Who Comes First?

In the war between social and fiscal conservatives the question on everyone's mind is: who (or what) comes first? Lawrence Reed may have an answer.

"If you politically win on all the economic issues, you could lose on all the social ones and still have an avenue as a social conservative to advance what's important to you," Reed said. "When there's a smaller government, families, individuals, private, voluntary organizations and churches have a bigger role. It's on the strength of those institutions, not mandates from the government, that allow for a healthy culture to blossom."
Ah. But the social conservatives have an issue with that.
Social conservative Bob Patterson of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society thinks Americans must focus on social issues first, and that's the main difference between social and fiscal conservatives. He said economic conservatives have traditionally been a lot better than social conservatives at furthering their interests, though.
I think Mr. Patterson has given us a clue. Unwittingly. Fiscal conservatism without the social conservative trappings is the bigger tent. i.e. more likely to win elections.

But I'm willing to run the experiment again. Let the social conservatives start passing laws or continuing government caused disasters (putting the distribution of some drugs solely in the hands of criminals) and we shall see if they can keep winning elections.

I mean what the heck? Two, or four, or six, or eight years of communists in power would be worth it to find the outcome of the experiment. How bad could it hurt?

We did run the experiment in Illinois a while back. The year was 2004. Given the choice between a flaming socon who disowned his lesbian daughter and a communist in 2004 I voted for the communist.

And the name of the communist? You might have heard of him.

Obama.

Other than that race I voted straight R.

BTW I wasn't the only one:

Obama/Keyes vs Kerry/Bush.

But if socons want to try that on a national level I say go for it. Maybe they will learn something. The hard way.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

posted by Simon on 09.27.10 at 01:51 AM





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Comments

socons should be kicked out of the party

Mike   ·  September 27, 2010 02:24 AM

Simon

Bad choice back in 2004.

No matter how bad we find Keyes, he could never do the damage that Obama has done.

Period.

The little "communist experiments" you blithely embrace leads to irreversible ratchets like social security, Medicare, and now obamacare. These are dependencies which can only ever be uprooted with great pain, and then only by the motivation of huge fiscal crises.

Bad choice.

Robert Arvanitis   ·  September 27, 2010 08:10 AM

SoCon belief (see what I did there?) that legislating morality is the most-pressing issue currently facing the USSA is completely mystifying.
I find their faith (hahaha) in governmental curatives as misplaced and naive as that I see in the Progs.
Mystifying.

dr kill   ·  September 27, 2010 08:21 AM

Robert,

I'm not talking right or wrong - where socons always go with the question. I'm talking about winning elections.

Mike,

I like having socon allies. Really, I do. What I'm talking about is winning elections. If half a loaf is good enough (reign in spending) socons are not bad. Mostly. But they have the wrong litmus test - "He is OK on social issues so who cares if he is spending us into the poor house."

Dr. Kill,

Another deadly observation. I have a name for it. Socialism. Cultural Socialism. And yes it is just as "naive as that I see in the Progs."

M. Simon   ·  September 27, 2010 10:07 AM

Robert,

Keyes and the people who put him on the ballot (my State Senator Dave Syverson was the Chief Instigator) are just as responsible for the Obama phenomenon as any Communist in the D Party. Had he not had a blow out in Illinois in 2004 his momentum might have been reduced.

Wake the fuck up.

You want to change the culture? Fine. Do it in the private sector. Socons need to get away from the addiction to government guns. It is just as ugly to me as the Economic Socialists. If you judge by the Illinois results a lot of my fellow Americans agree with me. Enough to affect elections.

And seriously - was Jesus a big government guy or a change their hearts guy? As an outside observer I must say that a very large faction of socons are not even understanding the message of Jesus. Pretty funny coming from a Jew hunh?

The short version: Jesus was not a statist. Why are you?

M. Simon   ·  September 27, 2010 10:21 AM

Power is more addictive than heroin.

We could live with 2% of the population addicted to heroin - the number we had before the instigation of heroin prohibition and the number we have had in the nearly 100 years since.

We can't live with 80% addicted to government power. It is killing us. Between the Economic Socialists and the Cultural Socialist we are being drowned.

Because Cultural Socialism validates government power. And that is the heart and soul of the matter.

M. Simon   ·  September 27, 2010 10:31 AM

Forget the Jesus message. It could just as well be the Mohammed message, or the Lenin message, or the Hitler message. It's all the same. They get a glint in their eyes, and enter the rapture of the true believer. Nothing will stop them. Because they so truly believe they are right and just, we must follow. How can we not see? The truth is before us, and if we can't see it, they will make us. If we refuse and instead follow a path of sin and abomination, they will scorn us, re-educate us, imprison us, march us into the jungle, stone us, castrate us, and hang us. Or mark us with a number and incinerate us.
It's just a matter of degree, but in the end, they all resort to force.
It's a rigged game, even in a democracy. Flip a coin, economic statist or cultural statist. The defining word is statist.

Frank   ·  September 28, 2010 01:51 AM

Assolutamente d'accordo con lei. L'idea di un bene, sono d'accordo con lei.
Assolutamente d'accordo con lei. In questo nulla in vi e 'una buona idea. Mi associo.

bet365   ·  September 28, 2010 02:51 AM

I think someone has made an ass out of o and lutamente!

Eric Scheie   ·  September 28, 2010 12:04 PM

I have to admit that even knowing what I know now, had I been there then, I too would have voted for Obama.

Kathy K   ·  September 28, 2010 12:49 PM

It occurs to me that when one encounters someone who emphasizes social issues, one should point out that politics involves ... political issues.

When social cons can point to a specific spot in the constitution, and tell me that's their justification for social engineering, I may listen to them. Otherwise I think Simon has the right of it, in that they would find far more leverage employing local community groups or services which are independent of the federal leviathan.

Casey   ·  September 29, 2010 01:13 AM

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