The Sunday talkers

Your last paragraph interested me the most. I agree that the Democrats could pick off a lot of social conservatives who aren't Country Clubbers, but the internal clash with the newbie Democrats and the sexual revolutionaries who've been a key (if not dominant) Democrat constituency since 1972 would be too great. It hadn't occurred to me in so many words that a lot of socially liberal Republicans might become Democrats, but it makes sense since the Dems have moved to the right on economics and the current regime has spent money like drunken sailors.

However it shakes out, I think we've been due for a realignment since the fall of Communism. We've just been wandering and trying on new political alignments like shoppers from then until now. I'm ready - though I'm apprehensive about the unintended consequences of a realignment.

Brooks pointed out that the wealthy aren't suffering from social and familial stress like the middle income and working classes are

So true.

This is one point The Bell Curve drove home so well. A complex, meritorious, libertarian society shorn from any social standards is simply terrible for the working classes and children. Familial stress is at an all-time high out there.

The George Will problem: the elite simply don't have any contact with the lower classes anymore. The cognitive elite are raised together in the same suburbs, go to the same colleges, marry each other (shockingly high correlations), and then retire together. They really don't get it. Brooks gets it only because he's interested in the social sciences (Bobos in Paradise, etc.). But I wonder how many of his friends live in a trailer park.

Great post, Rod. But if you gotta be sick to crank out this sort of copy, I don't want you to get well!

The big question for Huckabee is whether he will have the nerve to stick to his populist principles, should he win Iowa and survive (as I think he will). I'm not sure he has the guts to take on the Republican establishment, whose support he will desperately need if he wants to run again in 2012. But I hope he does stick to his guns. The country needs to wake up to the fact that the Reagan ideas (tax cuts, big defense buildup, corporate giveaways) aren't working anymore, and that message will come across far more clearly if we hear it from both sides of the aisle.

Philosophy Undergrad Alert

Sorry I don't have time to read Plato's Laws today. :) But I'm not quite ready to completly discount him just yet. Given that the Analogy of the Cave still holds true in life and in political circles.

Your universe determines your vision and your vision is ultimately limited by your universe. If you recognize this you can open your mind to the fact that the shadows your seeing in the cave aren't the fullness of truth or even accurate representations.

Christians rely on the fact that God has revealed the fullness of truth in the Bible. And while we can sometimes discern that truth through reason, we are not fully reliant on our finite reason, or even on the historical legacy of wise civilizations, but rather on the fullness of truth found in the Bible and (for Catholics) the work of the Economy of Salvation.

As a Christian I don't need to rely on the shadows. I can rely on the Way, Truth and Life - Jesus. And I am truly grateful for this. All the talk about 'advancement of societal views' belies the fact we have already been given the Truth. The question is more "Will we keep it clearly in sight?" Or allow the Main Stream Media to blur and obscure.

Charles Cosimano, Greeks in particular, embraced homosexuality, perhaps overly so as it gave the Persians a good laugh when they heard that the Spartans at Thermopylae were doing their hair prior to battle

Excellent example. The Greeks were threatened by the Persians due to demographics, not military skill.

Bottom line: your "omnisexual" cultures (better defined as pansexual, or "screw anything" cultures) don't last long and have little to offer us long term. Sure, all sorts of weird sexual deviancy will come down the evolutionary turnpike, but if and when it spills over into the mainstream it's over for that culture. The pederasty lifestyle doesn't pay demographic dividends. The Spartans even had to coerce men into marrying and having families, if I recall.

"My guess is that socially liberal business Republican types are most likely to bolt the party for the Dems, especially if 2008 brings a Clinton restoration."

And as a socially liberal business type who used to be a Republican and is now a Democrat, I say, come on over old friends, the water is fine. But you have to support universal health care if you want to be admitted as a member of the club and not just a guest.

Actually, I suspect that most socially liberal business Republican types will stay in the GOP if McCain or Giuliani gets the nomination. They know that in such a situation history will repeat itself and the Democrats will save their bacon on the social issues, while the right sort of GOP President will work to keep taxes low (at least for the wealthy) and keep the Huckabee types properly restrained and co-opted. On the other hand, if Huckabee actually wins the nomination...

It would be interesting to see what the Democratic Party would become should socially liberal business types leave the GOP and go over to the Democrats. Since such a move would likely push the Democrats to the right on economics, it might well begin to alienate blue collar workers and racial minorities. Granted, the Democrats often only pay lip services to blue collar types (much like Republicans pay lip service to religious conservatives), but the presence of socially liberal, pro-business former Republicans in the Democratic Party would be jarring. If Huckabee populist end up taking over the GOP after the exodus of socially liberal business types, alienated Democrats in turn would likely migrate over to the GOP.
I don't see it happening, but socially liberal business types going over to the Democrats could have a lot of unintended consequences. At any rate, it's hard to see how changing the coalition in one party wouldn't have an impact on the coalition in the other party.

rr

Broder, IMHO, has become profoundly more politically conservative the last couple of years -- against the national trend for a guy who usually embraces consensus.

Yet he has simultaneously done so (as was accurately pointed out) in a way that is rote and predictable. Go figure.

