Posted on 12/31/2015 11:28:34 AM PST by Isara
“If you analyze it, I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism…The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom, and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.” – Ronald Reagan
We’re entering an unusual time in politics. It used to be conservatism versus liberalism; that was the standard by which everything was judged. There was little to no nuance within the two groups. I’m not saying that was incorrect. For the time, it was perfectly appropriate. Now, however, we’ve become a less homogenous voting public. We’ve become fractured–and that’s not a bad thing. This fracturing has revealed to us who people really are.
There was a time when I believed Rick Santorum was a conservative. The problem with this belief is that it’s too broad. There are aspects of Santorum’s policy that are conservative, but his overall political belief system is not conservative.
Rick Santorum is a theocrat.
This fact was made clear when the former Senator appeared on Newsmax TV’s “The Steve Malzberg Show” Monday, and attacked Ted Cruz for being too constitutional. Yes. Your eyes do not deceive you.
Here’s the exact quote from Santorum:
“Most of the social conservative votes are going to Cruz and Trump, neither of which are particularly strong social conservatives. I mean, Donald Trump has never been a social conservative up until the last few months. And Ted Cruz takes the position of very much the Tenth Amendment and State's rights, you know, which is sort of a Rand Paul/Ron Paul position.”
Uh, what?
Specifically referencing gay marriage and marijuana legalization, Santorum said:
“[Cruz] doesn’t agree with it but he’s not going to fight it…That’s not what people are looking for. They’re looking for someone who has a very clear vision of what’s right and what’s wrong and be able to lay that vision out for the American people.”
Ted Cruz is a constitutional conservative, and as such, he believes strongly in the Tenth Amendment, which says that the powers not enumerated to the federal government are to be left to the states. It’s a powerful amendment that was designed to protect Americans from federal overreach. Given this belief, Ted Cruz has stated numerous times that while he is personally opposed to gay marriage and marijuana legalization, it’s a question that must be left up to the states, per the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Now, for Rick Santorum, this is a bad thing. He believes that the federal government should dictate these decisions. This is in defiance of the Tenth Amendment–but he doesn’t care. He wants to use his authority–were he to have it–to impose his will on the entirety of the American people. Even if the majority of Americans were in favor of gay marriage, he would have it banned on a federal level.
I’m as socially conservative as they come, but I understand that there are certain things that cannot and must not be decided federally. I also understand that there is good reason for this rule. Overabundant centralized power never works out; it metastasizes, and eventually strangles the people. The Tenth Amendment is a wall protecting us from the wolves of federal aggression. As a constitutional conservative, I can look at the issue of gay marriage and know that while I may personally oppose it, it is not the role of the federal government to make the call as to whether or not it is legally recognized.
This is one of the differences among conservatives that has been made exceedingly clear this election cycle. Some running are constitutional conservatives, while others are theocrats. Some are status quo Republicans, while some are hybrids.
A constitutional conservative is what we need. We’ve moved so far away from what the Founders designed that we need someone who will take us back to our original framework. Ted Cruz is that person. Rick Santorum is a theocrat, and he has a right to be a theocrat, but to castigate Ted Cruz for not being conservative enough is ludicrous.
I guess polling at 0.5% makes one mad.
There is a time when we must say we can’t pick up a turd by its clean end.
An answer, enspirited by the Lord, might look like constitutional amendment to (1) put in a balance of some kind to judicial supremacy, which engages the will of the people; (details we can debate, the need we no longer can) and (2) require any kind of household arrangement that isn’t based in natural marriage to not be called marriage — to reserve the term marriage.
Mincing around with states rights to call nonsense sense (I didn’t say to call the immoral permissible, I said to call nonsense sense) is playing with that turd. Everyone’s hands will get dirty even if dirt is defined away.
“My question is, why is Rick even putting forth the effort? Does he seriously think he has a chance?”
No, he’s a cynical A-hole, stealing from old ladies. He raises money from his niche support base. Ten he gets to pay himself the salary of the office to which he aspires from those donations. He can hire wife and kids.
So essentially, he is robbing well meaning people.
Its a pure scam, nothing more.
It’s good old American choice, as we know it. Even to the point of allowing people to choose foolish things. I have the right to blow my fortune trying to become President, and to ask others to blow theirs helping me, even though my agenda is the silliest one since the Garden of Eden and I am always polling in the noise.
Allow any less freedom, and you will end up filtering out some of the gold as well as the garbage.
Personally, I believe both Santorum and Cruz - and the rest of the GOP field for that matter - to be far too liberal in certain key areas that will determine whether or not the republic survives.
Exactly right. And he does strike me as a theocrat in his normal impulses. And don’t forget, little ricky earns 400K a year as long as he is a candidate.
And such unseemly pictures are part of the price we pay for the opportunity to do better than that.
Don’t know how much you like Trump but at least he has opened up some important issues and blared them front and center in a way others aren’t, yet. Even if others adopt the best of his policy ideas, he still spearheaded them to popularity and managed to outfox news censorship by always being the man who is biting the dog (who is yelping on camera). Rules that would stifle a Santorum would risk stifling a Trump too.
he was vicious in 2012, though for some inexplicable reason, very few called him on it.
wow, post 13 - some of the scariest kool aid yet.
Well if God is Kool-Aid I really don’t have anything else to offer.
It WILL kill, granted... it will kill civic self righteousness. Are you willing to let that die? Because it has to, before civic faith can revive.
Ok, ill ask. In what key areas?
Just one more joining in the with the sentiment of the recent thread where over two dozen Trump fans called for their candidate to be installed as a dictator. Well, two dozen on the first two pages...I didn’t read any more after that.
This particular one doesn’t surprise me, being familiar as I am with his nutbaggery.
5 big reasons I cannot personally support Cruz:
1. His enthusiastic support for immoral, unconstitutional “fetal pain” and other regulatory bills which violate the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendment’s explicit equal protection and due process requirements and encode governmental permission to kill babies, all of the babies, as long as they are killed on schedule, or by some arbitrary set of man-made rules.
2. His constitutional republic-destroying judicial supremacist views.
3. His pro-choice for states position on marriage.
4. His horrid tax plan, which retains the federal income tax, while piling an insidious value-added tax in on top of it.
5. His support for the continuation of the unconstitutional treasury-busting, posterity-robbing centerpiece socialistic programs of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.
Santorum fails on most of those counts as well, plus some other doozies that I won’t even bother with. He’s not worth the time.
Just more of your liberal bullshit on display for all to see.
You found ‘bemusement’ in the Planned Parenthood videos so it’s no surprise you’d abort the whole basis of America as long as you get your leftism into power ‘no matter what’.
I like both Rick and Ted, but I think that Rick has the high ground on this one.
how dare you hide behind God....God through Jesus nor Paul nor John nor anyone else ever said a single syllable about using law to force people to follow and believe the Bible. God is NOT NOT NOT in favor of theocracies.....
Your Kool aid drinking has zip zero nada to do with faith.
let’s see, you v Ted Cruz on The Constitution????
Wow, close one.....(cough cough) Sorry dude, you lose.
Can anyone make sense of post 53?
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