The pro-family party? Really?

Both parties pay closest attention to the concerns of their financial backers, and only secondarily to those of their base voters.

For the Democrats, this means paying lip service to (and being careful not to offend outright) ethnic minorities and labor unions, but treating as non-negotiable only the social liberalism (church-state, abortion, gay rights, etc.) which is most important to their major, reliable campaign donors.

For the Republicans, it means paying lip service to (and being careful not to offend outright) religious and social conservatives, but treating as non-negotiable only the tax-cutting and regulatory issues which are most important to their major, reliable campaign donors.

You're unlikely to see either major party organized around social conservatism/economic populism for the simple reason that money talks.

Have you ever tried to think how you would react, Daniel, if you really thought abortion was murdering babies? A lot of other things might pale in comparison.

In short, your critique of social conservatives requires that they be you in social conservative clothing. But they aren't.

I think Daniel poses some interesting questions and I look forward to reading responses to them.

It does baffle me that social conservatives failed to make much headway in the Bush years. His administration seemed to be the most friendly social conservatives have had in decades. Were they too disorganized? Too rigid and inflexible? Did they waste what political capital they did have on matters such as a Schaivo debacle? Did their vision of America not sit too well with the citizenry?

I disagree with Rod's belief that the Democratic party would not make room at the table for social conservatives. Aren't we the party of appeasment?:)

Harry Reid, to throw out just one example, is pro-life, and many of the party's voters are anti-abortion.

While our party (Democratic) does have its fair share of dogmatics, I do wonder if the self-proclaimed leaders of social conservatism are a greater obstacle to that seat at the table. They have, afterall, spent the last 20 years demonizing anything that smacks of liberalism (which by extension, includes Democrats). I couldn't imagine the sesmic shift that would be required for them to even consider compromising with the other side of the aisle. Essentially, Rod, you'd be asking social conservatives to dismantle, bullet by bullet, much of the arsenal they've been schooled to aim at our party over the last 20 years.

THis is a very important issue which is at the heart of the failure of the 2 party system. Although lately the Dems have had some former moderate conservatives ,like Webb in Va join up, They will not give a place at the table to social/paleo/conservative types. Many dems are fanatical supporters of abortion, gun control, alternate forms of marriage that alienate people who were once friendly to them, like myself. Because of their zero sum game approach to these issues I have turned more to the Republicans, but they are just as bad. Overall they do favor the wealthy and are not all that concerend about the middle/working classes. Old Republican families like the Bush family tend to be very loyal to their class, and will do anything to help them out at the expense of everyone else. This leaves middle/working class social traditionalists, who still think the constitution should be followed, between a rock and a hard place. This is why I think we need another choice. For some that may be the Libertarian or the Constitution Party. I agree with much of what Ron Paul says but neither party will go in that direction. I don't think Paul will be viable within the Republican system over the long haul and maybe he would do better running as a Libertarian as he did in '88. I know he is trying to build a constitutional movement within the Republican Party but I don't think
that party will tolerate a return to constitutional practice. Neither, of course, will the democrats.

Daniel
But none of the really impacts the political question. We are never going to outlaw abortions in this country. Given that baseline, social conservatives who slavishly adhere to that political goal and place it above the poor, the war, their own economic interests may be sincere and holy, but politically naive. And we are talking about politics, after all, not a morality play.

Yeah, that's what I've always thought too: The. US. Is. Not. Going. To. Outlaw. Abortion.

It doesn't matter how strongly a minority of people want it, it will not happen, ever. With enough trickery, it can be made more difficult, but all such tricks will last for a very very short time.

I used to present evidence as to why this was, based on statistics, but I don't really think I need to anymore...four years of near total control by the Republicans and has any progress been made in this battle?

You know, one of the definitions of insanity is electing the same people over and over and expecting different results. Fool me one, shame on you, fool me five thousand, three hundred and fifty eight times, shame on me. Republicans will not outlaw abortion, and there's not even any third party that promises to do it. (In fact, there's a third party that is basically Republicans without that.)

Now, I want everyone to accept, as a thought experiment, that abortion is, to quote the fool we have for Speaker, 'abortion is off the table'. Completely off the table. You can pretend the rules are whatever you want them to be, maybe everyone can get them for free or no one can ever get them at all, if it helps, but pretend they are 100% permanently unchangeable.

