rivalry was unnecessary.  It weakened the field.  And it helped pave the way for Romney.

Fiscal conservatives need to understand that without social conservatism they are doomed to irrelevancy.  We need unity and not division.

The left does not segregate itself into fiscal liberals, social liberals, and weak national defense liberals.  They are simply liberals and each leg of their stool feeds into and feeds off of the others.  Their ultimate goal is to reduce us to absolute despotism under the federal government.  Fiscal liberals want a well-funded government to serve as our nanny in the same way Louis XIV considered himself the father of the French.  They fund federal programs including socially liberal ones in an attempt to create that dependency.  The focus on domestic programs, as well as their own flawed liberal worldview, leads to less spending on defense.  Yet, we erroneously divide ourselves in the face of their unity in an attempt to break their coalition.  We think if we ignore abortion then we can reach an agreement on more fiscally responsible spending.  But, it does not work that way.  The Left is no longer content with abortion.  They want publicly funded abortions.  [More on why in a later post.]  The fiscal liberals are more than happy to oblige because it increases the power of the government over the individual by demeaning the individual.  Abortion is about the collective not the individual child or even the mother.

Fiscal issues are social issues.  There is no division.  The character qualities that lead to personal responsibility, thrift, and self-dependence are social conservative values.  Despotism comes when social liberalism triumphs and the people become less than God created them to be.  In a society that honors  and has reverence for God, the sanctity of marriage, the preciousness of life created in the image of God, and the inherent dignity of man, fiscal responsibility and independence from government is not a problem.  The decadence of the Great Society flowed from the union of fiscal liberalism and social liberalism.

We need unity amongst conservatives.  We need a Reagan conservative who embraces all three legs of conservatism.  We need someone who can articulate a conservative (fiscal, social, and strong national defense) worldview.  Any leg that tries to stand alone will cause the fall of the movement.  Romney, the big government candidate, has already based his candidacy on the  fiscal strategy with his focus on jobs and the economy.  It will fail.  He is too flawed a messenger for an already flawed message.

 

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COMMENTS

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  • mikeymike143

    and yesterday’s primary results show that your analysis is correct.

    • kipling

      Keep up the fight in Florida!

      • znjs

        That fiscal conservatives are responsible for the lack of a good candidates to push that view. There were better options, they declined, but not due to a lack of us trying. What were we supposed to do? In fact the best thing we can do going forward is to push fiscal conservatism as the bigger issue so that we get candidates in the future that aren’t compromised on that like Santorum is.

        And like it or not, some of Santorum’s social views area liability for him in a general election. Fiscal conservatives pointing that out are no more at fault for recognizing that reality then those pointing out that Romney’s Bain background will cause him problems. We’re not attacking him on those views ourselves (like some people did with Bain), we’re facing facing reality.

        Also while in the comments you do a good job of connecting some big govt problems with their liberal beginnings, I don’t see you acknowledging part of the reason that social conservatives are treated the way they are is that they sometimes use big govt to push their views like liberals do. Take the drug war. A hugely unsuccessful federal boondoggle that gets the govt between doctors and patient and has devastated intercity communities precisely because the govt policies created a dangerous black market. Honestly I don’t trust social conservatives to shrink govt or get the budget back in control. I don’t think many people do. That is the source of a lot of this tension.

        • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

          could not agree more.

  • acat

    These reinforce, I think, your main point – but they also reinforce the conventional wisdom point I’ve raised before – “conservatives” once again bunched into small groups behind many candidates, while the establishment types coalesced behind Romney.

    Mew

    • kipling

      I think both your point and my own remain valid.

      No fiscal conservative leaders stepped up to the challenge. Those conservatives who did were too divided to challenge Romney and the establishment earlier.

  • Change Jar Conservative

    by not picking a true fiscal conservative and getting behind a big government so-con like Santorum we are screwed.

    As for Mitch Daniels, he is a social conservative and he has governed like one. He just likes to pick one issue to focus on at a time.

    Jindal and Daniels are really the only two serious fiscal conservatives who have shrunk the size of their state governments while running the place.

    • kipling

      He had better fiscal and social credentials than the remaining three combined.

      According to polls, evangelicals continue to split their vote among the three remaining candidates. They did not blindly follow the “leadership.”

      • acat

        As I mentioned around here somewhere, 50% of the Catholics I know voted for Obama, and about 25% of the Evangelicals did as well. Christians do not behave as a voting bloc.

        Social Conservatives, on the other hand, do behave more or less as a bloc for purposes of the general election, although they seem – as Becker pointed out above – unable to work together *until* the general.

        This, by the way, ignores the Single-Issue Values Voters who vote purely based on which candidate appeals to their single values (i.e. social) issue. It’s necessary to treat these folks as separate from Social Conservatives, even though they often will self-identify “conservative”.

        Mew

        • kipling

          I am not using social conservative and evangelical interchangeably. Some have in their posts and I may have responded in kind but the two are different.

          While a good majority of evangelicals will also be social conservatives [ if the are true evangelicals in the traditional sense of the Protestant Reformation ], not all social conservatives are evangelicals.

          In speaking of the evangelical leaders who endorsed Santorum, most of them fall into the social conservative category.

          • acat

            Just so we’re clear.

            Mew

          • carolynr

            As far as the candidates are concerned, Iowa did not look at the entire resume of the candidate…but rather just on two defining issues…Social Conservatism and Subsidies.

            The difference between Perry and Santorum is easy to figure out. One believes in social issues but does not believe in “excessive” handouts. Santorum prides himself as being a Compassionate Conservative…and as we have all found out…that leads to more government dependency through bigger government.

            Both Santorum and Perry are good Christians…however, Iowa never looked at the entire record of the man to get an all around better candidate. You know my views on Perry…so I will not be redundant. I believe, when faced with the endorsement…it came down to $$$$$$$$$$$$

          • acat

            And, if you’ll read my discussion with kipling above, you’ll see that I’ve already pointed out the flaw in mis-tagging the latter as the former despite how they may self-identify.

            I note that kipling chose not to acknowledge this second level of distinction, and trust that a reply will be forthcoming.

            Mew

      • carolynr

        This thing in Iowa sent me off the charts. What was the matter with this guy VanderPlatts…and for that matter…the entire TPM…whatever they call themselves. EVERYTHING…and I mean everything that they wanted was encompassed in one candidate…Perry. No..even with all the time spent there…instead of SC…it would not have been good enough all because they placed MONEY ahead of Values. In the case of the TPM…they just wanted to be seen as sticking with a winner and someone that had an “oops” moment might make them less credible….so that’s why no backing of Perry, IMO. Forget policies…forget record…they just wanted to be seen as a force that the Media would stop picking on.

    • JSobieski

      nt

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  • Scope

    Going back again to what has been one of my pet peeves for a good while is the fact that the rise of the Tea Parties, yes I know it means Taxed Enough Already, only gave a voice to fiscal issues, and a call for smaller government. The social and national security issues never seemed to be any part of that movement. Most Tea Party groups only address the fiscal issue on their websites, and they avoid, at all costs, any talk of what many consider “politically toxic” conversation of two of Reagan’s three legs of the conservative stool. Most also consider themselves to be non-partisan. I’m sorry, but if I have to reach over to the liberal side on national security and social issues, I want no part of the discussion. Liberals don’t ever reach across the aisle, it’s always come and sit with them, or they take their ball and go home. In many many ways, the infiltration of the Ron Paul supporters, in many of the Tea Party groups, about the only agreement has been with lower taxes, less spending, and smaller government, oh, and gold buggery also. Don’t touch the other two legs, if they had to talk about their positions on social and nat/sec. positions, they would chase so many people away in fright they must avaoid that talk as much as possible.

    This week has been interesting, most especially with respect to the social issues. For those that want desperately to abide by a social issue truce, they seem to forget that the liberals never forget that issue, as was in evidence this week. We had the Obama speech at the prayer breakfast, where he claimed that the Catholics are all in favor of redistribution of the wealth by the government. We had the Prop 8 decision in CA, where the will of the people, who voted against state same sex marriage, was overturned by three black robes, with no really good reason for doing so, except for citing an earlier decision, again by liberal black robes. We had the Komen decision which was fantastic, and gave the pro-life people enough reason to donate to their org., only for someone there to fold the very next day because the loud mouthed liberal beeitches took a steel pipe to the back of someone’s knees, and they folded like a spaghetti noodle. We’ve had the liberals now telling religious orgs. such as hospitals etc. that they must include birth control coverage included in their employee health insurance packages.

    With every social issue from abortion, to gay marriage, to religious freedom in the forefront this week, I wonder if that didn’t help Santorum in his 3 state sweep last night. I have to believe that it had at least a little to do with it. You see what I mean by the liberals never ever letting up on the social issues. That is every bit as much a part of the many legged liberal stool, as it has to do with our three legs. Reagan said that if you take away any of the legs, conservatism falls.

  • kipling

    The social issues hit pretty heavy this week with Obama and his minions using social liberalism to advance their big government agenda.

    I think it probably impacted Santorum pretty heavily.

  • westcoastpatriette

    fiscal, social or national defense, without suffering severe consequences. Morals are the foundation of civilized, vibrant cultures. Anything less leads to decay and ultimate self-destruction if not complete domination by tyrants who have no morals.

    No matter which leg of the stool we are discussing, high standards of morality must be maintained to strengthen any nation. It used to be that common sense and wisdom made these principles a given, but cowardice in the face of unscrupulous leftists who constantly push normalization of despicable conduct on the nation has brought shame and compromise from cowards to new levels of disgust. We need strong leaders who understand this and will not apologize for condemning those who would push immorality down our throats.

  • avagreen

    not so common these days.

    For a reason, I’m sure.

  • kipling

    (nt)

  • aesthete

    but I’m not so sure that your interpretation of events is accurate. Mitch Daniels stayed out of the race on account of his wife. Christie was never in the race to begin with. Sanford self-destructed (though even post-self destruct, he’s head and shoulders above the current field IMO). Rick Perry was widely supported by conservatives of all stripes (including fiscal conservatives) until a series of unforced errors that ranged the conservative plane. The comment that most agree doomed him was on an issue that straddles the periphery of both social and fiscal conservatism (illegal immigration). Indeed, it would seem from the results in Iowa and South Carolina that social conservatives were no stalwart base of Perry’s. Rick Santorum is in no way a fiscal conservative.

    As far as unity goes, I agree that fiscal conservatives and social conservatives don’t have the best working relationship, ditto libertarians and both groups. I don’t agree that this is a phenomena caused solely or even mostly by fiscal conservatives and libertarians.

    Fiscal issues are not social issues. This assertion really makes no sense, except to try to reinforce a completely non-existent internal consistency in what is seen as traditional conservatism. (This is, of course, assuming that there is a definition of “social conservatism” that is universally adhered to.)

    There is a difference between *emphasis* and *prioritization*, and abandonment. There is a time and season for everything, and right now the time and season favors change on fiscal issues moreso than social issues. There is a difference between a DeMint and a Santorum that fiscal conservatives appreciate, but that many social conservatives do not seem to.

  • acat

    None of the various conservative stripes (including libertarians) can go it alone. This should be obvious by now, ever time any one group tries, the result is a failure. Conservative success starts with fusionism – the recognition that we can find common ground.

    I’d be happy to get a DeMint-grade candidate. I like Perry, and hope he can find the way clear to run again in the future. I also like Pence, who never got in.

    Regarding Daniels, who has an impeccable pro-life record despite being known as a fiscal conservative; the wording of his “truce” still seems, to this cat, to have been about fusionism, bridging gaps between fiscal and social, not about making peace with the hard left.

    There’s no point weeping over what might have been, the question now is whether it’s Romney or SMOD.*

    Mew

    (no, not Santorum…)

  • kipling

    The fact is that during an election cycle that supposedly favored fiscal issues and demanded a truce on social issues, no fiscal conservative leader strode forth to embrace the primary challenge.

    Mitch Daniels excused himself from the race because of his wife and family. Prior to that he shot himself in both feet with the truce remark. His candidacy was essentially over at that point.

    Chris Christie never entered the race. Nor did any other fiscal conservative leaders, which was my point.

    I do not count Rick Perry because he attempted to appeal to all three legs of the traditionally conservative stool.

    The point is that no fiscal conservative leader rose to the challenge. Ironic considering they and many of their supporters told us this was their year.

  • kipling

    [Forgive the double response but I felt it best to address your points individually.]

    Fiscal issues are social issues. The connection is two fold.

    First, fiscal issues are often caused by social issues. Liberals and Leftists justify increased federal spending because of conditions in our society caused by social liberalism. The destruction of traditional marriage and the rise of single parents led to a host of social problems. The Leftist solution was welfare and other big government spending. These programs further destroyed the family thus creating the need for further spending and new programs. Liberals have united social liberalism and fiscal liberalism into a defense of big government spending. Fiscal conservatives attack the edifice only on the issue of spending but the liberals justify the spending with the social issues. We need to develop a two-pronged attack that addresses the spending and the underlying social liberalism that caused the problem. Otherwise we are simply treating the system.

    Second, historically their is no division between fiscal and social issues. The Christian worldview promotes the dignity of man and the value of work. The Protestant Reformation and the subsequent Catholic Reformation restored the focus on marriage, family, and what used to be called the Protestant work ethic. These reforms led to the birth of modern constitutional government, a respect for the law, and the rights of individuals. Any definition of social conservatism that limits social issues to abortion and marriage is not a historically factual definition. Most likely its origin is in modern secularism, which erroneous seeks to limit faith to certain areas of life.

