In America politics is more and more a matter of social metaphysics:
- If your position and beliefs incline you to believe that the social world is horizontal and self-contained, and consists solely of the individual and various contractual and legal collectives (e.g., if you’re single, godless, a celebrity, an elite lawyer or financier, or an ecclesiastical modernist who’d like to do away with the transcendent), you’re likely to be liberal and vote Democratic.
- If you’re inclined to believe the contrary—that the social world is complex in the sense that it is composed of several very different sorts of things that are dependent on a larger setting and so can’t be managed easily—you’re much more likely to be conservative and vote Republican.
That difference in fundamental understanding swamps all other issues. To choose a couple of data points from the items linked above, in the last presidential election the God gap was about 27 points, and in this one it looks like single vs. married is likely to make a 16-point difference in the men’s vote and a 38-point difference in the women’s vote.
Huh?
You sure are mixing up a lot of stuff for no reason there. Why can’t I believe the social world is self-contained, complex, and consisting solely of human beings (who exist as individuals within various overlapping collectives) and vote however the hell I want? (I don’t know what “horizontal” or “dependent on a larger setting” mean, and suspect they mean almost nothing.) This, in fact, is what I am, consistently voting for candidates of all parties at every level of the political apparatus. I am also an atheist.
Your predictive system puts too many factors into too few arbitrary categories. Don’t push people into political parties with your ideological myth-making. If people knew that their metaphysical beliefs came with no intrinsic political affiliations, perhaps our political system would not be so polarized. But saying the kinds of things you have here only perpetuates that faulty understanding of the political cosmos and our place within it.
Also, your registration system takes too long to send out its instructional email. I am theomorph.
Yeah.
A brief comment about polar tendencies doesn’t deal with all aspects of human conduct, it’s true. Now’s as good a time as any to expand the thought a little, though, so I should thank theomorph for his interest.
If someone views the social world as self-contained and horizontal (i.e., without much dependence on principles that apply without regard to human skill and intentions) he may indeed view it as complex in the sense that it includes a great many different collectives. Still, it’s likely to be much simpler than the social world as seen by someone who’s more impressed by the extent to which social life is dependent on a larger setting, i.e., is constituted in important part by things above it (like transcendent principles of one sort or another) and things below it (like biology). The things it contains will tend to be human constructions and so will tend to be things of the same general kind — formal legal institutions, contractual arrangements, arbitrary social stereotypes and so on. It won’t include (for example) races, the sexes, the family or even standards of justice and morality as realities that form human life and largely precede particular social conventions, thus resisting redefinition and manipulation.
theomorph can, of course, vote however he wishes. Nonetheless, what people wish to do is strongly influenced by how they understand themselves and the world. It seems to me the statistics I cite bear that out. Does he think otherwise? Also, I looked briefly at his weblog and am glad to see he thinks respectful behavior a good thing.
Rem tene, verba sequentur.
social expectations and conformity
I tend to think that the statistical differences are one end of a feedback loop, the other end being social mythologizing about how people in various circumstances are supposed to vote in certain ways. These feed into each other and increase the spreads, I think.
For instance, there is a new book out called “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” in which a liberal author expresses his bewilderment that Kansas votes conservatively, even though this (according to his own political beliefs) is not in their interest. How can these people vote for candidates whose policies hurt them? the author whines. Except he never bothers to explain his own biases, or to substantiate his claim that conservative policies hurt the people of Kansas. There might be something to what he says, and that would be very interesting, but WtMwK? is just a lousy, biased, social mythology. He’s trying to say that poor people are “supposed” to vote Democrat and rich people are “supposed” to vote Republican, and anyone who doesn’t follow this scheme is somehow misguided or stupid or ignorant or something. (See also Michael Moore, who uses pretty much the same tactic—anyone who doesn’t agree with him clearly just needs more information to see that he is always right. I.e., anyone who disagrees is automatically ignorant and/or stupid. Yeah, thanks a lot Mikey. Way to win me over.)