Now, which party better represents you?

Oh, and in about ten years, you can add homosexuality to that, too. In a decade, maybe less, something like the Defense of Marriage Act will be a political livewire that electrocutes careers when politicians support it.

Right now there are a bunch of boomers who don't know any gay people and are vaguely weirded out by it and don't care about them, and a bunch of social conservatives who will happily line up to vote for someone attacking them, but as the boomers die off and get replaced by younger people, those people will voting negatively in response to that.

So, again, what's going to happen then? The Libertarians think will they will pick these people up, but they are probably delusional.

The social conservatives, the ones who were actually pro-family, had three choices: Be erased from history, fix their own party, or go over to the party that actually does stuff like ensure people can support their family on the wages they make.

Of course, the second is probably not possible or desirable anymore. It was hard enough to be moral and in a party that insisted that the root of all good was the love of money, I can only imagine how hard it must be when those people are being drowned out by the pro-war pro-torture faction.

Given that, no wonder they have accomplished so little. They are mocked and ridiculed (or just ignored) in the party that desperately wants their money and votes, but can't understand why the party whose values they want to gut isn't interested them. It's a fascinating dichotomy, if it weren't so tragic.

Anyone who's pro-life and thinks the Democrats will accept them are crazy. Democrats aren't going to do anything in that direction at all.

Although, perhaps more importantly when it comes to whether or not social conservatives will vote for them, maybe they can just start lying about it.

Off track slightly but:
Phil - "Why do people trek to China to adopt babies? Because they don't want a black baby."

Not quite that simple, in fact a base calumny. We have, among others, both an adopted domestic black child, and two adopted Asian children. There a a myriad of reasons that folks go overseas to adopt including messy US adoption experiences, social workers and agencies that won't place black children with white families, etc. I've experienced the domestic adoption routine 4 times and the international routine once (two kids at the same time) and I can tell we're never doing domestic again.

I am unaware of any "tax breaks" that specifically benefit the "rich" while not benefitting the middle class, so Rod can you cite some examples please?

I know a couple with two adopted babies, both with African American heritage. In each case the mother was white. No one had a problem with children of a white mom going to white parents, even though the children have medium-dark skin and unmistakably African features, so the excuse that the children's "sense of identity" is at risk by having white parents is not being played.

Whose racism is really involved in the problem, do you think? The couple didn't care what color their adoptive babies were. The mothers didn't care what color the adoptive family was, either. All the Guatamalan adoptees I've seen are dark skinned. The idea that white folks wouldn't adopt black children is simply a crock.

DavidTC, under the somewhat slanted conditions you've outlined, the answer to which party would better represent me is: neither.

Under today's conditions, that answer is: neither.

I've come to consider just about all politicians as money/power-hungry whores who would sell out their own grandmothers if it meant retaining the perks of their offices for two, four, or six more years, chief among them the right to look down on all the little people who have to kowtow to them. They are, in the main, empty-souled amoral opportunists who will shill for whichever side of an issue pays them more; the only question they ever really want to have answered is "What's in it for me?"

In fact, the only reason to continue voting at all is to keep our legislators in a state of perpetual gridlock, because they're never more dangerous than when they actually start getting things done.

jbd, I'm middle class, raising kids, and Warren Buffet pays a smaller percentage of his income in taxes than my family does. I don't have the benefit of getting large portions of my income through capital gains, whatever crazy schemes hedge funds managers get paid under and in the form of goodies presented as "benefits" for highly paid executives. I read an article in the Weekly Standard last year that put it this way: right now we view having kids not as an investment in the future which benefits us all, but as something akin to buying a fancy car; great if you can afford it, but don't come looking for help when it breaks down or needs an oil change.
We can justify Warren Buffet paying a lower percentage of his income for taxes because he's living off returns of investments which supposedly benefit society by keeping the economy going. Yet when it comes to kids, they're treated as luxury items with no special benefit for society as a whole.