  • moonmad

    He had already told the social issues conservatives to stick it where the sun don’t shine. He told social conservatives they were irrelevant. That created enough of and uproar that he hid behind his wife’s skirt. When it’s safe in the future he will come out and maybe do a little better evaluation of t the base of the party.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    We dont need conservatives who are ok on one issue and out to lunch on others.
    pseudo-conservative libertarians who are for legalizing heroin but attack good conservatives for their ‘lack of purity’ (thats you RuPaul supporters), prolife statist, fiscal-con “shhh dont talk about family values” politicians, all are part of the problem.

    The solution is indeed fusionism. Mitch Daniels is one who has it, despite the ‘truce’ talk.

    There is nothing to disagree with in your post, except the disagreeable rejection of Santorum. If you peel back the layers, Santorum has had the message and the record closest to Reagan. Perfect? No, but when voters in GOP primary elections have the choice between a real conservative and a not-conservative, at least some are voting for the real thing.

  • acat

    Santorum’s record is not one of fiscal conservatism, it is one of big-government union-supported nanny-statism. He’s a big-government guy, not a small-government proponent, based on his record. (note – I choose to discard anything he’s had to say since 2006 and look strictly at his record)

    Further, Santorum has left a very long record of hardline social conservative sound bites that will be used to club him like a baby seal in the general election; he has no chance of running as an “unhyphenated” conservative and winning over the independents who actually, you know, decide elections.

    To compare Santorum to Daniels or DeMint is to be willfully blind.

    Mew

  • Scope

    Yes, there are things to not like about Santorum, including the Union thing, and his past compassionate conservative votes. When I compare his negatives to Romney and Gingrich, to me they are mush less egregious. We all forget that the president has little ability to impact the country with respect to social issues. He can’t write bills to demand gay marriage go away, he can’t write bills with respect to abortion. He can’t write bills to insure religious freedom in the US. He can only hope to sway that message, if he is a convincing speaker.

    The president does have a major impact on national security, and as much as so many think Santorum is uninformed on national security, they have failed to research Santorum’s time since leaving the Senate. He spent as much time with a national security think thank as he has with social issue think tanks. Santorum was never given the opportunity to release his knowledge on his positions on the debate stage. Santorum is not a light weight when it comes to foreign policy and national security. He is as far away from Ron Paul on national security as the man in the moon. He has been very consistent with his peace through strength ideas.

    I’ve been thinking today about what Obama could attack Santorum on, that would have any impactful outcome. Would Obama attack Santorum on his Union position. His position was for his state. Hasn’t Romney also excused his Romneycare passage as a state’s issue. What could Obama attack Santorum on? I’m sure some will find something. That’s what we are here for. What could Obama and Axelrod go after Santorum for?

    I’m sure the carpet bombing will be all around us shortly from the Romney campaign. He’s done it to every candidate in the race that threatened his front runner status. I have to guess that the Santorum trifecta yesterday had much ado about Romney’s nasty and negative campaign tactic’s, and the mistake for Newt to get into the same mud pit with him. I really hope that Santorum can go far in stopping the Romney inevitalibity meme. So far Santorum has won more races than any of the others. I understand that the evangelicals will pull any of his support and funding if he goes negative. That’s a good thing.

  • http://practicalgopvoter.blogspot.com/ texasproud

    I think there is merit to the post about taking into consideration the social conservative voter. We do need to unify for us to have a chance to win in the fall-and that is the one election that truly matters. The question I have is, why do we need to settle for the one candidate who is defined by this, Rick Santorum, instead of the other candidates who are also pro-life and oppose same sex marriage. There are plenty of canddiates out there who have successfully tied in there social and fiscal beliefs to win races in swing areas like Bob McDonnell.

    I had this theory that Romney vs Gingrich was for the nomination but Santorum vs Paul is for the future of the party. My logic is tha Paul has tremendous pull in the under 40 demographic with his view on limited government, the welfare state, and individual liberty and privacy. While I disagree with his foreign policy, his domestic policy is extremely attractive to someone like me whose in his early 30s and active politically in my community. Santorum is the perfect symbol of the Christian Coalition movement of the 90s and earlier 00s which helped to get Bush elected. It was benefited from a hot culture war with all of the gay marriage fights in many states that galvanized swing voters. Santorum was instrumental in those fights. Those voters also were baby boomers and retirees.

    The issue for me going forward is who gets to definte what a conservative is. While I think it should be more a set of principles than an arbitrary litmus test, I think this discussion, particularly on generational levels needs to be addressed. Rick Santorum on his wiki page and at a rally here in Dallas yesterday said he wants to rid the GOP of all libertarians and libertarian idealogies. The biggest issue with that is how he defines ‘libertarianism’. He said that people who believe in a small government that stays out of our lives and leaves us alone is libertarian and not traditional conservatism. I would define that as conservatism. The only difference between what Santorum and Obama is that Obama seeks to impose his secular liberal ideaology on us while Santorum seeks to impose his version of Christian Conservatism on us. I don’t think the government needs to be promoting or punishing, but to stay out of it, and let local communities, and more importantly, the local church, to influence the population. I am worried that a Santorum candidacy could half long-term damage with young republicans and conservatives because he is not an idealogical match with younger voters.

    In the last election, what candidate won in Novermber in tossup areas running on an explicitly social conservative platform? Not who is socially conservative, but who ran on social issues and won. The general election electorate (not the 20% of the GOP electorate that votes in primaries) was a mandate on fiscal policy and punished candidates from BOTH parties who tried to run on social issues. When Deeds in Virginia tried to turn the Governor’s race onto abortion, he went from being down 5 points to losing by 18. If you can’t pass the smell test as a candidate with a solid fiscal policy, the rest of your stances were irrelevant.

  • acat

    The trouble with everything Santorum’s said from 2006 until today is that they’re just words. There’s no *record* there.

    Maybe Santorum had a “road to damascus” moment, maybe he didn’t … but .. I’m not Ananias. I’m not interested in taking his conversion on faith.

    Mew

  • Scope

    You are not willing to take Santorum’s words at face vale. Are you willing to take Romney or Gingrich’s words at face value? I consider both Romney and Gingrich to both be almost equal flip floppers on many different issues. While Santorum may not have been correct with what he did, or voted for, has Gingrich been a stalwart conservative since leaving Congress? Has Romney not been on every side of the issue since he got into politics? For me, it is all about the impact of their positions. Gingrich has been long on record with his Global Warming positions, and his Freddie Mac record scares the heck out of me. In a debate, he said that he wanted every American to own a home, and that we should all want that. Romney’s record speaks for itself, the few times he has won elections after his many tries. For me Cat, it is all in the depth of the treachery, and what impact it has had on the country.

    Again, what can Santorum do about the social issues, other than to speechify about the importance of family values, which I agree with. He can have a tremendous impact as the CIC with foreign policy and national security. As to the fiscal issues, it all depends on what the House and the Senate looks like in 2012. It is my contention that we should be far more focused on the House and Senate races. Not much can be done without those bodies, unless of course you have a liberal presidency that is willing to do with the Constitution as Ruth Bader Ginsberg has been willing to say, in her words, it’s a faulty document, that has been robbed of oxygen. I truly do not see Santorum desiring to give it an updated, upgraded, living life, born for the new age.

  • acat

    I do have to agree that we need to spend much more focus on the House and Senate races. They’re starting to gel, and I think we’re going to see many more diaries on them .. soon. The POTUS race, though, does tend to soak up all the oxygen in the room.

    That said, on to the candidates. Gingrich first.

    Gingrich’s record, in congress, is quite conservative, and of the four remaining candidates, he has the best record of winning national elections. (the Contract with America was a national election, and unlike Romney, Gingrich won)

    While I do fault Gingrich for being “taken in” over global warming, he’s hardly the only candidate with that distinction – Pawlenty and Romney both had some bogus “greenhouse gas emissions” stuff in their back stories. I’m willing to forgive Gingrich for one reason – unlike Romney, who was just going along with the greens’ program, Gingrich was trying to get a seat at the greens’ table to push private sector solutions.

    I don’t think Gingrich is “the best we can do”, but .. of what’s left, he appears superior to Romney in that he’s a leader and a fighter, and superior to Santorum in that he’s got verifiable cred, in the form of his voting record, of both fiscal and social conservative traits.

    Now for Santorum.

    I don’t think Santorum is likely to replace the constitution, but … I’ll just point out that in 2006, Rick lost by the highest margin of any GOPer who lost that year.

    Some of that loss may be due to the Dems running Casey Jr., some due to Bush Fatigue, but … some of the blame has to be on the man himself. His previous campaigns had all been against social-liberal Dems .. when faced with one claiming social conservatism, he couldn’t figure out how to compete.

    Then, there’s Santorum’s union ties. We must shrink the control of government unions, yes? Scott Walker is facing a recall election, in large part because he blocked the Wisconsin teachers union from keeping automatic paycheck dues withdrawals. The fight is going to be nationwide, SEIU have shown how far they’ll go. How does Santorum stand up to his former allies?

    Let’s consider social issues. Elections aren’t won just by bringing out the “base”, it takes winning over independents, yes? The trouble is, Santorum’s views are significantly out of step with the independents in this country. He plays great in Peoria, but he won’t win the suburbanites just by opposing gay marriage and abortion. Looking back for a moment, that Santorum proved this true in 2006… he ran a very social-conservative strong-defense campaign .. and lost.

    Santorum needs to be strong on fiscal issues. Like I said, he may have had a ‘road to damascus’ moment…. but his record, and some of his quotes from the debates indicate he still doesn’t think there are many problems that government can’t solve.

    I don’t think he’s the guy.

    Mew

  • keepcoolwithcoolidge

    It’s social conservatives who feel marginalized by fiscal conservatives? Twilight zone.

  • JSobieski

    What should the President or Congress do exactly about broken families? Uneducated kids? Teenage pregnancy?

    Besides not making these problems worse (ie getting out of the way), 99% of the social pathologies that result in fiscal issues are not things that can or should be addressed by the federal government. Frankly, a lot of that stuff can’t be addressed by any level of government.

    Society and culture exist outside of government (thank GOD!)

    Fiscal liberalism succeeded because it tied itself to social liberalism. Embracing that linkage is precisely what liberals used to justify wealth redistribution.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    You’re living on a different planet.

    All you have to do is look at who the so-called so-cons have supported. Pat Robertson??? GWB??? Mike Huckabee??? Santorum??? This is total insanity. Lord only knows what Pat Robertson represented. The other three were, and are, a complete anathema to any concept of “conservatism”. GWB did a great job on foreign policy with the hand he was dealt. On domestic policy he was a complete disaster and he laid the groundwork for Obama.

    Mike Huckabee never met a tax he didn’t like didn’t love or a problem that couldn’t be solved by government. Santorum’s career is the same ilk. He’s talking a fairly conservative game these days, but looking at his actual career in office there is absolutely nothing that would indicate he’s able to or really interested in governing as a conservative.

    The actual “social” issues, abortion and gay marriage for two, there is nothing the president can do other than reinstate the EOs relating to Mexico City, et al. A Constitutional Amendment on these issues will not happen. Will not happen. And, given the recent 9th Circus decision on Prop 8 in CA and the probability that SCOTUS won’t take the appeal, gay marriage is a done deal.

    What matters, from a social perspective will be SCOTUS nominations and I have no confidence that Santorum’s nominees would be any better than Justice Kennedy.

    The issue that is going to sink the nation is spending and the overreach of the government. Santorum likes the overreach, he just wants different stuff reached. If we chop the growth of government more issues will revert to local solutions and overall that will be better.

    The real bottom line however, is that if you think for one second that the so-called leaders of the social side have any interest in making the kind of drastic changes that will be required you’re fooling yourself. Realistically, every social welfare program should be eliminated and that means 100% of the so-called safety net. If you want social services for people, do it at the state and local level. And, let the churches start serving their communities and helping the poor, one on one.

  • Finrod

    Namely, the War on Drugs.

    SoCons want to unconstitutionally use the federal government to crack down on drugs (an amendment was needed to outlaw alcohol), which the federal government has been doing since Richard Nixon was President, which goes to show you 1) how long they’ve been doing this, and 2) how much good it’s done.

    Whereas fiscally, we’d be ahead if we stopped spending money trying to stop drugs and started getting money from taxing them. Take half of the tax money from taxing drugs and use it to fund rehab clinics, and put the other half in the general treasury. We’d be saving tens of billions of dollars every year if we did this.

    People who support the War on Drugs want Big Government, they just want *their* Big Government.

  • iunderstand

    The debt tripled under President Reagan, why would you say he was a fiscal conservative?

  • kipling

    The problem is the connection between social liberalism and fiscal liberalism. The federal government is not neutral on social issues. In fact the federal government is intent on undermining the traditional stabilizers of society in order to create the problems which it then offers to solve at a price. They create the crisis need to sell the solution – big government – that they intended.

    A good start would be to make the government neutral on many social issues. Remove funding for the NEA, Planned Parenthood, etc. End the marriage penalty in the tax code. End the welfare benefits that encourage single parent households in return for government money. Sponsor vouchers so people can send kids to the schools of their choice and thus end the indoctrination of public school children.

    Next, support traditional western values like marriage and the family. Promote and encourage these activities through the tax code and with other incentives.

