And, please, stop with the ridiculous canard that social cons are “anti-science”. Abortion opponents seem to me to be more willing to acknowledge the actual biological realities of pregnancy instead of solely applying the social construct of wanted vs unwanted. Lack of support for federal tax dollars going to support embryonic stem cell research does not mean lack of support for actual successful existing treatments using other stem cells. ID is the pushback by social cons against what I would call Darwinism, which is the elevation of evolution from a scientific theory to a belief system that views dissent as blasphemy and which has become the militant atheist (as separate from atheists like AP) credo pushed in schools to indoctrinate children away from belief in God. Teaching evolutionary theory ceased long ago to be just about the science. Also, just how pro-science is the “belief” in the global warming nonsense that also brooks no dissent? Why does everyone say they “believe” in evolution or “believe” in global warming? The reason these clashes are so intense is because it is belief system against belief system with one side refusing to acknowledge their religiosity.

We Need a Hero
My ideal platform may be right. But it is surely not popular.

Discussion is great.
Rebuilding the platform is necessary.
Get the structure built before attempting to name the hero.

Cheney/Palin 2012!

Sign me up!

Will social cons go along to get along or is there an anti-moderation backlash brewing? Hmmmmm.

This one will not.

Red State State of Mind on May 8, 2009 at 1:05 PM

I’m wondering about some of this, too. There is a difference between state/local and national offices. Democrats run conservatives in conservative districts — that just makes common sense if you want to contest those areas. That’s how we end up with the Specters — you have to satisfy your voters, though, which he did not. I think a presidential candidate should be more conservative, though.

We desperately need to move the dialogue away from viewing right vs. left as being a single continuum that sucks up economic, defense, and social conservatism. They are completely separate issues.

What we need are serious fiscal and defense conservatives. Bush was a defense conservative, but NOT a fiscal one. So along that fiscal axis, we need the party to hold the line and be serious about discipline on spending and deficits.
………………. They openly said that had John McCain opposed TARP and joined with the House GOP, they would have had to “very seriously consider” voting for him.

Outlander on May 8, 2009 at 12:47 PM

Excellent points!

Cheney: “I think it would be a mistake for us to moderate”—-Cheney is the man!!!

christene on May 7, 2009 at 10:16 PM

I’m still undecided on the whole “moderate or don’t moderate” debate. I’ve posted occasionallt that the Republicans need to attract moderate voters in liberal states in order to gain a majority in Congress and be able to push legislation forward. That seems practical to me. Personally, though, I worry that the Republicans have drifted so far to the middle that there isn’t much appeal to conservatives anymore. I’m not sure what strategy will work to attract a governing majority and actually be able to begin rolling back some of the crazy legislation and policies that are being enacted. How do you see Republicans returning to core principles but also winning back the majority.

Will social cons go along to get along or is there an anti-moderation backlash brewing? Hmmmmm.

We desperately need to move the dialogue away from viewing right vs. left as being a single continuum that sucks up economic, defense, and social conservatism. They are completely separate issues.

What we need are serious fiscal and defense conservatives. Bush was a defense conservative, but NOT a fiscal one. So along that fiscal axis, we need the party to hold the line and be serious about discipline on spending and deficits.

Where I think we need to give a little to get a little is on the social conservative issues. I know in Ohio, where I live, there are a large number of educated younger voters–many of whom I work with–who voted for Obama because (i) they were turned off by the perception that Republicans hate science and exist solely to castigate gays and pro choice women and (ii) they bought Obama’s rhetoric that he was serious about being restrained on fiscal issues. They openly said that had John McCain opposed TARP and joined with the House GOP, they would have had to “very seriously consider” voting for him.

Krydor on May 8, 2009 at 9:19 AM

.
Two questions.
.
1. Do your really believe we are descended from rocks and water?
.
2. Can you name ten beneficial mutations?

Best that they take the Bob Michel approach and get used to being losers.

