I am not sure what you mean by “Whenever some part of government moves towards treating all religions equally…” so I won’t respond to that. If you could provide an example it would help.
As far as the school prayer goes I think that the issue is not REQUIRING school prayer for everyone (though I am sure there is some group somewhere who would want this) but ALLOWING those who believe to pray in school. I could be wrong, being an athiest I don’t follow this issue. I can see and understand both sides of this issue. I can see how allowing students to pray in school, especially if a teahcer/principal/coach involved could make a person from a different faith very uncomfortable. I can also understand how having the government come in and tell a community that prayer in school under any circumstances is illegal would anger people. I think that most of the people who want prayer in school are not trying to force everyone in the school, much less everyone in every school in every city, to be required to pray. I think they just want those who believe to be able pray.
But this is true for anyone who’s feeling put upon by outsiders, Sam. I felt that way about my parents when I was a teenager. A liberal gay couple in Cleveland doesn’t understand a conservative farmer couple anymore than the farmer couple understands the gay couple who just want to make the commitment and get married. What business is it of the farmer couple? How are they being threatened?
By your description I’m a social conservative when it comes to marriage. My wife and I deeply respect the commitment of marriage and married before we had children. We both have supportive extended families. And hey, to put icing on the cake my wife stays home to take care of the kids. I have many friends that are the same way. I, and though I hesitate to speak for my friends I will anyway, and my friends do not feel that the institution of marriage would be harmed by letting gay couples marry. Not just “civilly unionize” or whatever you’d call it, but marry. For pete’s sake, if a gay couple can adopt, or have children by whatever means, they ought to be able to get married, right? Wouldn’t the stability of marriage be what’s better for the child?
So I think it’s more of a homophobia thing than a states rights thing.
Couldn’t agree more. Back in August I was at the local 4-H fair in the animal barn wheeling my little girls past a couple of very respectable looking well-dressed (in a best pair of crisp blue jeans and freshly pressed button down shirt and new cowboy hat and boots kind of way) fellows just as one was talking about the “fucking niggers and drug addicts” to the other.
I’m not going to go into this debate. I’m just here to post a big “thank you” to Sam Stone. We come from direct opposites on the political scale, but you never fail to explain why you hold the views you hold in a logical and calm manner, and you’re equally good at explaining the views you, in fact, don’t hold.
I feel that we conservatives value the family unit as being the most important institution in life. We feel that children have the best chance in life when raised by their own parents, and have role models in their Mom and Dad as to how good women and men behave towards each other and towards their god/moral system. We have sociologists who back up this assertion, plus historical precedent reaching back… oh… say 8000 years.
I feel that a lot of the conservative taboos are present to defend against perceived attacks to the family unit. Gay marriage denies children of male/female perspective, day care denies a Mom’s constant security, sex outside of wedlock leads to fatherless children, convenience abortion is calling motherhood less important than careers, gun control prevents a parent from defending their family, etc.
We also concede to the liberals’ hypotheticals of “what if a parent dies”, “what if she were raped”, etc. But we also think that these exceptions have become the standard in the lifestyles of liberals, increasing the risk heartbreak of unwanted pregnancies, drug addiction, workaholic neglectful parents, STDs, selfishness, lonliness, and depression, etc.
O’course liberals feel the dangers of their lifestyle is less than the dangers of conservatism, and the rewards are greater for themselves and their families. It might be kind of like a religion, anectodal evidence gets magnified or minimized by confirmational bias.
I appreciate your post. I really think that we need to sit down and build bridges. What I will try to convince you, though, is that your view of social conservatism is what the Republicans of 1994 represented. It has been moving steadily right since then. Give current trends, I believe that in 4 years, you, as a social liberal, will feel alienated by the 2008 GOP.
First, I would just like to say that the Democrats have played the middle America card pretty well. The Republicans have played it much better. Kerry did get a lot of ears for his talk on jobs and catastrophic health care and outsourcing. The Republicans did him one better. For every 10 rural Ohioans that pulled the lever for Kerry and jobs, 11 seemed to come out to pull the lever for Bush and gay marriage.
