Posted on 02/26/2010 11:44:15 AM PST by presidio9
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has criticized the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), whose recent conference he refused to attend, alleging it has departed from its conservative principles.
Speaking on Fox News last weekend, Huckabee said that CPAC has become "more libertarian and less Republican over the last few years, one of the reasons why I [did not attend the event] this year."
The former GOP presidential candidate also suggested that the popularity of the Tea Party nation movement and its events all over the country have caused the influence of the CPAC to rapidly decline, and the organization is becoming irrelevant.
"The Tea Party has taken all the oxygen out of the room, where CPAC was historically the event," he told Fox News host Geraldo Rivera.
Huckabee was partially responding to the CPAC presidential straw poll over the weekend, in which he scored only 4 percent among CPAC voters and came in sixth place.
Meanwhile, CPAC representatives responded to the former governor’s allegations by saying they were "perplexed" and denied the purported libertarian slant.
According to the American Conservative Union, the organization that has hosted CPAC for 37 years, the 2010 event drew more than 10,000 conservative activists from across the country, including more than 5,000 college students.
Thanks.
Should have. Not one missile fired!
Fiscal conservatives are fine, but they shouldn’t be imposing their social liberalism on the rest of us by trying to coopt an established party or movement.
I went to the Tea Party in DC, and believe me, most of those folks would have rejected the libertarian agenda right out of the box. And nowthe movement is being taken over by libertarians, who have only two objectives: free drugs and no taxes.
having worked in a liberal university for many years, I see hopeful signs that pubbies are gaining strength and numbers. They brought Ann Coulter one year, Newt Gingrich, and others to campus.
The problem with this argument is two-fold:
1) People who are socially, ah, libertarian are themselves RINOs. You can't be partially conservative and call yourself conservative. You're either conservative on all four legs (fiscal, social, defence, and constitutionalism) or you're not a conservative - you're just some sort of bastardised conglomeration that makes no real sense, from an underlying worldview standpoint. The person who supports lower taxes and less spending but who also wants to shove gay marriage and abortion down our throats is just as bad as the person who is socially conservative, but wants to raise taxes and fund all sorts of programs "for the children." They're just two sides of the same coin.
2) Experience tells us that the people within the GOP who are most likely to be socially, ah, libertarian are also the people who are more likely to be the ones voting FOR big government. Think Collins, Snowe, Murkowski, Specter, etc. Each one socially libertarian, and each one is a usual suspect in the "Who crossed over to vote for (fill in the blank) big government spending bill" game. Hence, this makes me more than just a little suspicious of nitwits who come around here saying that the GOP needs to "become more libertarian" (by which is almost always meant socially). This is because worldviews are comprehensive. There's a reason the political system in this country shakes down onto the "conservative-liberal" axis for the most part...and that's because people who are conservative on fiscal issues are almost always conservative on social issues, and vice versa, since conservatism is a well-rounded philosophical system. This is why we have very few true libertarians and populists in this country - their axis is inverted 90º from the majority axis.
Yeah it does. Take a look at violent crime statistics. The rise in crime in the last few decades of the 20th century correlates more closely with the easy availability of abortion than with any other single factor, including poverty and the Drug War. One suspects that this is because abortion cheapens life in the eyes of many potential criminals, making them more likely to simply not care if they kill or otherwise harm someone.
a social MODERATE
What is that? A person who just wants to kill babies a little bit? Someone who only wants to shove the gay agenda down to the uvula, but no further? Kiddo, if you're going to use terms, you need to come up with some that are a bit more meaningful.
Let keep my money and be king of my castle. Our future is one of being taxed into penury, which will make every other liberty moot. So, no more Big Mother please - she charges too much and gives too little, and nurtures generation after generation too dependent on government largess to value life, liberty, property.
Sorry, kill the debt and then we'll talk.
If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.
Ah yes, we often see this interview cited, but never with an actual understanding of what Reagan was saying. It's interesting that just a few sentences down, he basically states that libertarianism has a lot of things that it's simply whacked out about.
