Posted on 03/04/2014 8:10:10 AM PST by SeekAndFind
If there were as many “fiscal conservatives” as there are people who claim to be, it is hard to see how Republicans would lose as many elections as they do.
One frequently hears this political self-identification: “I’m socially liberal, but fiscally conservative.” Or: “If the Republicans weren’t conservative on so many social issues, I would vote Republican.” Or: “It’s too bad the Christian Right dominates the Republican party. I would vote for the Republicans on fiscal issues, but I can’t stand the religious Right.”
The same sentiment holds among many inside the Republican party. Most secular conservatives and the libertarian wing of the party agree: Let’s jettison all this social stuff (most prominently opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion, and this unnecessary commitment to religion) and just stand for small government and personal liberty.
To many people these positions sound reasonable, even persuasive. They shouldn’t.
Here’s why.
It is hard to believe that people who call themselves fiscal conservatives and vote for Democrats would suddenly abandon the Democratic party if only the Republican party embraced same-sex marriage and abortion.
The Left and its political party will always create social issues and tout them in divisive terms that make Republicans and conservatives look “reactionary.” Today it is same-sex marriage, the next day it is the Republican “war on women,” and soon it will be ending the objective male-female designation of Americans (including at birth, because children should have the “right” to determine their gender and not have their parents and their genitalia determine it). Or it will be animal rights, race-based affirmative action, or an environmentalist issue. Concerning the latter, how many “fiscal conservatives” who vote for Democrats are prepared to abandon the party on the “climate change” issue? I suspect very few.
Fiscally conservative Democrats are thus fooling themselves and others when they announce that they would abandon the Democratic party if only the Republicans weren’t socially conservative. They didn’t leave the Democrats before same-sex marriage was an issue, and they won’t leave them if same-sex marriage ceases to be an issue.
Let’s turn now to God and religion, the most obvious arena of social conservatism. Among the secular conservatives, libertarians, and secular-fiscal conservatives who vote Democratic, there are many who claim they would vote for Republicans if the party were not home to so many social conservatives who are so adamant about God and religion.
This group, too, is fooling itself. Anyone who thinks that you can have smaller government — the central goal for libertarians and other fiscal conservatives — outside the framework of Judeo-Christian religions and their God-based values fails to understand both the Founders and human nature.
The entire American experiment in smaller government — and even in secular government — was based on the presumption that Americans individually would be actively religious. Unlike Europeans of the Enlightenment era — and unlike the Left today — the Founders understood that people are not basically good. That is a defining belief of Judaism as well as of Christianity. Therefore, to be good, the great majority of people need moral religion and belief in accountability to a morally judging God. In other words, you will have either the big God of Judaism and Christianity or the big state of the Left.
Social conservatives know that they need fiscal conservatives. They know that the bigger the state, the smaller the God. They know that proponents of the ever-larger state want their own gods, such as Mother Earth, to replace the Bible’s God. Fiscal conservatives must come to understand that they need social conservatives, too. They need them philosophically, as I’ve suggested, and they need them politically. There will never be enough Americans who are fiscally but not socially conservative to win a national election. Sorry.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist.
Many of the religious are very liberal and you won’t get that vote.
Among the conservative religious, they do vote conservative which is great. But, if they feel there is something unethical about a candidate in their preferred party they will sit out an election sometimes in great numbers.
Going after SoCon goals without FIRST defunding the Dems base of power, means we will ultimately lose.
The only effective tool the social liberals have is big intrusive, overbearing government. If you attack their only tool you stymy their agenda. It also has the advantage that a clear majority of Americans see big, intrusive, overbearing government is a problem and are on board for attacking the problem.
To those people who vote Democrat because they claim to be socially liberal but fiscally conservative, it appears you value immorality, aka social liberalism, far, far more than you value fiscal conservatism. In other words, I agree with Dennis Prager. I very highly doubt you would ever jettison the Democrat Party if Republicans surrendered the so-called social issues.