Will social cons go along to get along or is there an anti-moderation backlash brewing?
Allahpundit

I don’t understand why social cons get all the flack for any Republican failure or for making the party unappealing. They bring in more votes than they ‘scare’ away. Also, if Republicans were to actually govern conservatively (e.g., actually reduce the size of government, federalism, etc) the Republican brand wouldn’t have any issues. This is not the fault of social cons.

C’mon. They are threatened by Cheney who not only doesn’t cower for their pleasure, but who slices them into pieces whenever they get too close. They react on vindictive cue en mass: vendetta.

People can say Reagan would not have done what Bush did, but during the farm crisis the advice we were getting from the Reagan USDA was get big or get out. I remember those times.

Terrye on May 8, 2009 at 6:27 AM

I remember those times, too. The same agricultural “evolution” occurred simultaneously in academia as well as on family farms. We discussed it during dinner many times. University experimental agriculture farms were being sold out, faculty forced into early retirement, and agriculture departments totally converted into bio-chemical engineering and real estate schools. Grotesque mutilation of a beautiful science and art of application.

Conservatives have been giving progressives free rein since WWII and veterans return home, trying to re-establish “normalcy” after war. Trouble is, progressives took it all as free reign. We’ve already passed the middle ground a long time ago, people have forgotten. GWB passed bail-outs, Homeland Security, Patriot Act, and before leaving office empowered the Sec./Treasury and FDIC and all of the Federal Treasury to do whatever they like for their own benefit and power to Socialize America.

Not only do we say “No More Socialism”, we mean RETRACT IT. To “discover” the middle ground, we have to go “right”. The left is already the sinking black hole. I won’t play by their rules any more; I insist on playing by the Constitution.

The Repubs spend so much time fighting ea. other on social issues, that we can’t move forward to whip the Dems on the fiscal, defense & Constitutional issues.

GOP must become an ideological party. The core of that ideology as stated by DeMint is “Freedom”.

Another Hot Air commenter came up with the tagline:

“Freedom, Federalism & Family”.

Sounds pretty perfect to me.

GOP as a *nationwide* party does *not* need to take a hard line stand on social issues that the “Federalism” plank of the GOP says should be left to the states.

Abortion? Leave it to states. Not a national issue.
Gay Marriage? Leave it to states. Not a national issue.
Stem Cell? Leave it to the states. Not a national issue.

Tax burden: National issue because it hits on our most threatened freedom. Our economic freedom.

The state specific GOPs can choose to have the so-called “social” issues as core to their campaigns. Meanwhile the GOP at the national level would be busy DEFENDING the states rights that are required to give them “Freedom”.

So, it boils down to who likes the Enlightenment? Social conservatives do not. They are unquestionably anti-science. They also have no problem in peeking into the bedrooms of other people.

Given the choice between overspending idiots who want to micromanage private lives and teach their children that ID is science and the overspending idiots that have no interest in bedroom practices and want their children to have a good education, they’ll pick the latter.

Enjoy the wilderness. You guys did not elect Reagan and you are naught but zealots and luddites.

Dole is not really all that moderate, back in Reagan’s day he would have been considered a conservative..so would McCain.

Terrye on May 8, 2009 at 6:25 AM

Terrye,

Considered conservative by whom? The only thing McCain got conservative was insisting we not lose a war, and nominating someone with vision and appeal to those of us who brought the Republican party to its peak….. real conservatives who insist the government stop spending our money for unnecessary things and services, insist on protection of the nation from all enemies and interests which wish to reduce our standing or see our influence reduced, and support businesses in the US by getting out of their way with regulations that stifle innovation and insist only one size fits all in business. Other than that, he was a windvane for which way the press was blowing. I admire the Man’s courage and determination. But a conservative he ain’t. (McCain-Feingold, pro-amnesty, insisting that opposing our enemies overseas is the only time to show backbone, but allowing our domestic enemies to run roughshod over our reputations and our pocketbooks….. none of these are conservative positions)

It was not Reagan’s job to make small farmers successful. It was economics that drove the downfall of family farming and ranching (I know, I am one also), pure and simple. The Reagan administration telling you that you had to get bigger or fail is the way business works. If a small farmer can’t compete with a bigger operation, that is neither his fault, nor the fault of the bigger operation, nor the governments fault. It is simply a fact of Life.

