Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
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markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktjnc posted these links in the open thread last night, but in light of today’s primary in Michigan, I thought they were worthy of their own post.
For those who haven’t seen this, it’s worth a read:
“Goodbye to Goldwater
Rick Santorum’s Republican crusade for big government.”
Jonathan Rauch from the December 2005 issue
The rise of Rick Santorum does not make a whole lot of sense to me and the article makes it even more baffling. My only theory is that he seems to speak honestly and people recognize and appreciate it (either that or Republicans really just don’t think much of Romney). While I disagree with a whole lot of what Santorum says, I do appreciate that he generally just says what he thinks and avoids non-answers that we here from most other candidates, Republican and Democrat alike. I’ll admit I have not watched the Republican primaries all that closely, so maybe my perception is incorrect. However, even having said the above, as a Democrat I am at a bit of a loss to understand Santorum’s rise, any insight from our conservative brethren would be appreciated.
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All Things in Moderation 
ashot:
You all have an open primary, right? Are you going to vote?
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Mike,
Yep, but I’m just going to vote for Obama. You have to pick a ballot and your ballot choice (not the candidate you choose) is public.
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I think Santorum is candid and generally consistent (hard to explain his support of Arlen Specter, though). Makes some good points that resonate with conservatives, and is getting better at stumping. That being said, Romney isn’t all that popular, and the whole Republican field seems kind of anemic this time around, to me. But everybody running also has to believe they can beat an incumbent president when the deck is mostly stacked against them, from a historical trends standpoint. So thoughtful future candidates may be keeping their powder dry, leaving the reckless or the desperate to contend with each other.
In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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“But they believed government’s foremost calling was not to inculcate virtue but to prevent tyranny.”
That’s really what it boils down to for me. Because I don’t see how you use republican government (small R) to get people to be virtuous without force. What starts off as encouraging and cajoling never stays that way for long.
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I believe that Mike Huckabee would make a much better candidate for the social conservatives. I suspect that if he was running this year, there would be a good chance he could get the nomination with his combination of positions and executive experience.
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” I don’t see how you use republican government (small R) to get people to be virtuous without force.”
Is that the proper role of gov’t – if it could be done without force?
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encouraging/requiring
virtuousnessvirtue?LikeLike
Interesting column. It has some truth to it but also sets up some false conflicts, in my opinion. I think he quite oversells the dichotomy he wants to put in place between Washington/Adams and Madison/et al on this question.
Federalist 10 sets out some of Madison’s key thoughts on controlling “faction” through the various means built in to the Constitution. He argued that it was not possible to eliminate causes of faction, i.e., to make everyone virtuous all the time. But I think this hardly means he rejected any notion of encouraging virtue.
What I think confronts us is not just the question of whether government can or should promote virtue (people from Aristotle to Burke to George Will have said yes) but the consequences of a government that is affirmatively hostile and corrosive to virtue and civil society, and of course the question of whether government can properly favor “virtue” and if so where to find or define it. There has been a dichotomy within the conservative/libertarian sphere over questions like these for 50 years at least (as has there been on the other side albeit differently). Is there such a thing as neutrality? One point where organic and libertarian conservatives usually agree is that the bigger and more intrusive government becomes the more it cannot help not only reducing liberty but either promoting or undermining virtue, depending on one’s point of view.
There is another story out today about a new sex ed program for elementary schools. With government involved in this, there simply is no such thing as neutrality, and from the perspective of someone like me our federal and state governments have been actively hostile to civil society and virtue very often for a long time.
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ashot:
any insight from our conservative brethren would be appreciated.
I was the one who told you not to worry about Santorum, so you probably don’t want any of my, er, “insight”.
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so you probably don’t want any of my, er, “insight”.
Ha…I thought of mentioning that in my post, but decided to let you off the hook. Any guesses as to why you were so off in your advice?
QB- You raise some interesting points that I’ll get to later today, but for now I’m about to work on an exciting article on new regs passed by CMS!
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ashot:
Any guesses as to why you were so off in your advice?
