“[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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?