Posted on 03/21/2014 2:24:28 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
Rand Paul is an appealing candidate to many conservatives. But he has a fatal libertarian streak on social issues that will make his candidacy in 2016 a non-starter for convictional conservatives.
According to Breitbart.com, Paul is urging the Republican party to "soften on social issues." But this is the one thing it cannot do and remain the Republican party.
The GOP was founded in 1854 to fight slavery and bigamy, those "twin relics of barbarism." In other words, the GOP came into existence to declare and defend a principled stand on the two leading social issues of its day.
Says Paul,
"I think that the Republican Party, in order to get bigger, will have to agree to disagree on social issues. The Republican Party is not going to give up on having quite a few people who do believe in traditional marriage. But the Republican Party also has to find a place for young people and others who don't want to be festooned by those issues."
(I'm not sure "festooned" is the word he was looking for here, as it means "a decorative chain or strip hanging between two points," but his overall meaning is clear.)
Let's take Paul's template and see if it would work for the GOP in 1854 on the leading social issue of its day. Would Rand Paul have said that because of the need to grow the party, we must "agree to disagree" on slavery? Hardly. And it would not have mattered how many "millennials" thought otherwise.
The Republican party changed history precisely because it decided not to "agree to disagree." It took a stand on the most significant moral issue of the time and told millennials and everyone else, here's where we stand. If you stand somewhere else, then your home is in the Democratic party, the party of slavery.
There certainly were many at the time that thought it was political suicide to take such a fixed stand on such a controversial issue. "Why, if we're going to grow this party, we've got to have a big tent on social issues. We've got to make room for slaveholders if we don't want to alienate half the country. We just ought to keep the government out of the slavery business, and just leave that whole issue up to individuals. That's how you get the young'uns on board, tell 'em they can have their slaves if they want 'em because we're gonna be the party that wants to keep the government out of those pesky social issues."
To waffle on the major social issues of the day would have been wrong for the GOP in 1854, and it's just as wrong in 2014. The GOP did not go soft on slavery, and every black man in America today has the GOP to thank for standing without compromise on the side of the unalienable right to liberty.
If the GOP wouldn't go soft on liberty because of pro-slavery millennials, it shouldn't go soft on marriage because of pro-sodomy millennials.
Christianity says unambiguously, "Let marriage be held in honor among all" (Hebrews 13:4). I looked up the word "all" in the Greek lexicon, and it means "all." That includes you and me, Sen. Rand Paul, the GOP, and the United States of America.
The GOP needs to grasp that leadership is not capitulating to pro-homosexual millennials, but persuading them of the superiority of natural marriage.
That's not as difficult as it sounds. Millions of millennials know the pain and heartache of fractured homes and the soul-crushing impact of divorce. They want something better for their marriages and their children, and they need political leadership that will raise the guardrails that protect natural marriage, not lower them.
There is much I admire about Sen. Paul. He is principled and unbudging on matters of his political convictions. This makes him an enormous force for good when he is right, and a danger when he is wrong.
On marriage, he has made it clear that he will not fight for the fundamental social values that have made America morally and spiritually strong. What good is it to have a country in which the government is not listening in on the phone calls of millennials if their lives have been wrecked by family implosion and their bodies ravaged by sexually transmitted diseases?
Liberty unrestrained by morality is just license. We've had enough of that to last us for the rest of the century.
Ted Cruz, on the other hand, was asked by the Des Moines Register to respond to Sen. Paul's "Let's just go AWOL" on social issues. He said,
"There are some who say the Republican party should no longer stand for life. I don't agree with that. There are some who say the Republican party should no longer stand for traditional marriage. I don't agree with them either. I think that we should continue to defend our shared values....We should continue to defend life and we should continue to defend traditional marriage."
Bottom line: when it comes to 2016, Rand Paul is not the guy. But Ted Cruz might be.
There are direct social and fiscal connections between 2 gays getting married and the welfare surveillance state. If you don’t care about about queers getting married, then you don’t care about what really matters to conservatives.
I don’t like Paul.
Listen, I like Rand Paul.
He wouldn’t be on my Republican ticket for 2016, but I see him as a stepping stone for Independent/Libertarian/former zombies that will ease their pain as they move off the 0bama plantation and into reality.
Maybe, if hard core conservatives continue to attack him, his popularity among the above group will be enhanced.
I understand.
And I agree, {insert Monkey here}, Libertarian issues in 1980 are a lot different than they are now. I support Cruz. Paul can pull in the middle, not as the headliner or even VP, but as someone that can bridge the gap and make voting Republican an option that had never existed before.
At this point it's in the hands of the states and the courts, (and the MSM, unfortunately).
We had a solidly pro-life President from 2001-2009, did that have any measurable effect on the abortion rate??
Rand Paul made headlines in 2010 when he expresssed criticism of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Perhaps the author is trying to remind readers of that 'controversy' by making such comparisons.
Pretty weak stuff if you ask me.
I say this not because I have any problem with Cruz, but because the track record at FR is that this happens to every single candidate without fail.
The mission for the rest of us will then be to tell those screamers to STFU.
But if it's him against Hillary in 2016, I have no problem voting for him.
Rand Paul, Ted Cruz or Rick Perry. Any of the three are fine people and qualified to be President. I would happily vote for any of them.
Is.
Yes.
BTW.
I voted for Romney.
I didn’t care for some of his positions. I was concerned about the Mormon thing. Romney care etc...
But Mitt Romney is a man of character.
I couldn’t stand listening to G.W. Bush during his campaign for President in 2000. But, I voted for him and G.W. Bush turned out to be a man of character.
In the 1980 election I thought Bush senior was my guy until Reagan’s character was established.
Regretfully, I voted for Perot in ‘92 because, MR.(read my lips),had lost his integrity and I saw the birth of RINOs.
Bob Dole was a Tool.
Jack Kemp, very smart, but a Tool.
George W. Bush, a tool, but circumstances trust upon him exposed him as a man of character.
As a conservative, I find it interesting that most of us look to the character of the man vs. the liberal that looks to what they can get for themselves.
I trust Ted.
I trust Scott Walker.
I trust Allen West.
I think Paul Ryan is really smart, but he doesn’t project a leadership quality that I think is necessary.
I love Sarah Palin, but she may be “damaged goods”.
Rand Paul is very intelligent and he seems to be walking a fine line in order to keep his options open. I’m OK with that, right now.
The 2016 election will be fought on issues that we have never seen in this country.
The democrats will have their war on women, the war on gays, the war on illegals, the war on the middle class, the war on the environment, the war on blacks, the war on bullying, the war on guns, the war on the rich, the war on success, the war on social justice, the war on government.
Alas.
All a Republican candidate needs to express is the war on the “Individual.”
I agree. Additionally stop wasting money and time on the war on drugs, which is a failure.
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