Here is something I found in the article that rings true:
It's not a resurgent right wing that should trouble Obama's party. Indeed, the stronger the right's role in shaping the Republican message, the harder it will be for middle-of-the-road voters to use the Republicans to express their discontent.
He goes on to lament socialism's prospects. Tough year for him. Tough decade in fact.
Here is what I see happening from watching the ebb and flow of politics from the last 20 or 30 years. The socialists get in and wreck the economy. Rs fix it. Then they think because they got in they have a mandate for moral crusades. The Terry Schiavo case was particularly egregious. The Rs get sloppy with their financials. Out they go. The Ds get in wreck the economy. Then the Rs come back.
Except we have a bunch of new anti-economic laws that NEVER get repealed. Sarbanes-Oxley is killing venture capital. So we get a ratchet effect.
Let me just outline a few of the ongoing effects (as evidenced by past and current moral crusades) of the Moral Socialism that periodically puts us in the hands of the socialists.
The Stalinist public school system (and mandatory attendance) was championed by Protestants as indoctrination centers for Catholics and Jews.
Alcohol prohibition was another moral crusade. Billy Sunday ring a bell? Fortunately that didn't last long.
Drug prohibition is on going. But that is failing too - politically. Medical marijuana got 58% of the vote in Maine vs 53% for traditional marriage.
Sooner or later moral socialism fails just as economic socialism does. For the same reason. Government can no more make us moral than it can make us prosperous.
I have nothing against moral crusades. Done in the private sector. It is when the moralists get the bright idea that with he help of government guns they can FORCE people to do the right thing.
Not in America. We are a nation full of people willing to break laws we don't agree with. Which is why drug prohibition with 95% compliance is such a failure.
So let me tell you what I see coming. Abortion. Not just restrictions which seem reasonable. But a total ban. Are there enough people who don't agree with this to form an abortion underground? No doubt. And then policing gets hard.
Access to women contemplating abortion is no longer frequent - because no woman wanting an abortion even if only fleetingly is going to want the fact known. Who wants to be investigated by the police?
Doctors may fall out of the practice but today we have drugs. RU-486 can be imported from France (drug dealers will handle it) or birth control pills could be used. So of course tighter restrictions on birth control pills will be required (and that will give us an increase in undesired pregnancies and thus increase the demand for illegal abortions - yipeee - we can then demand harsher laws and more of them to fix the problem).
Moral socialists suffer from the same defect that economic socialists have. They think: "once I have a law the law will be obeyed in the way I contemplate and voila a better world."
But it never works that way.
So what do I think should be done about abortion:
1. Kick the fn socialists out of government and get the economy moving again. Many abortions are for economic reasons. And stop staying home on election day because the fn R Party has served up some RINO. We at least have the ear of the RINO (Harriet Meyers?). The Communists are not going to listen.
2. End the drug war asap. Why are there so many abortions in the black community? Because we have a significant part of that community (about a third of all males) in jail or in the criminal justice system for prohibition violations. And we keep them there long enough to be sure to destroy any family they may have once had.
It also explains "Girls gone wild". And where to go to find the wild women. Hint: look for places where the ratio of women to men is above 1.05 or more. Above 1.5 and you are in (you will pardon the expression) slut city. We are not being afflicted in this nation by declining morals and a culture of evil. We are afflicted by bad demographics. So how do you fix that? Beats me. Maybe we just have to learn to live with it unless we encourage differential abortion of females. No. I don't think so. Absolutely not.
3. More intensive teaching of birth control. The Baptists COULD do this. They just don't have the nerve. But if they were really sharp they could slip in a morals lesson or three while showing how to put a condom on a banana with your mouth.
4. Information - how well do crisis pregnancy centers work? Is there a better way? In fact more information on all programs that reduce abortion. Then the private funders can get the most bang for their buck.
There are probably more things to be done. Those come to my mind.
But for God's sake. Keep it out of the hands of government. That includes government funding.
I'd love to hear some major Moral Socialist come to his senses and say: "You know, what I want is of such intrinsic goodness that I don't need any government help to promote these ideas. And not only do I not need any help - I don't want any. There doesn't have to be a law. Social pressure can do the job. After all look at what changes to cultural attitudes have done for tobacco consumption. The only people who still smoke that stuff are hard core schizophrenics."
The only way government can accomplish anything is with sticks and stolen carrots.
Who do you want to steal from to accomplish your goal? Who do you want beaten with sticks?
Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods. - H. L. Mencken
Government functions by committing what in other contexts would be called crimes. It has a certain utility. But is a danger and ought to be strictly limited. Government can make you a slave - through taxation or though imprisonment. And slavery is against the law. Except for government.