  • kipling

    First, history extends a little before Pat Robertson.

    Second, you conveniently try to create a myth about social conservative support for Robertson, GWB, Huckabee, and Santorum. Please tell me, who was the great champion of fiscal conservatism in those years. Was it George H. Bush in 1988? Was it John McCain in 2000? Or was it John McCain in 2008? Is it Romney or Newt in 2012? Where is the clear fiscal alternative? Truth is, you don’t have one now and you did not have one then. Social conservatives did not blindly support those guys. Nor did they vote as a solid block. The evangelical “leadership” may have endorsed Santorum but polling shows a clear split of evangelical support for Newt, Santorum, and Romney.

    Third, read my response to JSobieski above. There is plenty that can be done at the federal level to end social liberalism and restore traditional values. Most of it makes actually cuts expenditures and reduces the size of government. This past week President Obama has done plenty to advance abortion through the executive branch and HHS. The President does matter on social issues.

    Thanks for proving my larger point about the destructive hate some fiscal only conservatives have for the social conservatives. Your desire to verbally squash “so-called so-cons” has clouded your vision, your view of history, and judgment.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    except, unlike the leadership of the movement, I actually have done things on the social side and I also happen to understand what has to be done to actually accomplish something on that side of the coin. Something the “leadership” and certainly people like Santorum have no clue about.

    Second, I also understand that the problem that is going to take us over the falls is not who sleeps with who, especially when the majority of the nation doesn’t care either. The problem that we’re out of time to solve is fiscal. Period.

    I’m not in the least angry. I’m utterly frustrated at the stupidity I see from the social fools. My vision is excellent as is my understanding of history. We have one priority. Downsize government. Secondarily, nominate SCOTUS justices who will turn the law to the right.

  • JSobieski

    In other words, at the federal level, you need to be a fiscal conservative to be a reliable social conservative—not vice versa

  • JSobieski

    You actually have things a bit backwards.

    A fiscal conservative at the federal level is inherently a social conservative because a fiscal conservative wants a governemnt that stays out of the way and only gets involved via enumerated powers.

    The number of ways the federal government can effectively promote families can be counted on the fingers of a one-handed man.

  • runner12

    This is a great diary that has sparked good, civil conversations. I think your point regarding the Left’s non-seperation of social and fiscal issues is key.

    As you stated, the Leftists are by no means neutral on social issues. They are constantly undermining the moral fiber of this country by pushing their own social agenda through government programs. After all, a degenerate society is easier to control.

    What we social conservatives must focus on is removing their influence and use of federal programs to push their agenda. We must equally be careful not to add more programs that could be used against us in the future. A limited government is the most natural environment for both social and fiscal conservatives. It will take all of us to shift this country away from the brink of the cliff we are on.

  • JSobieski

    than many “social conservatives” are as advocataes for limited government.

    The Catholic Church is a great example of the subtle ways in which principled people are seduced by expanding government.

    The federal government shouldn’t be doing anything that impacts the average American family. Collect taxes, give deductions for dependents, etc.

  • aesthete

    but I’m not sure what it has to do with the price of lemons in Saratoga.

    It’s no less true that traditional conservatives either self-destructed (Sanford), declined to run (Rubio, Jindal), or had other reasons for not running. Too bad those guys didn’t run, but I don’t really see how this is a “point: social conservatives!” or even a “point: traditional conservatives!” moment. If it’s a “moment” at all, it’s a “point: moderates (you dumb rubes!)!!!”, considering the status of the race.

  • ffc99

    to your ridiculous assertion that a potential Daniels candidacy would have been “essentially over” because of his truce comments. I’d love to hear your rationale for reaching such a bizarre conclusion (especially as I sit here today looking at the three potential Republican nominees…all of whom are on the record as being far to the left of Mitch Daniels).

  • kipling

    As I mentioned in the original post, the leviathan of the federal government is created by an alliance between the fiscal liberals and the social liberals. Social liberalism creates the problems and fiscal liberalism [i.e. big government nanny state] solves the problems. Although in reality it never solves the problem but rather creates more problems for itself to solve. Hence, insuring its own longevity.

    We will not solve the fiscal problem until we solve the social problems that give rise to big government. The left has created a society centered on dependence. A society in which a significant and growing majority would rather surrender their independence to the nanny state in return for goodies. It is fine to say let cut 100% of the social programs. But it is not going to happen until you change the way these people view their lives and the way others feel about government dependency.

    In short, our fiscal policy flows from our social values. Until we can change the values, you are swimming upstream against a strong current.

  • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

    I’ve come to understand the POV that aesthete, acat, ‘becker, JSob and others espouse, i.e., that the fed gov’t. should just get out of the way and stay out. In theory, I’m probably close to agreement. However, in practice, liberals will NEVER give up trying to force their agenda at the federal level on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage which in turn do affect spending. How, then, are we to counter their measures? States have passed bans on gay marriage to no avail because liberal judges overturn them. So much for state’s rights. Same with restrictions on abortions. And although perhaps not a social issue per se, same with illegal immigration laws (AL, AZ, SC) that are heading to court.

  • kipling

    Until we begin to counter the culture of dependency and victimhood that the left has created, any fiscal reforms we achieve will be a drop in the bucket.

    For a “social conservative” you have a very narrow view of social conservatism. It is not about who is sleeping with who. It is about the protection of marriage and family which has been the foundation of western civilization. It is about promoting the inherent dignity of man and the sanctity of work. It is about countering the sloth and despondency that traps people into poverty. It is about the traditional home as school and center of culture.

  • aesthete

    who want to reduce government scope in all areas, including social?

    From what you’re saying, there’s not much of a difference between a social conservative, and a libertarian who is personally socially-conservative.

  • kipling

    I am sure the two will differ at some point but I think they could find a lot of common ground. We should focus on the common ground and move forward rather than be divided.

  • Dave_A

    Simply put, the libertarian ‘neither draws my blood nor picks my pocket’ standard for crime is absolutely unacceptable to a social conservative…

    As a social conservative, one believes that it is legitimate for government (the generic ‘government’ includes all levels, not just federal) to prohibit bad behavior, as defined by a majority of the electorate, so long as it doesn’t violate any enumerated rights….

    That’s where the difference lies – Libertarians are quick to complain about supposedly ‘victimless’ crime, or to complain that ‘non violent’ offenders are over-punished….

    For a social conservative, there should be no sympathy for convicts, and if you do something that lands you in prison, that’s your fault, not ‘society’s'….

  • kipling

    No one can really know if he could have recovered from the “truce” comment. The fact is that he chose to sit it out and it had a lot to do with the firestorm caused by those comments.

  • kipling

    The point is not to keep score. The point is that the push from fiscal conservatives was to get the social conservative issues off the table and focus on fiscal matters and jobs. We had to call a truce for the sake of fiscal responsibility. Then the fiscal conservatives came up with squat. They had wanted to go it alone and then failed to even find a leader.

    My argument is that none of the three legs can go it alone. A social conservative candidate who is a fiscal liberal would do no better than a fiscal conservative who is a social liberal. We need to all three find common ground and focus upon what can be done.

  • ffc99

    He didn’t run because of family concerns, full stop. The reaction to his truce comments had absolutely nothing to do with it (and without going into too many details, I can tell you that is a fact).

  • kipling

    Regardless. The point is that fiscal conservatives failed to produce any candidates for the nomination in a year they all claimed was perfectly suited to the fiscal conservative message and the exclusion of social conservatism.

    It does not matter to my argument why he chose not to run. The fact is he dropped out.

    If he had launched a run, the truce comments – based on the firestorm at the time – would have been a hurdle for the campaign.

  • ffc99

    he never was in the race. Seriously Kipling, you really should be embarrassed by this incoherent and nearly incomprehensible diary.

  • JSobieski

    the issue are:
    (1) To what extent is government the proper tool for social conservative ends (aside of course from getting out of the way)

    and

    (2) The extent to which the federal government is the proper level of government

    I am a big fan of the 10th Amendment. Frankly, most social value legistion should occur at the local level.

  • aesthete

    As DeMint said, the battle should be between libertarians and conservatives, not moderates and conservatives.

  • JSobieski

    If you buy into enumerated powers, there shouldn’t be much social policy being set in DC.

  • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

    .
    .

  • kipling

    The liberals assault on our culture and society forces us to fight it at every level. Many argue that social conservatives should fight solely at the state level but the social liberals have already outflanked us at the federal level. A good example is the recent dismissal by a district court of Prop 8 in California. What good is local activism if the federal level will simply undo all that has been done? We have to fight social liberalism and thus fiscal liberalism at every level.

  • avgjo

    Take the approach the folks you mentioned take: shrink the fed government and return power to the states.

    You’ll notice that the 1st amendment is limited to ‘Congress.’ There were, post-Constitution, all sorts of states which imposed religious qualifications on office-holders, had morality laws (e.g. anti-sodomy laws) and censorship laws. All perfectly constitutional. When the fed gov takes everything over, people like the ones you mentioned can hide behind the first amendment and other parts of the constitution to de-moralize the country.

    Pull out their teeth and de-claw them, and they can’t do any damage.

  • JSobieski

    If you do, what is the difference between you and libertarian at the federal level?

  • acat

    from misusing the same government program you propose for different purposes?

    Mew

    Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have … The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. — Gerald Ford

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    defund it at the federal level. Doing anything else is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

    Frankly, you’re last paragraph is full of high sounding principled stuff that is a complete waste of time and effort and will go exactly no-where. If you’d like an example, I’ll give you the pro-life movement. They’ve been wandering in the “protecting & promoting the inherent dignity of [life]” for 35+ years and gee, we’re only going to butcher 1.5 million unborn babies this year. Heck of a job.

    That example is not to take away the great work being done by thousands of individuals at the local level who are dealing one-on-one with women working to save a life. It is, however, a blanket indictment of the fractured leadership of the movement who hasn’t even tried to get their collective act together in the last three decades and focus on real, workable solutions. They’ve made some gains in the overall perception that abortion should be more highly regulated, but they’ve also enabled the Democratic politicians who have successfully fought any reasonable regulation of abortion.

    “Protection of marriage” is a significantly more difficult issue because, in fact, the country at large generally has no issue with gay marriage, ballot referendums aside. For example, even though California voted in favor of Prop 8, now that it’s been overturned by the court and is not likely to be reviewed at SCOTUS, do you think for one second that the people in California will elect a legislature that would “protect marriage” as you’d like to see protected?

    While I’d certainly like to see all those wonder platitudes come about, you’re talking about at least a generation of “mind-changing” that the “social conservative” movement has demonstrated that they’re not up to. In the meantime, if you haven’t noticed, we’re adding a trillion plus to the national debt every year and federal government is continually getting bigger. And that’s happening with the implicit approval of a very wide swath of the “social conservative” leadership. If we don’t stop the growth of government and eliminate most of the social safety net along with a whole bunch of other stuff (Depts of Ed, Energy, Housing and Commerce for four) the only thing we’re going to be concerned about in another decade is making sure we get to the dumpster first for dinner and if we don’t immediately deal with the fiscal emergency that we face today, that dumpster is going to be the center of culture.

  • acat

    Gabe, who writes at Ace of Spades, has a piece up that raises – with links – some of the same points, and some points I’d missed.

    Did you know, for instance, that Santorum still thinks earmarks are nifty? I’d sort of assumed that anyone seeking tea party support would be, you know, opposed to them….

    Mew

  • tnfriendofcoal101368

    Here is the Republican field:

    The inventor of Obamacare, a candidate who has stumped for global warming, moon colonies, and space mirrors to extend the growing season (I only wish I were kidding), a big government neo-con, and Ron Paul. Yep as a fiscal conservative I am feeling a little left out so kipling, you’ll have to forgive me for my lack of excitement. Honestly, any of these guys are a better choice than Barack Obama and I’ll hold my nose, drag myself to the polls and cast a vote for the Republican nominee in November. I’ll even impassionately state the case for why Barack Obama can’t be President of the United States but I won’t pretend any of them are fiscal conservatives (well except for Ron Paul but I am not into suicide pacts). Now, if Sweet Meteor of Death would deliver me Jeb Bush/Paul Ryan or Daniels/DeMint…I say bring me SMOD. I can get there too, Gingrich win the south, Santorum pick off Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Missouri. Romney win out west and New England and SMOD it is.

  • mikelindell2

    Understanding how you can lump Newt in with Rick & Mitt as “big gov’t.” NGin was last person to cut gov’t, reform an entitlement, and balance the federal budget.

  • exitsfunnel

    Diaries along these lines pop up pretty frequently and I never understand exactly what they are arguing. I am very roughly speaking a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. (I do oppose abortion which is obviously a large asterisk on the second piece of that) What exactly is it that you are asking me to do? Pretend that I am opposed to gay marriage when I’m not? Pretend that I want more jesusy government when I don’t?

    At the end of the day, whatever our political beliefs, we all do the same thing in the voting booth. We pick the candidate that agrees with us on the largest number of issues, weighted of course for how important each one is to us and the current environment and all of the other less important slippery stuff, and we vote for him. And there you go.

    -exits

  • mikelindell2

    /

  • Dave_A

    Because of what actually happened after 1995…

    First, the supposed ‘balanced budget’ was achieved by a combination of liberal policy & a once-in-a-millenium bubble economy. Not by spending cuts of any significance, outside of the one place we never should have cut – the DoD.

