Virginia Centrist: Where are the staunch social conservatives?
Virginia Centrist asks the burning question as to where the social conservatives are in the Virginia blogosphere:Why are Virginia's conservative bloggers more socially libertarian than the rest of the state? I'm not trying to claim that they support gay marriage or abortion rights. I'm just saying that for most VA Conservative bloggers, social issues are not at the forefront of their focus. They usually say "live and let die." Shaun Kenney, Jim Bacon, Will Vehrs, Chad Dotson, Norm Leahy, etc - their main focus is on issues of taxation and spending, not hot button social issues.
This of course differs from most of our Republican elected officials.
By all accounts, social conservatives make up 30-35% of the electorate. So where are the social conservative bloggers? Where is the "Pro-life now!" blog to call out Republicans who vote for abortion rights (if you're pro-life, you believe that abortion is murder, so aren't these Republicans are supporting murder)? Where is the "Stop the Homosexual Agenda!" blog (a real one). What about prayer in school? How will our children learn moral behavior unless someone starts a "Get Prayer Back in School!" Blog. These are the pressing social issues of our time. Why isn't the conservative blogosphere addressing them? Sorry to disappoint!
I'd agree 100% that most of us weigh in as a bit more libertarian (lowercase l) then most. That having been said, VC and others miss the big picture.
As Republicans in general are looking for that long pole of our big tent, the marketplace of Republican ideas has settled on one: limited government in both size and scope.
How does that translate into social conservative issues? Easy.
(1) Pro-life issues. What do you think happens when government stops funding Planned Parenthood, condom distribution programs, sex education programs that advocate "safe sex" alternatives that arguably cheapen individuals into objects for sex, etc? Get government out of the picture, and now pro-abortion liberals have to contend with the marketplace of ideas without the assistance of government funding. I don't think they can compete.
As a Catholic, you can bet I took Kaine to task for his personally pro-life, yet publically pro-abortion stance. The atrifice constructed by pro-abortion extremists who consider the killing of a baby to be morally just or acceptable wouldn't survive a day without the crutch of government-imposed funding.
What's even more egregious, the fact that most abortions happen to either (a) the underprivileged, (b) the undereducated, or (c) to minority women doesn't mean that choice is the prime concern -- it means we're consciously exterminating the underclass as policy. That's wrong. Let me debate the crackpot liberal who'll honestly defend that kind of barbarism, please.
(2) Homosexual marriage. Yet another institution that wouldn't survive without the sanction of government. Flat out: it doesn't exist. There's no such thing. It's a square peg in a round hole. I don't care what people do in the privacy of their own homes, and if you want to get "married" in a gay church, by all means. But obtaining the imprimatur of the state? What gives? Quo vadis?
(3) Prayer in school. Even better - give me a voucher so I can send my kid to a school of my choice. I absolutely love the rationale liberals use that argues "hey, you shouldn't have the choice to send your kid to the school you want, but if you wanted to kill them in the womb... now THAT'S a choice!"
Pathetic.
So why haven't we been addressing them? I think it's a question of first things. Note that not a single one of the solutions I have proffered involves the interference of big government. In fact, they subsist in the de-evolution of functions traditionally held by society and confiscated by socialist-minded government-cures-all types.
All of these solutions do have one common theme. Government is involved in our lives way too much, and a limited government that quits addressing every social problem is the best form of governance. I'd be more than happy to extend this into chairties and non-profit organizations being superior to the vast entitlement system that is bankrupting our government, both federally and statewide.
What I find more revealing is the total lack of left-wing radicals in the Virginia blogosphere. Where are the feminazis? The watermelon environmentalists who think all humans are evil, destructive creatures? Where are the anti-business liberals? Where is the drumbeat to increase the minimum wage and promote organized labor? Where is the call for statewide healthcare? Where is the call for affirmative action and reparations to minorities? Where is the call to squash utterly the private/parochial school system that has sprung out of the inadequacies of state-imposed public education?
I submit the conservatives are here and in force. Not only that, but the Virginia blogosphere is not only miles ahead of Republicans statewide, but they have the best answer for Virginia's future that marries conservative concerns for the way the state imposes alternate ethical values alongside the best selling points for libertarian policy; limited government that prizes individualism above all things.
Moderates love to bill themselves as commonsense alternatives, when all they really amount to in the end is watered down socialist that offer no ideas other than a preservation of the status quo. True alternatives barter in ideas, and right now it's not a stretch to argue the Virginia Republican blogosphere has a monopoly on that discussion.
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Shaun Kenney 
4 Comments:
If an educated populace is the bedrock of a free society, then we shouldn't have any problems with student vouchers -- unless the goal is to hoard all education dollars into the hands of state bureaucrats.
The only - stress *only* - difference between school vouchers and driving all the money into public education is that parents are empowered to determine what institution their children will learn in the former. Not so in the latter.
Ergo, I have no problems with school vouchers at all, and am always shocked to discover that public school educators hate the idea so much.
I disagree. Faith based organizations provide charitable services with federal and state funding.
Why not education?
1. (Pro-life issues)
It's none of the governments business either way (same view as number 3 btw). Have an abortion don't have an abortion. Also, take the money spent for pro-choice and pro-life and give us all a tax break
2. (Homosexual marriage) Totally agree. with your analysis. One other thing, give civil union (whatever you want to call it) homosexuals the same benefits and rights as people who get married.
3. School Prayer
Totally agree with the choice part. Refresh me on prayer, what stops someone from praying in a public school again? Talking about silent prayer, I used to do it all the time in the 90s
P.S. for most of the leftwingish views go to raising kaine and the links off of that page
It seems to be working well in the Milwaukee, Washington, and Cleveland though, with those localities having turned back significant legal challenges.
Hasn't SCOTUS ruled in favor of student vouchers as recently as 2002?
(T)he parent is not entitled to any assistance from the state for such selective, sectarian education--at least no more assistance than a refund of that portion of the taxes he has paid to underwrite his child's public education
(1) Why only a portion?
(2) Why does the state not have an interest in ensuring its populace is not properly educated - public, private, or otherwise?
(3) Do you seriously believe that public schools are sanitized from any opinion-influencing whatsoever?
(4) Why shouldn't parents be able to educate their children in a manner they see fit? Who deems public education to be superior?
As for the selectivity argument, that seems entirely ancedotal (I have never seen an instance of a child being turned away from a Catholic academy based on religious conviction or lack thereof). Those schools who wished by design to be so exclusive (a yeshiva or seminary for instance) could always exercise the option of refusing vouchers.
I simply don't see the argument that diversity in education is a bad thing, and that monolithic state-controlled public education is good.
Am I missing a nuance or a silver bullet that fixes this?
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