n/t

My RINO bait is one way to bridge the gap between the socially liberal and pro-life conservatives. There is a constitutionally conservative right way to govern ourselves. It’s not that hard to win if we are states rights conservatives.

Real conservatives and libertarians agree on the powers of the federal government.

http://www.redstate.com/diaries/newagegop/2008/nov/20/rino-bait-im-pro-civil-union/

nt

But with one caveat: it must be recognized that although social conservatives and theocrats/Christian statists are not synonymous, Christian statists do exist and are just as dangerous to the party as squishy moderates (see: GWB). I think that this has to be recognized and dealt with, not swept under the carpet like it doesn’t exist. More to the point, we need to find out what causes the collusion between SoCons and the statists that has resulted in such things as Huckabee and Bush. Until we as a party can reduce such instances, I don’t think that we’ll have much success drawing FisCons/Libertarians back into the fold, or be able to field fully conservative candidates.

The libertarian conservative coalition has served us well. We should not allow the coalition to fall apart.

In 2012 we need a presidential nominee who has credibility on social and economic issues. This will unite our movement.

The problem with McCain was that both social and economic conservatives didn’t trust him.

Social conservatives remembered how he supported the right of Democrats to filibuster conservative judicial nominees and his criticisms of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson during the 2000 primaries.

Economic conservatives remembered McCain’s votes against the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 using class warfare arguments that Ted Kennedy would have been comfortable using.

The Palin choice couldn’t bridge the enthusiasm gap, although Palin did go part of the way towards generating enthusiasm.

We simply need to quit nominating “reach across the aisle” Republicans to lead our party.

A very thoughtful diary.

I would call myself a “Goldwater Republican”, not comfortable with the Religious Right (certainly not the “dominionist” fringe), and embarassed by naive libertarians like Ron Paul.

You might enjoy reading the works of conservative philosopher, Eric Hoffer. He wrote a book in the 1970s called “Ordeal of Change” which examined why intellectuals throughtout the world supported the Soviet Union in the cold war. It’s one of the best discussions of why Americanism is such a great idea, and of what makes leftists tick.

I agree that the founding fathers were christian, but I’m not sure folks like Rev. Dobson are on the same wavelength as Thomas Jefferson. I believe Jefferson valued personal freedom of thought about religion, but was extremely skeptical about the power of the church. I suspect he would have agreed with Goldwater’s rather rude comments about Jerry Falwell.

Culture War is a fascinating topic, and I have to admit, I’m skeptical about the concept.

Though your distinction was solely on domestic policy.

A decade ago libertarians and religious conservatives shared a skepticism of policing the world–now, libertarians are considered naive, lacking fortitude and intellectually lazy…

The libertarian is also doctrinally more likely to disagree with the Carter Doctrine–using the U.S. military to secure Middle East energy supplies. The conservative is more pragmatic on this issue.

Of course, the “live-and-let-live” hippie-dippy libertarian has long been disdained by conservatives for tolerating sex, drugs, and other vices.

William Jennings Bryan. Simply put, a big-government Christian.

That does a great job of refuting the endless silliness of how the GOP needs to abandon cultural and social conservatives. (And thank you for pointing out this too-often overlooked distinction).

Talking about the GOP winning without SoCons is like talking about the Dems winning without labor unions. It ain’t gonna happen.

The thing I always find ridiculous about all this is that the Whitmans, Chafees, etc. aren’t libertarian. This meme would pass the laugh test if they were truly small government types. But usually the only thing they are small government on is abortion. On business regulation, guns and so forth they are in favor of big government. Maybe not as much as the Dems, but they are hardly libertarians.

The primary difference I see between social conservatives and libertarians is that I view social conservatives as wanting to impose MORE government regulation and increase government power on issues that are dear to them and I don’t want the government even involved in those issues.

In short, I don’t think my basic libertarian views about restricting the authority of the federal government are offensive to the views of social conservatives. In fact, if they are also fiscal conservatives, then we probably agree on fiscal issues.

But some social conservative positions are offensive to my views. For example, I do not believe the federal government should be involved in defining marriage. It goes directly against what I view as the role of the federal government.

I believe the Founders intended to keep a thick wall between the church and the state. Social conservatives don’t believe in that wall. They want to have nativity scenes in front of city hall and to teach creationism. I don’t want the government in my church and I don’t want the church in my government. I don’t want religion taught in public schools — certainly not under the guise of a substitute or even a complement to the science of evolution.

Those are the types of things I see as causing the conflict. And I do believe there is a conflict.

I will vote for someone who is fiscally conservative — but not if I view them as being so socially conservative as to initiate actions that I oppose (e.g., regulate marriage, impose teaching of religion, seeking a federal ban on abortion or restricting access to birth control).