You get two more chances this week to make up for missing today: :)

- Divine Liturgy Tuesday morning 1/1/08 commemorating Jesus's circumcision.

- Divine Liturgy Saturday morning 1/5/08 for The Eve of Theophany and the Great Blessing of Water/Jesus's baptism.

(At least at St. Maximus; I don't know the schedule for St. Seraphim.)

Here's praying for y'all's health.

I'm simply not willing to throw out thousands of years of tradition (grounded in nature, Biblical teaching, AND common sense) to suit the fashion of the past few decades.

Well, the very same thing was said about divorce, racial intermarriage, slavery, kings, capital punishment, and so on.

With 40% national support for gay marriage legalization, increasing at 1% per year, the next thirty years will see it happen everywhere.

Some traditions just do go out of style permanently. Their rationalizations also tend not to look so good in retrospect.

Rod, do you realize that the east coast is basically a non and anti-Christian secular/socialist country now? It's eery what the Left has done to the place.

It's also coming to the Great Lakes/Upper Midwest, the Southwest, and south of the Potomac in the near future. Watch how Christian Right groups and leaders are fading and retreating geographically before it. Btw, it's usually called "post-Christian". And it means Christianity has to compete on equal terms and on its merits with other ideas and religions- how unspeakably horrible and unfair....

I'd say that to return to desirability and emininence in these parts of the country, Christianity simply has to purify itself. But the corruptions are so deep, the righteous denial and sense of entitlement so great, that generations have to pass away until it is accomplished.

quote: "While some white, non-union blue collar Democrats may be attracted to Huckabee's populist GOP, his anti-immigrant rhetoric and the GOP's party-of-Dixie orientation that would be even more present would never attract minorities (African Americans and Latinos)."

Me: If country club Republicans migrated to the Democratic Party there is no doubt that they would have a strong influence on its economic policies. I seriously doubt that blue collar whites and African-Americans (who are often suspicious that immigrants take their jobs BTW) would be happy with that. Since Huckabee doesn't exact go around waving the confederate flag and blue collar whites and African-Americans tend to be socially conservative anyway, the appeal of the GOP for them in such a circumstance might be a lot greater than you think.
Even if it didn't come to that, I think my point still stands that if the coalition in one party changed, it would bound to cause serious friction in the other party's coalition as well.

rr

DavidTC,

I'm 32 and also grew up in North Georgia (Gainesville to be precise). I both agree and disagree with you. People I know that are my age aren't shocked by homosexuality and see no reason to treat gays like lepers. We've simply been exposed to it openly for too long to be shocked by it.
But I'd wager that few equate disapproving of homosexual behavior or viewing it as immoral with racism. I doubt many would view social conservatives in the same manner as they would Bull Connor, and I don't see this changing over time either. I think a lot of people in my generation simply take a libertarian, live and let live approach to the whole thing. That is why they don't really care about so to speak.
Heck, I'm a social conservative who views homosexual activity as sinful. But as long as I'm not being told what to believe or think about it, I don't see why the state shouldn't simply butt out of marriage and let people (straight, gay, bi, poly, whatever) do whatever they want.

rr

"Actually, the next 30 years may also see a genetic or hormonal cure for homosexuality -- or possibly pre-natal genetic testing. Either of those scientific advances will mean the virtual elimination of homosexuality in Western cultures."

I'm certain that NARTH, Concerned Women for America, and Focus on the Family are joining forces to work with eugenicists throughout the industrialized world on this.

Of course, at the same time, similar research may find a cure for religion...eliminating the "God gene".

Imagine, which do you think would benefit our world more; a world with no homosexual agenda, or a world with no religious wars, clerical pedophilia, and suicide bombers?

But I'd wager that few equate disapproving of homosexual behavior or viewing it as immoral with racism. I doubt many would view social conservatives in the same manner as they would Bull Connor, and I don't see this changing over time either. I think a lot of people in my generation simply take a libertarian, live and let live approach to the whole thing. That is why they don't really care about so to speak.

Not 'us', no, you're right.

Generation X is going to be towards homosexuality the same as the Greatest Generation is towards race...the grandkids are never quite sure when they're going to slip out some slur, or feel the need to mention that the person they talked to on the phone sounded like they were black/gay and got their job because of affirmative action, but they're just a product of their time. The grandkids will just kinda ignore it and keep going, and hope that their cousin James, who married a black woman/another man didn't hear it.

It's the Millennials that are going to be the Boomers, if that makes sense. And that means it was 1963 in 2000, so now it's about 1969. Or maybe a little later. I always felt Gen X ended about 1975, not 1980 as seems to be accepted now, because I've never thought of myself as a Gen Xer. So that would make it 1973 or so.

Anyway, it's obviously not some exact matching, but the outline is there. Compare the dates of the interracial kisses to the man-on-man kisses, or Sanford and Son to Will and Grace.

And, like I said, in 30 years, when we reach 2040, aka, '2000', there will be a lot of politicians who hope that no one talks about their voting record over the past decade or two, like the Dixiecrats hope no one mentions their voting record in the 50s and 60s. (30 years is probably actually too long now that I do the math on the generations, it might be more like 20 years that their record becomes an embarrassment, aka, '1990'.)