Nevertheless, I don't think anyone in their right mind would take Reagan's statement "I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism" and extend it to the social aspect of libertarian beliefs. Let's look at a little context - Reagan said this in 1975. It is illegitimate to retroject this statement onto libertarianism in 2010. Reagan (even despite his ill-advised amnesty) was not an open-borders nut. He wasn't a drug legaliser. He didn't want to legalise prostitution. He didn't want private roads, private courts, and private police forces.
Consider this also - during Reagan's tenure in office, we saw the single largest expansion of the federal War on Drugs (which I, ironically, disagree with) and we saw the institution of a number of anti-pornography task forces in the Reagan DoJ. How does this square with the two foundation stones of the Pot-and-Porn party?
Wrong. You can think pigheaded like that if you wish, but I don’t see it.
Fiscal conservative trumps social conservatism. I’d rather live free and prosper without zero government intervention than work for the government but “oh, we got rid of them queers, so it was worth it to send 60% of my paycheck to the government.”
No.
Collins, Murkowski, Spector are not libertarians, never claimed to be libertarians, are nothing even remotely like libertarians. Trying to lump them in as “social liberal, fiscal conservative” is a moronic and if you have half-a-brain, you should know better.
They are all big-government liberal spenders who kowtow to unions.
You couldn’t possibly be more in the clouds with that post.
You've summarized the Huckabee platform.
Nah, you are full of it. What cheapens life and proliferates violent crime is lenient treatment of criminals. In middle eastern countries abortion is legal but hardly any violent crime because they cut your hands off when caught. Learn from actual history, not some statistics generated by a liberal doctorate student.
My social moderate definition:
For abortion in case of violent rape, incest or extreme danger to mother’s life for full term pregnancy.
Against abortion for any fetus capable of surviving outside of mother’s womb.
Allow equal rights to gays, lesbians and trans genders.
For death penalty in premeditated murders.
...the Pot-and-Porn party?
Reagan was not referring to the Libertarian Party, and neither was I. He was speaking to libertarianism as a philosophy, which can very as much as anything else.
It's funny how you libertarian bashers always come back to the pro-porn druggie caricature. I've discussed libertarianism with hundreds of people, and rarely do drugs and pornography enter the discussion.
Again, perhaps you're working off you're own definition of "Social Conservatism." I'd love to hear it.
In this country, officials who aggressively fight for the rights of the unborn have been consistenly labeled "Social Conservatives," to give just one example.
Every time this argument comes up, a couple of confused libertarians cut and paste this quote, and claim it means that Reagan was a libertarian at heart. To bad it doesn't actually say what you want it to say. For one thing, Reagan made it in a 1975 print interview, to a publication that had almost exclusively libertarian readers. He was engaged in a primary challenge against a sitting Republican president at the time. It's understandable that he would be looking for voters. But he never said anthing like that again. I dare you to produce any similiar quote from a different interview.
Now, if he had simply said "Conservativism and Libertarianism" are the same thing, that last paragraph I wrote would probably put the quote to bed. But that's not what he said, and either you haven't read the entire quote, or you're trying to sweep the truth under the rug (which is what every libertarian can be depended to every time this quote comes up. No one is arguing that the basis both for Conservatism and Libertarianism is less government. But Reagan goes on to say "Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians." You forgot to highlight that, but it is important, because he is acknowledge (1) that there are differences between libertarianism and conservatisim, and (2) that he is a conservatism. In other words, the two have much in common, but they are clearly different.
We Conservatives,of course, have elevated Ronald Reagan to the status of patron saint. But we are not referring to Ronald Reagan the Democrat, or Ronald Reagan the California Governor who signed an abortion bill into law. After Reagan lost to Ford in 1976 (and after that 1975 interview), he went home and refined his particular conservative message. The result was a presidency that many rank in the top 3 in this nation's history. During that presidency, he consistently opposed libertarian ideals, whether it was firing the air traffic controllers, or spending a lot of money on military buildups, or his Attorney General's crusade against pornography, or the multuple undeclared wars all over the globe. And, of course, he invented the drug war as we know it today. That is the Ronald Reagan Conservatives respect and look to for guidance today. And he looks ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING like a libertarian. Do yourself a favor, and forget that you ever read that quote.