Dennis Prager is also right that small government absolutely requires Judeo-Christian morality. The two go hand in hand, because immoral people inevitably turn to government to help mitigate the results of immorality. Find yourself at 24 with two children from different (and absent) fathers and a minimum wage or no job? You’re likely going to vote for help from Uncle Sam.
An immoral person might not vote for more government of course, but it’s the lack of moral principles like self restraint that typically get people in a bind in the first place. Plus it doesn’t even matter if there are a few holdouts. What matters is numbers, and small numbers of libertarian libertines will be quickly outnumbered and out voted by people looking for government security.
Finally, social liberals tend to have an irrational fear of religion, especially Christianity. I’m a Christian, and I don’t know of anyone who wants a theocracy. That doesn’t mean there might not be a few left who would love to make things like porn and booze illegal, but let’s be real here. Those few outliers can’t muster voting majorities anywhere.
Christians might talk about their faith, but they’re not going to force you to worship Jesus (Muslims might be a different matter of course). What I’m saying is social liberals who claim to be fiscally conservative really need to weigh the relative risks. Which is more likely to occur, a Christian theocracy or a Democrat controlled, big spending, all intrusive government?
Amen to that. There is no worse cancer in our system than sexual irresponsibility.
That is incredibly ignorant and reveals that even after your time here you have refused to learn how the actual vote breaks down.
Religious Christians are massively, overwhelmingly conservative, there is no group that votes more conservative than their 77 and 80% conservative vote.
The anti-religious, the atheists, are massively, overwhelmingly liberal.
To add to your education, almost all, if not all candidates who are truly conservative, are "religious", any conservative candidate will not win many votes of the social liberals, even the republican social liberals, and there are very few anti-God republicans, too few to measure, since they are naturally liberal.
He answered: The first definition. I'm a traditional socon.
In other words, to you, being "conservative" means using government to protect American society from harm and decay. If you're like me, you regard anti-Christian morality such as abortion, open homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, sloth, dependence, entitlement thinking, and envy, as social evils that harm and decay American society.
"Conservative" to you MUST BE code for "believes in the Judeo-Christian ethic." I say this with absolute certainty because DEMOCRATS and SOCIALISTS also belive in "using government to protect American culture from harm or decay," it's just that they think it harms society to reject open homosexuality; they think that not making abortion abundantly available and cheap would contribute to the decay of American culture. They are as convinced of the moral "righteousness" of their use of government, as you are of yours.
Clearly, they also are "conservative" if you define "conservative" as "to protect from harm or decay." Therefore, the reality is that your definition of "conservative" necessarily entails that "conservative" also be a code word for "holding Judeo-Christian values."
It's pretty obvious to me that the Founding Fathers were the other definition of "conservative" -- the definition of using something sparingly. As Washington supposedly said, government is a FORCE that is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. BETTER TO USE IT SPARINGLY than to advocate for more but different government.
That is the role of conservatives, to fight intrusive, overbearing government, it is the role of the religious and social conservative.
Social liberals come at fighting FOR intrusive, overbearing government from two angles, as the democrat party, and as social liberals/libertarians within the republican party.
Expanding on what I said in #42, measures which just piss off the other side, without reducing their ability to oppose you, are a poor idea and a sure-fire way to lose over the long term.
How do the Dems win elections? They have money to toss around for "get out the vote" efforts, to pay for lawyers to suppress any laws (like Voter ID) which might hamper their voter fraud initiatives, and to pay for voter polls, research, and effective ad campaigns.
Where does the money come from? People who financially benefit from the Dems being in power, and will pay money to keep things rolling. Union money, trial lawyer money, money from "non profits", etc.
In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker, by fighting to pass Right to Work, and thus gutting the financial resources of the unions, has done considerable damage to the Democrats there, and also in other states (since the Dems will now need to send money to Wisconsin from elsewhere to win there). Same deal with Michigan gov Rick Snyder and MI RTW, plus putting appointing a bankruptcy master over Detroit.
