# David Frum's recipe for conservative revival **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 12, 2008, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324 "2008-01-12T20:49:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2008, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/41 "2008-01-13T21:58:59Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Whether you like it or not, the Republican Party sold it’s collective soul to the racists a long time ago. [/QUOTE] I know ahistorical perspectives are your schtick, but it wasn’t until the 60s that the party of the racists became the Republicans. Civil Rights changed the party against racism. Before that it was the Democrats that represented the southern racist. Also, I doubt you’ll do it, but perhaps you’ll want to examine the broad brush you paint 50% of the population with before deigning to anoint yourself defender against prejudice. The people who cannot tell the difference between types of Mexicans are probably not thinking about the philosophy of the Republican party. I know a California Republican who is very against immigration, and one of his big platforms regards the Mexican immigrant gangbangers who push out Black American citizens from the ghettoes of LA. Why is it that you speak out against Prejudice but need a crude villain group to serve as foil for your rhetoric? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2008, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/42 "2008-01-14T00:32:56Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] True universal free health care for all health related issues would be a disaster. [/quote] Why? It hasn’t been a disaster for Canada. [QUOTE=Sam Stone] The only way to reduce corruption in government is to reduce the power of government. [/QUOTE] What are you basing that on? The high-water mark of public corruption in America was the Gilded Age of the late 19th Century, when an expansive welfare-state role for government was hardly conceived of. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2008, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/43 "2008-01-14T03:18:53Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] Got any evidence this is true? [/QUOTE] Uh. Yeah, looks like I put the cart before the horse there. What I wanted to say was that less educated people tend to have bigger families than more educated people. ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/44 "2008-01-15T21:25:49Z")
> [@](#): > > A conservative commitment to make private-sector health insurance available to every American In what way is private-sector health insurance NOT available to every American? Call your friendly neighbourhood insurance salesman, pay the premium, and you will have health insurance. Of course, you will be dropped, or your rates will skyrocket, after your first claim–but it is available to you. Right now. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/45 "2008-01-15T21:43:09Z")
I think what it means is that a way should be found to provide private-sector health care insurance for everyone (which I would favor) as opposed to government funded (and supervised) health care for everyone. I have no problem with some sort of taxpayer-funded plan that pays health care premiums but allows people to pick their own insurance companies and physicians like many do now through their employment plans; I _don’t_ want some gigantic, uncaring, unresponsive, and undoubtedly underfunded governmental agency determining what kind of heath care I’m entitled to receive. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/46 "2008-01-15T21:49:48Z")
[QUOTE=Starving Artist] Cite for this being representative of mainstream conservatism? [/quote] I’ve already quoted Pat Buchanan, who’s been one of the most popular conservative commentators for more than a generation. But just for fun, [here’s a conservative](http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_01_15/cover.html) who _bashes_ Mexicans for their strong family values. > [@](#): > > Perhaps you should tell the family from Mexico Etc., etc., etc. Encourage the members of that family (if it actually exists) to register on the board, and I’ll be happy to tell them. > [@](#): > > You and your ilk just don’t get it, do you: > > Mexicans here legally = fine > > Mexicans here illegally = still fine, but shouldn’t be allowed to get away with breaking the law Yeah, yeah. Few Republican commentators write very much about legal vs. illegal. Check most articles (or even most pit threads on this board) and it’s clear that they use “Mexican” and “illegal immigrant” as synonyms. There’s no shortage of complaints about the horror of not being “culturally homogeneous” or some other such rot, or of having to hear Spanish at Walmart. Do you recall that in '06 Congress voted to condemn the Spanish-language version of the Pledge of Allegiance? No doubt you’ll tell me that Republican Representatives aren’t representative of Republicans. The whole illegal immigration angle is just an excuse to bash who they want to bash. (Much like the lying about sex angle was an excuse to attack a president who they wanted to attack. Not surprisingly, the same people ran both campaigns.) ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/47 "2008-01-15T22:08:58Z")
[QUOTE=ITR champion] I’ve already quoted Pat Buchanan, who’s been one of the most popular conservative commentators for more than a generation. But just for fun, [here’s a conservative](http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_01_15/cover.html) who _bashes_ Mexicans for their strong family values. [/quote] I’ll not bother to read your cite because, as you say, it’s A conservative. I imagine you’d be one of the first ones to remind a Muslim-basher than Muslim extremists are in the minority, however you are just as guilty of broad-brush stereotyping as they are when it comes to your view of Republicans. [QUOTE=ITR champion] Encourage the members of that family (if it actually exists) to register on the board, and I’ll be happy to tell them. [/quote] Oh, they exist alright, and they’d laugh right in your ignorant face. [QUOTE=ITR champion] The whole illegal immigration angle is just an excuse to bash who they want to bash. [/quote] And where, pray tell, was all the (so-called) Mexican-bashing in the years prior to illegal immigration having become an issue? The fact of the matter is that a certain segment of the left deliberately distorts and/or lies about conservatives as a strategy to gain support for their own agenda, and people like you fall for it. Again I would ask, how many Republicans do you know (assuming you actually know any) who think and act like Republicans as portrayed by the left? Not many, I’ll wager. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/48 "2008-01-15T22:16:44Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] In short, conservatives support ‘the family’ because they think the family is a force for good in society. And they’re largely right about that. [/QUOTE] Sorry, but you forgot to include the word _ **heterosexual** _ in front of each use of the word “family”. Of course, throw two dudes or two chicks together, and many conservatives can’t act fast enough to abolish legal protections, subvert financial benefits and inheritance rights, tear apart child custody priviledges, and essentially undermine the emotional stability of this not-quite-so-precious unit they’re loathe to consider a “family” in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/49 "2008-01-15T22:17:15Z")
