Posted on 02/23/2012 11:02:27 PM PST by Lazlo in PA
Today, Presidential candidate Rick Santorum appeared on the Glenn Beck program to discuss the state of the race for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. The tone of the overall exchange was cordial, with Santorum joking at the start, You know, Glenn, sometimes my wife loves you more than me.
Still, Glenn warned Santorum that he wouldnt be gentle in questioning him just because they were friends. Im nobodys shill, Glenn said. And indeed, not all of the interview was sweetness and light, as during the second segment, Glenn asked Santorum a tough question on his views about libertarianism, leading to a clash between host and guest.
Santorum said:
Youve heard this from me before, the libertarian influence on the conservative movement, I mean, you heard it from Ron Paul last night, I mean theres he has a very bad conservative rating. Why? Because the libertarian view is isolationist from a national security point of view, moral issues have no place in the conservative movement
(Excerpt) Read more at theblaze.com ...
“I applaud Santorums Made in America idea of 0% taxes for manufacturers. We must rebuild our manufacturing base.”
One can also do this by initiating a flat or a fair tax that treats all businesses and all persons equally under the law, rather than picking winners and losers. The race will also be on to somehow qualify your business, whatever it is, as a “manufacturer”. It’s just more goofing around with the system, playing favorites and benefiting unions.
The Capital gains tax should go, and also Union control must also be diminished. People should not be forced to pay Union dues.
Yeah, and then every business will niggle their way around the rules to classify themselves as a “manufacturer.” Why should “manufacturers” get special exemptions over other kinds of business? Why not just drop tax rates across the board for all?
Newt has by far the most compelling tax reform plan: http://www.atr.org/obama-vs-gop-candidates-tax-plan-a6741
Apollo5600, you make good posts.
“Steady FRiend. And yes, I consider you so.
You should see Apollo on some of the religion threads ....”
A disagreement with Catholic doctrine, and also modern day Catholic teaching (which went on the decline after Vatican II), does not translate to hating Catholics, since obviously I support Newt Gingrich.
I speak the truth as I see it, and I do not spare you if you are an Anglican or Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox either. My father recently converted to Greek Orthodox by the way. The sermons are in Greek. Which is okay, since he didn’t listen to the Catholic sermons either.
As for my assessment of the political condition of the Catholic Leadership, go to realcatholictv.com and check out Voris’s “Catholic Investigative Agency” series. There is such a thing as “Obama’s Catholics”, and the Catholic Church has indeed been in bed with the libs for decades.
Does it make sense to attack the Catholic church just because you want to bash Santorum? After all, Gingrich is also a Catholic, and professes the same beliefs. And seems to be more closely in tune with his Church’s position on illegal immigrants, since you brought that up.
One of the things I really do like is reading your posts on the Catholic threads, even if sometimes my initial reaction is total rage!
You don’t do the run of the mill attacks, you usually post thoughtful, though often provocative comments, and you no more hate Catholicism than I do.
I for one am grateful for your posts. You make my faith deeper and stronger, because you make me think and read more.
Guessing I am going to lose a couple of hours tonight checking out that site.
Blessings to your father. Finding a way to truth is always precious!
"I'm nobody's shill," Glenn said.That's my idea of com-med-dee!
Personally I consider myself a libertarian-nationalist. I want the maximum liberty here, but if history shows anything, it's that people can only acheive freedom and prosperity under the protection of a strong national government capable of and willing to protect itself and it's interests abroad. It's funny how the Libertarins and Paul pods love to quote Thomas Jefferson but ignore that he sent the US Navy halfway around the world to fight an undeclared war of retaliation against the Islamic terrorists of the day.
You will enjoy Michael Voris. He has a great deal of free material, such as the “CIA” episodes and his daily Vortex. He took a page from Beck’s whole chalkboard thing, but he provides a great deal of information on a vast majority of topics. He also has a bunch of “this day in Catholic history” and a daily Catholic News brief (on weekdays) that is also quite interesting. I found him when I was exploring Catholicism, and I still watch even though, obviously, I am a foaming the mouth Catholic hater.
It was just an observation of a trend in that culture in how they approach these issues. I wouldn’t expect all Catholics to agree with what their leadership does, though it makes sense that someone from “blue collar” PA would lean more with the progressive Catholic leaders up there. The previous Union support and the rhetoric seem to match the pattern.
I am looking forward to exploring the site - even if it has been suggested by a heathen ;)!
I gather you think libertarians will vote for the Republican candidate regardless, so there is no need to placate their views?
