Barry O'Bama
08-05-2011, 01:17 PM
It's long but a good read. Here's a partial with the link.
In the May 6 debate among Republican candidates in South Carolina, the moderator got a good laugh when he put the following question to Ron Paul:
"Congressman Paul, you say that the federal government should stay out of people’s personal habits. You say marijuana, cocaine, even heroine, should be legal if states want to permit it. You feel the same about prostitution and gay marriage. Question, sir: why should social conservatives in South Carolina vote for you for President?"
Before looking at Paul’s answer, let’s consider where social conservatives stand in their political battle. Most, but not all, are political conservatives as well (although that term may be difficult to define). Since the consciences of evangelical Christians were touched by legalized abortion in the 1970s, in national politics, the politically conservative majority of social conservatives have had one big target, one political fortress they have stormed every four years: the presidency. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, but every four years they take up weapons and armor and go into battle. The war plan since the late 1970s has been: elect a conservative Republican president, who will nominate conservative justices to the Supreme Court. Seeing that Roe v. Wade is unconstitutional, the eventual conservative majority on the Court will someday overturn Roe v. Wade. Win at the top, and force the rest of the country to go along. At the same time, perhaps paradoxically, many social conservatives have hoped for what Ronald Reagan called for: a smaller federal government with less of a role in American life.
Let’s be frank: while there have been some social conservative successes in changing people’s minds (more Americans now call themselves "pro-life," for example), and some little political victories here and there, overall, the political strategy is just not working. From abortion to gay marriage to federalism, it has been a long, slow, rolling defeat for social conservatives. The justices nominated by Republican presidents have been the greatest disappointment. Very few of these have shown any sign of wanting to overturn Roe v. Wade. Even if they had, judging by the last three decades, the American people as a whole are not really interested in leaving a Republican in the White House for long enough for the strategy to work. At the rate we are going, 200 years from now there will not be a "conservative" majority on the Court on abortion or other social issues – and if there were at some point, there would be a new "liberal" majority soon after, which would reverse it.
The old conservative slogan of getting the government (meaning for most the federal government) off people’s backs wasn’t even put into action by Ronald Reagan: the government grew during his eight years. The idea was quietly abandoned by the first George Bush, Reagan’s heir, who made it clear that to him, more freedom and less government was not "kind and gentle." The second George Bush even made "big government conservatism" a thinkable slogan rather than an oxymoron.
After some 35 years of social conservative support for the Republican Party on the federal level, we have a gigantic government, with an enormous military and immense entitlement programs. That government is so deep in debt that our national fiscal credibility was recently questioned even by official rating agencies. (The debt crisis "fix" has done nothing about that problem.) Our government shows no sign of reversing Roe v. Wade on abortion or holding the line on traditional marriage. Our currency is incredibly debased. For over 20 years it has been impossible for poor or middle class people to actually save money, since the interest rate offered doesn’t even keep up with official inflation (and we continue to be taxed on interest, as if it were "income" rather than an attempt to keep up with government-produced shrinkage of the underlying currency in our bank accounts and our pockets). Since the 1970s, real wages have not risen. Manipulated low interest rates led to the now-burst bubble in the only realistic hope for middle class people to stay even with inflation, their housing. The economy and the tax system appear to be rigged in favor of hedge fund managers and big bank CEOs, who, when crisis strikes, get rescued and bonused-up while the middle class gets foreclosed. In short, from a social or traditional conservative point of view, the last few decades have been a scarcely-mitigated disaster.
http://lewrockwell.com/orig2/c-white5.1.1.html
In the May 6 debate among Republican candidates in South Carolina, the moderator got a good laugh when he put the following question to Ron Paul:
"Congressman Paul, you say that the federal government should stay out of people’s personal habits. You say marijuana, cocaine, even heroine, should be legal if states want to permit it. You feel the same about prostitution and gay marriage. Question, sir: why should social conservatives in South Carolina vote for you for President?"
Before looking at Paul’s answer, let’s consider where social conservatives stand in their political battle. Most, but not all, are political conservatives as well (although that term may be difficult to define). Since the consciences of evangelical Christians were touched by legalized abortion in the 1970s, in national politics, the politically conservative majority of social conservatives have had one big target, one political fortress they have stormed every four years: the presidency. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, but every four years they take up weapons and armor and go into battle. The war plan since the late 1970s has been: elect a conservative Republican president, who will nominate conservative justices to the Supreme Court. Seeing that Roe v. Wade is unconstitutional, the eventual conservative majority on the Court will someday overturn Roe v. Wade. Win at the top, and force the rest of the country to go along. At the same time, perhaps paradoxically, many social conservatives have hoped for what Ronald Reagan called for: a smaller federal government with less of a role in American life.
Let’s be frank: while there have been some social conservative successes in changing people’s minds (more Americans now call themselves "pro-life," for example), and some little political victories here and there, overall, the political strategy is just not working. From abortion to gay marriage to federalism, it has been a long, slow, rolling defeat for social conservatives. The justices nominated by Republican presidents have been the greatest disappointment. Very few of these have shown any sign of wanting to overturn Roe v. Wade. Even if they had, judging by the last three decades, the American people as a whole are not really interested in leaving a Republican in the White House for long enough for the strategy to work. At the rate we are going, 200 years from now there will not be a "conservative" majority on the Court on abortion or other social issues – and if there were at some point, there would be a new "liberal" majority soon after, which would reverse it.
The old conservative slogan of getting the government (meaning for most the federal government) off people’s backs wasn’t even put into action by Ronald Reagan: the government grew during his eight years. The idea was quietly abandoned by the first George Bush, Reagan’s heir, who made it clear that to him, more freedom and less government was not "kind and gentle." The second George Bush even made "big government conservatism" a thinkable slogan rather than an oxymoron.
After some 35 years of social conservative support for the Republican Party on the federal level, we have a gigantic government, with an enormous military and immense entitlement programs. That government is so deep in debt that our national fiscal credibility was recently questioned even by official rating agencies. (The debt crisis "fix" has done nothing about that problem.) Our government shows no sign of reversing Roe v. Wade on abortion or holding the line on traditional marriage. Our currency is incredibly debased. For over 20 years it has been impossible for poor or middle class people to actually save money, since the interest rate offered doesn’t even keep up with official inflation (and we continue to be taxed on interest, as if it were "income" rather than an attempt to keep up with government-produced shrinkage of the underlying currency in our bank accounts and our pockets). Since the 1970s, real wages have not risen. Manipulated low interest rates led to the now-burst bubble in the only realistic hope for middle class people to stay even with inflation, their housing. The economy and the tax system appear to be rigged in favor of hedge fund managers and big bank CEOs, who, when crisis strikes, get rescued and bonused-up while the middle class gets foreclosed. In short, from a social or traditional conservative point of view, the last few decades have been a scarcely-mitigated disaster.
http://lewrockwell.com/orig2/c-white5.1.1.html