Over the past few days, I’ve received a couple requests from people asking us to open up NextGenGOP to more policy debate. Since we’re trying to look to the future of the Republican Party, and since policy is a huge question in establishing this future, I’m happy to oblige.
Accordingly, I’d like to start out with the question: “What role does social conservatism have in the [future] Republican Party?” In other words, if the GOP wants to win elections moving forward, what part should social conservatism play in the party’s message and ideals?
As I’ve previously written, I am convinced that Republicans cannot make inroads among young voters, who are generally opposed to government involvement in their lives, if it chooses the path of unrestrained social conservatism. The challenging issue is, if we need to find some sort of balance, what would the balance be? I’ve previously suggested this as potential platform for the GOP of the future:
The Republican Party is the party of individual freedom, limited government, and personal choice. At the federal level, we will fight to reduce the size of government and make it more accountable to the people who fund it. We will fight to protect every human being’s God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And at the statewide level, we will work with the citizens to protect and preserve the traditional values upon which this great nation was built.
I’m encouraging each of our contributors to address this question over the next week. However, I’d also like to open the comments of this thread to discussion of this question among our readers. What do you think?
Last 5 posts by Aaron Marks
- Onward and Upward: Building a Sustainable Majority - January 22nd, 2010
- Dear Young Voters: This Is What You Get When You Don't Vote - December 1st, 2009
- The Youth Vote and the 2009 Elections - November 6th, 2009
- The Best of the Post-2009 Election Spin - November 5th, 2009
- Introducing NextGenGOP Executive Director James Kane - October 20th, 2009
As another young Republican, I think we must win over young voters, and I don’t know that we can if we don’t make at least *some* of our policies more libertarian.
I think that the party does need to deemphasize social conservatism in some respects and move in a more socially libertarian direction. Republicans, for example, could stand out as a party on an issue like abortion by supporting the legality of abortion but opposing government funding of abortion. This way, Republicans are allowing individuals to govern themselves without placing social conservatives in a serious moral quandry.
I agree with the potential platform above. I am a pro-life, traditional marriage person, yet the problem inside the party is that we made our own litmus test for people to run for office based on religious views. i.e. Mitt Romney. If a person who ran was pro-choice based on his feeling that the federal government should not be involved on issues and it should be up to the states, also in the case of Gay marriage, then I would support him. If he was a mormon, jewish, Muslim, but belives in the tenats of limited government and the rest of the major points a conservative believes him, I am behind him.
Let me come at this from a different perspective. What is the Republican Party WITHOUT social conservatism?
It was the GOP’s strong and courageous stance against the intentional and brutal killing of innocent pre-born children (abortion) under the disturbing justification of “choice” that mostly attracted me to the Republican Party. The GOP must continue to defend and fight for the most basic and fundamental human right, the right to life. Without the right to life and its guaranteed protection by government, all other human rights and privileges that we enjoy as citizens are meaningless.
The GOP must continue to fight for innocent pre-born children, their mothers, and their families. The new pro-life language in the 2008 GOP platform is a great new beginning as it declares that “women deserve better than abortion.” The GOP should continue to promote this message louder than ever because it is truly a winning message that says that as pro-life Americans, we “love them both: mother and child.”
The GOP DOES believe in individual freedom and personal choice, but in the context of our money, occupation, lifestyle, healthcare, education, etc. Unlike the Left, we don’t believe freedom means we have the “right” to kill an innocent human being so we can live as we selfishly wish. We shouldn’t believe that citizens have the “choice” to kill an innocent human being. Humane societies should not equate “freedom of choice” with killing innocent children. Freedom doesn’t mean we can do whatever we want.
If the GOP stops championing the legal protection of innocent pre-born children and an ultimate end to the evil of abortion, then I will definitely leave the Republican Party and become a registered Independent, as will millions of other Americans.