Social conservatives are motivated by some touchstone points, the current ones being decency on television and gay marriage. I’m sure there are others, but this is what got people to the polls on Tuesday. I think these are better viewed as cynical political ploys touted loudly to drum up voter turnout. Flag burning was the touchstone issue in 1992, and I didn’t hear much of that this time around. There is a long tradition of finding and exploiting these issues, often with ballot initiatives, and there is no reason to think that this is different. There are plenty of others (parental notification for abortion ruled through the late 1990s), but in terms of social conservatism, the ones we heard about this year were gay marriage and media decency. These were very good ones for the GOP, and I think it really helped them win this election.
These are pure politics. Look at the views of rural American on divorce. Jesus came out and said a helluva lot more against divorce than he ever said about homosexuality. But nary a politician in the land says a word about divorce. Divorce rates are higher in Alabama than in Massachusetts, IIRC. It is not some strive to uphold Judeochristian ideals here. It is a political power play.
It is not even an effort, as you claim in your OP, to get the federal government out of the local community. Or to resist the erosion of families and communities with federal programs. By campaigning for new federal amendments, for instituting federal funding for faith-based initiatives, by supporting voucher programs, what the GOP of today is doing is inserting itself much more firmly in the institutions that you say matter most in these communities – the families, churches, and schools. We are not talking about some noble, independent, libertarian ideal that these people are trying to uphold. Just like everyone else in the world, they are looking to get their backs scratched first, and their family’s and friends’ backs scratched second. They don’t object to huge farm subsidies. They don’t object to letting their church or their private school take money from the federal government. They ignore the fact that they, on average get far more back from the federal government than they ever send. And good for them. They are doing what every human in that situation would do – they are looking out for their own.
The GOP has two options. They can cut back to the center and ignore their ideologic base that resoundingly put them in office. Or, they can accept that right and look to drag it further right, to permanently take it off limits from the Democrats. That’s what they have been doing since 1994 and there is no impetus to stop now. Gay marriage is one step further right of where the Democrats could follow right, but most mainstream Democratic politicians can still safely say that they are against gay marriage. So the Repubs will still go one step further: laws against pornography, laws setting the groundwork for the institution of a state religion, school prayer, harsh anti-immigration and anti-immigrant laws, the return of anti-sodomy laws. Anything is possible with a political mandate and a compliant Supreme Court, Congress, media, and populace. I think that the unrestrained feedback of this drag to the right has reached the end, though. The Dems won’t follow any more, and the Republicans, in paying the piper, need to keep going right. With each step right, they will alienate more in their center. Values voters represent 20% max. There are 30% out there that the Democrats need to actively cleave. IMHO you fall in that group. If you were voting in 2008, I will place even money that you will be reluctantly pulling the lever for a Clinton, Dean, Gore, Edwards, or Richardson (my sleeper pick).
Ooh forgot one sentence in my latest thread-killer. From the divorce paragraph:
Divorce is much more severe and common threat to the family unit than gay marriage.
A few points regarding your post erislover. Small towns didn’t appreciate influences that changed their life in a way they didn’t see as positive. As far as bringing amenities to rural areas, you have the equation backwards. The big cities weren’t concerned about providing things such as electricity to those areas because it wasn’t profitable. It took the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 to accelerate the construction of electrical and telephone distribution. Instead of the major utilities, electrical cooperatives undertook the task, and continue to serve millions of customers across the nation. This was and is a comfortable way for rural folks to address things, as they already did with farmers cooperatives. As Sam pointed out, rural folks are accustomed to solving their own problems with a minimum of outsiders. Regarding automobiles, don’t forget that some of the most well known names in the industry were and are direct decendants of wagon makers and blacksmiths.
I’m a transplant, having grown up in suburban Phila, now in the middle of bohunk. There’s a town a few miles down the road that you’d think was right out of the 1950s except for the cars and dish antennae. People leave their doors unlocked, keys in their cars, and a business gives you credit if you look honest. I’ve met people from that town who were born, educated, married, lived, worked, and will die there, never having traveled more than 20 miles from the center of town. They got mad as hell when an outside group sued to move their 10 commandments marker from the municipal park. Some of them are bigoted, without a doubt. Quite a few are just simple people who want outsiders to leave them alone.