Personally, I think people put way too much stock in social circumstances. I am a twenty-something white male from a poor background who has always lived in bad neighborhoods. But you would never know by the way I dress and behave and talk. In fact, I was recently told by someone in my hometown (where I have lived my whole life, except for a short time when I was a kid) that I am “clearly” not from around here. Huh? What, because I don’t conform to your expectations? But I think most people don’t conform to expectations, they’re just too afraid to let it show. (Which, I suppose, is itself an expectation. And I am saying that too many people conform to it! Ha!)
theomorph
Man is free and each of can m
Man is free and each of can make up his own mind and do what he chooses. Still, people often make up their minds in similar ways. If that weren’t so there could be no such thing as reason, because reason is something that should affect what people think that they have in common. Any situation at all could lead to any conclusion at all and there’d be nothing you could say except “that’s the way that particular guy looks at things.”
When you’re talking about politics I think it makes sense to try to understand what things affect where people come out. In my entry I noted several patterns and suggested a reason why those patterns made sense. To me that’s a reasonable way of going about understanding the situation.
Frank, the author of the Kansas book, seems to think that the only thing that should affect where people come out politically is economics. He finds it incomprehensible and bizarre when something else affects their views. What that shows is that he doesn’t understand anything about people and shouldn’t be commenting on politics because it’s an alien world for him.
Rem tene, verba sequentur.
Liberals aren’t good for economics, or much of anything really.
“For instance, there is a new book out called “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” in which a liberal author expresses his bewilderment that Kansas votes conservatively, even though this (according to his own political beliefs) is not in their interest. How can these people vote for candidates whose policies hurt them? […]” (— Theomorph, today, 3:17 PM)
“Frank, the author of [“What’s the Matter with Kansas?”], seems to think that the only thing that should affect where people come out politically is economics. He finds it incomprehensible and bizarre when something else affects their views.” (— Jim Kalb, today, 4:33 PM)
Of course, even assuming this liberal author (whose book I haven’t read) were right about economics being all that should affect people’s political opinions (which of course he isn’t, not by a long shot), Kansas voters still shouldn’t vote for the Dems, since Dem-type and other socialist-type policies are known the world over as economy-wreckers, certainly the more socialistic they are and the longer they are imposed.
(That is not to say unbridled Wall-Street-type Godless-capitalist political/economic policies are the right ones. They aren’t, any more than the other. What’s needed is what many of the Founding Fathers knew and wrote down for us their posterity: the traditional Anglo-Saxon heritage handed down to them and through them us, together with the additional explicit constitutional refinements they incorporated, the whole founded upon, and backed by, living Christianity and its bedrock of Christian morality without which there was no long-term hope to be found in any of it.)
_________________________________________
“Rightfulness raiseth a folk; sin maketh peoples wretches.”
Proverbs 14:34 (Wycliffe)
_________________________________________
P.S. In his blog, Theomorph declares himself an atheist. Some observers have faulted some atheists for making the mistake of, in effect, viewing man as God. Is Theomorph’s pen name, meaning “In the shape of God,” meant as an affirmation of that particular atheistic point of view?
Ah, poor oppressed Christians
Ah, poor oppressed Christians. What a shame no one is allowed to practice that faith in the United States anymore, so that you have to come together and bemoan the lefties oppression of you, with their boots on your necks.
It must be dreadful.
We’ll never forget the left for saving schools from grace-saying
Yes, isn’t it nice how the left refrained from ramming abortion down Christians’ throats by naked judicial fiat, and waited instead for the people to vote it for themselves democratically in the year 1973? And I really love how the left held back from forcing homosexual “marriage” on Vermont (my state) and Massachusetts when it was within their power to do so by deviously usurping law-making functions never intended for them, and imposing it by circuitous means from the bench! And hey, doncha just LOVE the way the left has got those ruthless Christians on the run by denying them permission to post the Ten Commandments on that courtroom wall, by rooting out any manifestation of Christianity in schools or in any public place whatsoever, and by sending federal tentacles into every nook and cranny of society where there’s so much as a millimeter of daylight visible and forcing Christianity out of there by invoking the so-called “Separation of Church and State” doctrine which in fact never existed, but is as wholly imaginary as “the Proposition Nation” and so many other leftist opium-pipe dreams, but which the left had to invent otherwise how could they make society absolutely CHRISTIAN-REIN? Oh, and I really admired the ever-vigilant left’s move in severely humiliating in their class rooms, and then punishing in their principal’s office, those two kindergarten girls who actually DARED to politely hold each other’s hand and say grace together before eating their snack at snack-time as they’d been taught to do in their homes. I mean, when I saw the left suppress that mortal threat to our society—when I saw them not shrink from making a show of force in that instance—I just KNEW they were the side I supported.
just wait until we ram tofu down your blood-lined throats!
