As always, Ramesh is spot on:

People often talk about the uniting of traditionalists, anti-Communists, and libertarians in the 1950s. It is somewhat amazing, from today’s vantage point, that there were self-described “traditionalists” at all in the ’50s, given the cultural distance we have traveled since then. If the modern Right has betrayed its forebears it is by mellowing, not growing fiercer, on what are now called “social issues.” And of course you are also correct to suggest that it is a little odd to see treatments of social conservatives that treat them as a strange and unfamiliar new growth in American society when it is, of course, social liberalism that is the novelty that brought the “social issues” into being in the first place.

Social scientists are learning that conservatives have more of a sense of humor than liberals do.

(May I suggest they focus their further researches here, here, and here?)

From Little Green Footballs, about a week ago:

If the GOP decides to go in the Bobby Jindal direction (fundamental Christianity, creationism, hard-line anti-abortionism, aggressively anti-gay rights), it will be committing political suicide. As much as anything else, this election was a referendum on the social conservative agenda, and the social conservatives did not win.

I really don’t understand the logic here. Was this election at all about social issues? From what I saw, social issues were very rarely discussed — the primary issues were the economic crisis and the Iraq War. McCain rarely brought up social issues unless prompted, and Obama, for his part, didn’t harp on them either. So how on earth was this a referendum on the social conservative agenda?

Furthermore, given that Proposition 8 passed in California, as did several other socially conservative initiatives and referendums, it is extremely difficult to see how connection can be drawn to widespread distaste for of the social conservative agenda. There is absolutely no logic to this line of argument — it’s the same old tripe we constantly hear from libertarian-leaning Republicans.

Ross Douthat continues to embarass Kmiec.

Well done, good sir. Well done.

Excellent cartoon.

Being out of power is certainly no fun, but the theme music isn’t too shabby:

The Republican Party must return to its roots and become a truly conservative party again.  And it must be a principled, well-rounded conservatism.  There is no reason we must sacrifice economic interests in favor of cultural issues or vice versa.  We can do it all.

But we must also recognize a thing or two before we attempt to advance a more truly conservative agenda. (more…)

Y’all can guess what I think of David Frum’s suggestion that the only way for the GOP to remain competitive is to “change” on “abortion” and be ”less overtly religious . . . and less polarizing on social issues [translation: staying true to prolife principles].”

Let me make something clear to Frum and his D.C./NYC Rockefeller Republican wine-sipping elitist buddies: The GOP is doomed without social conservatives. We didn’t lose this election because the GOP is too socially conservative. We lost it because, inter alia, we selected a wishy-washy moderate Republican to be our standard bearer.

I can count the number of times John McCain spoke about abortion in this election on one hand. It is simply ridiculous for Frum or anyone else to suggest that voters rejected McCain or our party because of abortion or other social issues.  

It could be, David, that voters rejected McCain and the GOP this election cycle because we’ve been spending like Democrats for the past eight years. It might also be that we have failed as a party to articulate a vision for the country in the same way that President-elect Obama has done. These seem to me to be the most likely reasons, but Frum is apparently convinced that the SoCon wing of the GOP is what prevents the party from future electoral success. And I know he is not alone.

Well, to Frum and his ilk all I can say is “have at it.” I hope y’all enjoy being in the permanent minority. Because if you think for one moment that people like me will remain in the GOP if the party abandons its prolife principles, you’re sadly mistaken. I will gladly take my leave, and watch Rome burn from the sidelines.

Some very, very confused people.  Especially Mr. “Pro-Life”.

Earlier this month Gertrude Himmelfarb gave a lecture at AEI on Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France.  Audio and video are now available here.

Leave it to a Canadian to come up with the best explanation I’ve seen regarding the current Conservative schism over the bailout. A taste:

If he were to rise from the dead today, Marx might be delighted to discover that most economists and financial commentators, including many who claim to favour the free market, agree with him.

Indeed, analysts at the Heritage and Cato Institute, and commentators in The Wall Street Journal and on this very page, have made declarations in favour of the massive “injection of liquidities” engineered by central banks in recent months, the government takeover of giant financial institutions, as well as the still stalled US$700-billion bailout package. Some of the same voices were calling for similar interventions following the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2001.