And I think it is important to note that I am not advocating for abortion or for gay marriage or for anything else — I am just insisting that the federal government do only what is within their original authority and nothing else.

For example, I do not believe the federal government should be involved in defining marriage. It goes directly against what I view as the role of the federal government.

Correct. This is a matter best left to the states, Federal judges have no buisness creating non-existant ‘rights’ when it comes to ‘gay marriage’.

I believe the Founders intended to keep a thick wall between the church and the state. Social conservatives don’t believe in that wall.

Wrong. That legal theory was created 130 years ago (based on a offhand-and out of context- comment of Jefferson’s) due to Anti-Mormon bigotry, with racism and cultural elitism as a legal basis. And of course when Jefferson used the phrase originally , he was talking about protecting the church from the state, not the other way around.

I will vote for someone who is fiscally conservative — but not if I view them as being so socially conservative as to initiate actions that I oppose (e.g., regulate marriage, impose teaching of religion, seeking a federal ban on abortion or restricting access to birth control).

Then relax. Nobody is doing that, able to do that, or to (with the exception of fringe cases with no clout) interested in doing that. My feelings on the culture vs. libertarian wars in the GOP? In the immortal words of Steeler’s wheel…

Trying to make some sense of it all

But I can see that it makes no sense at all

Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor

Cause I don’t think that I can take anymore

Clowns to the left of me

Jokers to the right, here I am

Stuck in the middle with you

betwee the two. Radical libertarians and fundamentalist religious types should both be rejected by those of us who promote conservative principles. Neither should have a home in our movement. But we do that by continueing to cling to the Jeffersonian principles the nation was founded upon.

The ony reason this country was never threated by a take over by extremists of any stripe is only becaue there was nothing to take over. There was no center of power by which any such group could gain control of the entire society. Such battles had to be fought township by township and quickly became disippated and inert.

We conservatives are the only bulwark against extremism that this nation has. That is the central theme which we conseratives need to promote forcefully and unapologetically.

a thread that should go on for over a week.

The culture war is with us.

The left has been building their religion for a century now.

We who align with the Republican party need to stop burning heretics before the barbarians become a majority in other than political control only.

Great job Swamp.

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Activists Taking Action: Unified Patriots

What we need is for the people who are only republicans because they are ‘social conservatives’ to recognize that we can’t win on a large scale without a national candidate who is also a fiscal conservative and a “peace through strength” security conservative. The ‘fiscal conservatives’ who only vote republican because of fiscal issues need to realize that we need social conservatives.

Basically we need a national candidate who fits ALL THREE so we can pull all aspects of our party together and win in a big way. We haven’t had that candidate since 1984. Just look at the primaries. We had fiscal conservatives going for Mitt, Social Conservatives going for Huckabee, and security conservatives going for McCain. We can’t split the party in this way and expect to win.

I logged in just to recommend it…

There are tons and tons of cultural conservatives in the Democratic party as well. Especially in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Minnesota. If only we could show them that we cared about THEIR economic situation just as much as we cared about the Wall Street’s…

Interesting article on the subject.

I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.

But it seems to me that many SoCons rejected Rudy despite his commitment on judges. And Huck’s “Club for Greed” is hardly an embrace of FisCons (and his international views don’t reassure DefCons).

Given an energetic, scandal-free candidate who embodies all 3, then all 3 groups can get along. (Yes, I recognize that many voters embrace all 3, but others only embrace 1 or 2.) But such candidates are few and far between.

I think the hardcore FisCons went more for Fred than Mitt. If SoCons had resisted the siren song of Huckabee, we at least would have had a chance for President Thompson. Especially if he would have been smart enough to pick Palin. They would have been much stronger on economic issues all along, and probably would have opposed the bailout.

I think I understand why people embraced Huckabee — but it still seems like a mistake given the realities of coalition politics.

I should add that I purposely discounted Rudy and withheld my support from Rudy because I knew that his nomination would fracture the coalition

That was certainly true at the time, and so a reasonable conclusion. One of the things I hope the GOP learns is where to draw lines. McCain the maverick moderate was not the answer, so it does make sense to tilt right. Carefully.

If you wish to buy into to schism that you have a libertarian wing and a Religious Right wing than you are just aiding the destruction of our party.

I did not support Rudy and I am a New England Catholic. He was terrible on a bunch of issues including immigration and the second amendement. Again, these are “Religious Right” issues. These are cultural issues. The Republican Party has to represent more than cutting taxes and spending unless it want to go the way of the Massachusetts GOP.

I also did not support Huckabee. I think Huckabee was a terrible candidate and I am pro-life.

Those entrenched on those two sides are minorities, but wish to believe that whoever does not support them must be part of the other side. If you anti-Rudy, then you must be a Religious Right Huckabee supporter or vice versa. We have to get past this stupid dichotomy.