Both parties are slaves to the Whore of Babylon. They are both corrupt to the bone. The reason the country will continue to deteriorate is that the parties are not willing to do what needs to be done because they are whores to the corporations. After the dollar collapses and there is a run on the banks family values will be reduced to simple survival as it was in the 30's

Lawrence Kudlow of NRO has waxed long and hard about the wonders of the Bush tax cuts. But without AMT reform, they're utterly meaningless to most middle class people. AMT grows more and more every year. As with Nafta, immigration, and Dubai ports, Bush ash consistenly sided against the little guy.

True, forestwalker. Of course, since the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913 nobody was using the money to buy muskets anyway, so I'm not sure what your point is. Besides, when did we get the idea that replacing the income tax with a different system of taxation would necessarily require abandoning our entire defense program?

The. US. Is. Not. Going. To. Outlaw. Abortion. .... four years of near total control by the Republicans and has any progress been made in this battle?

This is an absurd argument. Thanks to the kinds of judges that Democrats consider "mainstream," abortion is for the most part not subject to the policies of elected officials.

There are a few things pro-life politicians can do at the margins, such as the Partial Birth Abortion ban -- though even that required bills to be passed by multiple Congresses until one finally passed a court challenge.

But the only meaningful progress that can be made against abortion is to replace pro-Roe Supreme Court justices with justices who actually care about the Constitution. Bush, to his credit, has done that twice.

Think of tha abortion issue like this; it's like watching a football game for 50 years in a hurricane where neither side ever advances the ball. Nothing has really changed except on the margins we all agree on-parental notification, partial birth ban, distribution of information about the harm it may do to the girl and may be most importantly ultrasound photography. But no matter-abortion is still with us. And with each state making decisions about where it decides to limit or allow things.

Now think if tommorrow 9 strict constructionist judges all were seated on the Supreme Court. All that would do if they were in fact strict constructionists is throw it to the state legislatures-essentially where we are today anyway by default. Simply almost nothing would practically change.

I would encourage you to pray to end abortion, teach your children right from wrong, encoruage adoptions, support women and girls who make the right choice. But if anyone thinks the Supreme Court by fiat will someday ban abortion, they really need to understand what strict constructionist/federalist/true conservative jurisprudence looks like. And to think we as a society would ever prevent or prosecute women who get an abortion or doctors who perform them(and were I a doctor it sounds like the worst possible use of a good medical education, but I digress) could be about the silliest thing I've ever heard.

If the Republicans are ever going to win over the middle class, it will be on economics-AMT reform,. strict immigration enforcment, sensible trade policies, spending curbs, and the end of this insane war. If you want the "family values" dog&pony show once every 4 years, you are being treated like a con game mark.Bush's faith-based initiative was bad joke. The government cannot deliver the mail efficiently; how are they going to raise your kids? Take less of my money,and the money you do take, spend it on things that matter.

James Dobosn now doesn't like Thompson, Paul or Guiliani. I don't know who among them might be a good candidate. But when James Dobson runs something bigger than his mouth, let us all know.

Whoops, that should be narrowing the scope of Roe. Lol, I got sidetracked by this while studying for my senior seminar exam tomorrow.

Does anyone else think Charles Sander Peirce is as big a d--che as I do?

M_David

Even if everything you say is true, a true pro-lifer is still never going to vote for pro-aborts. It's a threshold issue. If you believe abortion is murder like I do, pro-aborts are evil, sick folk. I wouldn't vote for one if they parted the Red Sea.

Moral issues are NOT about winning. I would have been anti-slavery for the hundreds of years it was legal in the South, and never would have voted for a slavery supporter even if he was perfect in every other way. Never. If that meant always losing, or not getting that bridge up in, so be it. Why vote for an evil person? How could you ever trust them in other ways? There are some moral lines one cannot cross. Morality isn't a popularity contest.

Welcome to the first choice I listed: 'Be erased from history'.

Don't think that's me judging you or anything. I'm simply saying that is what will happen. Pro-lifers aren't welcome in any other party, and the Republican party is...well, I think we can all see it's in rather a lot of trouble.

I think that it's possible for prolifers to get a place at the Democratic table and make some progress, but they'd have to settle for taking baby steps to restrict abortion.

