Posted on 04/14/2012 7:42:03 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Republican politicians are fixated on culture wars.
New laws, or legislation now being considered, in the Republican controlled states of South Dakota, Virginia, Arizona, Minnesota, Indiana, Florida, Missouri, Kansas, Alabama, Idaho, and Georgia limit, restrict, or prevent women from obtaining various health services applicable to only females: contraception, mammograms, cancer screening, abortion counseling.
Before withdrawing from the presidential race on Tuesday, Rick Santorum had said that birth control is “a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”
Is this an example of Republicans wanting to limit the size of government? This presidential candidate wanted to crawl into our beds and chaperone consenting adults. Sorry, Rick. You’re not invited.
Both Santorum and Newt Gingrich indulged in theocratic presumptuousness, with bellowing commentary on the supposed religious errors of other political figures.
Santorum twisted John F. Kennedy’s thoughtful 1960 speech about religious liberty into an attack on religion, saying he wanted to throw up. Gingrich accused President Obama of attacking Catholics and Mitt Romney of attacking Jews.
Wasted opportunities
By indulging in divisive culture wars, Republicans have squandered opportunities to offer a more inclusive, hopeful message about creating jobs and growing the economy. How many times have they promised to focus on jobs and the economy and yet the very first item on their agenda has been none of the above.
For the 2011 Congress, it was abortion. Five states with Republican legislatures, including Montana, have introduced legislation for a personhood amendment or other bills that would call into question the legality of birth control and raise the specter of government imposing an unenforceable ban on contraception. This, despite 78 percent of voting Republicans being pro-choice (www.gopchoice.org/map.asp).
The 2011 Montana Legislature promised us it would concentrate on economic issues, but then embarrassed our state nationally with its crazy cultural agenda. I found myself apologizing to my friends across the country on Facebook. The extremists who support big government when it comes to personal matters spent more time fighting women’s rights, medical marijuana, and equal rights in Missoula than they did creating jobs for Montanans.
In Montana, the state GOP platform says that homosexuality should be illegal. In this, as with other cultural matters, the party is out of touch and behind the times. Almost one-third of Republicans supported legalizing same-sex marriage in a 2011 Gallup poll. More importantly, our future leaders are way ahead of their bed-snooping elders. Over 70 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds support legalizing same-sex marriage. This is up 16 percentage points from 2010.
I can remember when the Republican Party was a different party. In 1980, I was a delegate to the GOP Colorado convention and we were so proud that we were successful in keeping anti-choice zealots off the floor, knowing they would divide and destroy the party. The question for the state of Montana in 2012 is how much cultural distractions and the debacle of the 2011 legislative session decide this election?
Blocking action
The party has painted itself into a corner on cultural issues. Ideologues have closed the door and hung out “Not Welcome” signs blocking centrist or center-right candidates who can’t pass narrow litmus tests on cultural issues.
Even if such candidates could pass through the ideologues’ fine-filter mesh, could they win a general election, given the current cultural war that the Republicans have positioned themselves to lose? Do Americans want a Republican controlled Senate in Washington, D.C., to mimic the extremism and dysfunction of the Republican controlled House? How will this dynamic affect the Rehberg vs. Tester Senate race?
How many Montanans realize they were duped when 2010 Republicans with a strong economic message turned into 2011 Republicans stirring up fear and polarization? Will this finally be the end of the crazy Republicans and the return of the thinking Republicans? We can only hope.
*****A.J. Otjen of Laurel teaches business courses at Montana State University Billings. She is Montana coordinator for Republicans for Environmental Protection and was an unsuccessful 2008 GOP candidate for the House seat held by Denny Rehberg.*****
“Thailand, India, Japan, China, South Korea, Israel, Turkey,”
I would submit that the US is more successful than any one or all of those, and we are the penultimate achievement of Western Civilization, even in our current decayed state.
No doubt. But to say that they aren’t successful is not right. And their mere existence puts the thesis you advocated in doubt.
“And their mere existence puts the thesis you advocated in doubt.”
And all of those have had sufficient exposure to Western Civilization (which is underpinned by Christian thought, values, and mores) in order to be where they are at today. If there had been no Western Christendom, then the world at large would be little better off than it was circa the year 1200 AD. That may not be the politically correct, multicultural thing to say, but it is the truth, nonetheless.
Except that Israel is the foundation of western civilization, so they made western civilization great, not the other way around.
And China and India were exceptionally rich and powerful over the ages. It was only around the 1800’s that they went to pot.
Technology is the edge that made modern western civilization dominant. And that comes from science and the scientific method. Which comes from rational thought. And rational thought is one of the gifts that came from Judaism (see Israel).
You are correct in stating that ancient Israel and Judaism are wellsprings of the west; in your earlier post I assumed wrongly that you referred to the modern nation. The eastern civilizations, though, had stagnated well before the 1800s, actually- China somewhat further back into the 1600s, India in the 1700s. And neither contributed greatly to the development of Western Civilization. It is worthy to note that the scientific method and other appurtenances of the 1600s are due to Christian acceptance that reason came from God, which Locke noted when writing of government.
What's your point? Ronald Reagan was divorced and signed a sweeping pro-choice bill in California and you know what kind of president HE was.
“”The Republican Party is a managerial party that doesn’t like to fight, doesn’t like to read books,” Gingrich said Wednesday before a group of tea party leaders in Delaware. “That is why the tea party was so horrifying. Tea partiers were actually learning about the Declaration of Independence. They wanted to talk about the Federalst Papers. It was weird.”
I was having a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun with the title of the article - The Return of the Thinking Republicans - who can’t be doing much thinking when Newt says they don’t even read.
Newt’s point is that the Tea Party is more informed than the Republican Party, and that it represents a real threat to them. And I sure hope it changes the party or supplants it.
This election is the republican party’s last chance. I really believe that, and I think Newt does too. The House right now can’t do much because of Reid’s Senate graveyard and Obama’s veto pen. But if the republicans prevail in this election, they have to show some real change and read up on what this country was founded for.
I revere Ronald Reagan. He was our modern day George Washington. My comment had nothing to do with Reagan. It was a jab at the future of the republican party using Newt’s own words.
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