Now that’ll be a day for rejoicing!
I’m sorry if that sounds flip, but that’s how it is with me—no one in their right mind is going to defend your right to oppress others… If you want to pray, pray at home. I pray by respecting the choices of others!
If you don’t want to marry a person of your own gender, don’t do it… Gay sex isn’t mandatory in Vermont is it? And what’re you doing there anyway, Fred? New England has always been the home of free-thought in the U.S! Guess you don’t care for Emerson and Charles Sumner, hunh?
Dave
Oppression
Yet another example of Marxist thought is before us. Dave, in full Stalinist mode, has issued the order, Fred: “If you want to pray, pray at home.” You see, anyone praying in public (like the kids over their lunch in school) is committing and act of “oppression” to Dave. Thus Dave reveals his true feelings about an open marketplace of ideas and freedom of religion he supposedly believes in. It’s rather like Henry Ford’s choice of color for the Model T – one is free to express anything as long as it falls within the the dogmas of Dave’s religion. A classic example of the left’s big lie: In order to oppress your enemies, accuse them of practicing oppression.
Dave’s comrades in California, interestingly, have no problem of any kind with jihad and other doctrines from the “religion of peace” being taught in the public schools – by taxpayer-funded teachers no less. However, if Christian students voluntarily form a bible-study club to to meet after school, they will scream about the “separation of church and state.” Sorry, Dave, your mask is begining to come off.
there never was a mask–stop confusing me with your straw men
I admit it with glee—“moralism” is a plague that ought to confined to the home, and it’s time someone explained to you folks that you are the “godless”… I’m a tolerant man, and I have no wish to intrude upon the personal lives of any citizens, however, when you bring that tribal filth into the public sphere, you should expect to be condemned as a bigot… Liberals have been willing, for far too long, to let social conservatives set the terms of this debate, and it’s gotta stop: this is not a conversation between “hedonists” and “responsible Christians”…it’s not a struggle to establish “tolerance” (tolerance has always been a more useful concept to slaveholders and prejudiced cavepeople than to practioners of the true religion of humanity), it’s a campaign to root out the sickening remnants of an uncivilized past…
Dave
In an unguarded moment, the velvet glove comes off the iron fist
“it’s not a struggle to establish ‘tolerance’ (tolerance has always been a more useful concept to slaveholders and prejudiced cavepeople than to practitioners of the true religion of humanity), it’s a campaign to root out the sickening remnants of an uncivilized past…” (— David Fiore, today, 2:35 PM)
So, here we see the other side’s naked fist of iron being shaken right in our face without its usual cosmetic velvet glove. In this unguarded moment the other side’s seething hatred pours out for all to see. All this time, we’ve been baffled by their refusal to be satisfied with society’s toleration, demanding instead society’s full approval—which society could not give unless it abandoned its own ethical-religious principles, its own core moral identity—could not give, in other words, unless it itself ceased to exist ethically and morally. Couldn’t they see that? But it turns out that’s exactly what they’ve been after. They can’t stand the sight of us even when we tolerate them—the surest sign, of course, of a guilty conscience. In order that they not have to be reminded of their own inner low opinion of themselves, we have to go away, be driven out of existence. They don’t want toleration, but rather never again to have to look at us, us whose mere presence, mere existence, makes them inwardly hate themselves with a passion because fundamentally they hate what they are and we by merely drawing breath remind them of what they are.
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy which has been brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
interesting spin Fred
“They don’t want toleration, but rather never again to have to look at us, us whose mere presence, mere existence, makes them inwardly hate themselves with a passion because fundamentally they hate what they are and we by merely drawing breath remind them of what they are.”
Your mere presence (if you are what you appear to be—i.e. a raging homophobe yearning for some wacked-out amalgam of Leave It To Beaver and the Middle Ages) is a danger to those of us who don’t hate ourselves. I don’t hate you either, but if I see a gang of wolves marking up this beautiful land with their moralizing piss, I’m going to side with the people who are getting pissed on… As I say, you have a sickness—and it’s gotta be quarantined!
