On paper, I should be a progressive voter. I am an agnostic. I am a woman in my 20s with an Ivy League graduate degree and liberal arts background.
But I’m a conservative. I vote for Republicans because I believe they have the best strategies for where the country should be headed fiscally, militarily and culturally.
Secular conservatives like me are in a bind. We want to work with religious conservatives because we agree with them on most issues. We respect the ethical contributions from many faith traditions, which inspire millions to seek the public good. But we’re troubled by the religious right’s dominance over the conservative movement, a trend that repels rational, independent-minded folks who see religious zealotry as anathema to the Founding Fathers’ pluralistic vision.
There quite truly is one, and only one, long-term sustainable American political position:
a) solid on defence and security
b) fiscally, rather conservative
c) socially, more or less libertarian
Republicans remain good on A, have for more than a decade abandoned B, and are brow-beaten by evangelicals on C.
Democrats have been miserable on A for the last 40 years, opposed to B for the last century, and think that being queer or killing your baby should be the only social choices not determined by government.
No wonder Ms Sheffield is conflicted.
I don’t know where to start. So when that inevitable time comes when the secularists come to power the Republicans indistinguishable from Democrats.
Well said, Bart.
Libertarian? This is what has gotten us into all this trouble in the first place. This sound society starts and keeps self discipline and self restrain, and this means that in ALL policies, the strong force is conservative. Not Republican please, conservative, quite a different creature.
What we have come to need is a third party. The libertarian Democrats have been a disaster, socially and economically, year after year. The Republicans have shown themselves unable to recognize or find a use for ideas. The are good at objection and blocking, but devoid of new thoughts that seek new solutions. Both parties have become mantra-ridden, locked in a winless battle if agendas. What does it take to create a new party whose primary goal is solutions?
Larry
#1
a) The size of the military budget went up during both Democrats and Republicans. The fact is that there’s a lot of waste in the military; and that there are many forms of security. There are reasonable critiques, and not one single path. For example, there are legitimate arguments to say that communism would have died anyway without invading Vietnam; that undermining arab secularism in the 1950’s and 60’s created an unfortunate blowback in the form of Islamic Fundamentalism (say, supporting Osama Bin Laden during the 1970’s and early eighties didn’t do us any favors); and that our love of dictatorships didn’t endear us to most of Latin America. Perhaps a less belligerent Foreign policy and we would have seen what we have now in Chile and Brazil (centrist, mixed market economies), just without the suffering.
b) fiscally conservative sounds like a very good idea. But what does that mean? Does it mean paying for wars but not expecting people to pay taxes? The problem is that the American People want benefits and support wars, but don’t like to sacrifice much for them. And although Americans have been paying into social security, there seems to be the idea that they are entitlements rather than aln element of the social contract. Personally, I think fiscal conservatism might require responsible funding of government auditors and regulators in order to hold contractors and bureaucrats responsible. That requires some kinds of taxes. But when people have the idea that government, in itself – its own people – cannot even be expected to manage it well, then the pygmalion effect comes into play. Those who don’t want the government to run well, will destroy the government. They will mismanage it deliberately and then accuse the government of mismanagement.
c) is that really the case? It seems a bit hyperbolic.
A republican party that was fiscally responsible and built up communities rather than played to special interests; and had a strong defense (and supported a national draft), would be good enough for me.