1. They'd have to change tactics. Calling people who are prochoice evil and killers wouldn't work. They'd have to focus on educating people on fetal development so that people could see the fetus as a human first, and then provide a rational debate on restriction.
2. At this point in time, the prolifers would have to focus on farther restrictions on the fetus unless they can find a way to convince people that an embryo has reached the development necessary to be called a "person" with rights of its' own.
3. They would have to start to talk about mothers in a more respectful tone. I don't mean all mothers. I mean mothers whom they might not respect. Mothers who get pregnant and aren't married. Mothers who go out and party and can't remember the name of the father. Mothers who don't want to raise a child with mental or physical problems. Mothers without the resources to care for a child. These are the mothers that the Democratic party has, traditionally, tried to help through gov't assistance programs, educational programs, and birth control programs. If you don't like these solutions, then you'd need to come up with some other solutions to help these folks if you really care about the babies.

Or, you can continue to vote for the party who claims to be prolife but does nothing when they have the power to change.

fbc,
I agree with you about what people in the pro-life movement are generally like, but that isn't how they're perceived (and I actually do think we have a bit of a tendency to think pro-choice=evil). Maybe that's because blowhard Republican politicians, and not the parish Pro-life committees are the face of "pro-life" to Blue America. Maybe because people so many there are so few liberals pro-lifers active in politics anymore (because the formerly pro-life baby-boomers on the left like Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Dick Durbin, and so many others sold out and became pro-choice, and gen x-ers and my generation have turned to the right because of the Democrats' growing secularism), it's hard to convince people that watsy's point 3 has already been taken up by most pro-lifers.

fbc,

Don't get mad at me. I wasn't being smug. Let's have another look at M_David's latest words:

Even if everything you say is true, a true pro-lifer is still never going to vote for pro-aborts. It's a threshold issue. If you believe abortion is murder like I do, pro-aborts are evil, sick folk. I wouldn't vote for one if they parted the Red Sea.

I don't think that M_David's perspective is all that unique in the prolife world. He's, probably, the norm. Well, he might not be the norm in what he says, but I think that he's probably the norm is what he thinks and feels. He just says what most people think. My point is that you can't sit at the table if you have anger issues and relate to the opposition in that way.

As for the 3rd requirement, well, let's take a look at what conservative posters at this site say about welfare programs, birth control, and sex education. I'm not going to go back and look for examples, but I'll do that if you really believe that the prolifers really believe that any of those things are good. My point is if you want a seat at the table and don't like the solutions on the table, then you need to come up with a few other solutions that address the problem.

quote: "Both parties pay closest attention to the concerns of their financial backers, and only secondarily to those of their base voters.
For the Democrats, this means paying lip service to (and being careful not to offend outright) ethnic minorities and labor unions, but treating as non-negotiable only the social liberalism (church-state, abortion, gay rights, etc.) which is most important to their major, reliable campaign donors.
For the Republicans, it means paying lip service to (and being careful not to offend outright) religious and social conservatives, but treating as non-negotiable only the tax-cutting and regulatory issues which are most important to their major, reliable campaign donors."

Me: This, unfortunately, is very true. As one commentator once said, since Democratic elites really just care about social liberalism and the Republican elites really just care about money what we are going to end up with in ten years are wealthy married gay couples who pay no taxes.
I'm a social conservative, but the country club Republican types make me sick. They don't give a damn about social conservatism, it's all about money and tax breaks for the rich for them. Heck, Bush spent a lot more political capital after the 2004 election trying to change Social Security than he ever did for the pro-life cause (and yes, I'm grateful for a few of the things he did for it).
I'd love for this country to have a political re-alignment in which social conservatives, racial minorities, and working and middle class types would end up in one party and social liberals and the wealthy country club types would end up in the other party. Unfortunately, I don't see it happening with the current elites of both parties running the show.