It seems I’m an even worse political prognosticator than I am a market prognosticator. And God knows, I’m a horrible market prognosticator (my excellent advice to banned re treasuries some months ago notwithstanding). You mention the word “guess”. That notion probably has a lot to do with it.
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Scott:
It seems I’m an even worse political prognosticator than I am a market prognosticator.
As a recall, there was no disagreement with your advice from anyone here and I would imagine you would be hard pressed to find a political prognosticator anywhere that predicted Santorum’s rise, even after Iowa.
Mike:
BTW, thanks for the title of your post (not).I’ve had that darned song in my head all day now.
I wonder how many posts in a row I could make that put catchy songs in people’s heads.
Hey, did you see that Christopher Plummer finally got an Oscar?
I did and was very happy to see it.
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This, for example, seems to me to be a false construct:
“Goldwater and Reagan, and Madison and Jefferson, were saying that if you restrain government, you will strengthen society and foster virtue. Santorum is saying something more like the reverse: If you shore up the family, you will strengthen the social fabric and ultimately reduce dependence on government.”
I think part of where Rauch goes wrong is in identifying a laundry list of programs and policies that Santorum has advocated with organic conservatism. They aren’t the same thing. A government that protects and fosters civil society is not synonymous with a big and intrusive government. It is more naturally a government that does not undermine and tear down civil society. In this, there is a case to be made that Santorum is indeed a bit confused and infected with modern liberalism that he mistakes for conservatism. (The same has been said of Newt.)
The real conflict is with modern liberalism. [Disclaimer: provocative conservative claims ahead.] Modern liberalism does not just want to leave civil society alone but finds it all too messy, smelly, biased, bigoted, and unfair. Civil society is “mean” and in need of “change.” Family and community are good, but family and community are also unfair. They give unfair advantages and are exclusionary. So is marriage. Civil society’s concepts of marriage and family are seen as biased, politicized, and harmful. They unfairly exclude other relationships that some want to call marriage and family. So the state is enlisted to break down and level these institutions. Notions of duty first to family and community are seen as parochial and detrimental to the proper focus on “global” concern. Family inheritance is scorned. Unfair! We must break up family wealth and redistribute it.
In hundreds of ways, like this, big government is in truth an enemy of civil society in modern America, and when most of the struggle takes place on that ground, where civil society is affirmatively under seige, debating who is a proper representative of “conservatism” is a bit hypothetical and beside the point.
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QB- You raise some interesting points that I’ll get to later today, but for now I’m about to work on an exciting article on new regs passed by CMS!
Oh, really, that’s inte…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Off to write on securities litigation. How I need more minions.
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to ash — I feel your pain.
what regs?
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Nova- Actually, I lucked out a bit. I am tacking on a brief synopsis of the “60 Day Rule” regs to an article written by a partner that the AHLA was already going to publish. So I get co-author credit with minimal work. The biggest problem is keeping my synopsis down to around 400 words (the original article is only 900 words or so). Not sure I can do much other than give the definition of “identified” and mention the 10 year look back period.
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ashot:
You have to pick a ballot and your ballot choice (not the candidate you choose) is public.
Worried that people will associate you with the GOP? (snark)
BTW, thanks for the title of your post (not). I’ve had that darned song in my head all day now. Hey, did you see that Christopher Plummer finally got an Oscar?
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“How I need more minions.”
I got an intern a few weeks ago. It’s life changing.
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What is the definition of civil society?
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I would just write “10 year look back period” 80 times and call it a day
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I would just write “10 year look back period” 80 times and call it a day
I hope you are having your new intern write any articles for you.
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Hmmm…Michigan democrats are criticizing republicans because this primary is publicly funded.
Apparently it is costing Michigan taxpayers 10 million dollars to hold the primary when a caucus would have cost nothing. I had never thought about this issue at all. Do many other states save this money by having caucuses?
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I was thinking of having the intern write some posts.
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nova, if the intern’s posts show up here saying the same thing 80 times, we may have to request a new Troll Blocker from kevin.
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What’ll we do with a problem like Santorum.