Romney has a problem of appealing to the social conservative wing of the party. I think he accepts that he has to conduct himself within certain parameters. And, I think he will “balance the ticket” with a running mate recognized to be a conservative leader. (Right now I am thinking Gov. McConnell of Virginia, as he has just showed that he appreciates that at some point the right to life bumps up against the right to privacy.)
Santorum has more than “a problem” of appealing to the libertarian wing of the party and to independent voters. This is because he has repeatedly denigrated libertarians in the past and continues to do so.
Gingrich is good contrast to Santorum. Gingrich complements Ron Paul on various issues and distinguishes the foreign policy difference (which is severe) from the economic and social policy difference (where there is a lot of shared values and the policy differences aren’t so large). When Gingrich was Speaker, we had Dick Armey, a libertarian-Republican (though not a Ron Paul-libertarian) as Majority Leader, and Tom DeLay, a social conservative, as Majority Whip.
With Gingrich, we have a personality issue. A big ideas guy who, from time to time, loses discipline. In the Arizona debate, we saw Gingrich do very well (though not as spectacularly well as in the two South Carolina debates). But, at other times, Gingrich has been dour. The personality thing is both Gingrich’s strength and his weakness. He is certainty the most interesting person in the race, somebody to whom we can relate on a person-to-person level (Santorum’s family issues have made him interesting on a person-to-person basis and Romney has been a mere cardboard man). But, focusing on the politics, Gingrich has always recognized that we have to be a Big Tent party to win, and this includes the libertarians, the social conservatives and the national security conservatives.
You need a little perspective... I should send you some of the comments made to me by Sanctorum supporters... Newt supporters don't whine, though, they just fight on... GO NEWT!!!
“I gather you think libertarians will vote for the Republican candidate regardless, so there is no need to placate their views?”
I think most of them have the mentality of communist party members these days, and so they’ll most likely vote for Obama if they think it’ll burn the world down faster. A lot of them are young, stupid, and don’t really have any core values besides a few platitudes which they mistake for libertarianism. Go to Ron Paul’s facebook page and count how many of them have a profile image revealing some young kid pointing his cell phone at his bathroom mirror. Try having a debate with them about a flat or a fair tax too, or about any real issue of importance, and only a few of them will have anything worthwhile to say about it. I don’t recall them being this degenerated in years past, but I could be wrong.
I think Libertarian thought on domestic policy is more popular and more mainstream with conservatives than it actually is with them. This would probably be different with a guy like Stossell or even Judge Napolitano, a couple of libertarian heroes these days, but they also have bought into the whole Ron Paul foreign policy nonsense, even though one would assume that defending the United States would be one of their top positions, since that is one of the few things that is actually constitutional. Herman Cain really tapped into the latent mainstream libertarian desire with his 999, and that is the direction we really need to go if we’re going to get anywhere.
We don't have registration by party here in Illinois but the U.S. Senator race in 2010 pitted ultra liberal "republican" haha, Mark Kirk against the other baby killing liberal democrat, so I voted for the Libertarian candidate. It was a first for me. I still have never voted for a democrat for any office ever and never will.
I'm surprised only that it hasn't already happened. It's coming and you may count on it. How he will explain support for the most liberal "republican" candidate in the party's history, remains to be seen.
I wouldn’t call Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, Milton Friedman and so forth stupid, and I don’t expect every one of their followers, especially the novices, to measure up to those giants. Similarly, I wouldn’t call Edmund Burke, Alexander Hamilton or Winston Churchill stupid, and I don’t expect every conservatives to measure up to those giants either. Just the opposite, I am really happy to see young people adopt libertarian (or, classical liberal) and conservative views, as opposed to anarchist and totalitarian views. I’ve always viewed us to be the moderates, caught between the anarchists on the one hand and the many forms of totalitarianism on the other.
With regard to foreign policy, I used to be more confident to my opposition to intervention in what George W. Bush called the Greater Middle East. But, when I saw President Obama essentially embrace the Bush policy, I figured his intelligence briefings must be scaring the bejesus out of him. If it were just them killing them, I’d be happy to let them keep at it, with our country serving to be a place of refuge for those who could escape. And, if they attack us, just bomb them back into the stone age using standoff weapons. But, I think the insiders know something we don’t. So, I’m just going to put my trust in our people.
Lazlo - thanks very much for sharing that. What are your thoughts on both Santorum and GB from this interview?
Social Security is a disincentive to plan and save.
Families fall apart and the young no longer help take care of the aged and the aged no longer impart knowledge to the young.
It’s a bad mess.
Santorum was on the show to promote his ideals, Beck had him on to promote his show. I have been a Beck listener for over ten years and that dude is just a self promoter from the first start. He used to be the funny morning DJ and now he thinks he is the gold standard of propriety. He is not. Glenn goes where the listeners interest is.
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