Slipping Away

Watch this video. It is about a minute and a half. I'll wait. And just in case you are not up to following orders from disembodied voices on the Internet. Good for you. Here is the money quote:

"I don't want to be in Washington another six years and watch the Republican party betray the trust of the American people again. I mean, we had the White House. We had a majority in the House and the Senate. We voted for more spending and more earmarks. Most of our senior members seem to be focused on taking home the bacon. I'm not going to be in a Republican party like that and that's not what the Republican Party is across America," Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) told FOX News.
So how does the changing Republican Party relate to the social conservative right? Things do not seem to be going well. At all. You see, the Social Conservatives make up 80% of the Republican Party (or is that 80% of Republican voters? No matter.), but without that other 20% they can't win elections. And that 20% is very much not interested in a Republican culture war. At all. And they will drop the Rs in a heartbeat if they go down that road.

Newsweek (yeah they get it right this time) looks at the issue.

It's just smart electoral politics; there's no good reason to bring in divisive issues when conservatives are united on fiscal discipline. But will the more staunchly libertarian members of the Tea Party--the 20 percent who aren't Republicans, or who are adamant that libertarianism means the government shouldn't decide who can and can't get married--be alienated? Perhaps, Samples says, but he hasn't seen it yet. Indeed, despite hopeful prophecies to the contrary as far back as February, there haven't been any high-profile defections. Part of it is that libertarians are holding their noses for the time being. "The socially conservative emphasis didn't really work very well as an issue and they don't want to blow this one," Samples says. And in fact, it's the values voters who are starting to panic, he adds: "Two or three weeks ago I was at the Family Research Council, and there seemed to be an almost desperate sense that the train was leaving the station and they weren't on it."
No government that gets involved in social issues is going to be a small government. Those issues - if enacted - will need to be policed (do you have any idea how much a Drug War costs?). The days of "I'm against abortion so pay no attention to my spending habits" politicians on a national level are about over. The libertarians won't stand for it. Thank God.

H/T Instapundit


Update: 21 Oct 2010 0951z

Dick Morris sees what I'm seeing.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

posted by Simon on 10.21.10 at 03:17 AM





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Comments

Good question, Simon. But one interesting thing to note is that DeMint is often accused of being one of the most far-right, extremist GOP Senators. Yet the issue he's calling out his fellow -- and mostly more moderate (can you spell Lisa Murkowski?) Republicans about -- is fiscal irresponsibility and the petty corruption that's SOP in DC.

I think we classically liberal but right-leaning types should embrace social conservatives who aren't looking to coerce the rest of us, regardless of their personal beliefs, and oppose the legacy pork-barreling types in the GOP. Which, as the Senator says, turns out to be "most of our senior members."

Personally, the evangelicals don't scare me anymore--certainly not more than the government union creeps and "community activists." It's the socialism, stupid. That might have been your motto, Simon, but I'm running with it.

DJ   ·  October 21, 2010 08:38 AM

DJ,

Yes. Absolutely. It is the socialism.

In fact I do embrace a lot of the social conservative goals. As long as they are accomplished outside government.

What I object to on the right is cultural socialism. Which has also been called "moral socialism".

M. Simon   ·  October 21, 2010 04:39 PM

The days of "I'm against abortion so pay no attention to my spending habits" politicians on a national level are about over.

---------------------------------------------

You're a bit deluded. How many of these politicians have there ever been? You neglect to mention that the leaders of the Tea Party (to the extent that such a thing can exist) are against abortion - DeMint and Palin.


SM   ·  October 22, 2010 07:32 PM

What I object to on the right is cultural socialism.

----------------------------------------------


No, what you support is "cultural socialism" - the making of the rules we all must live under by some unaccountable bureaucrats.

What you fear is that the people might be allowed to make their own laws. What you fear is representative government, which was the cornerstone of the American experiment.

You're still a socialist at heart.

SM   ·  October 22, 2010 07:37 PM

SM,

I'm a libertarian. I do not want government protecting the culture. That is the job of the people. If we let government do it we get flabby. That is the problem with socialism. It is a recipe for failure.

The less the government gets involved in the culture the better for the culture.

As to passing laws. Our liberties come from a source beyond the laws. So having the authority to pass laws is not the be all and end all of Republican Government.

===

And should by some vagary of corruption the Islamics were running the country I think you would find the precedents you have set or wish to set to be rather unfortunate.

Look up the history of public schools and the parochial schools set up in opposition.

And the idea for public schools? Cultural indoctrination. That one kind of got away from you didn't it?

M. Simon   ·  October 22, 2010 07:54 PM

“No government that gets involved in social issues is going to be a small government.”

What a bunch of contemptuous blather. Really? Do you actually believe such nonsense? Am I to understand that the federal government is smaller after Roe v Wade than it was before it? Did the government of Massachusetts shrink when “gay marriage” was legalized? Am I to believe that having a directory of unelected petty-tyrants who impose their will by diktat is a prerequisite for limited government?! And that republican virtue and laws being enacted by the consent of the governed are the first stages of Bolshevism?

Was America really a fascist hellhole from 1776-1973? If opposing homosexuality, abortion, and the idea that pornography is speech are incompatible with limited government then surely living in an age when none of those things were legal must have been an Orwellian nightmare! Thank goodness we today in our pro-homosexual, abortion, libertine society are so free. While in Thomas Jefferson's time Americans had to endure 50% combined state and federal income tax rates, an out-of-control Judiciary waging cruel war on federalism and the separation of powers, a multi-trillion dollar bureaucracy infringing on every aspect of life, and... oh, wait.

Riddle me this: How come those at the front line in the war against big government are overwhelmingly social conservatives? If Judeo-Christiam morality was incompatible with freedom, why is it the enemies of God are the biggest believers in socialism? Why are the knuckle-dragging “ooggidy booggidy” “homophobic bigots” the ones fighting for smaller government?

I apologize for my snark and hot-blooded comments, but COME ON!

Browds   ·  October 24, 2010 12:58 PM

Browds,

Well once you have to start enforcing there are costs.

Illegal drugs are easier for kids to get than beer. Are you getting your $2 or $5 billion (depending on how you count) a months worth?

And if abortion is outlawed how much do you think it will cost to keep RU-486 out of the country? Will it be as effective as drug prohibition?

But it is never the initial cost. After all when Nixon started up the War On Drugs big time it was only costing $100 million a year Federally. Now it is up in the $10 to $25 billion range Federally.

You see it is not the cost of the initial program that kills you. It is the cost of failure. And they always fail.

Moral socialism works no better than economic socialism.

M. Simon   ·  October 24, 2010 01:15 PM

Riddle me this: How come those at the front line in the war against big government are overwhelmingly social conservatives?

Because they get the cost of economic socialism. What they refuse to see is the cost of moral socialism.

How the Drug War Destroys the Families

Social conservatives are big proponents of the drug war AND strong families. Riddle me that.

If you want to see some people who are in favor of really small government try Libertarians or libertarian Republicans.

But most social conservatives in their heart of hearts know that they believe in a really weak god who can't perform his works without government help. Good works at the point of a gun? Puhleeze.

My God doesn't need government help.

Let me remind you that Progressives and many social conservatives joined together to give us the public school system and alcohol prohibition. You can look it up. How did that work out for you?

The trouble with social conservatives is that they don't even know their own history. Pity. Well it is inconvenient.

M. Simon   ·  October 24, 2010 01:30 PM

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