Such a musical question. He hit the airwaves big time over the weekend. He said that a Kennedy campaign speech made him want to throw up. That problem can be solved with education. Kennedy was not suggesting that religious people be denied access to the village square any more than John Winthrop did. Winthrop responded to the Church’s interference in secular affairs by telling them that they can make all the points they want, but he is in no way forced to accept them. That was in 1644 I think. So even then the concept of Church/State Separation was clear. Because Obama suggested that all Americans should be able to go to College this makes the President a “snob.” I think this has been broached with the “all people need an education beyond high school” retort. However, what was very interesting is Santorum’s claim that these are institutions of liberal indoctrination. He claimed that people did not like his conservative views at Penn State. It might be more a matter of Santorum’s inability to defend his positions and the psychological effect this had on him. Santorum is a problem for himself and for those not educated beyond high school?
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Scott:
I was the one who told you not to worry about Santorum, so you probably don’t want any of my, er, “insight”.
If only you knew how hard I’ve been biting my tongue for a couple of weeks now. . . 😉
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I was tempted to start a thread titled What A Snob as I was struck by how universally Santorum’s remarks have been pilloried. There were three columns alone in today’s Post going after him from columnists left, right and center. The odd thing is that the better Rick does, the angrier he gets. And, unlike for Newt, it seems to be working for him. I suspect that’s because Newt’s pique was perceived to be personal, whereas Rick’s is class based.
QB – Some of the diatribe makes sense (not that I agree), but others don’t. Inheritance taxes have been steadily decreased in and there’s presently a $5M exemption with a 35% rate above that. A haircut to be sure, but most taxation is based upon taking a cut when money is exchanged. It’s not going to break up family fortunes, particularly when estate planning to reduce tax bill is considered. Yes, I’m sure you can find the occasional quote from some firebrand professor, but you didn’t say “some liberals”, you said “modern liberalism”. Heck, if the point is to break up fortunes, why hasn’t anyone introduced a wealth tax?
The point of legalizing gay marriage is not to break up existing marriages. If anything, it is to extend the benefits to a group of individuals and their children. A clear analogy in intent can be made to the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws. You can certainly disagree with the current proposals (as did many conservatives back then), but it is not an attack on the institution.
BB
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FB,
The fact that the estate tax is not higher than it is does not change the fact that preventing or limiting inheritance of wealth is an idea associated with what I called here modern liberalism. Call it progressivism if you want. The point is conservatism in contrast views the passing on of family wealth as a positive good and something that is a matter of right. As a generalization, modern liberalism is hostile to this view, and you don’t need to dig to find a lone firebrand professor somewhere to say this. It is all over the media. Liberal media and politicians have criticized the American system just in recent months on the ground that inherited wealth is supposedly more common here than in other countries. Democrats do defend estate taxes, and many want to increase them, for the very reasons I’ve said.
I did not say that the point of legalizing gay marriage is to break up existing marriages. That is a typical straw man. The ideology behind the gay marriage crusade holds that traditional marriage is an arbitrary construct: it is exclusionary and unfair to privilege opposite-sex relationships this way, unless someone can scientifically and definitively “prove” otherwise. That marriage has been structured this way in society based on spontaneous arrangement, tradition, morality, and religion is taken by modern liberalism as a damning set of facts rather than as one worthy of respect. That is the basic difference.
By simply asserting that gay marriage is analogous to inter-racial marriage and isn’t an attack on the instution, you are dodging the issue (both the specific issue and the larger issue of the contrast in world views). To you it may seem inconsequential suddenly to say, for the first time in history, well, there’s really nothing essentially male-female about marriage, and no reason we can’t redefine it to “include” same-sex relationships. To a conservative, however, this as radical an assault on civil society as one could imagine. Indeed, not long ago it was almost unimaginable. You may not be immediately breaking up existing marriages, but you are certainly redefining them as something else, and in the long run, by saying that we no longer recognize marriage and family for what they were, you denigrate and undermine them. (Other strands of modern liberalism simply attack marriage and family straight on as fundamentally oppressive and exploitative structures.)
All this happens in the name of leveling and breaking down the meaning and integrity of institutions of civil society. Similarly, the government now wants to tell a church what is and isn’t properly a matter of its faith mission. (Catholic hospitals aren’t “really” essential to the faith. It’s unfair to let them escape our mandate to give everyone contraception, since they have too much “power” over employees.) And my main point about all this here is that there is a much greater divide between left and right than there is among constituents of the right.