“Whatever happened to the modern followers of my free-market opponents?” Marx would likely wonder.

What, indeed.

The risk-adverse side of me wants to see Congress pump $700,000,000,000.00 into the private sector. When bad things are happening, I think it is natural to want to see a proactive approach — to do something. What is tough for me is recognizing that my bailout desire is a product of fear, and not a reasoned decision based on what is best in the long term. Let’s face it, any Adam Smith worshipper should cringe at the thought of a “government bailout” of private markets.

That said, there is an argument for doing nothing, and it is an interesting one.

Howard Fineman has declared the “bailout” to be the end of Reagan-era conservative economic politics, and I believe he may be right. While we have been running around in circles over the upcoming election, the music stopped, and Conservatives are the ones without a chair. (more…)

Just thinking out loud here for a bit — One of the most persistent criticisms I hear of originalism as a method of judicial interpretation (and I wouldn’t call other methods so much “interpretation” as “allowing judges to make stuff up”) is that it frequently doesn’t reach definite answers.  You can have drastically different results regarding may serious Constitutional questions.

This argument has always bothered me because, even if Originalism does not preclude all but one interpretation, it does normally narrow the field of what interpretations are acceptable to a large degree. Moreover, even within the sphere of Originalism, some interpretations are more reasonable than others.

Constitutional jurisprudence should, in my mind, be about finding the most reasonable interpretation in light of the language of the Constitution at the time the relevant passage was ratified, bearing in mind that people in the 18th and 19th centuries frequently had different expectations and worldviews than we do. Accordingly, just because a person’s libertarian impulses might want the Constitution to protect smut or profanity doesn’t mean that’s what the First Amendment was intended for.

In any event, without Originalism we wind up with a branch of government that gets to make up its own mission depending on the views of its individual members. No matter how that mission is crafted, it will ultimately lend itself to antidemocratic abuses so long as the text isn’t given a field of meaning to which the Court must adhere.

I have learned some things in the past few days. I thought I was a Conservative, but it now appears I was wrong. For years I have been committed to things like civil liberties (including the right to life), true federalism, limited government, low taxes, and free markets, and I thought that those beliefs were enough to get me into Conservative Heaven where I could drink a beer with Reagan and discuss the Laffer Curve. It turns out, that I was wrong. A sizable chunk of the “Conservative” orthodoxy around here have made a concerted effort to show me the error of my ways, and I, who had thought myself on the side of the angels, find that I am really a defeatist, Obama-loving, pinko Commie. (more…)

Novelist Andrew Klavan is being interviewed on Uncommon Knowledge this week.  He also has a cool website/blog.

Harry Stein has some thoughts on “The Future of Conservative Books” in the summer 2008 City Journal.

An American Carol opens nationwide on October 3.

The Goode Family, Mike Judge’s new project, is scheduled to debut on ABC in November or next spring, depending on which website you read.

An on the money blog post by Jonathan V. Last at First Things:

There are reasonable criticisms that can be made of Sarah Palin, both as governor and a vice presidential selection. Yet little of what we have seen in the last six days has been either reasonable or critical (in the traditional sense of the word). Instead, much of the left and many in the media simply lashed out at Palin, particularly at her family.

And not only the fringiest parts of the political fringe: A writer at the Washington Post attacked Palin for the fact that her seventeen-year-old daughter was going to have a baby. A writer for The Atlantic openly questioned whether or not Palin’s four-month-old baby, who has Down’s Syndrome, was actually hers. The utterly unfounded suggestion was that the baby was Palin’s daughter’s and that the governor had faked her pregnancy. Proof of the baby’s birth was demanded.

(more…)

I gotta say, this is a disturbing and devastating takedown of NRLC.

I want to be Ramesh Ponnuru–my generation’s William F. Buckley Jr.

Happy b-day, bro.

What a complete and total jackass.

I am loathe to post an editorial from Glenn Beck here. It’s sort of like serving Vienna Sausages (pronounced “Vi-in-ah” where I come from) and Saltines to a bunch of food critics. That said, I was stunned to discover that of all the bright lights in DC, Beck is the one who gets it. My fav:

Although I am a “conservative,” I’m not a “Republican,” and there’s a big difference. A true Republican, or a true Democrat, is someone who puts their party above their principles and their candidate above their conscience.

