The Republican primaries have been heated and dramatic. But here’s the dirty little secret: The candidates agree on everything. I mean, Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich, with Paul to one side. Oh, sure, there are teensy differences here and there: Santorum has this special plan for manufacturing; Romney has ideas about capital gains; Newt may be thinking moon.
But on the basics — energy, the budget, entitlements, defense, abortion, foreign policy, education, health care — they agree. There are not clashing philosophies in this campaign. There is no, say, Goldwater versus Scranton. There is simply the personal, the stylistic, the tonal.
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I once talked with the chief of staff of a Democratic congressman, from an almost totally Democratic district. The staffer told me, “We have no Republicans in our district, and no real policy disputes. It’s just the politics of ‘I hate you.’”
So, in the current campaign, it’s, “Romney is a big fat phony. He’s inauthentic, insincere, unreal. At CPAC, he said ‘severely.’ Ha ha! The wife has two Cadillacs. Willard is a liberal. Willard, Willard, Willard, liberal, liberal, liberal.” And, “Rick is an earmark king who has never worked a day in his life outside politics.”
Etc.
There is no debate in the Republican primaries — it’s just personalities, psychology, and electability. You may recall that, in debates earlier in the cycle, they were arguing over the specific method by which they’d repeal Obamacare.
Since at least 2007, one question in our politics has been, “Will Romney’s Mormonism keep him from being nominated or elected?” It’s interesting that, in state after state, he is beating Santorum among Catholics. That would suggest that his religion may not be as great a handicap as some people thought, or hoped.
My nose is sensitive to Democratic McCarthyism, and I got a whiff the other day. Have you noticed something in the last several years? Democrats are always trying to guilt the rich. You remember Joe Biden during the 2008 campaign. “It’s time to be patriotic,” he said. What he meant was: Pay the taxes we impose, at whatever rate, and shut up.
Last week, Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner said that “the most fortunate Americans” should “bear a slightly larger burden of the privilege of being an American.”
Forget that maybe Geithner is not the best person to deliver this message, given the tax delinquency on his record: What about this “privilege” stuff? Yes, it’s a privilege to be an American — but as much for the poor as for the rich. America is one of the best places in all the world to be poor.
In any case, the question of tax policy has more to do with economic sense than patriotism. And I hope that Americans will resist the Biden-Geithner brand of McCarthyism.
I was talking to a friend last week, and she told me about a particular situation, all too common. Call my friend Mary, and call her husband John. They have a friend — call him Jim — of 30 years’ standing. But Jim refuses to speak to Mary and John, because the couple has gone forthrightly conservative. Jim is a liberal (more likely a leftist).
Mary and John want very much to speak to Jim, and carry on talking about everything under the sun, excluding politics. There is so much else in life. But Jim will have nothing to do with them.
My question to Mary: “Doesn’t Jim think it’s weird that you want very much to speak to him, despite your political differences with him? He will not speak to you, because of political differences. According to the way he thinks — shouldn’t you be equally adamant against speaking to him?”
Mary responded, “I’m sure it has never occurred to him.” I’m sure too.
Have you maybe observed this kind of thing in life?
This video is a little hard to watch. It shows a group of protesters in Placetas, Cuba, chanting, “Freedom, freedom!” And then state security (I presume) swoops in, dragging them off. And I know what sort of thing they’re dragged off to.
How anyone has the guts to chant “Freedom, freedom” in the middle of Cuba, I have no idea. I do know that many of my teachers and professors taught us that Communist Cuba was a benign and enlightened place.
A reader wrote, "In explaining the difference between covalent and ionic bonds to his class, my daughter’s eighth-grade chemistry teacher said that covalent bonds were like Democrats in that they 'share' electrons, and ionic bonds were like Republicans in that they 'take' electrons."
It doesn't sound as if the chemistry teacher really knows what he's talking about. For an ionic bond, there must be both an anion (which has "taken" one or more extra electrons) and a cation (which has "given" one or more electrons). If anyone actually wishes to attribute political identities to ions (which seems completely silly), I'd suggest that the anions are Democrats and the cations are Republicans.
Yeah, that is pretty freaking silly. Or you could say that ionic bonds are Democrats (take from some, give to others) while covalent bonds are Republicans (mutually beneficial deals).
There's another 'dirty little secret' out there. Values Voters are now finding out the hard way a lesson that African American Democrats have already discovered ... External Link
That part about the chemical bonds was funny - not laughable, but odd. I always used to tell the kids that the covalent bonds are like hippies - sharing everything equally. And the ions are like the street thugs, taking the electrons away by force.
Perhaps I should re-think that analogy:
The covalent bonds are like our churches - willingly sharing among others, even though it may cost them.
The ionic bonds are like our National government - taking from those they deem "unworthy", and giving to others they deem "worthy".
Today Jay writes that the candidates agree on everything. "There is simply the personal, the stylistic, the tonal."
On this I'd agree: none of them are so free of significant flaws in terms of principles that he is a clear beacon of conservatism, but all of them claim to carry the mantle of Reaganite conservatism.
But doesn't credibility matter when it comes to that claim? Should we not judge a tree by its fruit?
