This is an addendum of sorts to my post from earlier today. It is in response to those who are currently encouraging conservatives to "stand on principle" and vote for Ron Paul, or to just refuse to vote altogether, in protest against a GOP that appears to have abandoned its conservative principles because they are too "liberal" fiscally. While you won't hear any disagreement from ME on that score, I have to argue that they have picked the wrong half of their platform to cling to, and it is killing them as much (if not more) than their RINO tendencies when it comes to tax and spend policies (or immigration).
Spending soooo much time harping on social issues like gay marriage and abortion--issues that no real "conservative" would really want the Federal government to deal with in the first place, never mind make such a huge part of their platform--has also turned the party into a contradiction. On the one hand they're saying "Get the government out of my business, my wallet, my dinner plate (since they--Thank God--still have the good sense to stay out of the Nanny State business where babysitting our waislines is concerned)," and on the other they seem to be saying "but c'mon in to my BEDROOM, and while you're at it, tell me what to do with my UTERUS!"
Anyone find something STRANGE about this?
And let me remind you, this criticism is coming from a woman who is religiously pro-life (literally and figuratively), and who believes the word "marriage" is a Biblical term referring to the union of ONE MAN and ONE WOMAN.
How then can I be so angry at these politicians you ask? Because to me, being a "conservative" means being CONSISTENT about wanting the Federal Government to BACK THE HELL OFF! I don't want gay marriage not because I'm against gay rights. On the contrary! I think the only way to fairly ensure that we don't deny gays their full civil rights is for the government to get OUT of the marriage business altogether! They're job is to PROTECT rights, and amongst those are the rights of RELIGIOUS institutions to refuse to "marry" whoever they want to refuse, gay, straight, whatever. Another right they ought to be protecting is the right of individuals of legal consenting age to CONTRACT with each other, for whatever purpose they see fit! Want to keep men from marrying their dogs? Don't make "marriage" a civil right, make legally binding CIVIL UNION one instead! Take love and sex out of the equation, since when did the government have a stake in these things anyway?? Where in the Constitution does it say that the Federal (or state government for that matter) shall have the right to decide who may be permitted to form a household with whom? Wasn't the introduction of that particular "authority" a racist move to keep whites from marrying blacks? Yeah, ya think we can do away with that now (or at the very least not associate ourselves as conservatives with something that was SURELY a Dixiecrat invention once upon a time)? I think so!
See that's where the Democrats are more "honest" in a way than the GOP. When they go off the reservation, demanding powers they don't have and shouldn't get, they are being CONSISTENT. They want to be the authority on just about everything we do and say, and marriage is no different. They would love nothing more than to put religious institutions into civil rights violators (those that would not comply with their new "laws" guaranteeing the "right" for gays to "marry"). And the GOP are feeding right into this by putting those of us in the middle, those of us who want to protect "marriage" but who really don't care if Jim wants to share his stuff and his kids legally with Joe, those of us who don't feel that this particular arrangement in any way threatens our "marriages." Now what are we supposed to do? If we support their all-or-nothing stance, we feel like irrational bigots, and for those of us who are truly devoted to following Christ (as opposed to using Him as a tool with which to judge and beat others into feeling and being less than we), this is as unacceptable as it is to the average raging liberal!
The GOP doesn't seem to care that we and those on the left with whom we reluctantly sympathize on this issue are in the MAJORITY in this country right now. They are more intent on capturing the votes of the 25% of the people who still think Bush is the savior of the world (and that Jesus will be arriving for a second time THIS WEEK perhaps, leaving cars and airplanes to crash as the faithful are sucked up to heaven, or something...) than they are about actually being anything resembling "conservative." There's nothing "conservative" about authoritarianism! It's just the flip side of today's liberal, making yourself into a busy-body in another way, but busy-body you still are.
So why is this such a huge problem? Why is appealing to the so-called "base" so detrimental to our conservative cause? Because it practically FORCES us to cave on the fiscal and defense policies that--for some bizarre reason--the overwrought "base" seems to have put lower on their priority lists. In order to keep this minority happy (like our foes on the other side) we have sold our souls (quite literally) and turned ourselves into their holier-than-thou twin, separated at birth. Instead of learning from their mistakes and watching how their march to the left is hurting them by alienating the vast middle, we are in a race to catch up with them, running as fast as we can off the cliff in the opposite direction. It's MADNESS!
Anyway, my New Year's plea is that we not "stand on principle" if our principles are going to be nothing more than the inverse of the social busy-bodies on the left who want to tell us how to raise our kids and what to eat, drink, drive and feel about our country. Let's get out of the busy-body business, and get back in the BUSINESS business--the business of running this country, properly, and as near as I can tell, that has less than nothing to do with telling individual people whom to love or what to believe about God.
Posted by insomnomaniac at December 31, 2007 4:01 PM | TrackBack