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." Geo. Washington
Is it worth increasing the number of criminals in our society (nearly permanently) in exchange for being able to say: "It is against the law." Of course followed by (from a different sort of person): "I know a guy who knows a guy......."
I guess it all depends on what kind of world you want to live in.
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Comments
Then they think because they got in they have a mandate for moral crusades.
After living through several rounds of this, I'm coming around to thinking that they know they never have any such mandate (they must see the same polls we do), and they do those things with the intent, or at least at known high risk, of losing their seats, in exchange for post-loss payoffs. That would explain how hugely unpopular things like Obamacare get through, too, always with Republican procedural assistance.
I do think the national GOP -- its bureaucracy, not its candidates -- is working this ratchet knowingly, probably by lying to its less careerist/insider elected officials, tricking them into getting chucked out via "base"-appealing moves the party knows are losers with voters (including the actual base).
Ron Paul seems like the only one who doesn't fall for it, much. Not coincidentally, I think, he has a seat for life, if he wants it. He certainly won't be voted out in the general.
guy on internet · December 1, 2009 11:09 AM
One-third the populace are schizophrenics?
(I know, it's supposed to be one-fourth; I count those who lie about it to avoid the bigotry.
Brett · December 1, 2009 12:42 PM
This is truly beneath your usually intelligent analysis. What was the moral crusade during the Bush years? He incompetently ran a war that should have been won a lot earlier. The voters then incompetently elected a complete imbecile as President. Not to mention they put evil imbeciles in charge of congress. Who are the stupid ones? I will take some moral crusade any day over this batch of evil.
rick · December 1, 2009 02:07 PM
This libertarian pipe dream only works up to a point.
Every book of law expresses the morals and values of the society that enacts it.
And the government's role is to both legislate and impose the law.
So the government IS in the morality business.
Democracy is the most free/least bad way of doing this - but it still most definitely imposes moral judgments on minorities that disagree.
Ben-David · December 2, 2009 06:24 AM
Yes, Ben-David, but the promotion of liberty by means of limited government implies the imposition of a limited moral code: the recognition and defense of the individual rights to life, liberty of action, and property.
Social reform is best left to private means, seeing as reform is so often tyranny's calling card.
Where the libertarian pipe dream goes up in smoke is when it fails to recognize that national sovereignty is the only means to practical liberty.
Brett · December 2, 2009 07:08 AM
Ben-David,
Passing moral codes is nothing. Just get 51% of the vote. Hiring enforcers is easy. Nothing simpler.
The problem comes in when 49% decide on active or passive resistance. We see it all the time. Sex between unmarrieds was illegal in many venues 50 years ago. Now no one bothers.
Every book of law expresses the morals and values of the society that enacts it.
no it does not. Our law is based on Common Law, and far from morality, Common Law was very rarely used to impose morality.
For instance, drugs have been legal throughout most of recorded history. But morality has always frowned on their abuse, and throughout history drug abuse has been small and always looked down upon. Suddenly the last 2 centuries people want to impose 100% prohibition on almost all drugs. There was never a need for this for thousands of years when those drugs were easily available, but suddenly now we need to restrict people?
plutosdad · December 2, 2009 01:36 PM
The Stalinist public school system (and mandatory attendance) was championed by Protestants as indoctrination centers for Catholics and Jews.
Alternate view. The public school system (and mandatory attendance) was championed by the Founding Fathers as a way to make sure that an educated populace preserves the Republic. Ben Franklin and Tom Jefferson, neither of whom can be accurately described as Stalinist, or even as enthusiastic Protestants were nevertheless big supporters of public education because they believed that only an educated populace could avoid becoming useful idiots for Stalinism. (Only they called it tyranny, with one example of a tryant being the populist dictator, Julius Caesar.) The Founding Fathers, however, were overwhelmingly Protestant ministers. Conflicting goals crept in.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
Then they think because they got in they have a mandate for moral crusades.
After living through several rounds of this, I'm coming around to thinking that they know they never have any such mandate (they must see the same polls we do), and they do those things with the intent, or at least at known high risk, of losing their seats, in exchange for post-loss payoffs. That would explain how hugely unpopular things like Obamacare get through, too, always with Republican procedural assistance.
I do think the national GOP -- its bureaucracy, not its candidates -- is working this ratchet knowingly, probably by lying to its less careerist/insider elected officials, tricking them into getting chucked out via "base"-appealing moves the party knows are losers with voters (including the actual base).
Ron Paul seems like the only one who doesn't fall for it, much. Not coincidentally, I think, he has a seat for life, if he wants it. He certainly won't be voted out in the general.