    Second, Newt’s ‘genius solutions’ are almost always about what ‘government can do for you’… Be it his ad with Pelosi, his moon colony, his support of a health-insurance mandate, the whole ‘government prizes for (whatever) thing, and so on….

    Welfare reform was good, but that wasn’t Newt’s idea… That was Tommy Thompson’s – Wisconsin’s ‘W2′ program was to TANF (fed welfare reform) what RomneyCare was to ObamaCare….

  • dogfan

    Are you the Mike Lindell of MyPillow?

  • Dave_A

    Is to blame the federal government for offenses against our beliefs committed by local politicians….

    The best example of this, is the ‘crusade’ against the Department of Education. Now, this isn’t to say that there isn’t a fiscal conservative case for cutting or eliminating this department.

    However, all too many times you will hear a social conservative rail against the Department of Ed & call for it’s abolition over such offenses as pro-gay children’s stories, unsavory sex-ed programs, and other curriculum issues….

    The problem with this? It’s not the US Department of Education putting ‘Heather has Two Mommies’ into your kid’s Kindergarten curriculum, calling for eliminating competition in the name of self-esteem, or installing ‘New Math’ & inferior reading programs…. It’s the local school board, school administration, or in some cases the individual teacher!

    The same can be said for some ‘libertarians’ who are quick to demonize the federal govt, while excusing the far more serious rights violations of states & local govt (libertarian pro-gun groups were infamous to that, before we essentially achieved total-victory on that issue)….

  • carolynr

    I am pro-life…I do believe in exceptions, rape, incest or the life of the mother. So…please don’t go after me on this. I do believe that life begins at conception. However, there are going to be a lot more people dying than just embryos or fetuses if we don’t fix this economic problem that is going to devastate this country. Maybe some of you are living in la la land and that we will keep on printing money and everything will be fine.

    We have just about killed the Middle Class, the rich are leaving this country and someone has to support the poor or they will die. Much of the middle class has fallen into the poor category. If we taxed all the rich people at 100%…we would not even touch this problem. I know…you are saying…she sounds like a doomsdayer…I’m not…these are facts…and the majority of our people are in DENIAL for sundry reasons.

    We not only have to reverse 100 years of legislation geared towards a dependency state…we have about three or four election cycles where the private sector HAS TO grow jobs. We’re going to have to compete on the world stage…and that will be hard…because the private companies are top heavy with required benefits/pensions. They have to make a profit to hire people and we are competing with countries that pay their people $3 a day! We could become an isolationist country and buy only Made In America…but there are not enough people to support private industry. Do you guys see this problem? So, we have to subsidize private industry using tax cuts (which is money out of our pocket) to pay for their overhead. We have not even touched the cost of illegal immigration, i.e., medical payments, SS if they are over 65…yes…you read that right…and prison confinement..oh and the cost of deporting them…if that ever happens.

    We have to get rid of this giant Federal Government that has its tentacles in every facet of our lives…everything…and it will get worse if Obamacare is not overturned by the SCOTUS. Romney will NEVER DO IT. The only “creative” mind out there NOW is Gingrich and his baggage…well..it does not look good for him.

    We’re in MEGA trouble here. So…let’s do first things first. We have to elect a Republican President. That means you have to get out of your chair…or blog on the papers…or write letters to the editors…and get people to vote. Low voter turnout will insure a victory for Obama. God…I wish Perry was the person in the beginning that he was at the end. But..that’s gone. While I don’t agree with Martin Knight concerning Romney…I will vote for the man…BECAUSE…I don’t believe in Communism.

    We’re in a worse spot than in any time in our nation’s history and this time it’s our turn to cross the Delaware…we have to get out the vote…we have to elect Conservatives into Congress to keep a leash on the President (Romney, Gingrich or Santorum). It is especially important that Romney be kept on a leash because of court appointments…THE MAN IS NOT CONSERVATIVE.

    If Ron Paul were not so radical concerning foreign affairs…I’d be willing to vote for him.

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    mandates. Bravo?

  • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

    yes. The second question is probably “not much, if any,” (if libertarian describes the POV of you and the others I referred to in my earlier comment). At least in my head. Sometimes my heart gets the better of me, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

    However, it’s not me you have to worry about. It’s those pesky liberals who won’t leave things alone and who force things at every level. They sneak around and try to get things like the ERA passed unnoticed or under the guise of misleading information, although they’re a little more blatant with their attempts these days.

    Practially speaking, I think what we need is to elect conservatives who in turn appoint conservative judges at every level and then push these matters from the local level up to the Supreme Court. However, I find it incredibly sad that we live in a country that fails to protect the most innocent, helpless among us. I don’t think the framers of the Constitution envisioned that one day our citizens would be arguing over whether or not an unborn baby has the right to live and is protected the Constitution or that marriage would be defined as anything other than between a man and a woman as God performed in the garden.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    If the problem originates from the DoE you are powerless at the local level to do anything about it.

    If the problem is the local principal or school board, that can be fixed in one election cycle if enough people really care about it.

    The state level is obviously a little more complex than the local, but at least it can be addressed where federal issues basically can’t.

    That said, it comes down to being able to build consensus on an issue in order to win at the ballot box. Frankly so-cons suck at building consensus.

  • http://practicalgopvoter.blogspot.com/ texasproud

    This my problem with Santorum. He wants the programs to promote his views instead of removing the government from the position of influencing decisions when we are not in the majority. I didn’t pay attention during the Bush years because he was our guy, but once Obama came in I realized the problem with government pushing anything

  • http://practicalgopvoter.blogspot.com/ texasproud

    This my problem with Santorum. He wants the programs to promote his views instead of removing the government from the position of influencing decisions when we are not in the majority. I didn’t pay attention during the Bush years because he was our guy, but once Obama came in I realized the problem with government pushing anything

  • kipling

    I have proposed no government programs.

    As I discussed with JSobieski, the first order of business should be to stop the federal government from promoting social liberalism in support of its big government policies.

    The next step would to be to remove federal regulations that stop private charities from effectively doing what they need to do. Federal regulations in this area hinder private efforts as much as federal regulations on free enterprise.

    I understand that some social conservatives in the past have proposed government programs to solve societal ills. I propose no new ones and a reconsideration of the old ones that exist.

  • dogfan

    Some of your reasoning seems off to me.

    First, as preface, let me say that I would never say to someone who considers all abortions (even the morning after pill) to be murder that he should put that issue aside to increase the chances of winning on fiscal conservatism (even assuming that would be the effect). That would be absurd. Stopping mass murder, if that’s how one views it, trumps anything else. I think most abortions are not murder because I don’t consider most embryos/fetuses that are aborted to be persons, but for anyone who does consider them persons, asking them to put that issue aside would be like asking someone to put aside the Holocaust (and wars of aggression) when assessing the Third Reich.

    Now then, one thing I don’t get is your assertion that “Abortion is about the collective not the individual child or even the mother.” Abortion is — or at least should be (more on this below) — about the question of individual rights — does the embryo/fetus have a right to life or does the woman have a right to kill it? I assume the vast majority of abortions occur before there is either no brain activity or nothing that anyone could consider even possibly resembling “thought” or “emotion”. Many people think those functions are what establish personhood. A body with no brain is not a person in their (and my) view. Our minds are what make us people, not the rest of our bodies. If you take my brain out and puree it in a blender, even if you kept the rest of my body “alive”, it is not me, and it is not a person. So I see no “right to life” of a first trimester embryo/fetus and I see no justification for denying a woman the choice of aborting a first trimester embryo/fetus. People of my view see this issue as a matter of individual rights, and conclude that the woman has a right, and the first trimester embryo/fetus, as a non-person, does not have any rights. The only people who arguably are implicitly (not explicitly) abstracting from the matter of individual rights are those who are defining a first trimester embryo/fetus as a person on purely religious grounds and wish the law to be based, in effect, on their religion’s view of personhood, and take away the woman’s liberty without any secular justification for doing so. I generally find objectionable such a view of laws that would restrict individual liberty.

    Re: “We need unity amongst conservatives.”

    You seem to be making two separate arguments in your diary. One is an electability argument: that fiscal conservative candidates can’t win much unless they are also socially conservative and attract such voters. That’s arguable, and as you seem to acknowledge, is the argument some fiscal and social conservatives have made in saying social issues should be downplayed or compromised or put aside to some extent. But, although your electability argument is very questionable, I’m not saying your argument is implausible, and that’s a matter of political analysis about which I don’t have a conclusion. Your other argument is that fiscal conservatism is somehow unachievable or unsustainable without social conservatism, which I address below.

    You write:
    Fiscal issues are social issues. There is no division. The character qualities that lead to personal responsibility, thrift, and self-dependence are social conservative values. Despotism comes when social liberalism triumphs and the people become less than God created them to be. In a society that honors and has reverence for God, the sanctity of marriage, the preciousness of life created in the image of God, and the inherent dignity of man, fiscal responsibility and independence from government is not a problem. The decadence of the Great Society flowed from the union of fiscal liberalism and social liberalism.

    Hard to follow your argumentation there. I believe in small government and associated low taxation, less interference by government in markets, less redistribution of wealth, great reduction of our projected medium/long-term deficits and debt. How will my fiscal views and preferences be difficult to sustain unless I seek to deny a woman the liberty of choosing to remove from her body something that I see no reason to consider a person (a first trimester embryo/fetus, even at the very earliest stage as in “Plan B”), or unless I seek to deny two adults who want to marry the equal right to do so simply because they have the same genitalia rather than opposite genitalia?

    Lastly, as a note, it seems to me that, if anything, fiscal conservatism and more broadly economic conservatism (to which I also strongly subscribe) is more compatible with less interference with individual liberty on matters related to “social issues” as well as economic matters. “Small government” to me means more than just the government reaching less into my wallet. It also means more individual liberty, unless there is strong justification for restricting that liberty, and I don’t consider solely religious bases of even the majority to suffice as justification for restricting liberty, or for that matter for denying “equal protection” as in the case of marriage equality.

  • http://www.gmsplace.com/ civil truth

    The barbarians are just waiting for the right opportunity as our leaders cannibalize our military and retreat on foreign policy to an indefensible perimeter.

    At times it seems like we’re watching a race between our domestic enemies and our foreign enemies.

  • kipling

    By your own logic, attempts to defund the culture of dependency at the federal level has failed. Fiscal conservatives have been talking about that since FDR and we are now descending into the abyss.

    We will not defund the federal leviathan until we end the culture that allows it to exist. It was not built in a day and it will not be ended in a single election cycle. I would support cuts of the highest magnitude but the people who routinely vote themselves a subsidy from the public treasury are not going to go cold turkey overnight. Nor are those who profit from big government in other ways. We have to break the edifice by shattering the social liberalism that creates the fiscal liberalism.

  • acat

    There are more conservatives – if one includes all stripes – than there are liberals. Polling keeps consistently showing this to be true.

    Why, then, do we keep losing?

    Because we choose the wrong ground (venue) to fight in – making a federal case out of abortion hasn’t helped us win it, the recent successes have been in the States, not D.C. because our numbers are better suited to winning in the States….

    Because we choose the wrong allies in the fight – Bart Stupak (and others of his ilk) are not social-conservative-Democrats. There is, and I appreciate kipling’s efforts in making this point – no such animal as a social-conservative-fiscal-liberal. I’m hopeful that the people of Pennsylvania will pay attention and return Casey Jr. (D-Sen) to the private sector.

    Your last paragraph, Becker, explains why we have such a load of suck to choose from as POTUS candidates …

    Mew

  • mikelindell2

    Hundreds of billions were cut from the budget,including discretionary and entitlements other than welfare. The economy boomed in part from huge cap gains tax cuts. And it doesn’t matter where welfare reform originated, Newt made it part of his Contract, had to pass it through the House, and most importantly had to figure out a way to get a Dem president to sign it

  • mikelindell2

    He constantly states he wants space exploration privately funded, which his critics conveniently ignore. The only guy whos given us balances budgets isn’t going to be throwing massive taxpayer money at it.

  • Bat1

    are “common sense” and “common courtesy.”

  • dogfan

    When I wrote of your assertion that “Abortion is about the collective not the individual child or even the mother”, I meant to refer to your assertion that those favoring abortion legality view abortion as “about the collective not the individual child or even the mother.” That is the assertion I was disputing — your attribution of that view to those who favor abortion legality.

    My wording was poor, but I didn’t mean to imply that you had expressed that sentence as your view, so my apologies for that sloppiness.

  • mikelindell2

    No, sorry. Is MyPillow a store?

  • kipling

    It makes no sense to battle solely at the state and local level if the federal government will nullify those efforts. We have made huge strides at the state level with abortion because of the balance on the Supreme Court. Should that balance shift, then all of those state efforts will fail.

    The problem with the DOE is there control of funding and their use of that funding to dictate curriculum. lunch menus, etc.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    And to elaborate on my last sentence, so-cons are the poster folk for destroying the good because they demand the perfect.

    Battles for the soul of the nation are not won overnight, they are an exercise in incrementalism and runs cross grain with people who have only one interest in life. For example, there was a discussion here at RS a month or so ago on abortion. I chimed in and said I’m fine with a rape/incest exception as long as the exception includes a provision that the incident must be reported to the police and DNA be taken from the aborted baby. A charge of murder should also be tacked onto any other charges for the rapist. I think that’s reasonable given that rape/incest is a major sticking point for lots of people and it accounts for about 0.5% of abortions.

    You’d thought I was trying to resurrect Dr. Mengele.

