Giuliani event off because of killings (Gunowners, pro-lifer Protest event)

Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani canceled a private fundraiser Monday at the home of former Denver Nuggets General Manager Kiki Vandeweghe because of the Virginia Tech shootings.

Colorado House Minority Leader Mike May, who was listed on the host committee, balked at attending because he worried about Amendment 41, an ethics measure passed by Colorado voters last November, and being at an event that charged a fee.

May said he also worried about Giuliani's stances on abortion and guns - opinions that two protesters handing out leaflets outside the Vandeweghe home said were crippling to the former mayor.

Dudley Brown, executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, said Giuliani's stance on guns was out of step with the Republican Party and agreed with fellow protester Aaron Brown's assessment that the presidential hopeful had grown too comfortable relying on bodyguards instead of carrying a weapon himself.

"Most people I know can't afford bodyguards," Brown said. "He seems to have lost sight of that."

An abortion protester bellowed out his opposition to Giuliani as a handful of guests arrived about 30 minutes before the cancellation of the event.

I stumbled across this when I saw a post from the Rocky Mountain Gunowner's club:

Rudy finds Chilly Reception in Colorado

They didn't mention it was cancelled, but this was the article in the paper which covered the event and mentions their attendance. You should read their discussion of the event.

They note it is important for people to picket politicians who don't support what we believe in, so local politicians realise there is a price to be paid for not doing what is right.

It's a shame we have to picket our own candidate in order to get that message across.

I also found it interesting that a politician listed on the host committee wouldn't even attend the event, apparently because of confusion over campaign finance laws, but also because of Rudy's positions. Wonder why he was listed on the committee....

To the FReepers in attendance and the millions watching around the world on Pay Per View…Ladies and Gentleman...

LLLLLLLets Get Ready to RRRumblllllllle!!!!

1,500,000,000 rounds of posts, arguments, insults, cheesy graphics, name calling, and ad hominem personal attacks that pass as debate for the FUTURE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!

"Introducing first, to my right, fighting out of the red corner, wearing their Sunday best with a gold crucifix...weighing in at 810 and 1/4 pounds...the social conservatives, the religious right, the champions of family values...from the Southern States...The Evangelicals!" (wild applause)

"And in the blue corner, wearing an off the rack suit, Goldwater ’64 lapel pin and a belt 2 sizes too small...weighing in at 141 pounds soaking wet...the fiscal conservatives, the last champions of limited government...from the Western States...The Libertarians!" (wild applause)

Chapter 1: Live From the Reagan Building

I wish the dialogue was between these two groups (the classical Burkean sub-group popularly associated with social issues and morality, and the libertarian sub-group associated with personal responsibility and freedom from tyranny) - the camps aligned under 1960's Fusionism to combat the encroaching amoral nihilism and Marxist influences defining the natural enemy of modern conservatism - we unfortunately today call this enemy "progressivism". A more appropriate term is Marxist hedonism.

I think part of the problem with the alliance forming the touchstone of modern conservatism is that the two largest groups, the Burkeans and the libertarians, have individually lost their purity. Some elements of the Burkean side (for example, 'compassionate conservatives') now show some affinity for fiscally irresponsible Marxism-inspired big-government policies (welfare, free medical care, Rx drug subsidies, censorship, etc), while some elements of the libertarian ("neoliberal") side are now siding with the hedonistic amoralists on issues like abortion (despite the right to life being a classical libertarian virtue) and gay marriage (an expansion of government subsidy in the name of some perverted notion of 'equality').

The problem on the libertarian side is easily recognized as one of definition drift - the amoralistic hedonists on the left have succeeded in supplanting the classical definition of liberty with a perversion incorporating what are known as "positive rights". Real rights - "negative rights" (the right to self-determination so long as the self-determination of another individual is not infringed) to use the popular term - are wholly incompatible with these positive "rights". I have adopted the practice of separating these libertarian groups into left-libertarians (in the mold of the ACLU, fitting of the label 'liberaltarian' hehe), and right-libertarians (think Cato institute, Milton Friedman, AuH20); shown on my FR homepage is a version of the 2D Nolan chart where I have remedied the bastardization of the concept of liberty to include only negative liberties to show this difference.

The problem on the Burkean side is harder for me to put my finger on. On one hand, it may be related to the Republican party absorbing what we now call "Reagan Democrats" - socially moderate, fiscally center-left (think Christian union household); this would explain the (at times enthusiastic!) acceptance of New Deal type government policies by some in the alliance). On the other hand, it may be intrinsic to Burkean philosophy itself to rely on ill-fated government fiat to reign in moral drift, or to staunch the crumbling of tradition. That this dovetails with Marxist economic redistributionist policy is, in this view, not so much an endorsement of communism/socialism, as it is a coincidence in the mechanisms chosen for the provision of moral order. Not that this makes it any less distasteful to those, like myself, of right-libertarian leanings.

