The Effrontery of Rick Santorum (Why the media cannot tolerate social conservatism)

He was last seen a step ahead of the braying pack, trying to explain that he hadn’t accused President Barack Obama of being a crypto-Muslim. The former Pennsylvania senator criticized the president’s environmentalism as representative of a “phony theology.” The press snipped the remark out of the context and played it as Santorum donning his finest Grand Inquisitor garb and reading the president of the United States out of the Christian faith.

This followed immediately upon an ill-considered joke by Santorum backer Foster Friess about aspirin as a contraceptive that drove a couple of days of coverage insinuating the comment told us something important about Santorum’s own views.

Santorum is a standing affront to the sensibilities and assumptions of the media and political elite. That elite is constantly writing the obituary for social conservatism, which is supposed to wither away and leave a polite, undisturbed consensus in favor of social liberalism. Santorum not only defends beliefs that are looked down upon as dated and unrealistic; he does it with a passionate sincerity that opens him to mockery and attack.

If Santorum had the social views of a Barbara Boxer, he would be hailed in all the glossy magazines as a political virtuoso. He has fought a front-runner with all the advantages to a jump ball in Michigan. His aides can’t provide advance texts of his speeches because he always extemporizes and speaks from a few notes. He is indefatigable, willing to lose on behalf of what he believes and committed to trying to convince others of his positions.

In the wake of his surprise showing in the Iowa caucuses, news coverage focused on Santorum arguing about gay marriage with college kids at his New Hampshire events. It was taken as a sign of his monomania. Yet he genuinely — if naïvely — wanted to convince them. If the cauldron of a presidential campaign is not the best place for Socratic exchanges on hot-button issues, Santorum was trying to do more than repeat sound bites back at youthful questioners.

Although his critics will never credit him for it, Santorum’s social conservatism brings with it an unstinting devotion to human dignity, a touchstone for the former senator. The latest position for which he’s taking incoming is his opposition to a government mandate for insurance coverage of prenatal testing often used to identify handicapped babies who are subsequently aborted. For his detractors, his respect for the disabled is trumped by his unforgivable opposition to abortion.

Santorum conceives of his social views as a badly needed support for economic aspiration. It’s no accident that the Republican candidate most committed to the traditional family and associated virtues is also the one who talks most about the struggles of the working class. He frequently cites research from the Brookings Institution showing that simply getting a high-school diploma, getting a job, and getting married before having children — the so-called success sequence — are powerful tools against poverty.

As Jeffrey Bell, author of the new book The Case for Polarized Politics, notes in a Wall Street Journal interview, Santorum’s style of social conservatism is deeply American. No other Western country saw the rise of such a social-conservative movement after the social upheaval of the 1960s. Bell traces American social conservatism back ultimately to the God-given natural rights enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. Sure enough, Santorum is given to quoting the Declaration.

That won’t stop Santorum-haters from portraying him as threateningly un-American. He can play into the negative image of him. In one interview last year, he said that as president he would warn people of the dangers of contraception, a task better suited to a youth minister or Catholic premarital counselor than the leader of the free world.

Santorum occasionally needs to curb his enthusiasms. But the implicit message of his candidacy is unassailable: Denounce and dismiss it as you please; American social conservatism is here to stay.

It’s quite clear why the Marxist Left never uses their Stalinist “tactics” to go after Obamamessiah’s “religious beliefs”; he embraces the same _political religion_ they embrace, ie: Marxism.

One of the questions Rick Warren asked the 2008 candidates was:

[Who are] The three wisest people they would consult as president?

Obama named two, his wife and grandmother. He also said he would consult bipartisan sources such as former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn and Republican Sen. Richard Lugar. http://www.RickWarrenNews.com./

Notice below who Obamamessiah named in 2004 - he didn’t name ANY of those people above - he named the race-bating, America-damning hate-mongers in his church as the ones he looks to for guidance. Now he’s tap-dancing as far and fast as he can away from those “close friends”. What a phony!