The quote speaks for itself. Go ahead and try and explain your way out of it.
It's understandable that he would be looking for voters. But he never said anthing like that again. I dare you to produce any similiar quote from a different interview.
So Reagan was practicing political opportunism and said something he didn't mean? You think whatever you want; I'll take him at his word.
Now, if he had simply said "Conservativism and Libertarianism" are the same thing, that last paragraph I wrote would probably put the quote to bed.
No, he didn't say that, and I didn't claim he did. He said "I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are traveling the same path."
He solidified the statement a second time by saying he "stood by it". To my knowledge, he never disowned the statement. But feel free to provide evidence otherwise!
Both ideologies share a lot in common, and when it comes to their differences, many people draw from one or the other. I'm not a pure libertarian, but I think conservatives would have served us better if they had listened to them more often than not over the years.
And Reagan would have served us better if he had listened to his libertarian side on things like the disastrous War on Drugs, the EITC, and continued support for the Social Security Ponzi Scheme.
I believe that politicians who are fiscal conservatives pretend to be social conservatives to appease the Social Conservative base. If you take a close look, I bet most GOP politicians are socially moderate to liberal in their personal lives.
So Reagan was practicing political opportunism and said something he didn't mean? You think whatever you want; I'll take him at his word.
People who have run out of things to say, frequently disreagard everything they can't respond to (such as Reagan's record as president -examples of which I was kind enough to provide), in favor of cherry picking what they perceive to be the weakest point. In this case, you made the jump to me implying that Reagan was being dishonest. I assume you are also inferring some sort of feigned allegiance with his libertarian audience. The trouble with your argument is (1) that's not what I said, and (2) that's not what Reagan said. Again, Reagan said (in essence) there are many similarities between libertarianism and conservatism, but there is a lot about libertarianism that I disagree with. Libertarians read it as "Libertarianism is the heart and soul of Conservatism," because they are generally too simple minded or lazy to read the entire quote.
And there was no need to "retract" the quote. He didn't say anything that a conservative wouldn't agree with. But it's also telling that he never said anything nice about libertarianism again. Far from opportunism, this was preaching to his audience, without giving you guys a single thing that would piss his base off.
And I love it when libertarians suggest that Reagan would have been a better president if he had been more libertarian. One can only come up with a stupid idea like that if one completely ignores the fact that Conservatives and libertarians are different animals. And there are a lot more of us than there are of you (which probably explains why you're constantly trying to subvert us). To use your example of the war on drugs: This conversation is about the differences between libertarians, so save your arguments about why drugs need to be legalized. Accept the fact that a majority of Conservatives have no interest in seeing any drugs legalized. Conservatives accept government intrusions. Always have. Reagan says so in the quote you provided. Libertarians don't. Republicans and libertarians are different. Again, Reagan is our patron saint. Your side says he would have been better without the drug war. I have never seen this poll, but I would be willing to bet that most conservatives think he did the right thing starting the drug war. I know I do.
So, again:
He praised libertarianism (mildly), while making sure to include that he was not a libertarian.
And while libertarians like yourself wish they could change some of Reagan's major policies because they were diametrically opposed with libertarianism, those policies are part of the reason why conservatives love Reagan as much as we do.
That's because, as a libertarian, you live in some little alternate reality that has no bearing on the real world.