Dave
See the fruits of the other side’s campaign to root out the past
Dave Fiore wrote (9/06, 2:35 PM), of his side’s aims,
“it’s not a struggle to establish ‘tolerance’ […], it’s a campaign to root out the sickening remnants of an uncivilized past…”
Yes that’s exactly the goal of the other side’s campaign, and Mark Richardson’s blog entries document calmly, gently, methodically … and devastatingly … what a “dazzling improvement” (shall we say?) that campaign of the other side’s has produced so far: here, here, here, here, here, and other places at his excellent web-site and blog, too numerous to link.
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
99% in Agreement
While you have incisively pointed out the true character of much leftist thought, in that whatever language is employed to camouflage it in more currently acceptable terms it retains blatantly Marxist objetives and biases; I have to part company with the way in why you imply that Islam and Jihadism are synonymous, or that Islam in any way supports or compliments leftist ideology.
If the “religion of peace” as you put it, is being taught in California while Christian activities are being suppressed it’s simply becuase, for the majority of Americans, Islam can be taught as something which can be studied under the ‘dry light’ of reason and academic scruity, as a more or less foreign curiousity with no spiritually edifying power. Christianity on the other hand is immediate, local and familiar and so for the left: dangerous. The secular agenda of the left is the same everywhere, it just adopts different strategies to deal with the ‘tribes’ of the faithful as Dave puts it… so that in Turkey for example, the same sorts of oppressive mandates against religious expression have been brought into force against Muslims, as they have for Christians in the US (in fact, the program of secularisation is in many ways further advanced in Turkey – at least as far as public policy is concerned). Conservatives need to recognise that it’s not just a matter of the secular materialist left vs Christianity, but the secular materialist left vs religion per se.
Frank’s book is reviewed in The American Conservative treezine
Daniel McCarthy reviews this book in the current The American Conservative (Sept. 13th issue). The book’s title is “What’s the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America,” by Thomas Frank. McCarthy’s review is excellently written. (I haven’t seen the book.)
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Frank
I think the subtext of Frank’s theories is a nostalgic view of the left.
In the 20’s through the 40’s, many (if not most) of FDR democratic voters were 1. poor or lower middle class; and 2. socially conservative.
A political figure who perhaps captures this combination would be the late Richard Daley of Chicago, and his constituency. In 1968, Daley presided over an emblematic break of this constituency with the democratic party, over cultural issues, not economic issues.
In the South, these democrats are now Republicans. Perhaps they are in Kansas as well.
Frank II
A more interesting book would explore the question why the poor and lower middle class have abandoned social conservatism—now, that’s a move that’s clearly against family, clan, tribe, community, and individual interest.
Social conservatism makes
Social conservatism makes demands, and present-day society provides the means and various excuses and justifications for ignoring those demands. Not to mention promoting and glamorizing their avoidance through propaganda and commercial culture.
Rem tene, verba sequentur.
Single is Overgeneralization?
I am a bachelor, yet I am God-loving and believe Catholicism surely is the one true faith. I hope these gory details don’t put anyone off. If Mr. Kalb says single is an indicia of irreligion, I won’t dispute it directly because he has thought about these things far more than I have.
As I continue playing my broken record, I am suspicious of unsupported generalizations. Maybe this is my liberal indoctrination, which has not been fully exorcised. Explanations rather than musings seem the best course for a brilliant mind speaking to a diverse audience. Still, I very much appreciate this site and the kind Mr. Kalb. Paul Henri.
As I said to theomorph
As I said to theomorph, a brief comment on two opposing tendencies isn’t a comprehensive account of everything. A 36-point spread in voting behavior (the largest mentioned in the articles) is impressive but far from a universal rule. As to men the married-single difference is only 16 points, which is still extremely important but obviously not the only thing going on.
I thought the subject matter would make it clear that when I spoke categorically it was for the sake of brevity and clear statement rather than because I think (e.g.) that each and every single man is a secularist liberal who always votes democratic. The figures i cited showed that the contrary is true. It’s as if someone said “the NRA is big in the red states” when there are many places in states that happened to go for Bush in the last election, and probably even whole states, where the NRA is not big at all. The qualification is true, but the statement isn’t designed to deny it.