But anyway, about Rudy. As I alluded to, he belongs to neither group within the modern conservative coalition. He is OBVIOUSLY not a Burkean, as he has rejected essentially every tenet of social conservatism. A close examination of his policies, however, reveals that he is (1) not all that fiscally conservative (center-right, fine), and (2) not in any other way a libertarian! He has shown a willingness to involve the state in matters such as smoking laws, gun-control, trans fat nonsense - he even banned the playing of street hockey on city streets. From government surveillance cameras, to suing the federal government over Medicaid payment reductions. I am hard-pressed to imagine any activity that is beyond him wanting to regulate in the name of 'public order'. Rudy Giuliani is a socially liberal police/nanny-statist with passable views on business. His conservative credentials are sparse, even when cutting him some slack on his RECENT triangulation.

Someone was trying to argue that Rudy was a libertarian, and Fred Thompson was an authoritarian. (The silly web site shows Rudy closer to libertarian, and Fred closer to “populism”, but their method uses so few votes and little context so it’s hard to really classify).

Anyway, you allude to something a lot of people ignore, which is that if you want to put people on a “political spectrum” you need at least a 3-d chart, if not more.

As to the Burkeans (I don’t use that term but since you did I’ll stick with it) the marriage of the social conservatives to other “conservatives” almost seems meant to mock the meaning of the word “conservative”, based as it is on two different definitions of the term.

To the degree Social conservatives agree with limited-government conservatives, it’s only because they also have the political notion that the church is best left far from the influence of the state. But the very reason we have the 1st amendment is because the “social church” traditionally seeks power, and the state has the power. The state provided a guarantee of tithes, and enforcement of ecclesiastical law.

If you look at the party platforms, it is clear how alignment on “2nd tier issues” (I say that not to lessen their importance, but because they were in fact not central at the time to the parties) was “guided” so as to carve out large majorities of the unaligned population.

For example, there is no fundamental reason why “conservatives” should also be the party of guns, while liberals are not. Or that “conservatives” should be religious, while liberals are not. We had to pick positions on issues to do that, so we did.

But as we “solve” those problems, our coalitions break down, since the social conservatives who cared about abortion and gay marriage ALSO think we should reach out to the world (pro-illegal-immigration), we should feed the starving (faith-based initiatives, which are government collecting tithes for the church), and concern for social ills (using government authority to implement ecclesiastical policy).

Jim Wallis cleverly noted that, and has attempted to change the value religious people place on different issues, like promoting global warming as important to the religious community. He also had to convince the democrat party that they needed to find “religious issues” and appeal to that group, with some success.

Remember that the Catholic Church has been a strong ally on abortion and gay marriage, but is also opposed to the death penalty, strongly for amnesty for illegals, against the war, and for social justice.

If abortion became illegal tomorrow, the democrats would win the next election in a landslide, because the next big issues for the Catholic church are all left-leaning.

Actually, I think the reason you “see” the problem better on the libertarian side is simply because you seem to understand that enough to have discarded the half that you perceive as not “true”. Maybe it’s easier over there, because despite the protestations on conservative forums, the left IS religious, they aren’t faking it, they simply have a different focus of their religious fervor.

James Madison was wrong in the Federalist Papers. He insisted that our form of government would prevent “blocks” of voting because of factionalism. He was correct that factionalism would keep government “honest”, but wrong that there would be factionalism. He couldn’t see how one could make a “majority” on a wealth of issues given the different concerns of the myriad of groups he saw making up the electorate.

In his thought, you might get the bankers and the nobelman to agree on something against the farmers and the craftsman, but on the next issue the farmers would align with bankers, and on another the nobleman wouldn’t care and the ranchers would be with the blacksmith against the baker.

But by finding these 2nd-tier issues that were more “social”, where people’s “self-interest” was created in their minds rather than by reality, you could pull together people that sane observers would think could never vote as one.

I could babble a lot more, but I’ll quit here.

Thanks guys. I actually learned something from you. Certainly beats the usual discourse on a Rudy thread which usually goes:

Rudy Supporter: Rudy’s da man.
Rudy Hater: He’s a liberal gun grabbing, baby killing %^&%.

The “religious right” as the MSM calls them and people like me who are limited government libertarians are stuck with each other. Can you imagine people of faith voting with the Nancy Pelosi San Francisco liberal crowd? The secular progressive, neo communists who cringe at the sight of a manger display?

Or how about fiscal conservatives who loathe wealth redistribution or libertarians who can’t stand social engineering voting for liberals who never met a problem that higher taxes and more Gubmint couldn’t solve?

Although M203M4 (you have to change your screen name, BTW, you said something else a few weeks ago and I couldn’t even remember your name because it was too complicated) the idea that Rudy is a nanny stater or is in favor of health fascism in terms of smoking bans or trans fat bans in order to coerce the sheeple to live healthier and save Medicaid money is simply not true. I have some stuff you might want to look at that backs it up.

Now his wife Nurse Judy might be. That worries me a little.

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