To the shock and disbelief of many, research polls have repeatedly indicated that OUR generation is overwhelmingly opposed to abortion and is the most pro-life generation. The message has not been the problem with the GOP; the messengers and their inability to effectively communicate our ideas and principles to the American people has been the problem with the GOP over the last few years.
Social conservatism is a huge asset for the Republican party when looking at the individual points of concern for most social conservatives. First, most of them just want to be able to live their lives free from the clutches, and burdens of the state. They also tend to believe in strong moral values, family values, and individual responsibility. Yet they seem to have inherited some contradiction along the way in their grave support for nationalism, war, and state support of certain ideas, such as gay marriage ban. These influential Christian Statist (Robertson, Falwell, Warren), who think the government should impose their views on the world, have moved social conservatism from a great visibly open movement that is a benefit to mankind, which it is in my opinion, to a movement founded on confined illogical obtuse trivial nonsense.
Lets just look at gay marriage for instance. How on Earth can anyone of decent intellect and moral fairness come up with the notion that the state must segregate based on gender who can and cannot contractually engage in a relationship? Its utter buffoonery. Do I believe marriage is between a man and a woman? Absolutely, YES. But do I believe the state should have any involvement whatsoever in determining which genders can “contract”? NO WAY! This is not a matter of determining the definition of marriage, because it is not the state’s job to do that, it’s the Church’s job. This is a matter of whether or not the state has the ability to segregate a contractual relationship based on gender, in which case I conclude if they have that ability, then they also have the ability to segregate based on skin color, or even hair color for that matter. Granting the state such a right is antithetical to conservatism, as the state grows with its increased level of power and intervention.
Social conservatism will continue to be deemed a fringe cult of the Republican party by much of the mainstream if it maintains its current level of statism, which ironically is hypocritical to much of Christianity.
We’re in the Republican Party, not the Libertarian Party. Without social conservatism, we’re just libertarians. Fiscal conservatism is great. I support the idea of free markets and free minds and free trade. However, some element of social conservatism is essential in defending our country and morality.
We need to remain a pro-life, pro-God, and pro-family party. I don’t mean we’re a party just for evangelical protestants, but we recognize that spirituality and faith is a good thing. We should of course accept anyone of any religion as long as they’re law-abiding patriots. Most of our religions here believe in a creator God, so acknowledging that element as a party is OK, too.
Besides differing with pure libertarians on keeping a pro-life plank, we also need to remain against pornography, against legalizing all drugs, and against gay marriage. We have to recognize that these activities are bad things that hurt individuals, families, communities, and the social fabric.
The Republican Party can regain its greatness as long as it remains grounded to both fiscal and social conservatism.
You’re being overly simplistic in my opinion. Certainly before Roe V. Wade, the GOP was not firmly libertarian. In a way, it took that decision to make successful in 1980 the ideas which had failed in 1964.
In addressing the necessity for some component of social conservatism, I would hold that cultural conservatism is not inherently identical to social conservatism. For example, cultural conservatives despised the immigration reform plan of President Bush, but social conservatives could be sold on the idea of allowing a pathway to citizenship for the millions of illegal immigrants in the country because the potential new votes might happen to oppose legalized abortion or same-sex marriage.
The GOP should be a party that is pro-liberty, pro-commerce, and pro-sovereignty, and be neutral on questions of faith, but absolutely encourage love of country. Faith is fine, but emphasizing it alienates secular conservatives.
There is definitely some merit to the concerns you raise, but justification should matter as much as a policy position itself. For example, is one against gay marriage because Abrahamic scripture denounces homosexuality, or is one against gay marriage because enacting it through the judiciary as has happened in Massachusetts and elsewhere sets dangerous legal precedents and leaves elected officials unaccountable on issues of broadening existing rights. Likewise, one could argue from an economic vantage point against legalizing same-sex marriage because of the reduction in tax revenue likely resultant from the rights of marriage and inheritance being passed to same-sex couples.
