Posted on 06/30/2007 7:56:53 PM PDT by logician2u
you absolutely nailed it.Thanks.
plus, there were still “Blue Laws” in an awful lot of places!
What do you mean, "Barry Goldwater didn't really change that much? They played a video of him hangin his head and mumbling this tripe!!!
"Stormtroopers" has a distinctive Nazi connotation. Which is why he stopped himself from completing the word. But he revealed his mind to us.
Again I go back to 1964. It was just assumed that society was moral with respect to homosexuality, respect for religion, pro-American values taught in schools, etc. We can debate till the cows come home about whether it is good or bad that these things are now passe. But the average “religious right” activist at the time didn’t have to worry that their basic moral beliefs would be blatantly violated in school. And to put another spin on it, if you told the average democrat in 1964 that their party’s main reason for being 40 years hence would be abortion and gay marriage you’d have been shot on site.
How many average Democrats do you know? I've known a few, some since 1964 in fact.
I don't know any that would agree with that statement, though. Abortion ("choice") is no longer an issue with them, rather it's a buzzword their candidates use from time to time to energize the women who work in their campaigns - the same as "right-to-life" Republicans like to make promises to "overturn Roe v. Wade."
One of the differences I see between the two major parties is the Democrats' always looking for new "entitlements" to add on while Republicans (or at least a significant minority of them) want to refight the battles that were lost decades ago.
Yet, for some reason, even the most conservative Republicans are reluctant to come out and say they would like to abolish Social Security, Mediscare and other social programs (all but one, that is) as not being the proper function of the federal government.
So we have the "theocons" as Gold calls them continuing to wage war against abortion and homosexuality while the "fiscal conservatives" dither as federal spending goes through the roof.
It's looking more and more like the Republican Party better fits your "main reason for being" criteria, after you add in the "strong national defense" platform plank. The party's commitment to limited government is questionable, IMHO.
I suspect there still are if we wanted to look for them.
That's not a high priority for religious conservatives, though, from what I've seen.
the point was that we were a lot closer in those days to the “theocracy” of which people like Phillips and Gold say they are so frightened . Besides, feralcat made the real argument; if that level of “theocratic” control was that threatening, why didn’t Goldwater make it the focus of his efforts to roll back tyrrany?
First, even though there have always been certain parts of the country where you couldn't buy liquor on Sundays, for example, the nation was not under threat of becoming one big church in 1964. As I wrote in reply to boop in #48, there was quite a bit of concern in the 1960s about what the kids were reading, in school and in the library. For as much heat that produced, I didn't see much in the way of book-banning going on. If anything, the objectors painted themselves as some kind of kooks, especially when they went after Mark Twain's stories of life on the Mississippi.
Goldwater didn't make an issue of the blue laws and such because there were many, many more important things to talk about at the national level. And his "efforts to roll back tyranny" were concentrated more on the ever-expanding federal government than matters at the local level. He was in the Senate, don't forget.
then you're concerned that it is in danger of becoming "one big church " in 2007, or I suppose more precisely, you (or Gold, anyway) think that's what the "religious right" wants ?
No, I am not worried about that. I am more concerned that the Republican Party will fall into a permanent minority status in this country, the result of neglecting its traditional opposition to an ever-growing government and its continuing support for wars that last decades if not generations.
Valid concerns, I’ll agree. But without the “religious right” (and the immigrants), you’ve already got the demographic implosion that make those things inevitable. Arthur C. Brooks makes the strong point that religious conservatives highly value self-reliance. They are a natural base to appeal to for limiting government.
Actually who wants to ban Mark Twain nowadays? The left. Who wants to restrict freedom, i.e smoking, what kind of lightbulbs we buy, what we put into the garbage? The left. Who wants to restrict even our thoughts with “hate crimes” legislation? The left. I think you are mixing libertarians with conservatives. I personally agree that republicans spend too much time agreeing with democrats on “settled” issues like social security, but where is the home for religious people? Not on the left. I have never seen hate like that which comes from the left when it comes to religion. Th left poked its snout into the lives of the religious, not the other way around.
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