Face facts. Since the early 1990s, this country has become steadily more pro-life. At this point, polls are showing either outright pro-life majorities, or at least pro-life pluralities, depending on how big the "Don't know/no opinion" contingent is in any particular survey happens to be. The trend is the pro-lifer's friend. And that means that any political party that decides to tell SoCons to piss off is going to find itself withering away, not growing. You forget that while economic issues are temporarily at the forefront of peoples' minds, this doesn't remove the baseline of fundamental values upon which peoples' personal ideologies rest. The economy isn't always going to be in the tank, and we're not always going to have a radical Marxist as President.
Likewise, gay marriage has no more support now than when radical gay activists started agitating for it a decade ago. Indeed, it has less support. And it's been rejected in, what, 33 states to date? Even argon blue states like California, Oregon, and Maine? Not a winning issue for social libertarians. If you're pinning your hopes on that, you're going to be sorely disappointed.
Oh, and guess what? You know all these snot-nosed little college kids that you're depending on to be the libertarian wave of the future? Most of them, sooner or later, are going to get married - which we know has an, ah, "conservativing" effect on a person's stance on the sanctity of marriage and the nuclear family. Most of them will then proceed to have kids, which we also know has the effect of making people more pro-life. Nothing socially conservativises people like getting married and having kids, experiencing firsthand the institutions under attack. This is a fact, which is why the Democrats and others on the Left have made such an effort over the past 40 years to destroy the traditional family and traditional marriage - they know that these things turn people away from radical social innovation better than anything else.
Fiscal conservative trumps social conservatism. I’d rather live free and prosper without zero government intervention than work for the government but “oh, we got rid of them queers, so it was worth it to send 60% of my paycheck to the government.” No.
False dichotomy. Your image of social conservatives, especially the social conservatives you'll find here on FR such as myself, is laughably simplistic and wrong. You are very much out of touch if you think Mike Huckabee (who is a populist, not a conservative, about 90º on around the diamond) is an exemplar of movement conservatism.
Collins, Murkowski, Spector are not libertarians, never claimed to be libertarians, are nothing even remotely like libertarians. Trying to lump them in as “social liberal, fiscal conservative” is a moronic and if you have half-a-brain, you should know better.
Seriously, you has not the mad reading skilz. Go back and look at what I said again. I said that each of them demonstrate social libertarianism - which they do. I didn't say anything about them being fiscally conservative - which they're not. The point, however, is that their fiscal liberalism is part and parcel with their social libertarianism - and on both counts they are unreliable. Worldviews exist for a reason, and that reason is that they are generally self-reinforcing. A person believes the way they do on one issue for much the same underlying reasons that they believe the way they do on other issues. Social libertarians are simply unreliable as far as depending on them to do the right thing - in ANY circumstance - is concerned.
You couldn’t possibly be more in the clouds with that post.
Nope, I just don't hold to the sort of ill-thought out, false dichotomic bastardised worldview that you're apparently trying to cobble together for yourself.
You're right, we CAN see what Reagan was saying. We can also see, in the context of the discussion on this thread to date, that your use of the quote is at best confused and at worst dishonest.
Again, Reagan was not a social libertarian. He would not have taken the positions in favour of abortion, gay marriage, etc. that many libertarians on this thread have been taking. THAT is the context in which your use of the quote necessarily is being read. If that's not what you intended, then fine, you weren't following the trend on the thread and just posted in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fair enough.
Reagan was not referring to the Libertarian Party, and neither was I. He was speaking to libertarianism as a philosophy, which can very as much as anything else.
Big-L Libertarians are merely a subset of small-l libertarianism, which is what I have been referring to throughout the discussion on this thread.
It's funny how you libertarian bashers
Mommy! The mean conservatives are bashing us! LOL, you make libertarians sound like another victim group. Maybe you can invent some sort of "ism" to describe those horrible, anti-diversity people who disagree with libertarianism?
always come back to the pro-porn druggie caricature. I've discussed libertarianism with hundreds of people, and rarely do drugs and pornography enter the discussion.
Maybe I'm just hanging out with the wrong libertarians, then, because my observation has been than a large percentage of them are inordinately concerned that Jerry Falwell himself is going to personally bust down their door and confiscate their stash of nudie books.
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