Regardless, the GOP should accomodate its various factions if their reasons for their stances are founded on conservative principles. As suggested above, a conservative could argue that abortion is best left to the states, localities, and/or individuals to address on the idea that the issue is not within the purview of the federal government to decide. Is such a person any less conservative than a Mike Huckabee who opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, but favors higher taxes, more government, and weakened international trade?
Here’s how I see it. I’m a 19-year old at Tulane which is pretty difficult for me. My father describes me as slightly more conservative than Genghis Khan. I would much rather an economical conservative in the White House than a social conservative if I had to choose. (so far Obama is doing much better than I thought he would) But that doesn’t matter because social issues should be decided by the individual states. Personally I think that majority vote in each state would be fine to deal with the issues, but however the individual states want to deal with it is their problem. The opponents of Prop 8 need to quit whining and just propose new legislation in 10 years. While I personally value upholding traditions, especially religious ones, the majority rules, and if states so choose then I believe they should be able to make any social changes they want.
It seems too easy for the party to slide into big government programs, both fiscal and social, such as additions to medicare and bailouts for big companies.
The ethical framework is what really binds us together as conservatives. And if we are not conservative, we are just stingier Democrats.
I am a young voter and I am somewhat socially conservative. I generally oppose abortion, but I have no strong feelings on gay marriage. In any case, I believe that economic and foreign policy issues are of far more importance. They are also universally applicable.
Almost everyone in the country wants America to be prosperous and well-defended against foreign threats (those who don’t want this will be voting Democrat anyway), so I think if social issues were left up to the states to a greater extent, it would help the GOP make inroads not only among younger voters but into the Northeast and the West Coast as well. The debate in economic policy isn’t about where to go as much as how to get there.
Ronald Reagan didn’t win 49 states in 1984 because he appealed to culture warriors; he won everywhere from Vermont to Kansas because he solved the problems that were facing the nation.
I don’t think Romney’s troubles were truly so much that he is a Mormon as much as his insincerety on his political views. I wouldn’t buy a used car from the man — no matter where, if anywhere, he went to church.
I agree that if the republican party tries to package social conservatism into a platform, it will fail, but that as far as it goes.
If the republicans provide an environment in which social conservatism can flourish, it will win.
Social conservatism is not something that can be pigeon holed into a political party platform but rather it is a way of life.
It is the way we were taught by our parents, our schools and our churches.
If the republican party can secure these venues for the people from the ACLU, liberals and the unions, the party would be hard to beat.
Fellow Repblicans:
We know the answers but do a poor job of letting the world know who we are. In other workds we do a poor job of marketing ourselves. Instead of writing books about who we are we need to make a Repblican list of of who we are so people can e-mail it arounda and print it and hand it out. Look at the videos from the last election, the voters had republican answers but thought it was Obamas ideas.
A simple one page list will win us the election. People are not that smart and can only handle one page not a novel!
WE also need to be more agressive. McCain should have throttled Obama on these topics:
Rezko
Jerimiah Wright
Citizenship
Guantonomo-where you going to put them
Illegal immigrants
Trade imbalance-the real reason of the reccession __almost a trillion upside down each year!!!
Cheating during elections. Everybody should have a national ID and have every computer linked to your whereabouts. It might sound like Orwell but it would be real nice to have it up and rinning. It would put every criminal in prision in a week as wekk as track every incoming visitior. Maybe we just do it on Vistiors at first. They have to swipe a National ID in order to make any transactions and we know where they are and what they are doing/purchasing. It sound Orwell but it would sure clean stuff up quickly. And if we think it is not already happening then we are kidding ourselves! We are tracked every time we use our ID or Credit Card already.
Let the Car Dealerships go broke. I have owned
3-GMC’s
1 Chevy
1 Pontiac
2 Fords
1 Mercury
And not a one was really worth a hill of beans. I now drive a 2005 Denali and I find it sub quality and poor engineering for $55,000 I was what I would call a $25,000 at best car.
The front bumper is fibergalss, disolves upon bumping into it!