The point as to being single is that single people tend to experience a personal and social world that may have a great many particular things in it but they’re more things of the same kind than in the case of married people. If a single person has left home and is self-supporting in present-day America family ties tend to sink into the background. That leaves a day-to-day social world composed of himself, various temporary, optional and contractual connections, and the state. When he marries an additional tie that is extremely important to his day-to-day life and self-understanding is added. That tie is a legal tie, and it has some features of friendship and contract, and to that extent has things in common with the ties he already has. Also, he does already have some family ties. Still, marriage normally adds something fundamental to life that’s quite different in principle from other day-to-day ties and in that sense transforms one’s social world by giving it several dimensions it didn’t have before. The difference in situation leads to a difference in point of view and voting behavior. Not, as you point out, in each and every case, but often enough to be important and worth commenting on.
The point you raise as to religion and married v. single is an interesting one but not one I dealt with directly. I believe there is a correlation between being married and being religious but don’t have any figures.
Rem tene, verba sequentur.
PS — in response to to what seems to be popular demand I stuck a couple of “likelys” into the entry.
Why Dems so hysterically oppose marriage for women at every turn
Reading the first article on the marriage gap, one sees immediately one reason why the Democrat Party struggles so hard in so many ways to keep women from marrying: it means way more votes for them if they succeed.
In the second article we read,
“Yet it’s ‘hard for the church to embrace the Republican right-wing agenda in other areas, especially in the area of race,’ said Walker, pastor of First Gethsemane Baptist Church.”
Come again? “[…T]he Republican right-wing agenda […] in the area of race”? The Republican agenda in the area of race calls for the white race to be completely phased out by the year 2040 at the latest (and long before that, if at all possible) and replaced by non-white Mexicans, Chinese, Subcontinentals, black Africans, and so on. I mean—the GOP has already targeted the white race for extinction in this country. What’s the “right-wing agenda in the area of race” these Dem voters are so concerned about? Isn’t the year 2040 soon enough for them? Gee … what will please these guys—if whites all get launched into orbit next week around the planet Zorg in the Andromeda galaxy with enough food and water for only three days or something? These guys don’t seem to know when they’re well-off… They’re getting everything and still aren’t satisfied. Maybe they deserve nothing…
Complexity?
You are definitely getting a lot of unearned mileage out of that term Jim! From what I can see, belief in a “socially complex” world composed of various orders of being/thought tends to issue in this kind of statement:
“I think the President/Pope knows best—I haven’t heard from God in a long time, and these people seem to be on a first name basis with Him.”
In your vertical world, moral “authority” is available to anyone who is willing to arrogate said authority to themselves. In my horizontal world, by contrast, things are much more “complex”, precisely because there are no easy answers to be found, merely by looking up at whatever bully happens to be in power.
David Fiore
The best defense against “bullies in power” is the trad approach
David Fiore completely misses the point. He writes,
“From what I can see, belief in a ‘socially complex’ world composed of various orders of being/thought tends to issue in this kind of statement: ‘I think the President/Pope knows best—I haven’t heard from God in a long time, and these people seem to be on a first-name basis with Him.’ “
But this is exactly what happens with the present left-liberal hegemony, except that they, the left-liberals, are the God-like authority instead of God. Look—no one on the trad side wants to have a theocracy. The problem is the left’s attempt to stamp religion out because the left brooks no rivals. We want “freedom of conscience” where religion is concerned, and let human nature take care of the rest. Freedom of conscience in this regard includes the freedom to build the lives of our communities around religious identity, precepts, wisdom, and belief. Yes, a certain amount of soft coercion happens with that: Jewish parents have to put up with their kids’ being exposed to Christmas in school, Mormons have to suffer the mortification of Bible-reading in their kids’ schools Friday assemblies that avoid the Book of Mormon and never mention the angel Moroni, Christian Scientist parents have to bear the anguish of their children being told it’s OK to go to the doctor, homosexuals have to suffer the offense of hearing religion-based disapproval of their way of life, and so on. But the existence of minorityhood doesn’t change the fact that societies have to be built a certain way or there’s no coherence and they fall apart. The solution isn’t to make everything equal (which only ends up with nothing existing, except the left-liberal Nomenklatura that’s in charge) but to let people decide the value of things. Remember Hayek’s criticisms of Communism’s attempts to set prices on ideological grounds? He said that was bound to fail because so many subtle inputs go into the market determination of prices that no central authority could reproduce the process accurately to peoples’ satisfaction—which was at bottom, of course, a big part of why the year 1989 happened. Jim Kalb’s notion of complexity here is like Hayek’s for the setting of prices. As the other side’s now largely defunct Communism incarnation attempted to disregard the market complexities that go into the natural emergence of prices, so its current Neo-Marxist incarnation in alliance with Wall Street attempts to disregard the complexities that go into the natural emergence of societal order. Neither the Marxists nor their new Wall Street allies understand society or people.