Changes comes to every life and every age. If you think governments can regulate that, then lets see them direct a Mothers Love for her children into something else, or order someone else’s dog to do tricks. Ain’t happening.

Governments set limits on people. The conservative position is the limits should be as far away as possible without allowing the deaths or bankruptcy of its constituents. The liberal position is government should tell everyone to toe the same line.

So just how well is Change working for us now? Are we going to allow HopenChange to run over us because we want to be run over, or are we going to control it so it can’t be let off the leash again?

Subsunk

A constitutional amendment is a very high bar. It requires the support of individual states and their legislatures. I think a lot of Americans are ambivalent about gay marriage to say the least, but that does not mean that they will be opposed to the degree that a constitutional amendment requires them to be.

I was a farmer when Reagan was president. It might have been morning in the rest of America, but it was the dead of night on the farm.

Cargill and Monsanto came out of that a lot better than family farmers did. People can say Reagan would not have done what Bush did, but during the farm crisis the advice we were getting from the Reagan USDA was get big or get out. I remember those times.

Dole is not really all that moderate, back in Reagan’s day he would have been considered a conservative..so would McCain.

Good post, I agree completely. Conservatives need to form an ideological agenda and stick to it. And I agree wholeheartedly that that agenda should emphasize fiscal responsibility and individual freedom. To me, those are the core conservative values which should never, ever be compromised to placate the left.

“Conservative” to me means being conservative about the original philosophy upon which America was founded, i.e. the Constitution, individualism, keeping the state out of people’s lives. Being thus what I would call a right-leaning libertarian conservative, I fully disapprove of conservatives who wish to use the state to force people to live a certain way.

It is not the case that liberals have a monopoly on “letting people live as they please,” because they quite obviously have serious problems with certain groups of society, especially the capitalist producer classes and those who wish to be economically free of the state. Liberals may be obsessed with sexual freedom and the freedom to abort inconvenient babies, but curiously enough they don’t give a damn about the freedom of individuals to trade with each other on their own mutually agreed terms, or the freedom of the individual to make his own plans for his own money. Conservatives shouldn’t be embracing liberalism, they should be embracing the classical libertarian side of conservatism and taking the REAL moral high ground of individual liberty.

So that leaves the issue of social conservatives and the heavily religious. My opinion of that is that social engineering is not the role of the state and that religion should be kept entirely separate. Sure the state has a role in religion – but that is to protect the rights of individuals to practice religion freely, which is why I always come out in defense of the right of kids to pray in school or to wear religious artifacts. Surely the religious right can be persuaded to limit the interaction between the state and religion to this area?

As for social issues, my opinion is that you have to let people live their lives as they so choose, with one condition. That they don’t interfere with the right of others to do the same. This all ties in with fiscal conservatism, in that the reason why social freedom has caused so many problems is that there exists a safety net – the welfare state – which in its many guises takes away the role of consequence from society. If you want to waste your life on drugs, then fine – but you’re not going live that life on the dime of the taxpayer. If you want to get pregnant at age 14 then fine – but you’re not going to get any help from the state. Take away the safety net, protect everyone’s property rights and you introduce the element of consequence, which automatically encourages an atmosphere of self responsibility. I could not give two hoots about what people get up to in their private lives just so long as it doesn’t abrogate anyone else’s right to be free and it doesn’t cost me a cent.

Conservatives have a real chance to adopt the high road of rational freedom and personal liberty. There is a gap in the market. We don’t have to succumb to the foggy maze of sponge-brained liberalism or a woozy cloud of moderate-nothing. We just need to reassert the original meaning of conservatism – the conservation of America’s founding principles – and do everything we can to win the hearts and minds of the Americans those principles were meant for.