Front brakes need diferent tools for the same caliper to change out the brake pads. Unions can go pound sand! Unions shout be getting $55K tops right now. This is still more then the average college professor with a PHD!
I got away from my point of standing up for ourselves.
Why did the Republican party not push William Jefferson Clinton out of Louisina government with either a impeachment or jailtime preferable both. How does our representative get caught with $90K of marked money in his deepfreeze and not be in jail right now!!!!!! Why we the Republicans not pushing this every ten minutes!!!
People are dumb my friends, make a simple one page list of the things we have done and the things we stand for And we will never be defeated!
John E. Skjefte
661-902-3792
If the Republican Party moves away from social conservatism it should change its name.
You cannot “to protect every human being’s God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” without fighting against abortion.
You cannot “protect and preserve the traditional values” without protecting marriage between a man and woman.
Not to mention other items like school choice, free markets, strong military, and fiscal responsibility.
To the many of you who have raised key points regarding abortion, I believe that the ideals of limited government and pro-life can be reconciled. I’ve stated in a previous blog post:
“Abortion, however, is a slightly different animal. If you believe (as I do) that life begins at conception, then abortion is, quite simply, the infringement of another human being’s right to life. Since the federal government is charged with protecting people’s ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’ Republicans can fairly argue that it is the federal government’s responsibility to fight to limit abortion.”
Pro abortion alone will not will the next or any election. In faxct pro abortion is behind on the curve.
Reduced Government
Reduced welfare-only the sick and disabled get it: not the lazy and pregnant
Redefine becoming a US Citizen-having a baby in the USA should not count Unless both parents are Citzens as well!!! We have to stop peple from just dropping by to calf out a child then claim every benefit in the world!!
Smaller Unions
Cheaper Medical-no more $25 Band-Aids and $30 Aspirins alone will do it!!
Higher Tariffs
No Illegals period
Build the fence
Protect America- put the missle defence system on our borders and tell us about it!! How good is it?
Legalize Pot and Hemp and tax the shit out of it. Billions will be brought in and more lazy asses wil be out of our clogged jails. This would give us more room for Democratics
I am a Republican because I believe in limited goverment, low taxes, and strong defense. I am also pro-life and gay. I believe in democracy but also in equal rights. I do believe that gay marriage/civil unions should be left to the states.
The unfortunate thing is that I have friends and colleagues who would never vote Republican (although they agree with all the conservative fiscal/foreign policy issues) because of the inequality on gay issues. I am not trying to redifine marriage, but instead, give two consentual adults the basic constitutional rights to liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness.
I am not a single issue voter but I am tired of being marginalized by something as trivial as what I do in my bedroom.
Remember who said: stay out of my wallet and my bedroom…
What we need is the FairTax. It would solve an immense amt. of problems in one fell swoop.
