Posted on 01/22/2013 7:23:54 AM PST by SeekAndFind
For some years now, we have been told about a major division within American conservatism: fiscal conservatives vs. social conservatives.
This division is hurting conservatism and hurting America, because the survival of American values depends on both fiscal and social conservatism. Furthermore, the division is logically and morally untenable. A conservative conserves all American values, not just economic ones.
By social conservatism I am referring to the second and third components of what I call the American Trinity — Liberty, In God We Trust, and E Pluribus Unum.
It is worth noting that a similar bifurcation does not exist on the left. One never hears the term “fiscal liberals.” Why not? Because those who consider themselves liberals are liberal across the board, fiscally and socially.
The Left understands that values are a package. Apparently, many conservatives — libertarians, for example — do not. They think that we can sustain liberty while ignoring God and religion, and ignoring American nationalism and exceptionalism.
It is true that small government and liberty are at the heart of the American experiment. But they are dependent on two other values: a God-based religious vigor in the society and the melting-pot ideal.
Or, to put it another way, small government and fiscal conservatism will not survive the victory of social leftism.
The Founders made it clear that liberty is not only dependent upon small government, but upon society’s affirming God-based values. Not having imbibed the Enlightenment foolishness that people are basically good, the Founders understood that in order for a society to prosper without big government, its citizens had to hold themselves accountable to something other than, higher than, the brute force of the state. That something is God and the Judeo-Christian religions that are its vehicle.
Those who believe in a small state — fiscal conservatives — need to know that a small state is dependent on a big God and therefore on a God-centered population. Look at Europe for confirmation. As secularism expands, so does the state. And that is what is happening in America.
Fiscal conservatives, such as libertarians, don’t make this connection. They view small government as an achievable end in and of itself, divorced from the social and religious values the American people hold.
Western and Chinese apologists for the Communist Chinese regime argue the same thing — that economic freedom is divisible from other values.
I am in no way morally equating American libertarians and other fiscal conservatives with Chinese Communists. Libertarians hate Communism. I am only pointing out that they agree on the separation of economic and social values; on the dispensability of God and religion; on America’s not interfering in other nations, no matter how great the evil; and more.
Fiscal conservatives who consider themselves conservative need to imagine what type of America they will bequeath to future generations if the only conservative value that survives is fiscal conservatism.
Do you really want to live in an America that is godless, where liberty derives from the state, and where moral values derive from each individual’s heart? In an America that ignores genocides abroad? In an America that so radically redefines marriage — to meaning the union of anyone and anyone — that it no longer has a moral justification to prohibit polygamy or incest? In an America that has no moral opinion on abortion, even if performed solely, let us say, for reasons of the fetus’s gender? In an America that embraces multiculturalism rather than the melting-pot ideal?
My goal here is not to expel from the conservative movement those who are conservative only with regard to fiscal matters. May God bless them (even those who do not believe in Him), and may they long vote Republican. My goal is to bring them to social conservatism.
Because a conservative conserves. And not just money.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His most recent book is Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. He is the founder of Prager University
See his/her #4, #13, #14, #17. He/she says that "the sooner we go our separate ways the sooner we all just break up and go our separate ways the better off the right will be in this country." That is the one thing posted by MadIsh32 that I can agree with. Absolutely the SOONER THE BETTER. After the GOP Wall Street big shots crammed soulless pro-abort, pro-lavender, gun grabbing, foreign policy indifferent, $$$$ Mittler down our throats as POTUS candidate 2012, we have an even deeper hole to dig out of and it is time to take out the social revolutionary trash once and for all.
See also #40 1nd #41. God bless!
bump
I think that would more appropriately be described as mercenary capitalism than communism. Unscrupulous capitalism, ie, putting profit above any and all moral concerns, is certainly not laudable, but neither is it communism. Communism by its very definition entails state ownership of enterprise, which again, by definition precludes the profit seeking motive of the individual.
How many ostensibly non-communist souls have been purchased by "capitalist" George Soros? Is capitalism his philosophy? It may be his way of life but that is a different matter.
The armorer for the dictator is scarcely distinguishable from the dictator.
This discussion smacks of the style of the college bull sessions in which I engaged so many, many years ago. Instead of bull sessions, we should have been engaged in fighting Mark Rudd, Bill Ayers, Bernardine the Radical Queen, Jerry Rubin Abbie Hoffman, Huey P. Newton, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale and their marionettes like Ted Kennedy, Bill and Hillary, Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barak Insane Obozo, but arguing about how many Marxists might dance on the head of a pin was a more leisurely activity which could be indulged comfortably indoors over a nice wine and some savory cheese, maybe order in some pizzas (we lived in the city that is to pizza what Fatima and Lourdes are to Catholics: the city where Yale is located), Clinton, John Kerry, Barak Insane Obozo, et al., three of whom were in the same city at approximately the same time.
Profit motive??? Who got the first new deluxe washing machine and dryer in their society? Mrs. Brezhnev or Ms. J. Random Peasantsky??? Likewise personal income: Mr. Brezhnev or Mr. Peasantsky??? The palatial dacha out in the picturesque countryside? The Brezhnevs or the Peasantskys??? In scrupulous capitalist societies, who rides Air Force One, takes an army of cronies at taxpayer expense to vacation in Mumbai or the Spanish Riviera, has permanent Secret Service protection, spends about half of a life on the very finest golf courses and has a lifestyle beyond the imagination of medieval emperors? The Obozos or the ruling family of Citibank or J. Random Taxpayer???
It is getting harder and harder to distinguish (at least by results to the rulers) between "capitalism" and communism. BTW, in genuine capitalism, the duty of those running corporations to produce a maximum profit to the stockholders IS a moral concern. Don't you agree?
Meanwhile: Lenin, Stalin, Bulganin, Krushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, and Gorbachev did profited rather magnificently as individuals, especially for individuals supposedly leading the opposition to "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.