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 ...
Yes the behavior is still a private matter ...
and the answer/solution of course should be quite obvious...
instead of trying to legislate the personal behavior ...
ELIMINATE THE NANNY STATE!!
Ahhh... you see ....
now there might just be a proper place for the Church and Charity to step in and assist ...
not the Government ...
but I would say Biblically that fits the Churches roll pretty darn well...
me thinks this is the point you may have been trying to make ...
Bonus: It gives the Religious Right somthing to do.
Well, we can go back and forth forever on this, I guess. I do appreciate the honorable way you’ve handled yourself in this debate, even if we disagree on many things.
“You admit that two of the people claimed as founders of libertarianism were christian and yet you would maintain that libertarianism is somehow anti-religion?”
Yes, because over the past decade or so, Libertarians have changed radically. The socially conservative Goldwater libertarians of the west have been replaced by a new generation of south park libertarians that think drugs and porn are cool, and that God is for suckers. God has been replaced with The Market, which is the answer to everything to newer Libertarians. These aren’t your father’s libertarians.
One of the huge differences between conservatives and libertarians is that while conservatives recognize that while capitalism brings prosperity, it isn’t in and of itself moral. It’s a tool, and sometimes a cruel one, the least of all evils in seeking prosperity.
Libertarians think markets may be the only TRUE morality, and are quite enamored with the social darwinism aspect of capitalism, and mock religious people that have notions of morally based charities, because the Libertarians think that’s propping up weakness.
#####ELIMINATE THE NANNY STATE#####
I’d love nothing better, but you’ll never get rid of the nanny state in a socially liberal environment.
I once had a discussion with someone who favored open borders. He said anyone who wants to move to America should be free to do so, except, of course, for criminals and the like. I asked him what would happen to our nation if 200,000,000 impoverished third worlders came here and got on the welfare gravy train. His reply was that he would only open the borders AFTER we got rid of the welfare/nanny state programs. I then told him that even if we could get rid of all those programs, once 200,000,000 third worlders moved here, they’d vote those programs back in.
That’s your problem here. Even if we got rid of the nanny state, a socially liberal population would vote it back in.
If libertarianism could work, then a good laboratory for you to test it out would be a city such as San Francisco or a nation like Sweden. These are places that are very socially liberal, so all you have to do is convert them to fiscal conservatism and dismantle the nanny state. Good luck, because you’re gonna need it. Try telling the aging hippie drug takers you find languishing around the streets in San Francisco that they should provide their own health care and get off the public dole. Tell the homos that they can do whatever they want to do in private, but they need to repeal all those anti-discrimination laws and hate speech codes. Oh, and they need to privatize education.
Try weening “tolerant”, secular, gay friendly, porn drenched Sweden off the nanny state. You’d have a better chance trying to ban affirmative action in a city run by Jesse Jackson.
Socially liberal areas become nanny states just as surely as the sun rises each morning. Sweden, Holland, Canada....all of these places have become socialist nanny states as they’ve grown more socially liberal. As I suggested in an earlier post, it was no coincidence that the Great Society and its entitlement mentality arose simultaneously with the sexual revolution in the sixties. The former fed off the latter.
And I might add, gun control tends to follow social liberalism as well. Show me a place awash in abortion, promiscuity, porn, secularism, and homosexuality, and I’ll show you a massive, high tax, ever-expanding nanny state. And then they come to get your guns.
Ya know, we could go back to the old way, where folks just don't screw till they're married... and don't get divorced without a damned good reason... and a bastard child was a shameful thing...
Ahh, crap! Can't do that! There's that Christian ethic again! STAY OUT OF MY BEDROOM! /sarc
You sound like a solid conservative... welcome to FReerepublic...
I believe you can count on seeing it argued in defense of pretty much any federal vice laws.
Unfortunately the republicans don’t seem to be a very attractive alternative to those of us who desire to see a smaller federal government and promotion of individual liberty.
