Count me in. I'm a proud deviant and doper.

Will you continue to cry out "Bible thumping" the way the NAACP cries out "Racist" ?

What is bible thumping to say that you don't want people to ENJOY being on welfare? What is bible thumping about saying you don't think people should be making babies they won't pay for, but instead force you to do it?

What is bible thumping about saying I want an agreed upon set of principles to be taught regarding what is acceptable (respect for others) and is NOT acceptable (stealing, rape, murder, assault,etc.) ?

I think the best way to ensure civil rights is to may sure people are taught to respect them. Just because the bible may say the same thing, doesn't mean the principle needs the bible to make it valid.

It is in the best interest of society to have and promote a set of accepted rules of behavior, and it is beneficial for society to stigmatize those who do not abide by them. Whether God says so or not, this idea stands on it's own merits.

I believe the "bible thumping" being referred to is in relation to the abortion/abstinence only sex education/gay marriage conundrums.

I'd add in the Drug Prohibition.

I guess keeping pubic order is not enough for government. Government must regulate what people willing do with and to themselves.

We now have drug police. Can fat police be far behind?

BTW D, I note you answered my two questions just as I expected. In 2012 if given the choice between a Bible Thumper and the Communist I'd make the same decision I made in 2004. I voted for the Communist. And look where he is today.

"Pubic order" A Freudian slip of the highest degree, Mr. Simon.

To Diogenes and the rest of what's left of the Moral Majority: If your entire platform is based on stuffing the gay genie back in the bottle your crowd will die of old age without sniffing the merest whiff of political power. The demographics are solidly against you, especially amongst the 20-somethings you want to recruit.

I've wandered in the wastelands of the social liberal/fiscal & foreign policy conservative since the early 1980s. With the partial exception of the Reagan years it's been a very lonely sojourn, comforted only by repeated readings of Heinlein and Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos. Every time the groundswell rose to rail against the runaway and ruinous spending that so completely erodes our original Constitutional bargain, the movement was choked off by the media focusing on the Southern Baptists and their ilk.

I had hoped that the Tea Party movement would finally push past the media's self-imposed "Baptist Barrier". It did, but the media had its own self-imposed "Racist Barrier" lying in wait. I'm sure they have other such barriers lying in wait when the racism claim is finally publicly debunked.

I can only hope that as the Woodstock Generation (the crowd running the MSM today) retires, their successors are much more open-minded and not so focused on winning what the Woodstock Generation thought they lost in the upheavals of 1968

Ned,

Thanks for that. It was unintended hilarity.

BTW the government doesn't seem to be very good at keeping pubic order. Heh.

Also note: I'm one of those Woodstock guys. And an alum of the U. Chicago. I can tell you that except for the socially liberal stuff I am a proud traitor to my class and my generation.

And you are so right. I was just telling Eric (the blog owner) that this anti-gay stuff is mostly old farts and is dying out. With the drug war not too far behind.

I think the Tea Parties are a good first stab at making a fiscally conservative coalition. Limited government. Small Government. Constitutional government. And that is it. Evidently there is not enough government for our "conservative" friends. Who are not actually conservative in the American tradition (liberty lovers - with all the attendant messiness) but are actually Progressive Conservatives. Progress through more intrusive government.

I want an agreed upon set of principles to be taught regarding what is acceptable (respect for others) and is NOT acceptable (stealing, rape, murder, assault,etc.)

I agree with you on respect for others, and stealing, rape, murder, assault. The problem lies in the "etc."

"I was just telling Eric (the blog owner) that this anti-gay stuff is mostly old farts and is dying out."

That's quite an assumption. When I was 20--even 25--I thought the hostility to homosexuality was pretty bizarre. Then I moved to the Bay Area.

"Limited government. Small Government. Constitutional government. And that is it. Evidently there is not enough government for our "conservative" friends."

The problem with this statement is that "small government" isn't "constitutional government." The national government's authority under the Constitution is pretty limited (especially compared to what it is). But state governments enjoy all police powers not explicitly restricted by the Constitution and its amendments, or by the state's constitution. Those police powers are quite broad.

While I think many of these powers don't necessarily make sense to use (what consenting adults do in private is hard to enforce), there is nothing unconstitutional about them. Some of these powers need to be used with care, and a lighter touch on intoxicants may be a more effective strategy than a heavy fist, but state drug laws are about as Constitutional as it gets.

And as usual, both sides are presenting a false choice. Instead, the deal ought to go like this: "Hey, social cons, help us cut spending and the first thing on the chopping block will be Robert Mapplethorpe's NEA grant. Not to mention the entire Department of Education so you only have to defend home schooling against each state's bureaucrats. We won't defend a national obscenity law.... but we won't tell you you can't enforce one in your state. If it's too bad, we'll just do what Jefferson intended and move out to another state and never come back." Cutting the government's size helps everyone.

Oh, and Clayton? Don't confuse homosexuality with "Marxist homosexuality." They have roughly the same relationship as theology and "liberation theology."