Newt Gingrich knows the lingo. He makes conservative audiences roar with approval when he compares the efficiency of FedEx and MasterCard with the post office and Immigration Customs Enforcement. He never loses an opportunity to attack the press for its moral preening. Conservatives adore this table turning. Nothing makes them angrier than to be derided as heartless by people who define virtue by their willingness to give away other people’s money.
Rick Perry quickly lost his own conservative luster when he used the word “heartless” about his Republican rivals.
Want to see how conservatives behave? Rent and watch The Blind Side. The family that adopted Michael Oher, a homeless black teenager, was conservative and Christian. Think that’s an anomaly? Glance at the families of Republican office seekers. John and Cindy McCain adopted a sickly child from Pakistan. Jon and Mary Kaye Huntsman have two adopted daughters, one from China and one from India. Michele and Marcus Bachmann have five biological children and have fostered 23 teenagers — many with eating disorders and other challenges. Wander into any church or synagogue on the weekend and you will find more of a “rainbow coalition” than at a New York Times editorial conference.
Advertisement
Self-described conservatives, as Arthur C. Brooks demonstrated so cogently in Who Really Cares?donate more to charity than do self-identified liberals. Perhaps that’s because conservatives are wealthier? No. Liberals on average earn 6 percent more than conservatives. Yet conservatives donate about 30 percent more. Conservatives also volunteer more of their time — and their blood. Brooks writes: “If liberals and moderates gave blood at the same rate as conservatives, the blood supply of the United States would jump about 45 percent.” Of the 25 states that had higher than average charitable giving, 24 went for George W. Bush over John Kerry in 2004.
Liberals define virtue not by one’s personal behavior but by one’s political positions. Thus, Bill Clinton could, without risking the ire of liberals, behave like a caveman with women who actually came into his orbit because he supported unrestricted abortion for those who didn’t. Similarly, Tim Geithner gets a pass on failing to pay his own taxes because he favors raising taxes on “the rich.”
Rick Santorum understands these fault lines viscerally. Mitt Romney lives and thinks like a conservative, but he’s not a good polemical conservative. One aspect of his stump speech that falls particularly flat with Republican primary voters is when he describes President Obama as a “good man” who “just doesn’t get it.”
It isn’t that conservatives think Obama is personally evil (well, okay, some do), but they don’t want their candidate to concede the moral high ground. That really rankles. Romney fell into that trap by conceding that he would raise the minimum wage after his gaffe about the “very poor.” No! Everyone knows that the minimum wage increases youth unemployment. The answer to the problems of the very poor (at least those not mentally or physically disabled), as Romney has elsewhere emphasized, is to unshackle the private sector to create jobs and to remove the government incentives to idleness (such as 99 weeks of unemployment benefits).
The Heritage Foundation has just released its annual Index of Dependence on Government. Since 2008, the number of Americans dependent on state subsidies has grown 23 percent, to the point where one in five Americans is now dependent on the government. That’s the highest rate in history.
The 20 percent of Americans who depend on government receive an average of $32,748 in benefits, which is more than the disposable income of the average American. Fifty-three percent of all American infants are now enrolled in the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) nutrition program. Fifty-three percent!
The greatest enlargement in dependency in American history may strike President Obama and his liberal supporters as a moral triumph — but for most conservatives it represents both an injustice and a fiscal calamity. It’s an injustice both to those who pay for it (the minority who still pay federal income taxes), and to many of those enveloped in state subsidies. Dependence breeds intractable poverty and low self-esteem.
Someone needs to ask Mr. Obama how an increasingly impoverished nation, limping along on food stamps and housing subsidies, is going to pay for the existing beneficiaries, along with 77 million Baby Boomers set to retire in the next 25 years. A president who has impaired the vibrancy of the private sector so badly has long since forfeited the moral high ground.
The phrase under the title to this article, along with the first line, make it appear that the article is about Newt Gingrich, which, thankfully, it is not. It's a great piece and the misleading descriptor under the title should be changed.
Thankfully, someone at NR finally put out the point that Newt Gingrich speaks 'conservative' better than anybody else.
He does, and you feel this more and more whenever you hear him speak.
His CPAC speech was full to the brim with exactly the specifics that a Presidential candidate should be issuing. This man could use Executive Orders the way they were supposed to be used, and in *our* favor. He knows how these things were designed to work, and would be the first president to start using the machinery of government *against* the Left.