Addendum: To try to make one these points more clearly, the “attack” on marriage and family does not come in the form of saying, “Let’s abolish them,” but in the form of saying, “Let’s make them fair for everyone,” which means redefining them.
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“So the state is enlisted to break down and level these institutions.”
You used the term “break down”, not “break up”. I am welcome to any distinction you would care to draw between these phrases. I assert the adding the few percent of same sex relationships in no way breaks down existing marriages. It does add legitimacy to these relationships as well as to the offspring of these relationships. As gay couples can adopt and lesbian couples can conceive, there are families with same sex parents.
I agree with you that inclusion of non-monogous relationships lies in the same category. Of course, there is a millennia old tradition of multiple partner marriages, principally one man and multiple women. The notion that it must be one man and one woman is modern.
BB
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The notion that it must be one man and one woman is modern.
And more compatible with the role of children in modern society, as well as the respective mortality rates of childbirth, and what happens to children if their mother dies, etc.
In the modern day, I imagine legalized polygamy would have to recognize any number of marriage partners in a group marriage, so it would not be legally constrained as to how many men and women were involved, or discriminate against a marriage of three women to each other.
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I think I did a decent job of explaining what I meant by breaking down and levelling, and the intentions behind it. I’m not sure I can do a lot better. There are examples in history of regimes directly attacking and “breaking up” institutions. The Bolsheviks mounted something of a direct assault on marriage. In fact, the rejection of marriage and family as a whole has essentially always been associated with socialism. Marx was an avowed enemy of it.
In our case, instead of a direct assault, judges and legislators are, at the bidding of activists, redefining the institution. No longer a union of a man and a woman but a contract between any two people. No longer a recognition of the relationship type that produces children but simply any two people who want to “share their lives,” including same-sex relationships that by definition will never produce children. Contrary to your characterization, there are no “offspring of these relationships.” Children adopted or conceived by lesbians are not such offspring. I’m always amazed that proponents of gay marriage are so complacent about the idea that children who end up in these families really don’t need a mother or father but are just as well off with two of either. But in any event when you redefine the institution to be something lesser and different from what it was, you cheapen it.
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The Bolsheviks mounted something of a direct assault on marriage. In fact, the rejection of marriage and family as a whole has essentially always been associated with socialism. Marx was an avowed enemy of it.
As are many married men and women. 😉
However, institutions do change. Marriage has changed often over the years, and may again, based on the overall thrust of the culture, aided by monomaniacal activists but not because of them.
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“In fact, the rejection of marriage and family as a whole has essentially always been associated with socialism”
Of course, same sex couples aren’t rejecting marriage or family, they are trying to have their marriages and families formally recognized. This seems to be the opposite of whatever slights Marx had towards the institution.
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Which is why I made that distinction, but the distinction is very slight, and the end results are similar. Those who want to redefine and those who would simply abolish it are functionally in service of the same goals based on similar “critiques” of society and marriage.
At a very simple level, there isn’t any way to deny that by redefining marriage to include same-sex relationships you are in fact abolishing the special status of marriage as it has existed until now.
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Those who want to redefine and those who would simply abolish it are functionally in service of the same goals based on similar “critiques” of society and marriage.
I suspect there are those on the far left who are actually in agreement with any on the right, that opening up marriage to include alternative lifestyles is, in effect, a deconstruction of marriage as an institution, and is one step along the bath of deconstructing all the historically oppressive traditions of Western culture, such as the nuclear family, two-parent households, traditional gender roles (whatever those are), and committed relationships, generally. David Horowitz relays a story in one of his books about attending a wedding where the wedding cake had the words “Smash Monogamy” on the cake (the marriage, as it turns out, didn’t last), and noted that the same people looking to subvert marriage (and committed relationships, generally) at that “wedding” were the same folks he saw arguing for SSM, later on.
However, I suspect there are many people who feel their romantic relationships are as committed and as valid as any heterosexual couple’s, and thus they should be entitled to the same legal and social recognition as to the legitimacy of their claims.