    We’re dealing with people who not only don’t know how to fight, they don’t want to fight. They just want to get their way.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    We just happen to be a point we’ve never even imagined before, which is why this moment in history could have given us the opportunity to begin to make cuts. Greece will go down. Several other countries in Europe are on the edge and could default before this election. In earlier times, the deficit has been a blip that people complained about but it’s never really had an impact on real life. This one will.

    Enjoy your little self-righteous click. You’d better hope you can depend on them, because push is about to come to shove. Mitch Daniels or Rick Perry potentially could have made the difference. The so-con “leadership” got both of them and now they’re pushing Santorum over Newt because of his marriage problems. Big government is better than unfaithfulness.

  • acat

    You said:

    It is about the protection of marriage and family which has been the foundation of western civilization. It is about promoting the inherent dignity of man and the sanctity of work. It is about countering the sloth and despondency that traps people into poverty. It is about the traditional home as school and center of culture.

    What I’m asking you to consider is whether the federal levers you propose using to achieve these ends could be used by someone else for different ends…. because that’s what history clearly states will happen.

    My goal is to disassemble the federal levers entirely, so that nobody, regardless of how well-placed their intentions, can use them.

    This will, from time to time, put us at cross purposes…. but it also means that the majority of the time, we’re working toward the same ends.

    Mew

  • kipling

    My post is not in support of Santorum. You should note that I did not differentiate him from Newt or Romney.

    My point going forward is that if conservatives want to attack the fiscal liberalism that leads to big government, then we have to attack the social liberalism that undergirds it.

    No one branch of conservatism can go it alone. We must all work together to take down the federal leviathan. I have just as much a problem with a social conservative who is a fiscal liberal as I do with a fiscal conservative who is a social liberal.

  • dogfan

    nt.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    will save the safety net and turn their backs on the Constitutional responsibilities of the government. My bet is on our domestic enemies, and I find it instructive how “social conservatives” who talk big about abortion and traditional families will unite with the far left to save the government. The Nation will go to hell, but at least we’ll have health care and school lunch programs.

  • aesthete

    then social conservatism stands for essentially nothing, perhaps even less than social liberals do.

    What you are describing is a system where man defines morality downwards — mob morality punishable by whatever recourses they desire within government. The only saving grace in this view is a deference to “enumerated rights” — which are neither complete nor comprehensive according to the Founders themselves. “Enumerated rights” being a semi-arbitrary collection of English rights, what exactly makes them special or all-encompassing?

    Once again, we run into the problem of self-described social conservatives broadly defining their ideology in a way that is useless and all-encompassing (would not a state democratically voting for stoning for adultery, “gay rights”, or legalizing rape be in keeping with “prohibit[ing] bad behavior, as defined by a majority of the electorate, so long as it doesn

  • rhampton

    That’s a common mistake in understanding the Constitution and our Founding Father’s intent, even though the Ninth Amendment explicitly states, “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

    The majority can not dictate what Rights are permissible. Our rights are Natural Rights, given to us by our Creator and are inalienable – that is, they are intrinsic to each and every person simply because 1) they exist, and 2) they are human. Furthermore, an individual’s Rights of Conscience can not be violated to promote the moral opinions of a majority.

    James Madison, Property
    March 29, 1792
    “According to this standard of merit, the praise of affording a just securing to property, should be sparingly bestowed on a government which, however scrupulously guarding the possessions of individuals, does not protect them in the enjoyment and communication of their opinions, in which they have an equal, and in the estimation of some, a more valuable property . . . Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man’s house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man’s conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.”

    That’s why Thomas Jefferson said (Notes on the State of Virginia: ch. 17 – Religion), “Our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

  • kipling

    Government will always exist and thus certain levers of power will always exist. We will never get to the point where we can safely walk away from the task and consider our liberty secure.

    Most of the things you quoted can be done simply by stopping the federal government from promoting the social liberalism that leads to big government. No new levers are created. If we can dismantle the levers constructed by the left, so much the better.

  • kipling

    I supported Rick Perry before he even announced his candidacy. I wrote here dissenting with the evangelical “leaderships” endorsement of Santorum.

    The image you have for anyone who supports social conservatism is a distorted image that does not reflect reality.

    And yes, I know you are a social conservative.

  • aesthete

    If one would indulge me, I think it can be summarized in the following way:

    1) Most social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and libertarians overwhelmingly agree (in theory, anyways) when it comes to the federal government: i.e., it should be limited to its enumerated and implied powers only. This is not understood by most conservatives in any of these camps.

    2) Social conservative leadership, as well as some portion of the social conservative base, places very little priority on fiscal issues, and sometimes betrays fiscal conservatism in favor of ostensible social conservative desires.

    3) Due to the interplay between those described by #2 in recent history, many fiscal conservatives doubt the commitment of social conservatives to small government, as well as their ability to prioritize.

    4) Social conservative angst at fiscal conservatives and libertarians is oft-expressed, but what they want these two groups to do is less than clear.

    5) Fiscal conservatives muddy the waters by sometimes avoiding the legitimate issue of a lack of consistency on the part of social conservatives to fiscal issues, and choose to portray them as mindless rubes. Social conservatives, in turn, characterize fiscal conservatives and libertarians as the greedy, capitalistic moral monsters.

    Most of these issues could be resolved if all parties agreed to treat each other (and their issues) with respect, and to pursue what they share in common with more zeal than before. IMO, jabbing at members of the coalition without any actionable appeal, is very unhelpful.

  • Leon H. Wolf

    n to the t

  • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

    Although I’m sure I’m guilty of what you say in #2 on occasion, since becoming a member here and becoming more educated on the issues, I do try to watch myself. For instance, I’m definitely on the opposite side of the fence from most evangelicals here in AL on our illegal immigration law which I view as being both a social issue as well as a fiscal issue.

    Anyway, I happen to like greedy, capitalistic moral monsters.

  • znjs

    It’s not just the SoCons will sometimes compromise on issues that aren’t as important to them as social issues are. I expect some disagreement about what is a reasonable compromise to move the ball down the field and what is not. It’s that sometimes SoCons go entirely in the wrong direction according to other conservatives. The war on drugs is an example that has been mentioned. A same-sex marriage constitutional ban as well as other federal laws about homosexuality are big gov’t answers. Santorum saying as president he’ll go around telling people it’s not ok for them to use contraception is certainly not getting gov’t out of our lives. Abstinence only sex education. Tax exempt status for religious organizations. None of these are small govt ideas.

  • jakeofalltrades

    AKA – 5

  • Leon H. Wolf

    Voters hate this idea by a 76-24 margin. That’s waaaaaay more unpopular than outlawing most abortions.

  • acat

    I’m the one who points out that conservatives need to “hold until relieved” in D.C., that the reason we are where we are now is because the conservatives who came to D.C. in both the Reagan Revolution and the Contract With America waves thought they could win the battle and go home… an error on their parts that we cannot repeat. You’ll get no argument from me over whether we can walk away. We can’t. Period.

    As for what you’ve proposed, I have no problem with it, but I would like to know both how it is distinct from my view of dismantling levers – would you have a problem with eliminating the Dept.Ed or Dept.Energy, for example? – and what specific actions you would want to take for departments that are still necessary such as the IRS.

    Mew

  • texashistorian

    We don’t have to say it but I sure hope there will be stones enough to do it

  • carolynr

    The closer that the people are to the government, the more control they have over it. First, I think that state and local governments would be more willing to do the will of the people…than some hack in DC.

    Nowhere in our Constitution does it say anything about the government being responsible for education. Voters, if they were clearly informed…would rather have a say in how their children are educated. This is one of the biggest factors when relocating into another state when you have school age children. Question: I want to know how the school ranks. It’s probably easier to get rid of a school superintendent than some pencil pusher in DC who really doesn’t give a hoot about your child..or their education…but rather his paycheck.

    Whenever you cut out the “middle man” you get more bang for your buck…and right now…the “middle man” is the government and it is into EVERYTHING.

  • acat

    that we not fight at the federal level, I must again question who you are replying to.

    We can’t *not* fight in D.C., but .. recognize that D.C. can be a holding action, a defensive one, while the State capitols are where we can effect change more readily – forcing the Libs (who are smaller in number and have fewer resources) to defend on multiple fronts.

    We must be able to walk and chew gum and solve differential equations at the same time, eh?

    Mew

  • Tennessean

    nailed it. absolutely nailed it.

  • Finrod

    .

  • The_Gadfly

    the state he represented. For all the conservatives that lived there when I was growing up, there was a union guy to match each of them. Some of the union guys were patriotic, some weren’t. But if you “crossed them” on a union vote, they were gonna cross you off on the next election. Anybody who want to be re-elected has to take account of that. And voting with the unions will produce exactly those results.

    Of the candidates left, I still like Newt over Santorum, but mainly because when he has the fire in the belly to undo something, he gets it done. When he was in the House, that fire was to undo the unending Democrat control. Right now it seems to be to undo The Big 0′s damage to the economy, including Obama/Romneycare. I’m actually more comfortable that Santorum will have the gut instinct to take the conservative position in a debate. There I expect Newt to take the Egghead postion, which may or may not be conservative.

  • streiff

    unless and until the Federal government stops funding education we will need a Department of Education, or as it was back in the day the Department of Health Education and Welfare. Otherwise you’re cutting checks to states, territories, and the District of Columbia with no assurances that the money will be used for education.

    Now we can debate the role of the federal government in education where I would venture a guess that the poll numbers are just the opposite those Leon cited and win that battle. Does DoE need an Office of Civil Rights? Are the functions it has taken on necessary? I suspect the public would answer no to both. But advocating closing a federal agency is just turning yourself into a pinata.

  • Leon H. Wolf

    The point is that many folks who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal will argue, completely without any proof, that if the Republicans ditched social conservative issues they would do better at the polls and we could get down to reducing the size of government. Whenever you point out that most of what they propose is actually less popular than outlawing abortion then they fall back on “well, it should be done anyway” (as you’ve helpfully illustrated). Well, why should the social conservative not feel the exact same way about outlawing abortion?

    The point is not whether it should or should not be eliminated, the point is that a certain species of fiscal conservative suffers almost invariably from a certain rhetorical blind spot.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    This isn’t about who “you” support or don’t, it’s about the general argument you’re making concerning “social issues”.

    Translate “you” into “your definition of this issue”.

    I’m probably not being clear today, Right now I’m dealing with a kid-disaster and I’m more than a little distracted. In fact I’m just posting here for distraction.

  • mediaproofyourvote

    Republicans in Congress Are Heroes for stopping Obama’s Stimulus II. Why can’t Republicans say this, repeat this, believe this. Republicans are clearly responsible for recent favorable job numbers – and we have proof because when Republican congress stopped Clinton the same thing happened.

    P.S. nothing our candidates are saying is sound bite worthy, do we not have any professional marketing or advertising consultants working for Repubs? Please send this statement to all of your representatives. We must lead from the bottom up until they get it.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    nt

  • acat

    Alas, it’s a topic that has been so fearmonger’d and demagogue’d that it’s impossible to talk to many otherwise rational people about it…. the response is pure visceral, not rational.

    I would probably split the funding 75% for rehab, 25% for general fund, but that’s just me.

    Mew

  • acat

    I fail to see the problem with your proposal.

    I’ll note, by the way, that I describe myself as anti-abortion because the pro-life movement has, somehow, been merged with the anti-death-penalty crowd….

    Mew

  • lineholder

    and probably have a significant portion of the public on our side, streiff. For example, there are 81 duplicate offices designated to teacher quality. What do they do? Are they necessary? Why do we have 81 duplicates? How much does this cost us? If it is a necessary function, can it be streamlined into one office?

    The public would be more in favor of actions such as this than it might be of eliminating an entire Agency.

  • kipling

    I thought I saw an article or something about that a while back.

    Sounds like a place to make a cut to me.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    I think the arguments made against using it – legal arguments in dp cases – demean, devalue and degrade the law. IMO, the reason we see many of the outlandish legal appeals is because dp cases have turned the law into nothing more than an excuse to split hairs.

    That, plus we don’t use it. I did a study a couple of years ago and the details are fuzzy – oh heck, they’re wrong – but directionally their ok. The result of the study was that if we execute one death row inmate every day, we’d empty out death row in the US in ten years, assuming their were no new capital crimes. In fact, we execute less than one per week. I don’t have the stats on length of time on death row, but safe to say, it’s measured in decades. That’s not a deterrent.

    Climbing down off my soap box now…

  • kipling

    Except, of course, the part about me at the end.

  • kipling

    It is impossible to confuse you with another cat.

    We were discussing levers of power in the government. You said that your goal was to dismantle the levers of power entirely. My response was that such an effort would be impossible. Government will always have some levers.

  • kipling

    We are probably missing each other in our meaning.

    Hope your kid-disaster has improved. I have had a few of those before.

  • acat

    I simply disagree that it’s sufficient to justify the ever-increasing number of prisons, prison guards, and lawyers necessary to warehouse those who cannot get along in society.

    I take the position that we should be limiting the use of the death penalty and/or limiting the appeal process.

    Mew

  • aesthete

    I have no moral qualms with the death penalty for rapists or murderers — merely pragmatic ones related to our legal system and the capacity for government to make the decision effectively.

  • acat

    I am not an anarchist.

    Mew

  • kipling

    You stated that your felt the abortion issue was being fought in the wrong venue [i.e. federal level]. I pointed out that the state action will mean little if the issue is lost at the federal level.

