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You may be right, that is, about a brokered convention, where we can put any bitterness behind us.

But I must challenge the lead article's acceptance of Rick Santorum as a "Social Conservative."

Rick Santorum, not only in this campaign, but in the Senate, has shown that he does not respect the Tenth Amendment. In the context of American Constitutional Law, there can be no clearer evidence that the man is not a true social conservative. Why?

Many of the specific grievances in the Declaration Of Independence, had to do with outside interference with local communities' rights to have their own Courts, their own institutions--a revolt against outside dictation on social matters. This was reflected in our Constitution, by the fact that social questions--the Police Power that deals with health, safety & morals--was left to the States & local communities; a decision clearly reaffirmed in the Tenth Amendment.

We in Ohio can jolly well handle our own social legislation, we do not need a Pennsylvanian telling us what we need or do not need in managing our purely local affairs. But Rick doesn't apparently accept that. For a specific example, he was one of those who supported the idea of Congress trying to dictate a judicial finding in a Florida Probate Court case (Schiavo) in 2005--apparently failing to realize that this sort of intrusion into local access to local Courts, was one of the very things spelled out as justifying our Revolution in the Declaration.

This is absolutely basic to Federalism.

William Flax

Except that the modern social conservative movement, as it exists today, wants nothing more than to have a all-powerful federal government capable of forcing one standard of behavior onto all the citizens of our land.

That *IS* their goal.

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I recently asked on these forums a very simple question, directed to social conservatives, to which no real response was returned. So I'll ask it again of our social conservatives:

I’ve long wondered how one can be a dedicated religious conservative and still support a small, Constitutionalist government and low taxes.

After all, how can you force proper ethical behavior onto a resistant populace (ex: San Francisco) without strong, centralized government powerful enough to do so?