Eliminating the EPA completely and getting rid of the Department of Energy, simply delightful.
Can you imagine the beauty of his eliminating all the White House Czars with the first stroke of his pen?
The safety net should be just that - a last-ditch effort to stop someone from crashing. It is NOT intended to be a replacement for their own efforts. It is NOT training wheels that stay on the bike long after they can reasonably be expected to balance.
A year of unemployment gives some time to find another source (or several sources) of income. It gives some cash flow while the family or individual works to reduce their overhead - sell the house, take in boarders, move, trade in an expensive car for a cheaper one, etc. I've done all those things in the past, and may well have to again in the future.
In America, just about everyone has some expenses that are discretionary - and can be eliminated. That's what those emergency funds are for - to help with a short-term adjustment to a lesser income.
She felt that expressing opposition the the President and his policies made me a bigot.
A liberal will always be willing to judge you by the color of your skin and not the content of your character, even if the have had decades discovering what that is.
Newt and Santorum have show the capacity to speak eloquently against liberal miscalculation, deception, secularist heavy-handedness and many other tragic infestations of the left.
I see nothing wrong with Charen asking them to continue on this particular subject.
Great article, and a very keen observation of the current frame of mind of the conservative electorate - but regarding the final paragraph, the truth is that Obama does not concern himself with how the benefits of the baby boom generation will be paid; they are not one of his dependable (and dependent) voting blocks.
That money can be better spent buying votes elsewhere.
"Someone needs to ask Mr. Obama how an increasingly impoverished nation, limping along on food stamps and housing subsidies, is going to pay for the existing beneficiaries, along with 77 million Baby Boomers set to retire in the next 25 years."
Oh, I know how they are going to do it.
People who got married and stayed married, who raised and educated their children, who lived frugally, who paid off their modest homes and saved for retirement, will get screwed.
It will come in the form of means testing and the ants will be forced to bail out the grasshoppers. Like all fables, there is a lesson to be learned and in this case the lesson is that it is stupid to be an ant.
Correct, and to think Barry has given a moment's thought to that question is hopelessly naive. He is concerned only about recreating the nation is his own socialist image. He has said so numerous times in words and deeds, only most have not taken him seriously-including many conservative "intellectuals."
I am continually impressed with the quality and succinctness of Mona's writing and thinking. This brief piece is a gem. And the comments are superb, also. Well done, NR community.
I simply want to say that the quality and succinctness of Mona's thoughts and writing in this brief piece are truly admirable. I intend to share it with others. And the comments thus far are thoughtful and pointed, also. Well done, NR community!
Sure, if you consider giving money to expand a church's sanctuary or keep the pastor rollin in a Benz as a charitable contribution, then yes, conservatives give more to "charity."
Cut off the undeserving poor in the unemployment queues: "remove the government incentives to idleness (such as 99 weeks of unemployment benefits)." They can find jobs somewhere, can't they?
Is it a matter of "who speaks" conservative, or rather, who lives and leads with conservative values? As a youth I supported (with work!) Barry Goldwater and read every piece Bill Buckley could produce (including subscribing to this site when it was simply a weekly magazine). I would turn to Bill Buckley, if he were alive, and would enjoy his perception of the current situation. When someone is derided because he or she concedes that someone with a significantly different view (different than my own) might be a decent or honest person wouldn't be something I would expect to hear from Bill Buckley. He was an orator who lived and demonstrated the real values at the core of conservatism; he to me is the iconic leader of this movement and I really miss his commentary and perspective, which so clearly shaped my views ovedr the years. Just my opinion.
I'm sorry. Twice through this screed and it is still incoherent.
So, the three or four examples of personal conservative largess (and a movie, too, such depth of analysis!) are suppose to convince us that conservatives are prepared to address the problems of the vast social underclasses / This does nothing more than illustrate that the needs are real. Obviously, from the comments here, conservative sentiment sends to be "go to h-ll" to the needy.
The only candidate consistently telling the "truth" has been Ron Paul, and his social policy is almost pure survival of the fittest.
What creative initiatives do the R's propose? Poverty, homelessness, a huge population of hungry people. What do you propose right now? Not some vagary about fixing the safety net "if" it has holes in it. Just give the independents some examples that the R's understand there is a need out there that has to be addressed by government because nonprofit charities and the odd benevolence of rich folks cannot hope to match.
Follow