2004 interview excerpts:

Barack Obama: The 2004 “God Factor” Interview Transcript
http://falsani.blogspot.com/2008/04/barack-obama-2004-god-factor-interview.html

GG:
Do you have people in your life that you look to for guidance?

OBAMA:
Well, my pastor is certainly someone who I have an enormous amount of respect for.
I have a number of friends who are ministers. Reverend Meeks is a close friend and colleague of mine in the state Senate. Father Michael Pfleger is a dear friend, and somebody I interact with closely.

GG:
Those two will keep you on your toes.

OBAMA:
And theyr’e good friends. Because both of them are in the public eye, there are ways we can all reflect on what’s happening to each of us in ways that are useful.

I think they can help me, they can appreciate certain specific challenges that I go through as a public figure.

GG:
Do you still attend Trinity?

OBAMA:
Yep. Every week. 11 oclock service. ..

GG:
Do you believe in sin?

OBAMA:
Yes.

GG:
What is sin?

OBAMA:
Being out of alignment with my values.

GG:
What happens if you have sin in your life?

OBAMA:
I think it’s the same thing as the question about heaven. In the same way that if I’m true to myself and my faith that that is its own reward, when I’m not true to it, it’s its own punishment.

GG:
Where do you find spiritual inspiration? Music, nature, literature, people, a conduit you plug into?

OBAMA:
There are so many.
Nothing is more powerful than the black church experience. A good choir and a good sermon in the black church, it’s pretty hard not to be move and be transported. ..

GG:
Is there something that you go back to as a touchstone, a book, a particular piece of music, a place ...

OBAMA:
As I said before, in my own sort of mental library, the Civil Rights movement has a powerful hold on me. IT’s a point in time where I think heaven and earth meet. ..

GG:
Do you ever have people who know you’re a Christian question a particular stance you take on an issue, how can you be a Christian and …

OBAMA:
Like the right to choose.
I haven’t been challenged in those direct ways. And to that extent, I give the public a lot of credit. I’m always stuck by how much common sense the American people have. They get confused sometimes, watch FoxNews or listen to talk radio. That’s dangerous sometimes.

But generally, Americans are tolerant and I think recognize that faith is a personal thing, and they may feel very strongly about an issue like abortion or gay marriage, but if they discuss it with me as an elected official they will discuss it with me in those terms and not, say, as ‘you call yourself a Christian.’ I cannot recall that ever happening. ... [...]

Cal Thomas comments on the above-excerpted interview:

June 16, 2008 9:25:34
OBAMA IS NO JOSHUA By Cal Thomas
http://www.calthomas.com/index.php?news=2288

2,117 posted on Sunday, August 17, 2008 7:58:30 PM by Matchett-PI http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2062984/posts?page=2117#2117

1984:

“..But the “theologies of liberation”.. go on to a disastrous confusion between the poor of the Scripture and the proletariat of Marx.” ~ Pope Benedict XVI

So, long before Obama -(and his “politicized religion” -Marxism)- was immaculated (installed in the White House), the religious perversions he, and other professing Christian Leftists embrace, were exposed here:

Theologies of Liberation http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_df84lt.htm
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (nka Pope Benedict XVI) August 6, 1984

[...]

“..Let us recall the fact that atheism and the denial of the human person, his liberty and rights, are at the core of the Marxist theory. This theory, then, contains errors which directly threaten the truths of the faith regarding the eternal destiny of individual persons. Moreover, to attempt to integrate into theology an analysis whose criterion of interpretation depends on this atheistic conception is to involve oneself in terrible contradictions. What is more, this misunderstanding of the spiritual nature of the person leads to a total subordination of the person to the collectivity, and thus to the denial of the principles of a social and political life which is in keeping with human dignity. ...

[...]

“..We are facing, therefore, a real system, even if some hesitate to follow the logic to its conclusion. As such, this system is a perversion of the Christian message as God entrusted it to His Church. This message in its entirety finds itself then called into question by the “theologies of liberation.”

[...]

“...As a result, participation in the class struggle is presented as a requirement of charity itself. The desire to love everyone here and now, despite his class, and to go out to meet him with the non-violent means of dialogue and persuasion, is denounced as counterproductive and opposed to love.