After suffering two consecutive devastating election cycles, many in the party high command are looking for scapegoats. Over the past thirty years, in almost every instance where Republicans have suffered heavy losses (i.e., 1992, ’98, ’06 and ’08), the party elites have dropped the blame squarely in the laps of social conservatives. This was mainly done in an effort to conceal their own leadership failings. I would argue that we still live in a center-right country (which I define as an essentially socially conservative country which doesn’t enjoy talking about social issues very much). The problem with Republicans over the last two years isn’t their professed social conservatism – it’s the fact that, in many instances, that is ALL they have talked about! The Republicans have lost the confidence of the American people on the economy, taxes and spending, ethics, and to some degree, foreign policy. Those used to be bedrock Republican issues, and they served to define the party over the past thirty or so odd years (to a much higher degree than any social issue). Fast forward to 2008 and ask the average voter what the Republicans stand for. A few may still say lower taxes or a strong military. I would wager the vast majority would mention the party’s stance against abortion or gay marriage. When the only prism through which the voting public views you is one they don’t particularly enjoy using, you have a serious image problem. Even while most Americans may agree on at least some restrictions on abortion and believe the 4,000 year-old traditional definition of marriage should be preserved, those issues aren’t exactly dinner-table conversation in homes across America. However, more often than not, the economy is. The same with energy prices and health care costs. Our party simply hasn’t coherently articulated a COMPREHENSIVE platform for the 21st century, and it has simply gutted us at the federal and state levels over the past two cycles. Most Americans don’t really care much about overturning Roe v. Wade when their employer has just handed them a pink slip. It’s tough to concern yourself with same-sex marriage when there is a pile of health-care bills on your coffee table. I read a line in an article once which claimed that many Americans are ideologically conservative but operationally liberal, meaning they are essentially pro-life Democrats. However, pro-life Democrats have a conservative streak that politically shrewd Republicans can tap into. We did it in ’80 and ’84 with Reagan, and to some degree in ’94 with Gingrich and ’04 with Bush. We MUST regain the confidence of the middle class with a economic agenda that goes beyond the traditional “taxes and spending” message and we simply MUST begin some kind of outreach to the 18-29 demographic. Those two vital demographics cannot be won over on social issues alone. If we fail at this tremendously important task, we will be in an even weaker position tomorrow than we are today. As conservatives, we simply cannot allow that to happen.
While I am very Conservative on Military Defesne and Victim’s Rights in Court, my social views are far more liberal. I am 60. Ithink opposition to Stem Cell Research is unbelievable when we have the technology and can gain technology.
I am Pro-Choice; but hope the mother decides on adoption. You cannot legislate morality – that was proven in the 20′s with Prohibition. Why should a middle-age to older man determine what I should do with my body. By reversing Roe V. Wade, it will only leave the butchers ready to go back in business. While I do not favor abortion past the 1st three months, I would like to see more legislation regarding sex education and pregnancy prevention. You can’t keep young people from having sex in 2009, but we can education and provide birth control to discourage reckless sex.
I think the Republican Party should reach out to the Hispanic population. I am against illegal immigration – but let’s face it, the illegals are here. Their children are Americans. We do need to rach out to the legal Hispanics and the Afro-American population. Sen. McCain helped the Women’s issues by appointing Sarah Palin. However, she is a bit more Conservative than I would like – (I really like her) and it bothers me about her moose hunting as I am an animal lover.
The Animal Organizations I belong to immediately came out in favor of the Democrats who seem to be more willing to protect our environment and our wildlife.
I also think the next candidate should be younger or younger thinking (there is a difference).
Another problem I had with McCain was Cindy’s expensive wardrobe at the Convention and her hair. I think she sent the wrong message – she should have dressed more conservatively and not had a $200,000 wardrobe – so I understand – at the Conventon – spending alot of money doesn’t make one look great – it’s how you wear it and Cindy definitely showed it off.
As far as Sarah’s wardrobe, how the RNC spends their money is their business. The bru-ha-ha was ridiculous!
The GOP is losing young voters by emphasising social conservatism. The question as asked; what is the GOP without social conservatism? It’s the party of small government, with less interference into the lives of the citizens. In connection, it should also be the government of lower taxes.
…those ideas might be too far-gone though.
Social conservatism is contrary to how the GOP views government. How can a party claiming it stands for less interference and personal accountability tell citizens who they can marry, who can listen to their calls (without actually informing you who is listening to your calls), and violate basic human rights through torture, etc?
For many young voters, the GOP has become the party of infringement, not freedom.
The Republican Party needs to stand for republicanism, commerce, and self-government. This means fostering diverse opinions on some hot-button issues, but it also means being a party and a movement which opposes economic collectivism and economic/political isolation and supports national unity and strength. We need more Eisenhowers and Goldwaters while having fewer George W. Bushes.
Young people need to learn classic Reagan conservatism and study Ronald Reagan. As the most successful conservative ever, Ronald Reagan left behind a blue print which needs no changes. Where we need to change as a party is by getting younger leaders who sell the philosophy better and live the philosophy better than the ones we have now.