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The way I see it, small government advocates are idealogical, theoretical, principle driven. This is a minority of even the voters overall. It takes a lot of study and thought to a principled commitment to limited government that will withstand arguments that appear expedient or situations that tug at the heartstrings. It’s an intellectual tradition. It may be that no mass party can represent us effectively because we are a minority. The route to victory is to capture the Republican party elites so that it is a top down policy and the success of it persuades and informs more of the electorate. Even if small government types are a majority of the Republican base, the voters in the country are 50%, and the parties are divided 50% to 50% in rough terms, and the small government types vs. the neo-cons and Rockefeller and big finance types in the Republican party are divided at around 50% to 50% . . . that works out to maybe 12% supporting small government consistently. The funny thing is that that 12% could control policy making if they are smart and work harder (are more motivated) than the others. The difficulty is that the big finance and country club type Republicans have a lot (probably most) of the financial power and often their business interests and political interests are intertwined, so they actually make money by giving money (in other words they are highly motivated). If the 12% supporting small government withdraws from the effort within a major party, they have no chance at all of victory. This is of course a bunch of imprecise numbers, nothing scientific about it, but I think it makes my point. “We” strong believers in limited government are a minority.
I think we could have a shorter march than the hard left did if we tried to regain control of the institutions, school, university, church, non-profit, and media, that help define voting because the culture is still American and is still less alien to us than it was to the hard left when they started their march through the institutions. The problem is that the culture is slipping quickly and the left knows the importance of cultural institutions and has consciously taken them over for political purposes, so they won’t let the camels nose in under the tent like we unthinkingly, and very liberally, did. Lots of libertarians and conservatives don’t really get what they’ve done or how they did it.
But the hard left has done it by controlling the general direction of the Democratic party, even while being a minority. The hard left has been far more successful in capturing the Democratic party than the “libertarian/conservative” Republican base has been in capturing the Republican party.
Welcome to FR!
But this government, whose increase in size, power, and oppression we are supposed to fear, is the same government moral authoritarians wish to use to prevent "moral breakdown."
I don't trust goverment to educate my children, and I don't trust it to manage my moral/spiritual life. I go to church for that.
You have it exactly backwards. It is the "conservatives" as typified by the Bush Republican "compassionate conservatism" who are leaping and running to embrace ever more intrusive statism. Prescription drug socialised medicine - good conservative legislation there. No child left behind - more good conservatism. Patriot act - "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear, comrad" another conservative idea whoe time has apparently come again (originally Beria's quote, and we all know what "conservative" regime he served) Rudy Julie Annie, comment about freedom being submission to authority is a good example of the new "conservative" think.
It doesn’t take massive government to maintain standards of decency in a society. Local ordinances on things such as vice crimes were in place from the founding of the country and we didn’t become Stalinist or Taliban-like. In contrast, leviathan nanny state government has grown exponentially since we tossed those old vice laws in the trash can.
It’s simply the truth that a morally lax society will gravitate inexorably towards ever bigger and more controlling government. To liberals, it’s well worth it to remove a few minor restrictions on the activities of deviants if, in return, hundreds of new major restrictions can be placed on the productive, decent element in society.
Think of the novel BRAVE NEW WORLD, where everyone was free to do whatever they want in terms of sex or drug use, but they lived in a totalitarian nanny state. Liberals know that if people begin defining liberty in terms of porn, abortion, sodomy, or drug use, they’ll stop caring about property rights, gun rights, freedom of speech, or freedom of association. Basically, the left is “dumbing down” the idea of liberty.
Sure, but the "responsibility" is not private in regards to society, although I agree it should be with regards to the state.
There are two related pathologies here. The one we agree on is that the state should not be involved in such matters -- although in fact it deeply is.
If you want to set up a private fund to help these kids, fine. Go for it. I may even help you...
This is getting at the other pathology. In a social context the acts of the irresponsible parents were immoral and society should not only help the children (yes, privately) but should not be neutral with regards to their behavior.
I agree government should have a very limited role in regards to family responsibility (only interfering in gross cases like severe child abuse), but society should take a less limited role which it sadly has abrogated in favor of the nanny-state. Just who is boinking who turns out not to be an entirely private matter (although the details of how, where, and when certainly are).
Your right. And unfortunately much of the church has copped out in favor of the nanny state. Part of getting rid of the nanny state is for the majority of church to start practicing what we preach.
So you are rising to defend drugs, gambling, and prostitution?
Puroresu, I think you may be right. I can't think of single counter example in history.
More like fighting AGAINST federal vice laws or any federal intrusion into anything best left to the states...
That's the standard accusation for anyone who questions whether that's supposed to be the federal government's job. What do you think?
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