“liberalism” and “religion” (properly understood) are compatible
Fred wrote:
“The problem is the left’s attempt to stamp religion out because the left brooks no rivals.”
But surely you would concede that “lefttism” (whatever that is: I suppose it’s a social philosophy based upon the premise that the living matter more than the dead, and that deferral of moral autority “upwards” is a plague upon the body politic) is a religion—moreover, and this I’m sure you would not concede, it’s a religion that actually has a chance to enrich the lives of all people, not merely those who are willing to live the same way their parents did…
David Fiore
David Fiore is certainly right about one thing (today, 3:42 PM)
Yes, leftism is a religion. It’s a religion many think they want. Most want the real deal, however—so … how about the left take its iron boot heel off our necks and let us have it?
who’s wearing the iron boot? George Bush is no leftist!
I can’t imagine that any intelligent liberal would ever want to trample your right to practice your religion, Fred. However, when you begin importing outmoded, petty ideas into the political arena, and generally wasting your votes by sacrificing them to “God”, instead of employing them as bridges to your fellow beings (by, for instance, telling people who don’t attend your church how to live their lives) then you can, and should, expect to come under fire from the more conscientious/respectful members of the community. The only weapon a “leftist” like myself has at his/her disposal is the moral high ground that comes from rising above the kind of Calhounite discourse that dominates this site… I’m sorry if it makes “traditionalists” feel badly that they are cast as the villains in a “progressive” narrative, but, well, at least there are rewards for you in “Heaven”, right?
Rejoice!
David Fiore
Moral high ground?!
I do not understand how one can claim the moral high ground whilst at the same time denying the existence of moral absolutes. You have disqualified yourself from this argument until you admit that you are advocating a moral structure based on your secular humanist/materialist religion. Not everyone agrees with the logical outcomes of this amoral, selfish creed.
believe me my friend, this is definitely the high ground
But who’s denying anything? and who’s selfish?
I’m not a secular humanist—I’m a left-wing Calvinist!
Why am I selfish exactly? Because I understand that other beings are entitled to my respect, rather than moralistic (i.e. pseudo-morality for dummies) condemnation based upon…what exactly?…traditionalist cant? Personally, I’ll take Kant instead!
happy labor day!
dave
“Left-wing Calvinist” is a contradiction in terms: can’t exist.
“Because I understand that other beings are entitled to my respect…” (— Dave Fiore, 9/05, 11:29 PM)
Then why don’t you respect their wish not to have abominations like unrestricted abortion, radical “separation of church and state” (a mere pretext for suppressing Christianity), and homosexual “marriage” forced on them by judicial fiat? (On the last issue, by the way, you might want to check this out, up today at Thrasymachus’ web-log.)
Respect the Right to Oppress Others?
Fred,
Left-wing Calvinism is as old as the theocratic variant: remember the Quakers, the Antinomians, the Anabaptists, Christian Anarchists like William Lloyd Garrison? There’ve been a lot of these good people in your neck of the woods.
On abortion—who are YOU to force a woman to hang onto a completely undifferentiated part of her own body against her wishes? That sounds like bullying to me! My respect, naturally, in this case, as in all others, goes to the victim, not to the poor, sanctimonious victimizer!
On the question of animal rights—surely you understand that I’m not going to respect your right to eat a burger over an animal’s right to live!
On (heterosexual) marriage as a “civilizing” force—my answer is quite simple: people who don’t behave in a “civilized” fashion go to jail, and I’m happy to see them go there. Forcing people to pair up like it’s time to board the Ark (“because daddy—Our Father—sez”) does nothing to improve the moral prospects of the people involved—and, in the case of folks who don’t happen to be attracted to the people you want them to be attracted to, it would actually make the situation worse… we all know what kinds of trouble Catholic priests have historically gotten themselves into, when they’ve attempted to “tame” their base urges…
On the separation of church and state—agreed, I most definitely want to see my variant of “religion” instituted at the expense of yours… Again—I’ve got the moral high ground here, and it’s time political moralizers understood that. I’m not fighting for “the tribe”, I’m fighting for all life as it exists—and I’m not even doing it to get an entree into Heaven!
