Authoritarian Republicans—just like authoritarian Democrats—need to overcome their shortcut nanny-state impulses and accept the fact that not everyone who is fiscally conservative is necessarily socially conservative.
One cannot simultaneously be a nanny-stater and believe in minimal government. The concepts are almost mutually exclusive, for once nanny-state policies are implemented, there must necessarily be an ever-expanding regulatory and enforcement apparatus—and that apparatus will invariably start trampling on Constitutional Rights.
Thus, many traditional conservatives—by resorting to the same authoritarian nanny-state impulses that the Left indulges—alienate members of the younger generation, and they reinforce stereotypes regarding Republicans and intrusive government.
Any American who is aware enough to repudiate marxism and socialism should naturally gravitate towards the GOP, and the gratuitous antagonism that more doctrinaire Republicans display towards the libertarian crowd couldn't possibly be more counterproductive.
People who oppose socialism should band together based on the 80+ percent that they agree on, rather than try to antagonize one another about the other 20%.
Demographically, the GOP tent is shrinking, so it stands to reason that the appeal of the GOP—if it is to broaden—must do so based on things like ideological commonalities, with greater tolerance regarding differences.
With respect to Liberty—beyond issues of force, fraud, and negligence which infringe on individual rights—any additional authoritarianism is gratuitous, and should not be part of the GOP's core ideology. Why? Because such compromises—the embrace of arbitrary law—are precisely what creates the slippery slope which leads to a government with practically unlimited power to destroy.
I, for one, reject such Statism categorically, regardless of which side of the fake Left/Right political spectrum it emanates from. Make no mistake: in America, Freedom flows from an ideologically consistent understanding of Authority vs. Liberty, and cherry-picking shortcuts will always represent a threat—and whether the shortcuts come from the "Right" or the "Left" is totally irrelevant.
Barring bona fide infringement on another individual's rights, the "Pursuit of Happiness" is what the Individual decides—it should never depend on the whims of any other person or mob...
As Mark Steyn once declared: It’s impossible to be a fiscal conservative and a social liberal (in other words, libertarian), because the bleeding-heart nature of the social liberal will want to spend wastefully for their social causes, thus negating any pretense towards fiscal conservativism.
Sargon provided a great example of this on a pro-pothead thread a while ago. He/She/It declared that pot should be legalized and that society should take care of those who are destroyed by it.
It was a sickening display of compassionate conservatism.
It is like the chamber of commerce’s ploy to profit from all the cheap labor from foreigners, and then dump the social costs onto the taxpayers. Team Pothead wants to deploy the same tactic: profit from all the legal pot, then let the tax payers, health insurance consumers, and auto-insurance consumers pay for the social destruction.
Libertarians are destructive and dishonest.
Sargon is very heideggarian in promoting the emotional barbarism of the youth to destroy the wisdom and stabilty of successful prior generations
Which is more authoritarian?
A) Allowing the State to define marriage as it sees fit.
B) Saying that marriage pre-exists the State and that no state therefore has the power to abolish or fundamentally change it.
The best argument against so-called "gay marriage" is precisely because it gives the state power over a natural institution that the state never had.