People will continue being fooled by this, however, because we have about 10-20 years before boomers die off and the demographic shift of the young fogey begin to dominate.

Posted by: M_David | December 31, 2007 11:39 AM

I agree with your basic paradigm, M_David, but I think it may take longer than 10-20 years, because so many Gen-Xers have totally "bought the farm," as you so aptly put it. Granted, most of them are just going along with the culture, trying to fit in with the "popular kids," as it were, without putting any real thought into their beliefs. But while it's true that they're not having as many babies as their conservative contemporaries, there are LOTS of them, they dominate the media, and they aren't dying off any time soon.

MargaretE, you are probably right. Make it from 10-40 years.

Just don't forget that massive immigration has a large effect on a generation without kids.

And let's not underestimate how the liberal lifestyle crushes families and suppresses its own vote. Note how Generation X makes up a particularly unpredictable voting bloc, and has feeble rates of political participation. It won't take much to overpower them. Like a new silent, bitter generation.

rr, the left...does have certain advantages (the media, academia, wealth elites)

I'm not sure these are advantages in a democracy, eh? It doesn't take long for the rabble to figure out all those guys in gated communities deserve to go down. Personally, I'd rather have my politics lined up with the guys who live in hellholes like Crawford TX, not those who windsurf off the East Coast. Poor folk don't read much, but they get the message easy.

I agree with your point on gay marriage being sort of a meaningless political metric. The real liberal agenda is not gay marriage but rather "widespread acceptance" of gays. Gay marriage is just a tool to obtain this.

But the question remains: are the next few generations of parents going to invite openly gay couples to meet their children? What will they teach their kids about homosexuality? So the real question is who rocks the cradle.

M_David
Here's a thought experiment for you:

1) first, guess the average number of children from people who support gay marriage

2) next, estimate the average number of children from people who seriously oppose gay marriage

As I said, the amount of people who seriously opposed gay marriage, at my HS reunion, would be about three or four out of seventy. That's the number that actually appeared to disapprove of gay people, or, rather, the concept that someone they knew was gay. Of course, this wasn't any sort of formal poll, or even an informal one, and the rest probably don't 'support' gay marriage, they simply do not care.

I don't care how much many kids those 5% have, they're not going to out-reproduce everyone else. Your theory would make sense if the population was divided evenly in half, with one supposed culture opposed to it and one in favor of it, which is something the Republicans have been promoting for a decade, but my point was that it is not true.

The 'liberals' might have changed first, but the amount of people under 15-30 who disapprove of gay people is, quite possibly, less then the actual amount of gay people under 15-30, and that's even more likely to be true if it's restricted to 15-20 and under. (15 being the imaginary point where gay people first show up.)

The rest of the population under 30 thinks it's somewhat icky, and if they were to come across a gay person they might make some stereotypical assumptions about them, but do not care if they get married. So all it takes to have them to vote in favor of it is someone talking about how their partner needs health insurance or any of the dozen ways to humanize it.

However, I wasn't really making a point about gay marriage in and of itself. It's possible that will not happen, just like, for example, the equal rights amendment never happened. Individual bills don't really matter, and you don't know where the law will be then. I was talking about where society would be. At that point, people will have to justify what they said and did now, just like they have to justify what they did in the 60s right now.

And, in fact, even if the people in favor of gay marriage had less kids to an amazing extent, that wouldn't actually change the voting patterns over the next 20 years. It would in in the long term, but there is an entire generation right now that's becoming political active.

About the only thing that could change that is if we had a bunch of people showing up from a very conservative country. Interestingly, the Republicans are dead-set on stopping that.

Mark in Houston, Interesting mix of condescension to people in places like Crawford, Texas mixed with seething cultural resentment towards the more prosperous folks on the East Coast

Interesting ideology you see the world through. Where to start.

First, Crawford TX is very hot, way too hot for most people to choose to live in. If you don't know this, you need to get out more.

Second, if you haven't noticed the national cultural dislike against East Coast folks looking down their noses at the unwashed flyover country types, you don't know much about politics. Not to mention you must not have read about Kerry's team having a heart attack at the windsurfing picture. It cost him big time with regular folk.

These are facts, not "seething cultural resentment." My recommendation is to jump out of your fantasy world and get used to the real one where TX is hot, AK is cold, good old boys watch NASCAR, and windsurfing is for yuppie elitists.

M_David:

For someone so concerned with marriage and intermarriage (particularly of the elites, and you would be exactly right), it surprises me that you don't identify a huge factor making America more politically liberal -- the intermarriage among couples of different religions and races. Given the former conservative legal structure (and not entirely subjugated feelings even today) against such marriages, such couples tend to be strongly liberal.

On the other hand, I'm not quite as convinced by the theory that conservative families with a lot of kids will rule the world. As if kids ALWAYS adopt the political philosophies of their parents? As if people NEVER change their political beliefs throughout life? Preposterous.

(Which also means, of course, that some of those kids with black dads and Asian moms from modest backgrounds could still be strongly economically conservative -- like, say, Tiger Woods.)