Why I Can't Help Voting GOP.2

I hate to say this, as I do not aspire to the mantle of the prophet; but the GOP will eventually cave. The mammonists and embrace-the-future libertarians will have their day, and the light will be snuffed.

They. Always. Win.>

Will cave to corporatism, IMHO, and all its inherent "religiousity.">

I find your general approach to living with holiness to be very appealing. And it does highlight why abortion is so morally fraught. But there is more than one moral position that can be taken. The position that life begins at conception did not gain currency in this (admittedly dominantly Protestant) country until around the turn of the twentieth century.
There is an underlying assumption that the right moral path is clear--it is very much not.
For example, Judaism and Catholicism have always had very different approaches to birth. As I understand it, if a choice must be made, for Catholics, the life of the infant comes first.
For Jews, the life of the mother takes precedence (the fetus is called a "pursuer" in the Talmudic discussions). Further, there is a recognition of development marked by the time the mother can feel movement. Talmudic debates were and are motivated by the pursuit of the right moral path, especially in the case where there are two moral claims, as there are here. (I make no claims here about the unity of contemporary Jewish opinion about abortion (there is none), only want to highlight the traditional approach.)
Thus, two different traditions, both aiming toward a life of holiness, can result in very different results. Dominant society must then reconcile these--or at least provide a neutral space. I don't see how your approach allows for that reconciliation of difference.>

Both Talmudic and modern debates center around defining the terms, which leads to moral consequences. It's been a while since I've looked at the Talmudic passages, but my recollection is that if the mother's physical health is at risk during the pregnancy, that takes priority, as well as during birth. This has been applied in different ways by contemporary Jews, with Orthodox Jews interpreting "health" much more narrowly than Reform Jews.
There is no question that at birth, though, the mother's life would take precedence. So either the case of a Jewish woman giving birth in a Catholic hospital or vice versa could lead to serious moral consequences. Which brings me back to my original question: how do we, in our differences, decide these holy questions?>

Just chiming in to agree with you, Rod. As you quote me in your book, it's the difference between an unreliable ally and an enemy.

If the Dems could/would break the grip of the cultural left on their party, American politics would be a very different game.>

Let me say from the beginning that I am not and never have been (and probably never will be) a registered Republican, as they seemed as far from my early constitutionalism in 1997 when I could first vote as they seem from my political views now. Not only has the GOP on a presidential level never seemed to be an option for me, but after the last two terms I cannot imagine any candidate credible enough to win me "back" (and I am only one generation removed from my parents' own alienation from the Democratic Party).

I take a rather odd view of the question of parties, since I have lived most of my life in one form of Democratic machine politics (New Mexico) or another (Chicago and Illinois) but could never take the local Republican opposition seriously, as they were constantly trying to compete by becoming, David Cameron-like, indistinguishable from their opponents. Even though everything about the mismanagement of government by the machine screams for actively supporting the opposition, the opposition is preposterous. Still, in state and local elections I do follow my anti-incumbent rule and vote for Republican candidates.

On the national scene, however, the NM GOP is an embarrassment. The conventional wisdom in New Mexico is that a moderate Republican is needed to win in our First District (no one has ever tested this assumption), and so we have been reliably represented by that part of the GOP strongest on the DoD and big government and weakest on all questions of life and culture. Those who live in the Second District at least usually get an avowed pro-life representative. If anything, it has only gotten worse since I started voting. Maybe if I lived in Idaho or Tennessee the virtues of the GOP would be more obvious to me.

In my two longest local experiences with the GOP, I have seen the state party either routinely push conservatives to the margins (as was done very clumsily and obviously to Bill Davis to get Heather Wilson the seat in NM-1, and as has been done to Oberweis in Illinois this year) or engage in spectacularly incompetent campaigns (think Alan Keyes), as if they had the intention of giving conservatives a bad political rap for a decade.

Everyone will say, "Okay, but what's the alternative?" Aside from presidential campaigns, where third parties represent something of a real, if limited alternative, it strikes me that the only alternative available at the moment, if you're going to vote, is to be consistently anti-incumbent or, if you cannot bring yourself to vote for the party on the outs, at least abstain from endorsing the incumbent party.

The GOP has not yet gone through the wilderness of the Major-Hague-Duncan-Smith-Howard-Cameron years that may precede its eventual collapse. I take the Peter Hitchens approach to the GOP: let it fall to pieces, and we may yet build a political movement worth supporting. Surely there is no sense in a representative government of supporting a party that does not, in any real sense, represent you, is there?>

Read Ponnuru's Party of Death, and you'll understand why the current version of the Democratic Party, at least at the national level, is a nonstarter for people who want to combat the PoD. The PoD has influence in the GOP as well, but not as much. So, as a practical matter, the Party of Life has more influence in the GOP. That doesn't mean that we should give up on the Democratic party, but for the near-to-medium future it won't be possible to vote for them on the national level.>