Sam, I appreciate the sincereity of your effort and the calmness of your manner. I’m sure that it all makes sense to you in the way that you have expressed it, but we are looking at the same picture and noticing totally different things.
No it hasn’t. When I first began school, under God was not part of the Pledge. It was added during the Eisenhower administration. It took us forever to get used to saying it that way. We didn’t think much about what it meant one way or the other. No one seemed to mind, but then I lived in a town of 2,000 people in the rural South in the 1950’s. There wasn’t much diversity. Times have changed. Although I am a Christian, I can understand why some people would object to their children being required to say that in a government supported school. And I can understand why they would not want their children singled out or humiliated by a teacher if the child refuses to say it.
Why is it so important to Conservatives to have the words referring to God in the Pledge and on money? It seems like a control issue to me. God doesn’t need me to worship him with money or acknowledge him in a loyalty oath. This issue, however, is not a primary issue with me. I understand why it is to others.
Prayer has never been banned from public schools. God hears silent prayers and has heard plenty from this teacher. We also have a moment of silence (by State law). I don’t object to that at all, but the students were rather noisy.
Something very important is missing from both of these statements. You seem to have left it out without even a second thought. Why didn’t you mention the father? They are equally responsible for their children. May I suggest that these statements reflect less gender bias and sexism?
“I understand the good and reasonable reasons for wanting to help working parents get quality day care for their children.”
Having both parents working outsdie the household means that more children are being raised by daycare providers.
You say that you believe in “equal rights for all.” You might want to reflect about your tendency to hold only the woman responsible. You are not alone, of course. When was the last time you heard a man asked how he was able to juggle work at the office and fatherhood?
Like most feminists, I recognize and honor homemaking and child rearing as an important and valuable full time career in itself and a worthy choice. I don’t want to leave any misunderstanding.
Studies have shown that the most beneficial thing for a child is for its parents to be happy in whatever they are doing. A parent who feels “trapped” a home is not a good nurturer. (Sorry, I do not have a cite. I’ve just kept up with the data for a long time.)
You are really not thinking about where your tax dollars are going. Do you honestly need a reminder of what your tax dollars are doing for you and your family and people who don’t live in cities?
Just because Sex and the City portrayed a different lifestyle does not mean that it was sneering at more Conservative lifestyles. Was the Waltons sneering at the people in Dragnet? Are murder mysteries sneering at comedies? No one has to watch Sex and the City. In fact, people have to pay to watch it.
But what if it DID sneer at someone’s values? Rush Limbaugh has sneered at my values for years. That’s life in America. I can sneer back.
<snip>
First of all, Brittany Spears supported Bush. Short marriages are not just the domain of liberals and conservatives have no monopoly on enduring ones. Marriage is a lifestyle choice. If it is “sacred,” then the government has no busines interfering. (Separation of church and State)
I personally agree with you that marriage is sacred – at least mine is to me. It is because it is important and sacred and crucial and special and beautiful that gays want to be ~married~ and not just civilly united.
And what in the world makes you think gays would mess it up? You’ve already mentioned how heterosexuals have been doing that on their own. Maybe gays who want to be married so very much can open some eyes to the privilege again.
And those who are more liberal feel the same way – especially about those who want to make decisions that should be left to a woman and her doctor or any couple who are in love and want to marry.
I agree. Let’s get rid of the Patriot Act.
Meanwhile, I live in Tennessee. We now have a Republican State Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. I am not pleased.
I’m not being snarky either, Hunter, and this isn’t directed at you even though your post inspired it, but…
doesn’t it speak volumes to how effectively conservatives have been portrayed by the left as bigots that an intelligent person would, in all honesty, ask such a question?