Bonus: Beck does a fair job of defining conservatism.

Join their new Readers Club for the low, low price of $15 and you get

Over at the American Spectator blog, there has been quite a bit of talk about the price the GOP and the Bush presidency has paid for Gersonism (AKA Heroic or Big Government Conservatism).  The discussion has been pretty critical of the Gerson philosophy.  I chimed in with the following and would love the see the reactions around here:

I’m not here to defend Gersonism, but I think it is fair to say Gersonism is not responsible for the terrible brand value of George W. Bush.  Gersonism is probably very popular with the American people and would have served as a decent platform for a mix of school choice, welfare reform, pro-marriage policies, etc.  All the momentum that was building nicely on those fronts has regrettably dissipated in two terms dedicated largely to foreign policy.

The problem with the Bush administration in the eyes of public has been and remains Iraq.  It isn’t discussed frequently enough, but I really believe the American people were not prepared for the type of war this has been.  They thought it would be quickly prosecuted and that the reconstruction effort would be largely funded out of Iraqi oil revenues.

Instead, it has been long, expensive, and if it was a case of blood for oil, certainly doesn’t seemed to have helped us on the price of the commodity!

Professor Kerr nails it:

Let me paint with a very broad brush and offer my best explanation. The primary reason, I think, is the nature of the Supreme Court’s docket in the last fifty years. During that period, most high profile Supreme Court constitutional law decisions have considered whether to ban practices embraced by conservatives rather than whether to ban practices embraced by liberals. For conservatives — especially social conservatives, and especially religious conservatives — the question has been whether the courts will allow their views, not whether the courts will mandate them. (more…)

My kind of state.

It’s not Georgia. mind you. But Missouri is an honorary Southern state in my book.

Professor Zywicki has an interesting review of what appears to be a fascinating book.

I am pleased to see that my reposting of ”Who we are instead” generated two excellent, thought-provoking responses by Joel and Centinel. Needless to say, this is an important topic, and I am interested in hearing what others have to say about the future of conservatism in these United States.

So, in addition to any comments generated by the posts noted supra, I invite other bloggers/readers to submit their own posts on “The future of the GOP and Conservatism,” which I will link to or republish in this master post.

My hope is that these posts will spark discussion in the conservative blogosphere, and help us visualize where we need to go from here.

It’s about ideas and principles, folks. It always has been.

Never one to shirk away from aping my betters, I just want to say that I agree wholeheartedly with Joel and Feddie. I also have enough hubris to think I can wrap it all up in a neat package: We do not need pro lifers, pro gunners, and anti taxers. What we need is a return to what our forefathers believed. We need to have an overriding philosophy. Part of the problem is that we keep electing people by using a checklist. Is she pro-life? Does he agree that estate taxes are morally reprehensible? While we are quibbling over details, politicians on both sides of the aisle are making off with the store. I do not think I have to detail how far we have slid in 230 years. Suffice to say that our federal government has become the black hole at the center of our political universe — sucking in powers and rights that were once reserved to the states and growing exponentially with each passing year. Republicans now routinely vote for multitrillion dollar budgets loaded with home-district perks. They support massive new spending programs and encourage more and more regulation under the name of “security” or “fair elections.” The party is fat, dumb, and despondent. It has somehow found its way out of the Promised Land and back into the wilderness where it will remain for another 40 years if something does not change. (more…)

I read Feddie’s thoughtful post below and I believe he makes some good points. He is absolutely correct that the Republican Party lost its way after the 1994 elections. The party that promised limited government and restrained spending in The Contract with America ultimately morphed into the pork barrel party that lost the majority in 2006. I also agree with Feddie that what is needed for the Republican Party to resume the majority is a committed return to first principles. Feddie lists these principles as the following: (1) promoting family values and protecting innocent life; (2) personal and national defense; and (3) fiscal responsibility.

Although I agree that the above principles are important they represent only a partial list. The Republican Party must also be the party of limited government and taxation as well as personal freedom. Furthermore, fiscal responsibility, while important, is not really an end in itself. You could have a fiscally responsible large invasive government that meets its budget through high taxation. Conservatives need to promote fiscal responsibility within the context of a more limited government. (more…)