    You argue for a holding action at the federal level. Except the holding action is not working so well. Under Mr. Obama we have increased funding for Planned Parenthood. We have a new healthcare law that will increase federal funding for abortion. The purpose of a holding action is to stop or delay an enemy advance. That is not what is going on in Washington.

  • acat

    Historically, most change starts in the States and is dictated to D.C.

    Historically, most pro-life groups I’ve encountered want to send money to D.C., not the statehouse.

    If they’re just using that as a fundraising tactic, I’ve got no beef with it, even though it’s a little sleazy. However, if they’re actually thinking that we can win in D.C. without first winning 25+1 Statehouses, they’re doin’ it wrong.

    Does that make sense to you?

    Mew

  • kipling

    “My goal is to disassemble the federal levers entirely, so that nobody, regardless of how well-placed their intentions, can use them.”

    I am not going to fight over what you meant and what you did not mean. If you say that is not what you meant, then let us move on.

  • kipling

    They did not have 25+1 state houses.

    Since the early 1900s, policy has largely flowed from the federal level to the states. The income tax shifted the balance of power.

  • acat

    “Solve the problems at the lowest level of government possible” .. or, if you prefer the ’60s vernacular, “don’t make a federal case out of it”.

    The Confederacy (1776-1789) proved that we do need a Federal government with some real levers .. and the Founding Fathers did a good job, IMO, of identifying and enumerating what those levers should be.

    We The People have made a complete mess of things by adding more and more levers .. and at some point, we will find that we can no longer regain control.

    Mew

  • acat

    Have you completely missed what others in this thread are saying about reducing the power in D.C.?

    Mew

  • Ausonius

    When it was obvious in the late ’60′s and early ’70′s that the argument could not be won on the issue of the “humanity” of a “human” embryo (i.e. human beings do not give birth to simians), the Left-Wing switched – spectacularly successfully – to the “woman’s right to choose” what to do to her body, despite the illogicality that she does nothing to her body specifically in an abortion, but “chooses” to destroy another person’s body.

    And Americans have become accustomed to the status quo over the last 40 years, not unlike the complacency of Russians and Germans in reference to the death camps operated by the Communists and Nazis.

    If Americans were really, as a majority, upset by the spread of abortions, Roe vs. Wade would have already been overturned somehow.

    So why are Americans not all that upset? (Polls show abortion as a low-level issue.) I have no idea specifically, but I suspect apathy and covert racism are involved, along with the historical attitude of grudging toleration of the practice.

    And let’s face it: with 75 million Catholics, 16 million Southern Baptists, and other groups (e.g. 500,000 Orthodox Jews), if these congregations wanted abortions ended, or at least very severely restricted, it would happen. But who will bring them together and ignite such a movement?

  • Scope

    I don’t know if you read his white papers “Government at the Brink, which was published in June 2001, shortly before Fred left the Senate. Section D, Overlap and Duplication begins with:

    “No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!” Ronald Reagan

    That was published in 2001. Can you imagine the additional abundance of overlap and duplication since then? It certainly grew with W’s administration, especially the federal government expansion in education with No Child Left Behind. BTW, I read a headline today that 10 states are being granted waivers from No Child Left Behind. I thought the Obama administration expanded the program, but they are now granting waivers from it. Kinda sounds like Obamacare to me, though the Ocare waivers are only temporary until the full monte kicks in in 2013.

  • streiff

    we need to attack redundancy and federal overreach, not attack education.

  • acat

    who was elected, in part, because Rockefeller and Reagan couldn’t block Nixon at the ’68 convention.

    Had Reagan won in ’68, Roe v. Wade would not have stood… and Reagan could have won in ’68 except social conservatives seemed pretty split, and Nixon seemed (much as Romney appears today) the winning choice.

    Mew

  • kipling

    Right now the big game is at the federal level. It will trump all others until it is won.

    Unless you propose that the states directly defy the Supreme Court and the federal government, we have to take the issue at the federal level.

    We will not reduce the power of the federal government by pretending it is not there and focusing at the state level – a level that can be trumped at the federal level.

  • aesthete

    Obviously, the only thing that could explain it is a Jesus fish decal on your car and a sub-normal IQ level.

    /ficon

  • acat

    flying spaghetti monster or cthulu-fish decal on the back of your Camry?

    (I kid, I kid!)

    Mew

  • avagreen

    says it will be 45 states.
    The Obama administration offered the first details Thursday of the highly anticipated program, with as many as 45 states expected to participate….

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/obama-to-issue-no-child-left-behind-waivers-to-states/2011/09/22/gIQAqGTnoK_story.html

  • acat

    They’ve been at the State level, mostly dealing with requiring the abattoirs to conform to State medical standards. (and resulting in Kermit Gosnell being behind bars, where he belongs)

    Enforcement of State laws that make providing abortion-on-demand services unprofitable will, in time, shut down the clinics and reduce the number of abortions, as has already happened in large swathes of the deep south. What’s D.C. going to do, demand a State *not* regulate medical facilities?

    I am not stating that we should abandon the fight at the federal level, this is not a binary choice. I am saying that many groups focus purely on the Federal, and that – given the lack of positive movement since Nixon – this appears to be a misguided approach.

    Mew

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    Your post focuses everything about the pro-life movement that is not just wrong (as in factually), but politically stupid.

    First of all, in order to move the federal level, you’ve got to forge consensus. That is most effectively done at the local level. Specifically, with respect to abortion, there is a lot to fight at the local level in the area of restricting some abortions (minors, etc) and regulating places where abortions are performed. That does a number of things, but most importantly, it focuses public opinion on the issue of abortion in general and forces the left to justify and defend particularly barbaric and/or stupid practices. Partial birth abortion is no more only because the practice was highlighted and fought at the state level and the populace came to understand, quickly I might add, that the practice is murder.

    PBA effects very few actual abortions, but having to defend it paints the left into a corner and tarnishes their next argument. See regulating clinics and the disaster in Philadelphia. Which is the BLUEST city in a blue state.

    Follow that with the story out of MD about a doctor in VA who took patients over the line and performed abortions in MD because their laws were less restrictive. In fact he was performing 3rd trimester abortions and the police found the remains in frozen storage. Two doctors have been arrested on multiple counts of murder. In Maryland, a VERY blue state.

    Bottom line, this is not a top down battle, it’s a bottom up fight. It’s winnable too, just not with the idiots at the top who are passing themselves off as generals.

  • jakeofalltrades

    Based on spending alone, Bush was the right-wing version of Obama.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    that if we develop a fast track state/federal appeals system that exhausts appeals in a very short time – 1yr or less – and the execution proceeds, then I’m fine with the death penalty.

    And to open up the real can of worms, if we change the way we treat drugs, we’ll have a problem with empty prison beds.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    Unfortunately this one’s going to take a while to sort out. But, that’s real life. And I don’t have to like it, I just have to deal with it.

  • jakeofalltrades

    but I have even bigger problems with defending them, so carry on.

  • acat

    an even worse unemployment problem than we have now!

    Mew

  • Dave_A

    It’s violent and property crimes that are the 2 leading categories, according to the DOJ.

    Drugs come in 2nd-to-last, with public-order offenses being the smallest group…

    The notion that we are filling our prisons with supposedly non-violent drug offenders, doesn’t stand up to the facts…

  • acat

    doesn’t appear to be limited to any particular sub-group of conservative…. else how does one explain Bart Stupak?

    Mew

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    a very limited number of things a President can do on social issues. On abortion, reinstatement of the EOs relating to Mexico City, etc and working with the House and Senate to defund folks like Planned Parenthood.

    The most important thing a President can do is appoint judges and justices and we should expect to know, not a litmus test, but the procedure the President will use in choosing a nominee.

    The real point is that every cycle, we hear the drumbeat from social conservatives basically demanding that they get to knock out “socially unacceptable” candidates and that the major campaign issues are going to be “social” or they’ll stay home. That’s what drove the Rick Warren interviews in 08, and there wasn’t even a peep about Warren not holding Obama’s feet to the fire on his “above my pay grade” answer. They absolutely threatened to walk if Rudy was the nominee, even though Rudy committed to reinstate the EOs on day one and laid out his procedure to judicial nominations that included a review group that was very conservative and overwhelmingly pro-life. They also had fits over Fred’s law firm working with, I think, Planned Parenthood.

    Bottom line, it’s historically been the SoCons – primarily what we referred to as Single Issue Values Voters in 08 – who has the built in blind spot. Add to the above the fact that this group also anoints a candidate – Huckabee in 08 and Santorum this cycle – who are decidedly unconservative in every area but “social issues”. Not only was Huckabee the epitome of a big-government politician who had never met a problem that couldn’t be solved by government he was pandering with a commitment to get a HLA passed.

    Santorum is a Huckabee clone who’s being passed of as a conservative. He’s got good a social pedigree and after that he’s an empty suit. Or empty sweater.

    I’m not saying that Republicans need to ditch social issues. I’m saying that we need to realize what can be accomplished from the oval office and that they are part of the mix.

  • acat

    Reagan had to cut a lot of deals, sign a lot of pork to get the Dem-dominated House to expand the military, burying the Soviet Union.

    The debt increased, but .. we also had quite the peacetime economic expansion. (or, did you forget Carter-era gas lines and ketchup sandwiches?)

    Mew

  • kipling

    We must fight Liberalism – and by extensions abortion – at all levels of government. I applaud, support, and engage in those local activities that you mention. However, we can not afford to give ground at the federal level.

    A good historical example of the dangers involved is American slavery and the fight against it. Prior to the 1850s, local efforts to cripple the institution of slavery were gaining ground. It had been outlawed in the north. It had been restricted in some of the territories. The Underground Railroad and local escape networks were getting slaves free and safely out of the South.

    And then, the federal government stepped in and brought it all crashing down. The Compromise of 1850 repealed the Missouri Compromise and gave the U.S. a federal fugitive slave law that brought the full force of the federal government into the business of slave catching. A few years later, the Dred Scot decision further curtailed anti-slavery efforts and removed any state and local prohibitions against slavery throughout the country.

    State and local gains can be decisive but only if the federal government is prohibited from nullifying them.

  • znjs

    To be perfectly honest I don’t get the Reagan worship either, I have to assume that it had more to do with being a contrast after Carter and being a pretty good orator himself then anything else. But then again I was 6 when he left office, so who knows.

  • ragstoriches

    “Fiscal issues are social issues. There is no division. The character qualities that lead to personal responsibility, thrift, and self-dependence are social conservative values.”

    I was thinking this just the other day, how foolish it is to try to separate the two when reality is that they are two halves of a whole.

  • acat

    it has to do with his ability to present a goal and to persuade others to believe in the same goal.

    The contrast between Reagan and Carter was extremely clear … bright, primary colours against a miasmic grey… quite unlike the faded pastels of the weather vane, the horndog, the nanny-statist, or the quack

    Mew

  • Leon H. Wolf

    Isn’t a conservative of any kind

  • http://practicalgopvoter.blogspot.com/ texasproud

    I agree we need to unite. We need every conservative leaning voter rather than run off people some dont like. We need Paul voters and Santorum voters equally. My point about Santorum is he has openly stated his goal to run what he deems to be libertarian out. Since we aren’t exactly in a position to run off voters to win elections I loathe anyone who deems that as important.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    was being argued, and it was SoCons who were listening to him.

  • acat

    I wasn’t calling Stupak a conservative. I was making the point that the people who bought his flim-flam are also not conservatives.

    His supporters may have self-identified as conservatives, they may be confused with conservatives…. but the end result is they let themselves get suckered .. because they’re not seeing the larger picture.

    Mew

  • Leon H. Wolf

    You’re talking about people without political sense, not social conservatives per se. I take second place to no one on this blog when it comes to life issues but I rejected both Huckabee and Santorum as nonserious candidates.

  • whitfox3

    It’s true that the President can’t make abortion illegal. That’s a legislative function. Nor can he bend already-existing laws. The judiciary would check this.

    However, he can horse-trade legistlation through the veto, loosely control hordes of federal employees, and use the bully pulpit. This is no small amount of power.

    For example, wouldn’t it be great if during the State of the Union, he announced that Congress had failed in its duties to impeach judges who blatantly betray the written Constitution, and that he will veto all bills funding the judiciary until Congress takes up some of the worst cases?

    Maybe that’s not good tactics. But it’s not unreasonable for social conservatives to seek someone willing to break the status-quo, or at least someone willing to start selling the issues as you suggest. One can make a decent case that Santorum is inclined to do so, and a better one that he has no choice but to defend his past statements. I don’t see why Iowa’s social conservatives should have thought Perry a better choice.

    Not clear Iowa’s choice in 2008 was any less sensible. Rudy promised to not govern as a pro-life president, and was taken at his word. Fred decided in an interview to fold on abortion to win moderates; why trust him in high office? Huckabee was a poor choice on many levels, and I opposed him. But I can’t blame Iowa for not choosing a nonexistent alternative.

    Is all this single-issue value voting? Perhaps. And perhaps the small-government side of the party needs to make a better case that government overreach is unjust and unproductive. That’s how we got welfare reform, after all. An abstract argument that taxes shouldn’t be raised on the wealthy is a much more difficult sell.

    That’s not to say there isn’t value in checking issue overreach. I’ll agree that insisting candidates take extreme positions, totally out-of-step with what can be politically passed, is counterproductive. But I have to agree with the original post, that there’s underreah as well. And while it’s fine to pick candidates that don’t appeal to type X conservatives, it’s also fine for type X conservatives to find another candidate.