I want to address those who are concerned with social conservatism. As a young Reaganite in my 20′s in the early 80,s, I considered myself a “live and let live conservative” and considered the “religious right” to be a good coalition member because they also supported a strong military and fiscal conservatism.
I didn’t really come to understand the underlying wisdoms behind social conservatism until I got a little older.
Social conservatism is not a bad thing, nor is it a deal breaker when selling the overall philosophy to young people. Reagan conservatism is like the directions to building a bicycle. Why would we change a part when the parts on the bicycle have worked great ever since it was invented.
As a “live and let live” conservative, I am pro-traditional marriage, pro-life and pro-God. I don’t believe conservatism is about imposing my social values on others. I believe its about living in a free society where I can freely cheerlead these values without being imposing about it. I have no problem with people who want to live a different way. Leadership and salesmanship is not about forcing opinions on others; its about finding common ground and selling your opinions by your deeds and actions.
But lately, I don’t see the positive, common ground building approaches from the left. Look at the protests against Proposition 8.
I have become more vocal as a social conservative believe it or not because of many of my libertarian leanings. I don’t believe social conservativism and libertarianism are conflicting philosophies.
I have become extremely concerned with the “ram it down your throats” politically correct crowd. From a libertarian point of view, that’s not “live and let live.”
The issue for libertarians is not so much to be concerned that conservatives are going to use government to enforce their social agenda, but that government is going to codify what the whacko left groups are doing and impose those social agendas on us!
The sales pitch is not so much the role government can play in advancing socially conservative agendas, but rather what we can do to stop the government from advancing conflicting social agendas. It goes back to taking positive steps and finding common ground.
If we treated all lifestyles as individual liberties rather than legislative agendas, we could sell our opposition to the use of the judicial and legislative branches of government as tools by which to advance conflicting social agendas. We draw the line when the vehicle of government is used by groups with lifestyles that conflict with our own when they try to advance their social agenda at our expense and vice versa.
Young libertarians can explain their tolerance like this. “We are not against gay people. We are against government mandated definition changes for things like marriage.” We live in a free society where what you do behind closed doors is none of anyone’s business as long as noone’s life or property is being endangered. We would like the government to play a smaller role in interfering with who we sleep with, how we pray or not pray and whether we believe in God or not.
In return, we must be willing to separate what we do on the public playing field as far as work, academia and civic duty from what we do in private and not allow the private to spill over into the public.
For me, social conservatism is compatible with libertarianism. The government is supposed to be restricted by the founding documents from interfering with my beliefs about marriage, the unborn and God. The founding fathers wanted to protect my individual liberty to believe these things. People with different lifestyles than me are also awarded the same constitutional protections that I am.
Thus, there is no need to change the philosophy or lower it’s standards to accommodate moderates or liberals. We can become less judgmental and intolerant without changing our platform because we can sell a message to those with different social views that we can still share a view that smaller government is in the best interests of all of us, regardless of our lifestyle or philosophy.
I became a Republican based on the economic principles of the party. George Bush is not an economic conservative and neither is McCain. We need to nominate people that can clearly communicate our economic ideals, have an fiscally conservative track record, and can sell our ideals to the american people.
I have grown into being a social conservative, although it took me several years having come from a liberal family. This is a process not an event.
I agree with the purpose of this movement and others like it. We need to get our ideas on the internet and blogosphere in a much bigger way. We also need to get speakers on the college scene to debate and represent conservatism. Check out Dennis Prager vs. Stephanie Miller on YouTube as an example. Our principles and ideals should win.
This is one of those nasty “square the circle” problems. As a lifelong resident of Silicon Valley, I’ve seen numerous Republicans do well here – and they’ve always come from the libertarian wing of the Party.
