I am not just goading or joking either.
If we are to end up with Rand Paul or some other Libertarian candidate, what are we social conservatives to expect and how are we to deal with our own powerful, long-standing convictions on important issues like marriage, abortion, drug use, immigration and a powerful military?
“and how are we to deal with our own powerful, long-standing convictions on important issues like marriage, abortion, drug use”
As I said, those generally should be left to the state and local level. It has been common practice for liberals to smear advocates of states rights as “Hurp de derp an excuse to repeal the Civil Rights Act” which of course it never was. Nobody on the right has advocated repealing the CRM.
“and a powerful military”
There is a pretty widespread conviction among many that American tax dollars shouldn’t be used for Europe and Japan’s defense as they’ve been since 1945 and that they should pay for their own militaries. A good deal of this sentiment is also based on the idea that the US shouldn’t play world police as happened on numerous unfortunate occasions (Balkan Wars during the 90s, Libya, etc). Of course actions like invading Afghanistan were justifiable because they were sheltering Al Qaeda and we should not lump them in with the above ones.