Dave
We have only one society and we’d like to keep it intact, thanks
Go off and form your own society where you’ll have all the homosexual “marriage” you want and, if any babies manage to be conceived there, all the abortion your heart could possibly desire. It’s been tried before, in a place called Sodom and Gomorrah—see if your crowd fare any better than they did. Meantime, this is our society, normal people’s society, it’s all we have, and we don’t want it made unclean and ruined by the likes of that unspeakableness.
___________________________________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy which has been brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
you’re right about that one society thing Fred…
…and your opponents are equally determined. Time will tell whose society this really is. The only obstacle to the realization of a truly good society are selfish, bigotted finger-waggers like your good self—you can only hold back the millennium for so long…
Dave
what does the “good society” look like to the “Right”?
Here’s an important question:
What would satisfy the people who congregate at this site?
What does your ideal America look like?
We all know what mine looks like—and it’s actually a realizable ideal.
But how about yours?
Would you really be happy if “leftist academics” retired from the field? Whom would you hate? What would you do with all of the people who follow your prescriptions for living out of habit, rather than conviction (a good Calvinist would condemn you all for preaching a “covenant of works”, and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing here!)? Would a return to the loathsome vices of the middle ages be agreeable to you all, as long as these misdeeds took place in the dark?
I really want to know!
(just as an aside—you’ll never meet a less “offensive” person than me, by your own “trad” standards of conduct: I’ve never touched alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, or another man’s penis…I guess you could fault me for not marrying the woman I love and have lived with for a long time, but still we are most definitely monogamous, and we might get married some day, if it can be arranged without cost! In addition, I haven’t eaten meat since I was twelve, and I’m a very good pet owner and lover of all creatures… do I sound like I hate myself? or that I’m ashamed of anything? Think again—the only thing I’m ashamed of is your censoriousness!)
Dave
A recent poll and associated comments address David’s question
David Fiore asks (today, 5:02 PM),
“What does the ‘good society’ look like to the ‘Right’? […] What would satisfy the people who congregate at this site? What does your ideal America look like?”
This topic was addressed indirectly in a recent poll of Turnabout readers, who expressed favorable opinions of “America before 1861,” “Traditional European monarchy,” and “America in the 1950s” in that order, as “reference points for American conservatives today” (see the poll results for the order of popularity of the other choices, as registered by “the people who congregate at this site,” and see also the readers’ comments on the poll). Note that the poll asks for people’s opinion of “the single best political reference point for American conservatives today.” It does not ask their opinion of what they would like to “turn the clock back to,” but rather, what prior epochs they believe the present could profitably study, learn from, and perhaps emulate.
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
edifying poll
my vote would have gone to 17th century Mass—or to the antebellum North (specifically, New England and the parts of the North in which New Englanders predominated—the Western Reserve of Ohio), in other words, the centers of radical abolitionism/progressive religious expression/thought (Garrison, Emerson, Margaret Fuller…)
Dave
Monarchy is the way
I look to the model of the traditional Catholic monarchies of Christendom for the ordering of Christian civilization.
It is the natural and right ordering of society, all other orders must be legislated and enforced.
St.Thomas Aquinas says it best as usual:
I answer that, We must of necessity say that the world is governed by one. For since the end of the government of the world is that which is essentially good, which is the greatest good; the government of the world must be the best kind of government. Now the best government is the government by one. The reason of this is that government is nothing but the directing of the things governed to the end; which consists in some good. But unity belongs to the idea of goodness, as Boethius proves (De Consol. iii, 11) from this, that, as all things desire good, so do they desire unity; without which they would cease to exist. For a thing so far exists as it is one. Whence we observe that things resist division, as far as they can; and the dissolution of a thing arises from defect therein. Therefore the intention of a ruler over a multitude is unity, or peace. Now the proper cause of unity is one. For it is clear that several cannot be the cause of unity or concord, except so far as they are united. Furthermore, what is one in itself is a more apt and a better cause of unity than several things united. Therefore a multitude is better governed by one than by several. From this it follows that the government of the world, being the best form of government, must be by one. This is expressed by the Philosopher (Metaph. xii, Did. xi, 10): “Things refuse to be ill governed; and multiplicity of authorities is a bad thing, therefore there should be one ruler.”
Summa Theologica, 103
no way to argue with this
’nuff said monarchists!
Dave