Unfortunately, the modern perception is that the old, basically libertarian party is now seen as a Southern party of hardcore Christian whites. This is extremely unattractive to Silicon Valley types, who are rarely Christian (more likely to be atheist, Hindu, Muslim, or Buddhist), socially liberal (if they’re whites) or at least “we’re basically so-cons at home, but don’t care what you do as long as it doesn’t bother us” (if they’re Indians, Persians, Russians, or Chinese).
This massively diverse group is unified by a belief that the way to succeed is to be entrepreneurial. They hate regulations and taxes, are well-acquainted with the invisible hand, and know that in a massively mixed world, having a heavy handed state is a Bad Thing.
As for so-cons, many Silicon Valley types are actually personally socially conservative, especially immigrants. But they aren’t interested in “movement” social conservatism based on law and government, and many political so-cons strike them as extremists that are too similar to nasty groups in their home countries.
So, they end up supporting “reasonable” socially liberal Dems who don’t raise taxes too much.
In my opinion the future of the Republican Party does not lie with Social Conservatives blazing the trail. There are too many political and economic conservatives who are turned off by hard line social conservatives. Our belief in the separation of church and state is too strong to allow social conservatism to be the dominant theme of the party. Do they have a place at the table? Absolutely. Will it lead the party back to relevance? Absolutely not.
We had the White House for 8 years and Congress for 12 and never once introduced legislation to overturn Row v Wade. We should stop kidding ourselves into thinking we ever will. We should instead support policies that reduce the root causes of abortion.
We will eventually lose the debate over gay marriage as well. Of course marriage is not a civil right and “marriage” should not be condoned by the state. Marriage as we know it is a civil contract with rights and obligations. Heterosexual marriage should not be sanctioned by the state. It should be recognized but that is it. If heterosexuals want to have their marriage recognized by a church that is their right. The government should have nothing to do with it.
As for the “Libertarian” wing of the party…libertarianism is to The Republican Party as Leaches are to Medicine. It might have seemed like a good idea 200 years ago but we have grown since then.
Social Conservatism, while not sufficient to grow the party to the degree we need to, is an undergirding force to every policy that we hold near and dear from taxes to personal freedoms. Social Conservative groups like Catholics, Evangelicals, and Mormons are under represented amongst registered voters and are more likely than not to vote for our candidates. Social Conservatism also plays well as initiatives amongst Blacks and Hispanics, i.e. Prop. 8 in California.
There is a developing theory that at the root of most of our economic and “social justice” problems is the move away from social conservatism.
For example, things like “no-fault” divorce, “free love” and homosexual marriage, divorced the notion of sex being only for use within a traditonal marriage. With sex no longer confined to a traditional marriage we saw the rise of single parent families and divorced families, which led to a rise in poverty and crime. This led to the increase in the size and scope of government, so that government could take over the responsibilities that we used to entrust to each other. And while things like more police officers, court ordered child support payments, 3 strikes, construction of more prison facilities, and welfare reform have reduced the continuing fallout from the divorce of sex from traditional marriage it has not eliminated that fallout, they have only put band-aids on the problems and not solved the problems.
If we get rid of our Conservative Social positions, we will not grow the party! Yes, we might gain some young people. But, we will also lose the base we already have, large numbers of Southerners and other Evangelicals will vote third party and we will never win again. You cannot grow a party by driving out the base. What we have to do is to better articulate our positions and how we are for limited government but at the same time we stand for the “general welfare” of the country, and therefore explain how liberal social positions are undermining the “general welfare” of the country. If someone wants a socially permissive economically conservative party there is already one its the Libertarians.
Forget “conservatism,” please. It has been Godless and therefore irrelevant. Secular conservatism will not defeat secular liberalism because to God both are two atheistic peas-in-a-pod and thus predestined to failure. As Stonewall Jackson’s Chief of Staff R.L. Dabney said of such a humanistic belief more than 100 years ago:
“[Secular conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today .one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt bath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It .is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth.”
Our country is collapsing because we have turned our back on God (Psalm 9:17) and refused to kiss His Son (Psalm 2).
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com