[QUOTE=Beware of Doug] Uh. Yeah, looks like I put the cart before the horse there. What I wanted to say was that less educated people tend to have bigger families than more educated people. [/QUOTE] I hate to pound the table again, but do you have any evidence THIS is true, at least in the United States? And even if it were, how does it relate to Frum’s idea? Presumably if Frum’s conservatism wants larger families, the gains to be made would be from families that are currently small. I don’t understand the logical leap from “we want a higher birthrate” to “we want people to be uneducated.” Frum is not some wild-eyed Alabama fundamentalist who thinks all book larnin’ is the Devil’s work. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/50 "2008-01-15T22:17:21Z")
I think **Sam Stone** ’s point-by-point analysis is pretty much on the mark. My question is, what does it add up to? Are we really to expect the Republican Party to make a winning platform based on prison reform and large families, of all things? Why would Frum even _think_ of raising those issues? It’s altogether too weird, and reveals how fractured the conservative movement has recently become. As people have noted above, there’s no mention in Frum’s list of fiscal conservatism, nor social conservatism, both of which were the foundation of modern conservatism. Lose those and what have you got? Not much, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/51 "2008-01-15T22:23:55Z")
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac] It’s altogether too weird, and reveals how fractured the conservative movement has recently become. As people have noted above, there’s no mention in Frum’s list of fiscal conservatism, nor social conservatism, both of which were the foundation of modern conservatism. Lose those and what have you got? [/QUOTE] Business conservatism and foreign-policy neoconservatism. Oh, and a war on obesity. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2008, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/52 "2008-01-16T02:02:40Z")
[QUOTE=ArchiveGuy] Sorry, but you forgot to include the word _ **heterosexual** _ in front of each use of the word “family”. Of course, throw two dudes or two chicks together, and many conservatives can’t act fast enough to abolish legal protections [/QUOTE] You’re addressing your post to a conservative (Sam Stone) who in fact supports the right of homosexuals to marry. So evidently, that’s not always true. I’m conservative by Canadian standards to be sure, and I’m absolutely 100% behind the rights of gay and lesbian couples to be married, in part because of my support for family-friendly politics. I am firmly convinced that recognizing homosexual marriage will strengthen the family as a social and legal institution, confer enormous economic benefits upon society at large, increase overall utility (or happiness, or whatever term you want to use there) and make the governance of the state fairer and more equitable. I was thrilled when gay marriage was made legal in Canada and if it were to convince thousands of Americans to immigrate here to get married and live here I’d be happier still. Of course I understand this is not the position of most American conservatives, and in fact is not Frum’s position. But it’s worth noting “Conservatives” are not a monolithic group of demons. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2008, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/53 "2008-01-16T02:12:57Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] But it’s worth noting “Conservatives” are not a monolithic group of demons. [/QUOTE] No, not monolithic, you got that right. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2008, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/54 "2008-01-16T17:30:13Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] You’re addressing your post to a conservative (Sam Stone) who in fact supports the right of homosexuals to marry. So evidently, that’s not always true. I’m conservative by Canadian standards to be sure, and I’m absolutely 100% behind the rights of gay and lesbian couples to be married, in part because of my support for family-friendly politics. I am firmly convinced that recognizing homosexual marriage will strengthen the family as a social and legal institution, confer enormous economic benefits upon society at large, increase overall utility (or happiness, or whatever term you want to use there) and make the governance of the state fairer and more equitable. I was thrilled when gay marriage was made legal in Canada and if it were to convince thousands of Americans to immigrate here to get married and live here I’d be happier still. Of course I understand this is not the position of most American conservatives, and in fact is not Frum’s position. But it’s worth noting “Conservatives” are not a monolithic group of demons. [/QUOTE] Which is why I said _ **many** _, and not _all_. Still, I appreciate your response. Too bad the US doesn’t have more conservatives like you. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2008, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/55 "2008-01-16T17:46:27Z")
I want to offer a slightly different spin on number 3, about encouraging larger families: The U.S. birthrate recently hit 2.1, which it was said is the number that is required to replenish the population at a rate which supports the aging population. So to an extent this can be considered an admirable goal. Below that you have problems (I’m looking at you, Europe, with your aging and declining population) and above that you have problems. For whatever reasons, the U.S. as a whole sees larger families as a good thing and something that they can afford in prosperous times. Personally, I stopped at exactly 2 kids and didn’t add the 0.1 although we do have a small, three-legged dog, which is roughly equivalent to 0.1 but will never add much to the economy (I suspect she has brain damage). Seriously, as someone who is socially liberal but fiscally conservative, I’d rather see abortion reduced through the ability of people to plan for and afford to care for their families, reduction in crime, etc., so I don’t have a problem with this general goal, so long as it doesn’t impact individual liberties of body and choice. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2008, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/56 "2008-01-17T19:54:07Z")
[QUOTE=ShibbOleth] Seriously, as someone who is socially liberal but fiscally conservative, I’d rather see abortion reduced through the ability of people to plan for and afford to care for their families, reduction in crime, etc., so I don’t have a problem with this general goal, so long as it doesn’t impact individual liberties of body and choice. [/QUOTE] The only thing I can think of along those lines (not having read Frum’s book) is a tax break or direct credit for every kid after the second. Try selling **that** idea to a public already prejudiced against “welfare queens” and “brood sows”! ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2008, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/57 "2008-01-17T20:37:54Z")
Simple. You can have the money so long as you don’t actually need it. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324/58 "2008-01-18T00:03:49Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Business conservatism and foreign-policy neoconservatism. Oh, and a war on obesity. [/QUOTE] With a strong dose of nativism, too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-frums-recipe-for-conservative-revival/433324.md?page=2)