Posted on 03/31/2013 10:26:22 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Recently reporter Thomas Edsall - who has spent most of the last 30 years covering politics for the Washington Post and the New Republic - had some advice for the GOP. He draws upon some recent polling data to argue that "the Republican Party can afford to marginalize . . . Christian right leaders because evangelical social conservatives . . . are not going to vote Democratic." Thus, he reasons that Republicans can, as he puts it, "concede defeat in the culture war" in the hopes of picking up more socially liberal voters.
Mr. Edsall might want to check with Governor Mike Huckabee, who knows a thing or two about evangelical voters. Huckabee suggested that evangelicals will "take a walk" from the GOP if the party supports gay marriage. He might also want to consider the 1996 Presidential election, when Bill Clinton carried red states such as Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Missouri, and Louisiana.
President Clinton's wife is the likely Democratic nominee in 2016, and it's safe to say that the Clintons - with their deep roots in Arkansas - know how to reach evangelical voters, especially if the GOP acts like it doesn't want them. I would also note that in both 2008 and 2012, the GOP did nominate Presidential candidates who were not popular with social conservatives - and those candidates fared poorly in the fall campaign. Next time around, conservative voters might just stay home, or throw their support to a democrat who they see as more sympathetic to the middle class. But, of course, the question of what sort of culture our children are going to inherit is a lot more important than the results of any one election.
The social issues are not merely a political football...
(Excerpt) Read more at lauraingraham.com ...
Jefferson et al disagrees with your comment...
Natural Law needs no enumeration of specific liberties. Enumerating them limits Natural Rights.
"Our entire republic rests on the concept of Natural Rights, or else it is null and void."
Hobbs disagrees? Reference please...
Leviathan argues that a social contract is necessary to constrain men from their evil natural impulses.
Both Hobbes and Locke argue the necessity for Laws to constrain and preserve Natural rights.
You seem to equate "laws" with our federal constitutional framework. We have many laws at the federal, state, and local levels. But, the constitution is a framework to CONSTRAIN GOVERNMENT from impinging on liberty at each of the various levels. It’s not a document enumerating individual rights as if the FedGov is the bestower of such benefits.
The bottom line is that we already have every protection necessary to defend individual rights at every level. We DO NOT NEED more statist policies to protect liberty!
Remember Obama said that the constitution was a framework of "negative equities" (i.e. the government should be the grantor of all rights, not Natural Rights to individuals)? Well, he had it backward. Our constitution is a framework of limitations on the collective (groups, majorities, minorities, etc.) so that the power of government is constrained in limiting Natural Rights - the freedom / liberty of individuals.
Whatever angle you argue from - laws from the collective federal state - based on anything outside of the narrow boundaries of our current constitution, is an erosion of liberty. We have too many factions engineering their own version of freedom to survive as a republic.
I agree with your condemnation of Obama. I also agree that the constitution is not the guarantor, hbut rather declares what people already possess as their natural rights.
It is to restrain government and not the people to exhort them to protect the natural rights of we the people.
My issue isn’t with more laws - my issue is with restoring constitutional governance. The constitution itself states that we the people have the power to restore a such a government through the use of force.
You and I are on the same page!!!
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