THAT is what I'm talking about.
The difference is a matter of emphasis. I just think the more effective path is to demonize big government, not fellow citizens whose support you need in a Republic like ours.
LOL, since that isn't the reality of conservatism, why say something so silly, conservatives do both at the same time, they are all part of the social conservative package that you are fighting.
Social liberal republicans are the ones weak on defunding the left, they are weak on everything, it is why they hate the conservatives and try to destroy them.
And what acted as a brake against sexual irresponsibility in the past? The knowledge that sexual irresponsibility would lead to unwed motherhood and unacceptable levels of poverty.
What changed? Welfare, plus the ability to collect child support from an unwed father, made single motherhood more appealing to some women on the bottom than work or marriage (to an employed man) did. So, without unacceptable penalties, they indulged in what young girls have ALWAYS wanted to do: have sex with exciting men, and have babies.
You clearly are fighting for some politics that you aren’t telling us about.
Ending abortion and protecting marriage is not “demonizing” “fellow citizens whose support you need”, it isn’t demonizing anyone.
Demonizing conservatives for opposing abortion and the homosexual agenda, does make one sound like a true liberal though.
LOL, religious morality acted as the brake.
It was a very simple yes or no question: Would you support laws punishing the baker, the hall owner, the employer, for going along with the private pretend marriage?
Right now, there are laws that punish the opposite, and as a believer in THE WISDOM of limited government and the futility of outlawing something as unicorn-pretend as "gay marriage," I'll tell you straight out that MY answer would be no. I am as opposed to punishing free Americans for choosing to privately cater to pretend homosexuals, as I am opposed to punishing free Americans for REFUSING to cater to them. I RECOGNIZE that if government was not backing homosexuals, they would be weak nobodies because most people would tell those homosexuals to go away; it is ONLY by force of government that homosexuals have power. Therefore, my answer to the question would be a resounding, NO!
Which is yours -- yes or no?
There are whole bunch that are also quite liberal; especially if there is an attachment to government employment, EBT and so forth.
Mexicans are very religious and they vote how again when they become citizens (or not in Democrat areas)?
Just a manifestation of the truism that those who are not self governed will be externally restrained.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.
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In other words, to you, being "conservative" means using government to protect American society from harm and decay. If you're like me, you regard anti-Christian morality such as abortion, open homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, sloth, dependence, entitlement thinking, and envy, as social evils that harm and decay American society. Well, yeah. Duh! This model served America well for 200 some odd years. Is it too much to ask that we return to what worked? "Conservative" to you MUST BE code for "believes in the Judeo-Christian ethic." I say this with absolute certainty because DEMOCRATS and SOCIALISTS also belive in "using government to protect American culture from harm or decay," it's just that they think it harms society to reject open homosexuality; they think that not making abortion abundantly available and cheap would contribute to the decay of American culture. They are as convinced of the moral "righteousness" of their use of government, as you are of yours. You are putting liberal and leftist values and beliefs as equal to conservative values. In case you don't know it; OURS work. Theirs don't. So do not be afraid of SoCons (like Ted Cruz for example) offering up ways to effectively govern from the Right. Clearly, they also are "conservative" if you define "conservative" as "to protect from harm or decay." Therefore, the reality is that your definition of "conservative" necessarily entails that "conservative" also be a code word for "holding Judeo-Christian values." That's not so hard to understand, now is it? |
Granted. It comes down to priorities, based on how much "political capital" you have to spend. If you were following the battles in Wisconsin over RTW, it was a hard and tiring battle for the Repubs in the legislature. They chose to spend their finite time and energy on doing something that would make conservative victories easier in the future. RTW is not something that is a SoCon "hot button", but by reducing Dem power via reducing union power, it makes future SoCon victories easier.
If, for example, you want to derail "gay marriage", the best way to do it is to find out what FINANCIAL benefits the gay marriage proponents seek from marriage, and work to nullify their being able to get the benefits. Support for gay marriage would lose a lot of steam at that point.
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