Posted on 08/21/2007 11:41:49 AM PDT by DesScorp
I just recently caught up with the exchange on conservatism and the culture wars between Brink Lindsey and Ramesh Ponnuru, in which Lindsey exhorts conservatives to give up any further efforts in the culture war, which he deems finished. And I also heard some of a Cato Institute talk that featured Lindsey and David Brooks, who agrees with Lindsey on this point. I agree with Peter Wood who commented on PBC that if the culture war is over, efforts to reform the university are pointless, and we obviously don't think such efforts are pointless or we wouldn't be here at PBC. Neither would the Manhattan Institute have initiated its Minding the Campus feature. Neither would Regnery be issuing its politically incorrect guides to various subjects. And so forth.
I also think that Lindsey's view of modern life as the “exuberantly pluralistic pursuit of personal fulfillment through an ever-expanding division of labor” is utterly soulless.
Also, Lindsey made some remarks in his part of the exchange, that the Right should be embarrassed about previous racism, sexism, and prudery. I don't have the exchange in front of me now, but I think that's close to what he said. In the National Review I read as a teenager, edited by William Buckley, I don't recall any of that. I recall its being sound, elegant, rational, cultured, with high intellectual standards. Lindsey should be prevailed upon to give specific examples of what he means by the sins of the Right in these areas.
(Excerpt) Read more at phibetacons.nationalreview.com ...
Perhaps when the GOP gets serious about doing this, instead of porking it up in Congress and adding even more “entitlements”, then maybe the libertarians will have someone to vote for?
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The Republicans actually believed they could spend their way to permanent majority status! They didn’t seem to notice that the one thing that brings together all constituencies in the Republican party, excepting the imperialist neo-cons, is a commitment to smaller government.
Libertarians have their LINO infiltrators, while conservatives are damned with RINOs.
Yes?
I don't understand your problem then; all of these things are for the most part compatible with libertarianism. Yet you saw fit to make it seem like there is something wrong with white single working guys being libertarians.
The drug dealers you fear are emboldened by our drug policy. New thinking is needed.
I share most of the same views, I don't need to have kids to see the truth.
Ultimately many changed party affiliation and registered as Republicans. But they are what they always were, regardless of labels.
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Nah. It’s been 40 years since the 60’s, and Reagan permanently altered the debate on the right away from big government conservatism (at least among the base). The problem is the money still comes from NYC, California, and corporate interests and they are big government types. The elites in the party are at odds with the base, including the southern Republicans.
LOL.
If your political opinions change after having kids, they must not have had much merit to begin with.
If being a parent turns me into a socialist, I will give my kids permission to shoot me.
I became a Republican (I am an independent now), because I was under the assumption that REPUBLICANS (most of them, 70% at least) cared about the culture.
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I posted this link on another thread. It’s regarding the left in the culture war, and what they’ve done and why. The long march:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/02/cultural_marxism.html
The Libertarian Party was formed by Republicans who left the RP when Nixon imposed wage and price controls. Republicans pleaded with libertarians to stay with the GOP and work for reform within the party. We were lied to. There has been no reform and government has continued to grow bigger under Republican control.
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The 1 or 2 percent that Libertarians represent could have made the difference in a lot of elections, primary in particular, over the years. The Libertarian Party is a failure and it has hurt the country by taking the strongest believers in individual choice and liberty out of political decisionmaking and calculations.
If you don't like the laws, instead of breaking them or advocating the breaking of them............work towards changing them. In the meantime, all laws reflect some sort of moral influence, or the absence of morality, which absence is in itself a degree of morality.
In laws of commerce, for example, all parties are expected to act with virtue, in other words, in honesty; in their papers, in their communications, in their products, in their finances, etc., etc........................Now, the last time I looked, lying and giving false testimony were part of the Ten Commandments............the founding fathers were very aware of the laws of God, and knew that a society in tune with said laws would be more safe, more clean, more productive, less taxed, more healthy, more prosperous, more mighty, and more giving, more successful, and more lasting..........a Republic, if you can keep it.
That is the crux of my issue with many of these laws. They do not seem to fit the paradigm you have set up as a rational basis. Its not that they are nebulus, it is that they are totally based on the concept of sin or evil, and not on the harm they cause to society.
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I will disagree with you regarding the same arguments being made to control guns as opposed to outlawing drugs or pornography. From a Christian perspective, intoxication itself is a sin and an evil to be avoided. From a Christian perspective, even looking at pornography, much less producing it is sinful. That is not the case with owning a gun. It is not inherently sinful.
We will disagree if your standard is the greatest good for the greatest number or some such pragmatic and infinitely manipulable rule implied by judging by “harm to society.”
Given the choice between big governmant progressives and big government conservatives the logical choice is the one that will use that government to interfere with personal liberty less. It's not rocket science.
Right: the world was created only 5000 years ago and gays are not human beings deserving of compassion
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Ack. Where did you get the idea that Christians don’t have compassion for homosexuals? To not love is entirely contrary to Christian teachings. There are whole ministries to try to help homosexuals. And you should know that most Christians are not of the opinion that the earth was created a few thousand years ago.
Well, as a friend of mine used to say; “Two thing in the middle of the road, a dead skunk and a “Libertarian”. I think I understand it now.
which is why the classical liberal, let alone the libertarian, is profoundly distrustful of any attempt to link the power of the state with any conception of absolute truth or religion.
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What of the classic liberals that were believing Christians? The very basis of our rights is the idea that they are inalienable, bestowed by our creator.
I’m interested in the fear of theocracy. It is a very different view from Christians, who see a culture that is largely able to ignore and attack Christians. Christians are being martyred around the world and nothing is done to stop it. Christians have worked for over 30 years to overturn Roe v. Wade and have had little success. Now Christians are being put in a position where they can’t even send their children to public schools in their own home towns because of their inability to stop the left’s sexual agenda and militant secularism from infecting classroom instruction. It’s a very, very, very different view of the world; where you see the possability of theocracy the Christian for the most part see themselves as under siege from a very anti-Christian culture. The Christians are in the right on the direction of the culture against them. The secular, state and self worshipping left is winning the culture war.
I posted this earlier but it’s worth a look on what the left is doing in the culture and why:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/02/cultural_marxism.html
Dog Fighting, Smoking in cars with children, Smoking Marijuana
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To a certainty against dog fighting. We are to take good care of our animals and not be cruel. The Bible also makes clear that we are to be sober and not drunk, so I’d say that smoking marijuana is out for a believing Christian, if they think about it.
I have no desire to let homosexuals drive our social agenda; I am rather quite opposed to it. Most gay people of my acquaintance don’t appear to want that either. They just want to be treated as people -which is fine with me. On the other hand, we’ve all seen the cadre of radicals (the NAMBLA types) who seek to use their “preference” as a way of gaining social acceptance for what many (including me) would consider depravity. If they can be “saved” then by all means, let’s save them, but in the meantime there are laws against the abuse of innocent children and it is that sort of behavior that concerns me most.
Yeah... Like smokin' dope.
“Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”
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Now regarding Wickard v. Filburn, classifying as interstate commerce wheat grown on a farmers own land and used exclusively on the farm itself . . . I don’t see a picture of Ceasar stamped on the wheat!
As to the statement from John Paul, the whole point is that that you can't shroud the words in "context" to weasel out of the logical implications. On the very liberties you list, the Catholic Church has only "gotten religion" (pun intended) on tolerance after the rise of Marxist and fascist atheism and anti-clericalism - those who were not Catholic had very limited religious rights in Catholic countries before WWI, and the Church exercised significant control. Divorce was only possible in Italy and Ireland in the past 50 years!
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