rr

Looking back over this, it's funny to see that the people who are most pissy are the pro-choice folks who just can't wrap their minds around the intrangegence of the pro-lifers. Yet, the fact of the matter is we have more liberal abortion laws on the books than almost any nation on the planet and it's been that way for about 35 years now. It's pretty hard to make a serious argument that the pro-lifers represent a real threat to the life and liberty of women facing unplanned pregnancies. What exactly are pro-choice folks getting out of being so upset at the unwillingness of pro-life folks to comprimise on this issue? What difference does it really make that pro-life folks won't bend on this issue? And is it really worth continuing to elect people like Barbara Boxer who think that there is no right to life up until a baby's parents decide to take him/her home from the hospital?
Also, for pro-choice folks who are so upset at the unwillingness of pro-life folks to bend here's a hint at the problem: the pro-life position is really based on an ethos which goes way beyond what is allowable in the event of an unwanted pregnancy. It has as much to do with the value we place on family, children, self-sacrifice, human sexuality and our expectations for our co-citizens as it does with the fact that it kills a defenseless human. Our extreme abortion laws and the Democratic Party's unwavering support for them are simply the most egregious example of an ethos which views family, children and all the rest in a way which is more often than not hostile to the values of the average pro-life voter.
Anyhow, I just find it amusing in a sad, sick sort of way that the people who are most upset seem to be the ones who are on the winning side of a regime which has secured pretty much the most extreme abortion laws of any nation on the planet. You won! Heck, even preventing doctors from sucking the brains out of a full term, 70% delivered baby barely even fiddles around the edges of our nation's extraordinary liberality on this issue. Wence the anger?

Yes, Christians are free not to get abortions, just as quakers were free not to own slaves. Isn't it wonderful? How dare they not be happy with such freedom and impeccable logic? Anger, anger, anger, spew for with derision on cue, please!

"I just find it amusing in a sad, sick sort of way that the people who are most upset seem to be the ones who are on the winning side of a regime which has secured pretty much the most extreme abortion laws of any nation on the planet.'

Actually, our abortion laws are in line with most other First World countries, except that abortion tends to be more widely available and with fewer restrictions in Europe because of nationalized health care. To say we have the most extreme abortion laws of any nation on the planet is both absurd and dishonest. Since Roe, abortion has become more and more restricted with access choked off for many women.

On the flip side, few First World nations outlaw and criminalize abortion, the ultimate goal of the U.S. pro-life movement. With few exceptions, only the most authoritarian theocracies in which women are oppressed by the government and the church generally have the kinds of restrictions the pro-life movement that controls the GOP wants.

The point, Rebaccat, is that the Constituion protects the right to an abortion, although that right has been dramatically limited by Roe. Thus, those seeking to strip Constitutional protection are the ones who likely need to do the compromising since they are the ones suggesting the loss of rights.

Rubbish, Daniel. Roe hasn't limited anything, practically speaking. Neither has the latest partial birth abortion ruling. The health exceptions are meaningless. Other western countries debate dramtically the lowering of weeks when an abortion is allowable, some even don't allow abortions past a certain point. Under the guise of a health exception, we allow it as long as you don't shove a knife through the head of an almost born child.

The left in this country seeks to make abortion more available--your politicians play lap dog to people who think abortion is a sacrament. Yet the majority, while perhaps wishing the issue would go away, certainly don't support the draconian laws the left would place on institutions and individuals who are conscientious objectors.

Since almost 85% of abortions occur in the first trimester and the post-Roe cases have made access to second and third-trimester abortions more and more difficult, our laws are quite similar to Europe. And again, abortions are available through national health systems in Europe while there is almost no government provided abortion in the U.S. In addition, abortions are available in many parts of Europe without waiting periods, parental notification, and "education" requirements.

Please take your own advice. My guess is you are still convinced that Roe is the legal standard and that "abortion on demand" actually exists beyond the fund-raising letters of the pro-life movement.

Oh yes, from that pro-life movement fundraising front, the Gaurdian newspaper:

"The British Pregnancy Advisory Service has been directing women with pregnancies close to the British time limit to Spain to a clinic willing to exploit Spanish law to carry out terminations beyond 24 weeks.

Other European countries have stricter limits [than Britain]. And although abortion is permitted in some circumstances in most after the time limit, none allow effective abortion on demand as late as 24 weeks.

Liberal laws

In France, abortion after 12 weeks is allowed only if two doctors say a woman's health is endangered or the foetus has a serious abnormality.

In Sweden, abortion is provided free and on demand until week 18. After that, a woman must secure special permission from a medical board.

Denmark has abortion on demand for the first 12 weeks. After that, there are limits and terminations are few after 16 weeks.