In 2008, Barack Obama ran as a post-racial, post-partisan moderate, and anyone who looked at his record and his political associations knew that he was anything but a radical. Only a radical would choose to be mentored by a race-essentialist conspiracy monger; only a radical would immerse himself with Maoists and unrepentant domestic terrorists; only a radical would oppose a bill prohibiting infanticide by neglect.
Quite a few prominent writers, ostensibly on the right, ignored the record to focus on the campaign (or even the pants crease!) to assure us that Obama would be just marvelous. It was the rank-and-file rubes and the red-meat writers like Mark Steyn who dared to disagree.
Well, who was right? Which was a more reliable predictor of how Obama would govern? His campaign or everything else?
And do we not now see the importance of that question?
Don't ask that question, and you turn from the issue of credibility to one of temperance and discipline and organization and everything else that turns on the question of electibility. They all say the same things, so who's the most likely to get into office?
That decision, to focus on what a candidate is saying now to the exclusion of his credibility in saying it, is risky.
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Jay also writes, "Ugly people are ugly in their language, you often find."
Indeed, but just this Monday, Jay Nordlinger was accusing Santorum of statements that are not merely dishonest, "they’re not even sane."
That's all fine, evidently, but what's ugly is accusing people of being "in the tank" for a candidate, even when it's quite clear that they are throwing consistency to the wind in attacking his opponents.
People certainly shouldn't accuse every supporter of a certain candidate of being "in the tank" for the politician, but sometimes the shoe fits, as when Mr. Civility takes off the gloves to pummel all but one particular candidate.
Let's see, saying “Mitt Romney is in bed with Barack Obama.” Yea, I'd judge that as not sane.
Robocalling Democrats *one month* after professing distaste for the practice. Yea, perhaps understandable from a Machiavellian standpoint, but still pretty darn shameless.
Thanks for pointing this out Lawrence.
And about those southern evangelicals: many of those folks you characterize as having a serious, thoughtful objection to Mormonism have a similarly "serious and thoughtful" objection to Catholicism based on its deification of Mary and the saints (among other things). It may be serious and thoughtful but it's also parochial and borderline bigoted.
It kinda depends on whether you vote on that basis or not. I have all kinds of theological disagreements with all kinds of people, but I wouldn't, in general, vote against them for that reason.
I'd vote for an evangelical who imagines that I "deify Mary" while I believe that he deifies the Bible, in a heartbeat, over somebody who believes in the vivisection of unborn infants.
I've rarely been more outraged than I was when John McCain, in 2000, sent out a "Catholic Voter Alert" claiming that Bush was anti-Catholic because he spoke at an evangelical school. How about a "Catholic Voter Alert" pointing out that every Democrat politician, in every way, under all circumstances, always, operationally favors the vivisection of unborn infants?
Funny how you don't see the inconsistency in Nordlinger's call for genteel language just *three days* after using such hyperbole to criticize Santorum.
Santorum's hypocrisy is supposedly "pretty darn shameless." Nordlinger's, not so much -- nor yours, seeing how selectively the mark of shamelessness is applied.
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May I take it that you reject as parochial and borderline bigoted every conception of Christianity that dares not to include every belief system and every believer that claims to be Christian? that Christianity cannot be thought to have any essential doctrines but must, instead, be stretched to fit all comers?
If not, what's exactly your problem? Is it the particular ox that's being gored, or do you just dislike Southerners because they don't sound like you and share your tastes?
The fundamental difference between Norlinger and Santorum is that Nordlinger has been truthful. Calling out Santorum's statements about Romney being "in bed" with Obama as not sane is neither hypocritical nor inconsistent. It's simply the truth. In all honesty, take off your ideological blinders and walk out into the sun.
My problem with some Southern evangelicals is that they, including it seems yourself, seem to think they hold the golden keys to Biblical interpretation and fancy their beliefs as so self-evidently correct that anyone who dares to brook their "orthodoxy" is damned to Hell. Of course Christianity has essential doctrines. I'm not arguing that so you can put your straw-man back in its plastic wrapper. That said, I am a flawed, biased human being and I humbly respect the religious practices of other serious and thoughtful believers to include Mormons. They manifestly believe in Jesus as their Savior. At that point I'm inclined to take them at their word that they're Christian. Sorry Lawrence, but more slaughter of innocents and more hatred has occurred in the name of orthodoxy and doctrine then any other philosophical stance by several orders of magnitude. That you retreat to such metaphysical territory every time your views are challenged tells me everything I need to know about the substance of your arguments.
"Sorry Lawrence, but more slaughter of innocents and more hatred has occurred in the name of orthodoxy and doctrine then any other philosophical stance by several orders of magnitude."
Factually incorrect. Also hyperbolic.
The Commies alone, with their 100M+ during the 20th, probably managed to kill a great many more people than all the Christian killers during the last 1500 years.
For "several orders of magnitude" to be exceeded just for the Commie accomplishment, would require religious differences to have resulted in the deaths of more than 100 billion people, whereas one estimate of all the people who have ever lived is 96 billion.