If one holds that a person should not be the object of hate, it is claimed nevertheless that, if he belongs to the objective class of the rich, he is primarily a class enemy to be fought. Thus the universality of love of neighbor and brotherhood become an eschatological principle, which will only have meaning for the “new man”, who arises out of the victorious revolution. ...

[...]

“..But the “theologies of liberation”, which reserve credit for restoring to a place of honor the great texts of the prophets and of the Gospel in defense of the poor, go on to a disastrous confusion between the poor of the Scripture and the proletariat of Marx.

In this way they pervert the Christian meaning of the poor, and they transform the fight for the rights of the poor into a class fight within the ideological perspective of the class struggle. For them the Church of the poor signifies the Church of the class which has become aware of the requirements of the revolutionary struggle as a step toward liberation and which celebrates this liberation in its liturgy. ...

[...]

“..The new hermeneutic inherent in the “theologies of liberation” leads to an essentially political re-reading of the Scriptures. Thus, a major importance is given to the Exodus event inasmuch as it is a liberation from political servitude. Likewise, a political reading of the “Magnificat” is proposed. The mistake here is not in bringing attention to a political dimension of the readings of Scripture, but in making of this one dimension the principal or exclusive component. This leads to a reductionist reading of the Bible.

Likewise, one places oneself within the perspective of a temporal messianism, which is one of the most radical of the expressions of secularization of the Kingdom of God and of its absorption into the immanence of human history.

In giving such priority to the political dimension, one is led to deny the radical newness of the New Testament and above all to misunderstand the person of Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man, and thus the specific character of the salvation he gave us, that is above all liberation from sin, which is the source of all evils. ..

[...]

“...Faith in the Incarnate Word, dead and risen for all men, and whom “God made Lord and Christ” is denied. In its place is substituted a figure of Jesus who is a kind of symbol who sums up in Himself the requirements of the struggle of the oppressed.

An exclusively political interpretation is thus given to the death of Christ. In this way, its value for salvation and the whole economy of redemption is denied. ...

[...]

“..For them, the struggle of the classes is the way to unity.

The Eucharist thus becomes the Eucharist of the class. At the same time, they deny the triumphant force of the love of God which has been given to us.

[...]

“...the source of injustice is in the hearts of men. Therefore it is only by making an appeal to the moral potential of the person and to the constant need for interior conversion, that social change will be brought about which will be truly in the service of man.

For it will only be in the measure that they collaborate freely in these necessary changes through their own initiative and in solidarity, that people, awakened to a sense of their responsibility, will grow in humanity.

The inversion of morality and structures is steeped in a materialist anthropology which is incompatible with the dignity of mankind.

[...]

“.. the overthrow by means of revolutionary violence of structures which generate violence is not ipso facto the beginning of a just regime. A major fact of our time ought to evoke the reflection of all those who would sincerely work for the true liberation of their brothers: millions of our own contemporaries legitimately yearn to recover those basic freedoms of which they were deprived by totalitarian and atheistic regimes which came to power by violent and revolutionary means, precisely in the name of the liberation of the people.

This shame of our time cannot be ignored: while claiming to bring them freedom, these regimes keep whole nations in conditions of servitude which are unworthy of mankind. Those who, perhaps inadvertently, make themselves accomplices of similar enslavements betray the very poor they mean to help.

The class struggle as a road toward a classless society is a myth which slows reform and aggravates poverty and injustice.

Those who allow themselves to be caught up in fascination with this myth should reflect on the bitter examples history has to offer about where it leads.

They would then understand that we are not talking here about abandoning an effective means of struggle on behalf of the poor for an ideal which has no practical effects. On the contrary, we are talking about freeing oneself from a delusion in order to base oneself squarely on the Gospel and its power of realization. [...]

“Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic.” ~ Pope Benedict XVI

“...After all, every normal person wants to help the poor and needy, but helping them at the end of a gun, as the left always want us to do, renders any spiritual benefit inoperative for both parties. .... What we hear from Obama is the eternal mantra of the socialists; America is broken, millions have no health care, families cannot afford necessities, the rich are evil, we are selfish, we are unhappy, unfulfilled, without hope, desperate, poverty stricken, morally desolate, corrupt and racist. This nihilism is the lifeblood of all the democrat candidates, even ‘hope you can believe in’ performers like Obama. When Michelle Obama claims she is only newly proud of her country, she does not exaggerate. In her world as in Obama’s, they believe we are a mess, a land filled with the ignorant and unenlightened, filled with despair” ...” (Fairchok). http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2008/02/doing-battle-with-hope-fiends-and.html

Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty
161 Ottawa NW, Ste. 301 • Grand Rapids, MI 49503

Markets & Morality
Volume 2, Number 1 • Spring 1999
Michael Novak’s Portrait of Democratic Capitalism
http://www.acton.org/sites/v4.acton.org/files/pdf/2.1.8-34.ARTICLE.Younkins,%20Edward,%20W.—Michael%20Novak%E2%80%99s%20Portrait%20of%20Democratic%20Capitalism.pdf

Edward W. Younkins
Professor of Accountancy and Business Administration
Wheeling Jesuit University

“John Paul II does not subscribe to dependency theory. Rather, he thinks that the poor are oppressed because of the absence of capitalism.”

[....snip....]

<><><>

Novak has done a great deal with respect to delineating the theoretical foundation of democratic capitalism. He has devoted much of his life to explaining democratic capitalism’s fundamental principles and will long be remembered for his innovative work, especially for his influence on Pope John Paul II and Centesimus Annus. ...

Novak explains that many Catholic social teachings were formed in the pre-capitalist static world of medieval society, which prized stability in economics, politics, and religion. Papal teachings were thus more concerned with the just distribution of available goods than with the morality of systems that produce new wealth and sustain economic growth. The New Testament favors the poor. The spirit of socialism (including self-denial, cooperation, and human solidarity) thus initially appears to many as being closer to the Gospel vision of a redemptive community than the competitive spirit of capitalism. Catholicism has emphasized community and tradition while capitalism has emphasized individualism and innovation. As a result, North American theologians have generally been critical of the nation’s economic system. ...

Democratic capitalism assumes pluralism, recognizes that individuals have differing opinions and interests, and allows them to associate in order to further those interests. Pluralism assumes the reality of sin. Pluralism’s multiple groups provide a balance of power. The chief purpose of pluralism is to fragment and check power–not to repress sin. ..

Novak emphasizes the primacy of morals–if our moral and cultural institutions fail, all the rest of ordered liberty is lost. He goes on to say that if the primary flaw lies not in the political system or the economic system but in our moral-cultural system, then the prognosis is hopeful. If the fatal flaw lies in our ideals and morals (i.e., in ourselves) then we have a chance to mend our ways. According to Novak, the hardest part of the moral task we now face is the power of the adversary culture with its emphasis on equality of results and moral relativism. ...

Michael Novak, the preeminent Roman Catholic social theorist of our time, is the prolific author of numerous monographs, articles, and reviews, and has written over twenty-five influential books in philosophy, theology, political economy, and culture. He holds the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., where he also serves as Director of Social and Political Studies. He has lectured all over the world and has taught at Harvard, Stanford, Syracuse, and Notre Dame. During 1981 and 1982 he served as Chief of the United States delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva as a Reagan appointee with the rank of Ambassador. His writings have appeared in more than a dozen languages. In 1994, he received the prestigious Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion for his service in defense of freedom and for his incredibly influential work in Christian social teaching on economics.

He once studied for the priesthood and for years was an espoused democratic socialist. Novak at one time believed in socialism because its ostensible ethical system seemed so superior. The son of Eastern European immigrants, he once thought that the communitarian religious ethic of his heritage was being attacked by the individualistic ethic of commerce. However, he was persuaded through observation of human affairs and intense reflection that he was mistaken. He now fervently believes that capitalism is superior to socialism both in practice and in theory and that Judeo-Christian virtues not only survive but flourish under democratic capitalism.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.