Britain's laws are also more liberal than restrictive abortion regimes in New Zealand and Australia, where the ability to obtain an abortion depends on different state laws.

The only major Western country where abortion is more easily available, in some places, than in Britain is the U.S."

Yes, yes, I can see your point, Daniel. And boy, oh boy, it's amazing how the US's restictive abortion regime is keeping women from getting their abortions. Why, we're only having abortions at twice the rate of Western Europeans! Obviously American women are just having too hard of a time getting their abortions to do a proper job in out-pacing their European counter-parts! (and for the record, unplaneed pregnancies amoung american women happen 30% more frequently than they do among western european women - not nearly enough to explain out pacing them 2 to 1 in the percentage of women having abortions!)
Come on, Daniel, how stupid do you really think we all are?

Brad, there is no record of abortion laws targeting women who obtain abortions in the pre-roe era and it is ridiculous to think that even if by magic, abortions became illegal again that we'd start. Women were always seen as the victem of abortionists in practice (and the men who abandoned them from a moral perspective) and the laws treated them accordingly.
If you want to know why this is such a stumbling block for pro-life folks, consider the fact that not only would they have to vote for someone who doesn't share their values about the right to life for the unborn, but they would be voting for someone who cannot even admit the reality that we have really extreme abortion laws on the books and that no one is calling for jailing pregnant women or other such nonsense. Even if they can get over the first issue of difference of opinions, voting for someone so disconnected from the world the rest of us live in is just too much for many people.

'Even if they can get over the first issue of difference of opinions, voting for someone so disconnected from the world the rest of us live in is just too much for many people."

On the flip side, the challenge is dealing with people who are unable to articulate the impact of telling women what kind of medical treatement they can receive. While prepared to focus on giving legal rights to two-day old tissue, they are unprepared to talk about the impact of the government telling women they can't make medical decisions about their bodies once the man has left the bedroom. Not a single concern about the impact of cutting-off access to medical treatement. No wonder there is such a disconnect, given the pro-life belief that the only rights that matter are the rights of tissue.

"Brad, there is no record... too much for many people."

Uh...okay.

I think I grasp that the current legally sanctioned world view in the U.S. is not held universally by all its citizens, and that there are those who would change it if they could.

(Belated props to sotto voce, who I was obviously riffing off of with his excellent portrait of what both freedom and its absence really means.)

there's a legally sanctioned world-view? of anything in particular or what? JW.

I'm just going to have to jump in here and say that Daniel is 100% right. European law may, on paper, be slightly more restrictive of abortions, but in the US, they are much harder to get.

Why? Because there aren't any abortion clinics in the US, statistically speaking. There are a few states with one place abortions can be gotten. And then states go and pass laws talking about waiting periods and notifications and all that designed to run out the clock.

Yeah, in the US it's normally 24 weeks (Two trimesters), and in Europe it's often 20 or less, but in Europe it's a ten minute car ride to the nearest hospital, whereas in the US it's a five hour car trip to 'counseling' and then a waiting period and then another five hour trip a week later.

Pretending that you can compare how 'liberal' our abortion policy is based on what month it is allowed is idiotic. Almost all abortions are gotten in the first trimester. It is much harder to get one in the first trimester in the US than almost anywhere else it is legal, and it's completely dishonest to pretend otherwise.

Steve Sailer has been ahead of everybody about this. He summed up many of his findings in 2004-2005 with, "Affordable Family Formation: The Neglected Key to the GOP". He had written about the Baby Gap, Marriage Gap, etc. before in the, "American Conservative".

The change in the GOP electorate, and the Dem one as well, is a relatively new one. According to Sailer, they now reflect the fact that white people vote mostly their moral values. He was able to examine mathematically in hindsight when it occurred (whites voting their values) and dates it to the early 90's, and that it has slowly grown since then.

For Dems "to give social conservatives a real place at the table" would be to do something totally against the trajectory of their movement.

Creating better family leave policies for workers would be nice...

How about eliminating the marriage penalty provisions in SSI for couples with disabilities? Under current rules, such a couple will lose 25% of their already meager joint income if they refuse to live in sin. Where is Sam Brownback on this issue?

The Republicans suggesting, in any circumstances, that SSI payments should be higher?

Gee, I wonder why they don't do that. ;)