*Definitely* not calling you a lib

I was more referencing the “old” definition of neo-con, which was made up of former Libs who believed in the New Deal, more govt, etc. and who were pretty much moderatesvwho weren’t afraid to punch back. Think patriotic blue dog. Pretty much the only thing that they did that might be considered “conservative” was a) have a functioning moral compass, and b) strong national defense.

On foreign policy, they were pretty much Jacksonian/Teddy Roosevelt, and believe that US is obligated to confront evil regimes in the world where it may find them. I’m somewhere between that and realism, but agree that we should have a strong military. At any rate, their foreign policy is honorable, and better than their domestic policy.

at least with him, you knew he was going to shoot you in the back.

“Not One Red Dime for the NRSC or NRCC till they stop trying to elect liberals”

Join the RedState Strike Force

And I won’t tolerate that kind of bad faith posting at RedState.

…that the MSM (and the left, which are one and the same) want what’s worst for conservatism. But, as we conservatives often point out, it’s a mistake to confuse the Republican Party with the conservative movement.

They are not one and the same.

The reason that everybody I listen to or read who is a foe of the conservative movement is characterizing the fight over NY-23 as one defined by social policy is because they know full well that this is a wedge that will alienate a number of people who are otherwise sympathetic to the “small government” backlash.

I believe strongly that the Republican Party needs to be led by conservatives. I believe that its recent weakness is mostly (but not entirely) the result of the party having ditched its conservative principles when given the reins of power.

I’m not carrying water for Brooks or Frum here, folks. I think those guys are entirely wrong. I don’t want the party to move left.

But I would like to see divisive social policy issues become more like what capital punishment is. People may hold conflicting views about capital punishment — and those views likely matter at the state level. But since there’s no federal policy (or, since the 70s, law) involved in the issue, it doesn’t put pressure on the seams of either national party’s coalition.

Seeking a change of venue for critical issues is not the same as capitulating on them or putting them on the backburner. Rather, it allows the ties that do bind a movement to not be negated by the ones which conflict.

I want the pro-life movement to succeed — I’m a card-carrying member of it! What I’m advocating here offers it the very best opportunity to do so.

There’s no concrete definition of what a “libertarian” is — only a general bent towards empowerment of, or as close as possible to, the individual….and away from anything centralized or collectivized.

The reason that I’m pro-life (which some see, wrongly in my view, as the empowerment of the state at the expense of the mother) is that I believe that life (and, thus the assumption of basic human rights) begins at the onset of the same vital signs that we use to determine the precise endpoint of mortal life.

If independent, sovereign life ends when the heart stops beating, does it not logically begin when the heart starts beating — or when brain activity commences?

There has to be some logically defensible point in time at which the prevailing rights in question belong to the child and not the mother — where the mother’s “right to choose” can only happen at the expense of the child’s “right to live.”

Whether that’s at the moment of conception, the commencement of vital signs, the point of “viability”, or even birth, there has to be some point in time where this handoff occurs.

Because I believe it occurs when I do, I don’t consider the law respecting that to be anymore of a “power grab” than the law preventing a mother from stuffing her newborn in a trash dumpster.

It’s entirely in accordance with my libertarian principles.

I was *seeing* Griswold but thinking of Dredd Scott, my bad on that one. And yes I do disagree with Scalia on this. If our rights come from God and are protected from Gov’t by the Constitution, then those rights still exist in the womb.

As far as the marriage thing goes, I honestly don’t think marriage is the business of the Federal Gov’t. All the stuff you talk about could be taken care of through regular contracts, wills and the like.

begun to question whether or not the federal government should be involved in marriage. I’m adamantly against the government defining marriage to include homosexual marriage. At the same time I’m not against providing long term cohabitating people with a single access point to a collection of legal rights including inheritance and hospital visitation.

As I was think about those potentially conflicting ideals, it occurred to me that my objection to the redefinition of marriage is primarily a religious one. Specifically, I don’t want the federal government telling me what religious convictions should be. Redefining marriage to include homosexuals does that. Perhaps the resolution of the problem is as simple as removing the federal government from the equation. From a legal and religious perspective, I think it might strengthen the positions of both the government and religions.

I haven’t finished thinking it through yet. I still need to think through the potential cultural issues and implications.

You keep trying to characterize what I’m saying that way. But it’s not actually what I’m saying.

I’m saying that pro-lifers shouldn’t seek to redefine the present resurgent movement *as* a pro-life movement.