  • mwalker315

    Let me start out by saying I was firmly in Rick Perry’s camp from the beginning quite simply because I saw him as the only candidate able to appeal to the three stools of conservatism. Where I believe he failed wasn’t the gaffes or mishaps but simply in delivering a simple, timely, conservative message consistently. His failure was trying to be everything to everyone. The ‘seasons’ argument is only relevant in the primary message Perry should have hit home over and over again and that is the message to fiscal conservatives; something like Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Any questions, relevant to social conservatives and national security credentials should have been directed back to the context of Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. His record and experience leading a state are solid enough for him to deflect to his record briefly and get back on message. He was too easliy thrown off message.

    I have now moved into Newt’s camp because he understands the gravity of the situation we’re in on ALL fronts, has led on conservative positions while in leadership position, and knows he will have to bring in serious talent to assist him in the journey. The only thing I think trumps his ego is his love for country and respect for our current fiscal/social/national security nightmare we’re faced with daily.

  • Finrod

    Support for legalization of marijuana in the Gallup poll has been slowly increasing for the last four decades; in 1970 it was just 12 percent in favor but just last October it hit 50 percent in favor of legalization. If you break it down by party, 57 percent of both independents and Democrats favor, whereas only 35 percent of Republicans do. There’s also a strong correlation between age and support (18-29: 62 percent, 65+: 31 percent). This is a bad trend for Republicans for the long term, unless resistance to legalization lessens amongst them.

  • Finrod

    .. was just a first guess at how to divide the money. As long as the tax revenue more than pays for the rehab clinics, I’m fine with it.

  • krish

    Mitt Romney has supported this position! He is lying about his position & is a hypocrite when he attacks Obama for the same thing!

    In todays Freedom Watch – Igor Volsky – Think Progress Health Editor – explained clearly how fraudlent Romney is on this issue!
    I am explaining this since Romney & Rombots are lying about this all over the media! –

    First he vetoed the bill & then the legislature overrode his veto & the bill became the law. But here comes the Romney’s fraudlent act- His department of health was ready to issue a regulation to exempt Catholic institutions a way out but Romney said NO for the exemption for Catholic hospitals!! Romney also told Boston Globe that everybody should have access to emergency contraception!

    This is not just a Catholic or religious people issue – it is a Liberty issue & one of our candidate is worse than Obama because he has the same position as Obama but also lies about it!

    It is ironic that Romney supporters accuse non-supporters of Romney as prejudiced about Mormon faith while their candidate has been acting prejudicial to Catholics & Evangelicals….!!

  • steve962

    I used to believe it was possible to be a social conservative and a fiscal conservative interested in small government at the same time. I compromised on my social positions (I’m a social moderate, and believe government ought to simply stay out of social issues at most, if not all, levels…) time and time again to vote for people who were “fiscal conservatives” despite their strong social conservative stance.

    And invariably, without exception, those people then proceeded to violate fiscal conservative small government values in favor of their social agenda.

    I no longer believe that social and fiscal conservatism can be compatible – and in fact no longer consider what most people label as “social conservative” as conservative at all. They’re activists – they want to use government to promote their social position. Which makes them no better than their counterparts on the liberal side, IMHO.

    (What this means for the Republican party in the future? No idea. I don’t think the so called three-leg strategy is viable anymore, nor do I think a two party system works anymore. IMHO, we’re on the brink of seeing that system change, but I don’t know what will come out of the wreckage looming on the horizon…)

    As for no good fiscal conservative candidate being put forward… What about Gary Johnson? I’d have supported him in a second. He was highly qualified, very popular in his home state (the ONLY candidate to be so), and by far the strongest small government fiscal conservative in the field. He is, in fact, the exact type of candidate we really needed not just to win this election, but to put the country back on track.

    But he was mostly ignored and eventually had to leave the party and switch to the Libertarians, because, in my opinion, the social conservatives currently in the Republican party are totally unwilling to compromise at all on someone who isn’t at least giving lip service to being a social conservative.

    So before you blame the fiscal conservatives for “going it alone” — I’d say look in a mirror first.

  • texashistorian

    in saying that the DOE needs to be eliminated. If we are going to insist that the Federal government fund education, which I don’t think it should, but if we are to continue this, then block grant the money to the states and let states make the decisions.

  • keepcoolwithcoolidge

    I agree. Johnson was a strong candidate on paper, a shame he had to go elsewhere.

  • YnotNOW

    to legalize, tax, and the use the tax money to “help” the people caught up in it. It creates dependency on big government solutions.

  • elizaliza

    we don’t.
    Where do you get off, thinking that fiscal conservatives owe social conservatives a thing? we can endure Obama much better than you can, so you need us more the other way round, so ….

    And Santorum has got a suspect wife, for 6 years she lived in sin with an abortionist! Plse spare me the “she has reformed” crap. I just don’t buy it.

    Romney, oh well, he’s inevitble, im leaning towards Newt more and more. Best not to compromise myself with Romney. If I’d voted for Romney, i’d feel so dirty.

  • elizaliza

    “Abortion is about the collective not the individual child or even the mother.”
    I don’t get how it’s not about the mother or the child, but i love it when liberals complain and whine that it’s government reaching into the womb, telling women what to do with their bodies and all that crap.
    I don’t really care if it is Big Govt intervention, or not. emotionally I think its not. But even if it is, I don’t CARE, if it is, it’s Big Government we SHOULD have. Just like on Defense, it’s by definition impossible to have Big Government when it comes to defense. Defense serves ALL of us, while Universal Health Care only helps the lazy poor. (harsh? we know they’re lazy cos they’re poor! If you make less than $ 100,000 you’ve GOT to be lazy) Irrefutable logic!

  • Finrod

    There is absolutely no way that taxing drugs would result in bigger government than the War On Some Drugs already is.

    Go look up asset forfeiture laws sometime, where you can be arrested and have your cash seized just for driving around with more cash than the police think you should have. If that doesn’t scare you $#!+less then you’re not a conservative.

  • YnotNOW

    Because there will still be a huge black market to get around the taxation, as well as to continue selling the drugs that are not legalized. We are seeing that here in Colorado, where we legalized “medical” marijuana, and still have lots of problems. Along with the grey areas where it is hard to tell what activities are legal and which are illegal. So you have regulation, tax collection, plus enforcement problems.

    Sorry, the libertarian argument still does not fly with me.

  • Dave_A

    Outside of libertarian circles, you won’t find much support for the ‘OMG, government is conspiring to oppress you’ argument…

    Asset forfeiture was created to deal with the old-school Mafia’s methods of hiding criminal activity behind legitimate business, and just happens to apply just as well to drug criminals – it is not a creation of the ‘war on drugs’.

    It doesn’t ‘scare’ most of us, because most of us will never have an issue with it – we don’t engage in behavior similar to that of someone involved in organized crime. Further, you over-simplify the situation – forfeiture has a legal procedure associated with it, in which the individual may contest the seizure of the property. Most do not, because they are involved in the alleged criminal activity, and thus cannot meet the requirements.

    The fact is, most Americans recognize that drugs are bad, and that they should stay illegal. Rewarding bad behavior with acceptance simply encourages more bad behavior…

    Also, most Americans associate getting in trouble with the police as the fault of the person in trouble – not as a threat to their ‘freedom’. This is not a dictatorship, or process works to preserve the interests of order & freedom simultaneously.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    Daniels most certainly did not tell “social conservatives to stick it”. And as it happens he’s got solid support from the pro-life groups in Indiana and has done one heck of a lot more to advance pro-life and socon issues than anybody left in the race, especially Santorum.

    And, his “truce” was absolutely right on target.

    If you look at the threads in all the diaries over the last couple of weeks they reinforce that fact that “socons” are not conservative. They are marginalizing themselves and frankly, after this election I sincerely hope they are absolutely ignored with respect to national office and issues.

    They are not the base of a party that will win an election. And, they are in the process of making themselves totally irrelevant.

  • APA Guy

    “Hiding behind his wife’s skirt”??? VERY classy…

    Look pal, being a conservative does not equal “Me caveman, you woman”. The principled disapproval of a good woman is precisely the reason I have steered clear of politics…even though I have been urged to run for nearly a decade by more people than I can count and it meant watching weaker Republicans scoop of local and statewide offices here in Indiana.

    Mitch Daniels’ family is 100% against him running for president. He acted on points of honor and principle…with the former being a quality that escapes you per your nasty comment.

  • aesthete

    OK, how does this argument (“there will still be a huge black market to get around the taxation, as well as to continue selling the drugs that are not legalized”) not apply to every good that exists? The reason that there is a large black market is because government has put a price floor of infinity on the legal market, which allows the onerous costs and inefficiencies of the black market to become the most attractive option for obtaining a high-demand good. It’s very simple economics: so long as taxes and regulations are lower than the prohibitive costs of a black market, buyers will prefer above-board solutions. (This completely ignores better quality and standards in an above-board market, which add value to the legal product.)

    In the case of decrim for growers in particular, what is more likely is a combination of above-board markets and an informal economy, i.e. bartering and exchange for “home-grown” product. This is vastly superior to a completely criminal-owned market in a very lucrative product, IMO.

  • acat

    And a very minor quibble at that.

    It’s not the social conservatives who are the problem, it’s the values-voters whose incomplete understanding of conservatism and federalism consistently leads them astray.

    Mew

  • aesthete

    Who cares what they think? They haven’t thought any of these issues through. If it were up to the average American, we wouldn’t have Am 4-10, and we’d be on shaky ground with the other three. We undoubtedly would not have checks and balances or any of the other government-limiting features that our Constitution elegantly places in the path of tyrants.

    Our federal government was founded by radical aristocrats with a specific model in mind in the service of their state governments. Deviating from that model to appeal to any fool with a pulse and time to go to a poll box, pick his nose, and check the box next to the most “Presidential” name has been a disaster for civilized government.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    I guess I’ve matured or something and the thing that is pushing me over the “socon” cliff is the absolute crap I’m reading on these pages related to Santorum, Daniels, etc and the positions that what I would have thought would be otherwise rational people are claiming, to the effect that all issues relate back to social issues.

    I’ve avoided the vast majority of these diaries and threads because I just don’t have the stomach for the outright stupidity anymore. Thanks to you and several others for holding onto rational thought.

    On a serious note, if Santorum wins the nomination and loses as badly as I think he will, I honestly hope this cycle will be the death of the so-called social conservative movement.

  • Vaughn Harold

    What this country needs is real justice with a real death penalty!

    The issue is what morality will we as a people use to define justice?

    It’s not justice when convicted drug traffickers set in jail cells.

    It’s not justice when people are innocently murdered by drunk drivers.

    It’s not justice when rapists are set free

    It’s not justice when a man does not raise his children along side a wife

    The american people don’t want a limited government because limited government must be based on a limited morality. The american people want to live however they want without any severe consequences.

    A limited government can only have:
    one fundamental morality
    marriage between one man and one woman, divorce allowed only in extreme cases
    severe financial penalties for fathering children out of wedlock
    capital punishment for
    premeditated murder
    rapists
    pedifiles
    repeat offenders
    drug traffickers
    intentionally ripping people off financially

    You can forget about taking care of the fiscal problems in this nation until the above items are part of our culture.

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    and nothing has changed.

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    a pattern?

  • acat

    If you want it fixed, get off your couch and fix it.

    If you want to bitch about it, then you’re doing fine, carry on.

    Mew

  • CincoSolas_del_Bronx

    “Intentionally ripping people off financially” is now a capital offense? I think you just settled every entitlement question for generations to come.

  • acat

    First, you’re mistaken on Ford. Show me where he wasn’t a socon in addition to a ficon. He “got” liberty, and did not stop any of the States from becoming more socially conservative, if they wished.

    Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have … The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.
    – Gerald Ford

    Carter, by the way, was a noted socon. Bit of a whiner, kind of a jerk, and not any kind of a ficon, but he was undeniably a socon.

    Clinton wasn’t much of either, neither is Obama, so you’re welcome to leave them out – other than I’ll take Nixon over either.

    Mew

  • JSobieski

    so by defintion the only “pattern” is that so-cons have been better represented in the WH than fi-cons.

  • aesthete

    Unless you really think that GWB was particularly different from the others listed in a good way to draw a correlation, much less a causation.

  • Vaughn Harold

    the culture. I said it’s the job of the government to exercise justice, the one thing that our government is failing at horribly, and the one thing that is creating the social issues and hence the fiscal issues.

  • Vaughn Harold

    we are going to elect enough fiscal conservatives to shrink the federal government when the american people don’t want it.

  • Vaughn Harold

    less deserving of capital punishment than intentional murder.

    Respectfully

  • Vaughn Harold

    economic justice, the most ungodly idea to ever be perpetuated in our country.

  • jakeofalltrades

    it would make the justice system a murderer.

  • JSobieski

    Or maybe even all crimes?

    What is your logic for appropriate punishment?

    Do you really support the death penalty for an intentional fraud in the case of property worth less than $5?

    Is there a crime for which you would be against the imposition of the death penalty?

    If I didn’t recognize your uniquename, I would have assumed you were a liberal plant trying to make this site look bad. In which case, you would be committing an intentional fraud.

  • Vaughn Harold

    n/t

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    bravo

  • Vaughn Harold

    wins the social debate, whether the liberal or conservative side, wins the election.