I don’t follow Rush much anymore and haven’t for years. I got turned off to him pretty badly by his Chelsea Clinton joke and slowly dwindled away from him. But I do watch Hannity & Colmes on occasion. Recently they (Hannity, that is) showed a Democrat ad regarding the upcoming election in which photographs of demonstrating blacks from the fifties/early sixties era were being attacked by police dogs and streams of water from fire hoses. The headline of the ad was something along the line of “This is how Republicans used to keep African-Americans from voting!”
He then went on to point out correctly that almost all of the anti-black bigotry and abuse that blacks were subjected to by law enforcement at that time was committed by the old line Yellow Dog Democrats, primarily in the south, that were so prevalent at that time. The picture in this ad was very much typical of these Yellow Dog Democrats at that time, not conservative Republicans, and it was in fact Dwight Eisenhower who first sent troops to protect blacks in the south. And even the Kennedy brothers, who are regarding as being in the forefront of governmental action to protect blacks, did so more out of political necessity and pragmatism than out of compassion for blacks and their cause.
On a personal note, I have a couple of elderly relatives who I love dearly, and they are basically very, very good upstanding and responsible people, but they are very negative about blacks and use the n-word without a moment’s hesitation. They don’t care if a black person hears it, either. Why? Because they are lifelong Democrats who grew up around this type of behavior and so to them it seems normal. They are also very negative about gays for the same reason: it was common among all the people they knew, including Democrats, when they were growing up.
So if you think dissapproval and/or loathing of blacks and gays is pretty much exclusive to Republicans, even for the most part, you are very, very badly mistaken. Age seems to be the defining quality that separates a willingness to accept homosexuality benignly and has no problem with it. Older people of both parties, on the other hand, are about equally adamant in their disapproval of it.
I, on the other hand, am a conservative and have been all my adult life, and no one here has ever heard me utter one derogatory word against blacks, women, gays, etc. None of the other conservatives I know do, either.
So people need to keep in mind the kind of leftist propaganda which has been going on since at least the sixties when they’re forming their opinions of conservatives. I would suggest a far better source of information would be conservatives themselves. Work to try to base your estimation of conservatives on the ones you know personally, and I think you’ll find they (we) are much different than you think.
Sam Stone: *How much of the rise of teen violence, pregnancy, etc. is due to the structural changes in the family unit created as an unintended consequence of things like women’s liberation? *
I think we need some fact checking on some of these speculations. For example, if gender equality and women’s increasing participation in the workforce are a cause of teen pregnancy, then why has teen pregnancy sharply declined since 1990? This, during a time when women’s labor force participation rate has continued to increase, especially among mothers? (PDF cite)
From now on, if you’re going to go on speculating about liberal trends causing social changes, I’d like to see some evidence that there’s at least a correlation where you’re hypothesizing causation.
SS:Trying to remove ‘under god’ from a pledge strikes ME as intolerant, and I’m not religious. It’s always been there
Wrong (and I’m surprised that you as a non-religious person aren’t aware of that, although I suppose Canadians aren’t as familiar with our Pledge of Allegiance as we are). The original Pledge of Allegiance was proposed by the socialist Francis Bellamy in 1892, and it did not include the words “under God”. Reciting the Pledge was already customary in many public schools by the 1920’s, but “under God” wasn’t added until 1954, in the anti-godless-Communist religious revival of the Cold War.
I’m currently exiled in a midwestern state that went for Bush, but I live in a county that went for Kerry.
I consider myself a “centrist” (or as my sister says, we’re “California Republicans”—which by her interpretation means that we’re liberal or moderate Republicans). Some of the people who live in the state where I am currently exiled would consider themselves liberal, or Democrat. Trust me when I tell you that I am far more socially liberal than they are in regards to things like religion, gay rights, and racial equality, as is the rest of my family. (One sister—who is a little more conservative than me—is married to a black man. This fact has ruffled a few of my more “liberal” acquaintances, who are dead set against interracial marriage.)
But yet, my sisters are I are labeled as “centrists” or “California Republicans,” while they are labeled as Democrat.
I don’t have things one way or another. I’m not talking about what has factually happened, because anyone here can see that it is perception that is driving this equation, not any necessary correspondece to factual reality. The fact is, electricity would not be where it was without cities, whether cities did anything to bring it to them or not. Fact is, technology is very invasive and life-changing. Except that’s the point of technology.