There’s a critical difference there, Aaron. To bite your tongue would be to deny your own values and principles. And I’m not advocating that at all. I want (fellow) pro-lifers to be active in the movement — and proudly honest about who we are and what we believe.

What I don’t want us to do is say that the movement is defined by, and thus limited to, people who have those same values in common….because I believe that this would cause it to fall apart.

The reason for this is that it was not abortion or gay marriage or any other social issue which served as the rallying cry to bring the movement together in the first place. And that means that there are likely plenty of people who are either in it or sympathetic to it that hold different positions on social issues.

Agree or disagree with my opinion as you will. But I should at least be able to expect that you clearly understand what I’m saying. And it is most certainly *not* that anybody in the movement should “bite their tongues” about any issue, including those that aren’t central to the movement’s core themes.

You kept asking me “What about Roe v. Wade? What about Roe v. Wade?”

And I answered you: part of this paradigm would have to be understood by all parties to include the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

Thing is: we almost never talk about that possibility in the context of federalism. As I said yesterday, I’d bet that 40% of Americans would equate the overturning of Roe with the banning of abortion.

And that’s because the abortion-lobby has intentionally muddied that water…and we’ve done little to clear it. They want people to think that the court overturning Roe would result in abortion being immediately banned everywhere.

Also, keep in mind that I’m not so much talking about a working strategy for the 2010 or 2012 cycles. I’m talking more about building a functioning coalition for the next 30+ years.

But the first step of getting there is getting people on both sides of this divide to buy into the concept of a new paradigm where they’re not as frequently at each others’ throats….or where they’re both constantly trying to one-up the other on having control of the “soul of the party” at the exclusion of the other.

That’s gotten us nowhere and it’ll never get us anywhere else.

I’ll say it again: the Republican Party needs social conservatives to be fully and enthusiastically on-board. But it also needs people who are not socially conservative. And the relationship between the two needs to be at least functional — if not synergistic.

It may take oblivion to get us to finally realize that. I think it can be truly synergistic….but maybe I’m dreaming.

to the destruction of families, and specifically Afro-American families, but the result is the same for all.

See:

http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/moynchapter2.htm

I cannot find the reference right now (perhaps the Wall street Journal from last week) but I read recently that only 57% of American children now have both parents living together in the house.

When you let morons from the government throw money at problems, rather than letting people find social solutions to social problems, you reap the whirlwind.

Abortion sets the climate for an anti-child atmosphere. Divorce is too easy; extramarital sexuality has been divorced from shame and even raised up as normal behavior (e.g. almost every TV show from “Two and a Half Men” to “Desperate Housewives” etc.), and the monstrous experiment of allowing homosexuals to adopt children!

Ignoring attacks on the very existence of my family by Washington DC while petitioning Trenton NJ to leave us alone is a non-starter.

I addressed defensive stands against leftward social policy advancement at the federal level elsewhere in the thread. Obviously, I’m not advocating that the GOP sit that out. In fact, if the party’s general bent is towards moving these issues to the states, they already have their basis for defense.

Your suggestion that conservatives separate the social argument from the fiscal argument makes the false assumption that they are, indeed, separate arguments.

Of course they’re separate arguments. Otherwise, there could be no such thing as a “fiscal conservative/social liberal” or a libertarian.

Go peruse through Cato’s publications or Reason Magazine or the Volokh Conspiracy or any other outpost of libertarian thought.

Whether you want to agree with them or disagree with them on any particular issue, I don’t see why they should be unable to hold the views they do.

They will never be separate for liberals and thus they can never be separate for conservatives.

I’m not even sure what this means. For one thing, I don’t see why we’d allow our adversaries to determine the rules of combat like that.

For another, I honestly think that this would flummox the snot out of the left if we could successfully pull this off.

the fiscal/social dichotomy you are suggesting was attempted as a way to deal with the slavery issue. It worked just fine until that pesky civil war thingy came along.

You lost me here. I agree that the federalist model played a huge role in getting us to the Civil War.

I’m not as sure how a dichotomy between social issues and arguments over the size and scope of government played into that.

Are you saying that we decoupled the fiscal benefits of slavery from the social devotion to justice?

If so, then A) I’d challenge the premise, and B) I don’t see what relationship that has with the social issues du jour.

Try as I might, I don’t see some fiscal component to the argument over gay marriage. And I don’t see much of one over the issue of abortion.