    When the liberal side wins the debate we get massive government involvement to fix everything, when the conservative side wins the debate we simply get a somewhat lesser government involvement mainly in regards to business regulation.

    Elections are about the direction of our country as a “society”. Economics is only used to control who gets to spend the money.

    Currently I believe Obama is winning the social debate.

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    good ones

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    The only Fiscal conservative presidents we have had in the last 100 years is Calvin Coolidge. Reagan does not really pass muster because he trusted the democrats and refused to actually veto the bills he should have.

    And even in the nineteenth century there were only a few.

  • Vaughn Harold

    penalty should be at the point where it is impossible to make financial restitution to those who where wronged. Life imprisonment for such cases is not justice, it’s an additional financial burden on society and does not provide the proper deterant to such activities.

    In regards to minor theft the person is able to make financial restitution. Certainly society can attempt to help such individuals overcome whatever is driving the individual to steal, but when that help does not produce an individual who respects the property of others after 3 attempts the individual should lose their right to life.

    And yes all intentional crimes against others should at some level receive the death penalty. It is wrong of a society to continue to allow corrupt individuals who have no desire to respect others live within the society.

  • JSobieski

    and the poor must be executed because they cannot make restitution?

    The Hollywood starlet makes restitution (or some multiple of restitution), while the 18 year old boy from the hood is executed?

    Saudi Arabia has a system somewhat close to the system you desire. Do you have admiration for the Saudis?

  • Vaughn Harold

    “In regards to minor theft the person is able to make financial restitution. Certainly society can attempt to help such individuals overcome whatever is driving the individual to steal, but when that help does not produce an individual who respects the property of others after 3 attempts the individual should lose their right to life.”

    I don’t see a poor person ever having the ability to not make resitution for the things that they would steel. I have absolutely no problem forcing the young person to work for free for the individual that was wronged, but there must be a balance between compassion and justice in such cases.

    There are individuals who steal more than they could ever make resititution for and it is those individuals that should qualify immediately for capital punishment.

  • Vaughn Harold

    n t

  • jakeofalltrades

    heh

  • JSobieski

    It doesn’t seem very conservative to say dispositively that a person would or would not be able to earn a certain amount in their lifetime.

    There are a lot of things I object to in your version of a justice system, but the idea of courts looking into a crystal ball to determine what someone’s future will be, and then executing people in part based on that prediction is absolutely repugnant.

  • Vaughn Harold

    stealing something minor that they could not make restitution for.

  • acat

    that you’re describing, relatively accurately, the reality in old Europe in the 1700s, yes?

    The same reality that we violently objected to?

    Mew

  • jakeofalltrades

    I agree completely.

  • Vaughn Harold

    should not be based on what a person could or might become, that’s a socially liberal position. The court system is about justice for what a person has done, and if a person can not respect the property of others after a society has given them the opportunity to change on multiple occasions then that person gives up their right to live within the society.

  • Vaughn Harold

    of others is to harsh? Really?

  • Vaughn Harold

    third chance, but if you can’t stay out of bankruptcy 3 times I believe you’re a little dishonest with your creditors and have no desire to change your behavior. I see no need to extend the right to life to such individuals.

  • jakeofalltrades

    that can only be forfeited when you intentionally take the life of another without justification.

    Life is more important than property. I could legally blow up all the property in Manhattan to save a life.

  • JSobieski

    Lets be honest, recklesses can in many circumstances cause more harm than bad intent.

    I am hearing a strong stimulus for death-inducing devices.

  • jakeofalltrades

    Part of the alleged justification for abortion is that it saves money spent on welfare. Is forced abortion justified for welfare recipients?

  • Vaughn Harold

    about corrupt individuals within society repeatedly taking the liberty of others. To ask a society to support such a person with life imprisonment is not a proper solution.

  • aesthete

    “Elections are about the direction of our country as a ‘society’.”

    No, they are not. Did we all collectively get more moral during the Reagan or Bush administrations? If we did, I sure didn’t notice.

    Elections in the Western world are about money and control. Social issues come into play mostly as a tertiary factor.

  • aesthete

    And if that’s the case, we’re gonna need a lot more guillotines…

  • aesthete

    “Tarry a little, there is something else.
    This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood;
    The words expressly are “a pound of flesh.”

    -The Merchant of Venice

  • acat

    is still wrong-headed.

    Enforcing property rights, the root of our legal system, is a right and a responsibility of the property owners.

    Government should only step in and defend rights on behalf of those who are incapable of doing their own defense.

    Mew

  • aesthete

    does not entail life imprisonment.

    Besides that, there are forms of corporal punishment that don’t require death.

  • JSobieski

    “There are individuals who steal more than they COULD EVER make resititution for and it is those individuals that should qualify immediately for capital punishment”

    If you don’t want courts to determine what a person “could ever” pay, how will you implement your proposed death penalty?

  • Vaughn Harold

    the politicians perspective is money and control.

  • JSobieski

    it makes me very sad.

    Society is made up of a many different institutions and hundreds of millions of individuals.

    Top-down conservatism doesn’t work.

  • JSobieski

    The Saudi’s just cut off the hand of a thief, but Vaughm is arguing for executions.

    Never thought the Saudi’s would look so modern in contrast to a RS posting.

  • JSobieski

    a.k.a. the liberal leftist perspective.

    Conservatives have a different view of politicians and government.

    Society is not limited by enumerated powers. Government has the monopoly of force. Society dominated by government is society dominated by force.

  • acat

    is just incredibly wrong.

    Mew

  • acat

    Cheshire grin

  • Vaughn Harold

    at the time.

    Listen, we can agree to disagree, but our justice system is flawed.

  • Vaughn Harold

    who choose to be sexually irresponsible.

  • Vaughn Harold

    that the votors motivated by social issues end up determining the winner of the election.

  • acat

    What you’re saying, then, is that the values voters – voters motivated by social issues – stayed home in 2008.

    By your logic, this must be true because they decide the elections, and McCain lost.

    My hypothesis is that elections are decided in the middle, not at the ends .. and that all the values-voters accomplished by coming out in 2008 was to make McCain’s loss closer than it otherwise would have been… because McCain couldn’t persuade the middle that he was superior to Obama.

    Not on “values issues”, but across the board, on values, on the economy, on leadership, on snappy comebacks …

    The ‘values voters’ can decide the primary races – but only if they clump behind a single candidate relatively early. Their modus operandi – as I’ve pointed out for years – is to so divide their strength between various candidates that they end up losing despite far superior numbers *in the primary*.

    Mew

  • Vaughn Harold

    numbers than the socon’s to put the first black president over the top.

  • Repair_Man_Jack

    You really believe that the 33% dump that the typical retirement portfolio took in Fall 2008 had nothing to do with the outcome of the election? It was all just racist voters attempting to get rid of white people? Fascinating.

  • Vaughn Harold

    someone that they could enthusiastically vote for. The socon’s where not motivated for McCain, hell I don’t think anyone was motivated for McCain.

  • Repair_Man_Jack

    McCain quitting in the middle of his campaign wasn’t exactly a motivator,.

  • acat

    Just asking.

    Mew

  • Vaughn Harold

    we had a proper conservative at the top of the ticket.

  • acat

    Did Social Conservatives stay home in 2008, Vaughn?

    Mew

  • Repair_Man_Jack

    It’s just so *obvious* that he shouldn’t be bothered with such trivial things (/sarcasm)

  • Vaughn Harold

    have showed up.

  • acat

    but some things – social conservatives staying home in 2008, forex – need to be called out.

    Well .. that, and I’m bored today.

    Mew

  • Repair_Man_Jack

    It would strengthen your credibility substantially to compare years w/ GOP wins to years w/ GOP defeats and demonstrate the difference in SoCon turnout between the two.

  • acat

    Ignoring that evidence suggests otherwise, I then ask why they would stay home again in 2012, now that the whole country knows which direction Barack Obama wants to go.

    Unless you’re proposing that they’re not actually social-conservatives but something else .. socon-fanbois?

    Mew

  • JSobieski

    You make the Saudi legal system seem absolutely enlightened in comparison.

    How will judges in your system know whether or not someone who can not currently pay will be able to pay in the future?

    Basing execution on the current wealth of the individual is a poor mechanism for making life and death decisions.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    specifically.

  • JSobieski

    I agree that Reagan prioritized defense and taxes/growth above the deficit, although the deficits in 1987 and 1988 were impressively small.

    I don’t think being a fiscal conservative means you have to constantly shut the government down or have other priorities in addition to taming the government beast.

    I am willing to characterize someone who negotiates relatively good deals with D’s as a fiscal conservative. I can however nderstand your more stringent definition.

  • JSobieski

    Why settle for a hand when you can just execute the person?

  • Vaughn Harold

    who continue to refuse to respect other people’s life, liberty, and property.

    Our jails are overflowing because we as a society refuse to execute the worst amoung us.

    Limited government can not exist in a society that does not deal with these types of individuals properly.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    he picked G Bush for his running mate. For those two bad things he drops at least one level in my estimation. Otherwise I would say he was the best president we ever had.

    Just think of how much bad Ju Ju we have had to endure simply because of the Bush clan!

  • Vaughn Harold

    you get up off your butt and go vote when all you are going to get is Obama?

    That’s the kind of socon’s that will stay home.

  • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

    While simultaneously losing the right to complain about it.

  • acat

    Go look up that race.

    Your assertion, that social conservatives stay home, is offensive.

    Prove it or retract it.

    Mew

  • Vaughn Harold

    society should tolerate individuals that continue to commit the same crimes over and over. From a fiscal perspective it’s a total waste of money. From a social perspective it’s distructive to promote irresponsibility.

  • Vaughn Harold

    an election to vote against Obama instead of for “R” candidate. I don’t think we can win against Obama in that kind of election.

  • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

    –no-text-

  • Vaughn Harold

    some stay home, if you think that unmotivated socons didn’t stay home in 2008 fine. I’m simply saying that more would turn out if they had something to vote for, instead of something to vote against.

    As far as solibs in 2008, I believe it’s a known fact that solibs under 30 turnout was very high in 2008 as compared to other years.

  • acat

    they’re as reliable a bloc as you’re likely to find in American politics.

    The problem is with the rest of the GOP.

    What I’m confused by is your insistence – at the start of this rant – that somehow appealing to the SoCons will win the election when it’s *NOT* the SoCons who stayed home!

    Mew

  • rogershru2

    If you want sharia law there are plenty of other places where you may go enjoy it.

  • JSobieski

    No reason to go all Saudi Arabia on such crimes.

  • Dave_A

    Was medieval England.

    Personally, I’d say Death should be used for murder, forcible rape/molestation, and any 3-time felony offender.

    Theft, can be handled by prison time & asset forfeiture.

  • jakeofalltrades

    I’m pretty sure God cursed some of Jacob’s sons for executing rapists. And their sister was the victim.

    The punishment must fit the crime. Life should be taken only as punishment for the taking of life. Even treason should have some connection to loss of life to be a capital crime. Killing an imagio dei is serious business.

    And for those not persuaded by the religious argument, I give you the eighth amendment to the Constitution.

    Finally, I share in the disquiet others have expressed that the ideas for extending capital punishment beyond homicide would make us infinitely more primitive than Mohammed.

  • jakeofalltrades

    bravo

  • jakeofalltrades

    punishing rape with execution is murder in the eyes of God.

  • demsaresatanic

    “God cursed some of Jacob

  • aesthete

    but you’ve just changed my mind on the death penalty as applied to rapists. Good presentation of your point, much appreciated.

  • lapert

    The reasons that rape doesn’t warrant execution in the bible are more a reflection on the perspective of women than the severity of the death penalty – the punishment is the rapist must marry the woman.

    On the other hand, adultery is a capital crime in the bible – as are a host of other crimes that themselves don’t involve the taking of a life.

    But, that was a different time. Even by the period of the Mishnah (contemporary to Jesus) Judaism viewed capital punishment as something to be rarely applied if ever in practice (to the point where there was an argument over whose court applied it the least frequently).

  • Dave_A

    Rape of an engaged woman was a capital offense under the OT law.

    Most of the ‘oddness’ of the OT law on rape came from trying to distinguish adultery (both die), fornication (hence the ‘if they are discovered’ part – penalty of lifetime marriage), and forcible rape (the rapist dies). This is where the ‘in a town but did not scream’ vs ‘in the country’ parts come from.

    Since we have better ways to prove rape now than ‘Did she scream for help?’, the death penalty for punishment of forcible rape should be good-to-go (and was, IIRC, in some parts of the US in the distant past)….

  • JSobieski

    it requires that certain principles guide the actions of the person.

  • Juggernaut

    in second place just that moral and ethical decay increase when fiscal constraints aren’t enforced by both parties, even worse when both parties abandon fiscal principles while campaigning on fiscal and social responsibility. Since 2000, the gop has supported

    Dems used to respect fiscal but the blue dawgs are all but dead thanks to Pelosi and the cabal a liberal idiots who were elected with plans to move the party further left. And what are conservatives and republicans doing…………some are following the party towards the left as opposed to taking a stand for centrist conservative/ republican values. Let dems go left so the public can see what real idiots look like while righting the gop towards the 3 values that work best.

    NorthEastern conservatives and republicans need to look to southern social conservatives as the model of family, state and community values rather than following the NYC model which has eroded into illogical compromise of values that the liberal media purport to change our values from within.

    Great diary!!!

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