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I see SSM as a reinforcement of the institution of marriage. In the 60s and 70s there was a lot of rhetoric about not ‘needing a piece of paper’ to cement a relationship. Then people found out that these pieces of paper are of value in a lot realms, both legal and social.
Marriage as an institution is actually held in higher regard than it was a generation ago. That types of relationships traditionally excluded now want to be included is a sign of the power of the relationship from both an emotional and legal point of view. The key to marriage is that it formalizes a lifetime commitment (honored more in the breach by contemporary heterosexuals) in a social context. This sort of community building should be encouraged and appreciated.
My cousin and her girlfriend are getting married this June and it is being treated as a big event because it celebrates a union and a commitment even if it won’t be ‘legal’ in Maryland by that date.
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I see SSM as a reinforcement of the institution of marriage.
I’ll be interested to see if it is; it’s clearly on the way, though it would seem there have been some folks who would prefer to deconstruct all traditional social constructs, marriage included, and whether or not they viewed marriage as legitimizing certain relationships, or the expansion of marriage to include alternative lifestyles as a watering-down of a traditional social institution as a baby-step towards completely deconstructing marriage and the traditional nuclear family, hasn’t always been clear to me.
Although as we expand marriage to include same-sex couples, I’m not sure what sort of rational can be used to continue to exclude other (indeed, once “traditional”) forms of marriages, such as polygamy, or marriage between relatives, other than the lack of sane people demanding more complicated and likely rancorous marriages(polygamy), and the complete lack of contemporary demand for interfamily marriage.
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There is an interesting semantic evolution going on. Polygamy has a certain notoriety fueled by its association with Mormon fundamentalists and is seen as a patriarchal construct especially since it seems to involve one man with multiple increasingly younger ‘wives’.
The more modern Portlandia-ish term is polyamory which divorces it slightly linguistically from the construct of marriage. In this form (or at least the variety most often touted by Dan Savage, my only reliable source here), there is a primary relationship (which may or may not involve a legally married couple) and secondary relationships which could be opposite sex or same sex and have one or both of the primary-bonded couples as partners. It all gets very confusing very quickly as the permutations spiral exponentially. While SSM could eventually open the doors to some sort of legal recognition of polyamorous relationships, the ephemeral nature of the secondary bonds makes it seem to have a diminishing returns aspect to recognizing the permanence of the arrangement.
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It all gets very confusing very quickly as the permutations spiral exponentially.
Which is why I suspect that even if the logical thing happens, and polygamy is legalized, there won’t be that many practitioners.
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As a predictive tool, the science fiction series Caprica assumed the existence and acceptance of both same-sex and group family arrangements. Of course, in this series, monotheists were evil terrorists, so take that any way you want.
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Of course, in this series, monotheists were evil terrorists, so take that any way you want.
It was also the position of the series that everybody smoked. A lot.
Caprica was a great series, and the 2nd season looked to be much better than the 1st. Too bad SyFy pulled the plug. I would have loved to have at least seen season 2.
I would expect there would be a wide variety of social arrangements and covenants, if the human race was spread across 13 colonies, many of them with populations in the billions. You’d have a trillion people, very geographically and politically disparate . . .
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I imagine legalized polygamy would have to recognize any number of marriage partners in a group marriage,
The easy way to do that is to make marriage non-exclusive so that a polygamous relationship would be a series of interlocking bilateral relationships. But it could make tax forms very confusing. And open up a whole new profit center for probate attorneys.
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It was also the position of the series that everybody smoked. A lot.
The series creator Ronald D. Moore is a notorious chain smoker so perhaps this reflects his personal habits. And maybe the Galactiverse equivalent of tobacco is not as unhealthy as the Earth version.
According to Wikipedia, 50 billion people were killed in the Cylon attack in the rebooted series. There never seemed to be enough Battlestars to carry that off, but I guess you only needed one per colony.
I too miss not having season two to watch. Supposedly there is a interquel (post-Caprica, pre-BSG) series in the works with more space duels which would sit better with SyFy’s monster-movie-of-the-week demographic niche.
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