Communism is a doctrine and has its own orthodoxy just as surely as any religion does. Stalin sent all the kulaks to the gulags because he didn't like the taste of their potatoes, right?
OK, then orthodoxy and doctrine explain so much they explain nothing. Charles Manson had doctrines and his followers were orthodox, I suppose. It's hard to see what your point is, other than to put Christians in their place.
You and eloris need to have a long discussion with each other because one of you is wrong. eloris can't even pick out innocents without falling back on the term and you take me to task for daring to call Communism...an utterly rigid and doctrinaire approach to the political control of thought and human governance...a doctrine.
Getting back to my original point, a whole lot of human slaughter has occurred in the name of religion and politics which I think we can loosely group together as "doctrine" without invoking the ghost of Karl Popper. I humbly suggest that perhaps if you find yourself judging otherwise sensible and upstanding citizens as "not Christian" or "not American" or "not moral" you should hold out the very real possibility that *you* are the one with a problem and moderate your tone, temper and action.
No, I'm not a relativist. Yes, doctrine is important. And if a Mormon runs for President perhaps we can put aside our petty (yes, I choose that word carefully and on purpose) differences and worry more about sinking the country in catastrophic debt and less about whether or not said Mormon is going to somehow "cloud the understanding of Scripture", to paraphrase Lawrence.
"Sorry Lawrence, but more slaughter of innocents and more hatred has occurred in the name of orthodoxy and doctrine then any other philosophical stance by several orders of magnitude"
That's like saying it has occurred in the name of "stuff". It kinda depends which doctrine, doesn't it? I hope you're not going to say Christianity.
How, in the absence of any "doctrine", do you decide who is "innocent"?
In practice this question isn't really so hard, eloris, despite your best attempts to obfuscate it. I suspect you will argue with any reasonable attempt to define the term so I'll just throw out some real world examples and see if you can pick out who the innocents are. I promise not to make this too hard.
- A terrorist detonates an IED on a bus full of children going to school.
- Falun Gong practitioners being sent to re-education camps by state police in China.
- A child is bullied by a gang of kids at school for having a mental disability.
- A third trimester child in an abortion clinic.
I'm not against doctrine or orthodoxy. I'm against its rigid, inflexible and dogmatic application to the imperfect and uncertain world we live in by people who think they are smarter then they really are. Kinda describes our current leader.
It's not me that tries to obfuscate it, it's the US Supreme Court, who has stated that that third trimester child does not count.
If you want to protect them, you'll have to state a doctrine, which will contradict that of the Supreme Court, and you'll have to fight for that doctrine.
I don't totally disagree with you, but you come perilously close to arguing that the problem is people who actually hold convictions. Those who don't just supinely bow to those who already wield power; hence, THEY may not kill anybody but they sure don't do anything to stop others from doing so. And, in fact, they often do kill people, since the easiest go-along-to-get-along thing to do under a murderous regime is to assist in killing those the regime hates.
And you can also only get to that point by assuming that, for instance, people who bully somebody else who looks weak are "rigidly applying a doctrine". I doubt that very much. Rather, they were probably taught a doctrine NOT to do such things, and chose not to because it felt good.
It's not the Catholics who will hurt Romney. I have traveled extensively in the South, and it is southern evangelicals (to use another bad label), who are offended by Mormons calling themselves Christians, and who find many Mormon doctrines beyond the pale. I think it quite possible enough evangelicals will refuse to vote for a Mormon, allowing Obama to take the South with his solid black support. I think this will be a major problem for Romney in the general - second only to Romneycare.
I was surprised at the level of hostility toward Mormonism I found in the rural South. Has anyone else noticed this?
A less negative interpretation of Southern evangelical opposition to Mormonism is a commitment to orthodoxy as it is understood rather than "hostility" toward the other religion.
I've met people who are opposed to Mormonism for the most glib reasons, that it seems odd, etc., but I've also met critics who seem to understand very well both the Bible and the teachings of Mormonism, and even if Mormons would understandably disagree with their conclusions, these men and women are serious and thoughtful in their opposition.
You're right, I made a poor choice of words with "hostility." There are perfectly understandable differences in the two religions, the point I was trying to make is a political one - I think there are many evangelical voters who are not familiar with Mormon doctrine. They will be by November. And many of them, when they find out about the Mormon interpretation of immaculate conception for example, will have an immediate reaction that will cost Romney votes.
It's already starting: Just do a web search for "Kolob T-Shirts."
At least from my experience, evangelicals are in some ways 'hostile' to every other religion but theirs. They don't mean to be, but they make it a point to be on a mission, and that mission involves researching and studying every aspect of another religion and then trying to break it down. The trouble is it takes over their ability to reason and participate in a society where every religion (or non-religion) is accepted. It's the same with Islamic fundamentalism. "Separation of church and state," in theory, is supposed to cover for religious conflicts in the political arena. But that's just not the reality right now. So I think Lawrence has a point that Romney may lose to Obama for this reason.
Since at least 2007, one question in our politics has been, “Will Romney’s Mormonism keep him from being nominated or elected?” It’s interesting that, in state after state, he is beating Santorum among Catholics. That would suggest that his religion may not be as great a handicap as some people thought, or hoped.