Who is saying otherwise?
Emphasis added to give you and idea of what my point is here.
“I cannot see how you can treat the enemy with any civility, Mr. Lincoln!”
“But Madam- do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
-Quotes of Abraham Lincoln
I’m not sure I buy that. Your typical bigot nowadays does not go out and publicly say “I hate black people”. No, they say “I merely want to preserve the white race, which is a great race, one which we can all be proud of. Blacks are proud of their race, why can’t I be proud of my race?” Now, this is all reasonable sounding, but in practice we know that people who say this are bigots. I suspect it is the same for a lot of the other things like “cultural conservatism”. I wonder how to tell the difference.
That said, I’m wondering whether cultural conservatism in Canada is very different from cultural conservatism in North Carolina.
I grew up hearing a lot of explicit racism, a lot of explicit homophobia. From the camp roommate who bragged about his older brother’s gaybashing weekends, to the stranger in a parking lot who casually called a black man walking by “nigger,” it was rampant. Where I’m from, there’s a tremendous amount of hostility directed at non-whites, at non-straights, and at women.
Sure, it was, to a lesser degree, returned. But the social structures made it a lot easier for a white guy to fuck over a black guy than vice-versa.
So when you say that real bigots are a fringe among social conservatives, I think you may be unfamiliar with a lot of social conservatives. Sure, not all of them are bigots, but there’s a tremendous number of bigots in the movement.
Don’t believe me? Swing through rural North Carolina sometime. Go to a roadside bar, and bring up the subject of gay marriage. If you don’t get someone talking shit about faggots within five minutes, your beer tab’s on me.
I love North Carolina, don’t get me wrong: it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to, and aspects of our culture here are wonderful. But make no mistake: there’s a tremendous amount of bigotry around here.
Much of what you say about rural white America is equally true of rural black America. Moral values, family, church and community all tied together. And yet that is a population that votes overwhelmingly Democratic. Why is that?
There are also plenty of strong faith-based communities in the cities as well. Many of New York’s (ever changing) neighborhoods are based around a group of similar people, whether of ethnicity or other bounds. I think the difference is mainly that on the coasts, in the cities, in any rapidly growing or developing region there is not the unity between community and church. There can’t be. You cannot go your entire life or an entire day without interacting with people different from yourself. (Hey they ain’t so bad)
The concept of the single breadwinner family is one that both red and blue America embrace. It’s no longer economically feasible for the majority of Americans. When I was a kid the vast majority of my peers had only one parent working. Now, the vast majority of my peers have both spouses working. Some of this is a ratcheting up of what is considered the bare minimum (houses are bigger, etc.), but a lot is due to skyrocketing real estate, health care, and future education costs. Raging against the breakup of the family is fine, but there is no alternative in today’s environment.
And what I’m trying to say is that cultural conservatives need to understand that things like daycare are a response to unintended consequences. Namely, the unintended consequences of modern urban life. You want to get rid of all of these threats to the good ol’ nuclear family? Fine. Get rid of cities. All of them. No more urban environments where real estate values are so high and jobs are so time-intensive that families can’t afford to live on a single income. That’s all it will take. Of course, that’s completely batshit crazy, which is my point.
Whether these cultural conservatives you’re describing think that we’re amoral monsters or just unthinking clods monkeying with the social fabric for the hell of it, that’s not the case. We’re doing what is necessary to make urban life a reasonable proposition. We’re not the ones who are a “threat” to the precious social institutions of red-state America. Time is. Progress is. And those social institutions are not going to survive by putting their fingers in their ears and hoping time will go away; they’re going to survive by engaging progress on their own terms. Again, I agree with you that liberals need to engage conservatives. But conservatives are going to need to start engaging liberals too, rather than just dismissing us as “snobs” who “just don’t understand”.
Oh, I understand that quite fine, thank you very much. Now, do cultural conservatives understand that the lack of welfare would be not just damaging to an urban community, but catastrophic? Can they engage us that much?
