Republican

Dividing Conservatives: Who Started This, Anyway?

(The ACLU is probably hiring lawyers as we speak. See! Government can create jobs outside of Government bureaucracies.)

Remember when we were told not to pay attention to what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms? Now, they’re forcing us to watch. We didn’t start this round, but get ready: Conservatives who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman will be treated as divisive and accused of splitting the Conservative vote.

President Obama has declared his support for legislation ending the Defense of Marriage act. The bill, the Respect for Marriage Act, will be heard today in the Senate Judicial Committee.

The full title is, “S.598, The Respect for Marriage Act: Assessing the Impact of DOMA on American Families.” In the House, it’s H.R. 1116. According to the Examiner.com,

The bill which was introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) would repeal all three sections of DOMA which places a strong federal hold against states rights in the matters of legalized same sex marriage recognition.

The new bill is set out to repeal specifically the sections in which DOMA defines marriage as the union between a man and a women, instructs states not to recognize same sex marriages performed in other states and prohibits the federal government from recognizing legally performed same-sex marriages.

Which is probably exactly where it should be heard. After all, now there can be more lawsuits,like this one in Vermont against private business owners who does not want to celebrate same sex marriage in their Inn.

There’s a conversation on Facebook about whether the phrase “gay conservative” is an oxymoron. I maintain that it is.  Will organizations like the Log Cabin Republicans still want to vote with Conservatives who are happy to form coalitions on fiscal  matters, small government, and the sanctity of life, but who won’t support the change they want to make in the family or the definition of marriage? Will they join in the debate in favor of “Respect for Marriage,” and how will they do it?

The basic unit of society is the family. Social experiments with the family are not conservative because they risk weakening that basic unit, the source of support and protection in times of crisis and where we learn the skills that allow us to function in the greater society.

There is no historical support for same sex couples forming a stable family.  There’s more empiric evidence for stable families resulting from polygamy. For that matter, the Egyptian Pharaohs, who practiced incest in order to keep their power in the family, managed to hold their reign together longer than the entire history of open same-sex lifestyle, much less the legalization of their “marriages.”

Those who disagree with me tell me to go along to get along and to quit bringing “the church” into politics, “because parties are about politics & policy issues not religious ideology.”

While I do have strong religious convictions, I don’t like to use religious arguments in politics. I don’t need to claim that the only reason to support traditional monogamous marriage is because marriage is a covenant with our Creator. I consider the fact that I can debate tough philosophical (even “ideology”) by using empirical arguments is proof that my position is close to the truth.

My fellow conservatives and I did not start this. The ones bringing in “controversy” are the ones who demand to make us aware of what should be a very private matter and that we agree with their redefinition of marriage and the family.  It is they who insist on dividing conservatives by identifying first as homosexual, then as fiscal conservatives, etc. This identification declares that their purpose is not to cut spending or support small government: their primary purpose in forming a political group is to gain sympathy for their true cause.
(edited, 11AM, 7-20-11, to remove a repeated sentence. 8-9-11, for grammar and to add link to NYT story on Vermont Inn.)

The de Tocqueville Moment? (Are you for sale?)

President Obama has declared that he will veto the Cut, Cap,and Balance Bill if it passes. The White House is calling the Bill “extreme, radical, and unprecedented” and  ” the Ryan plan on steroids.” I’m hoping the Republicans in Washington remember who their base is and count his threat as a dare – and call his bluff.

Cut spending first, show a good faith effort, then we”ll talk. President Obama needs to bite the bullet, eat his own peas, and decide that if he wants to cut the deficit and cut debt, some – in the form of savings from cutting unnecessary spending – is better than none.

What Congress and the bureaucracies in DC have done by expanding the federal governments, increasing regulations, permits, heaping ObamaCare on top of the “Stimulus” on top of TARP and all of this on the other spending that made Conservatives angry enough to stay home in 2006 and 2008 is not the answer. We didn’t like it in November, 2010 and we don’t like it now.

I remember that the tax code was simplified when Ronald Reagan cut the tax rates in the 80’s. The Democrat controlled Congress promised cuts in spending to go along with the lost deductions. Those cuts never materialized and federal spending grew even faster than the remarkable Federal revenue.

Federal Revenues and Expenditures 1980-1993

more and more people became beneficiaries of Federal largess.

It’s gotten to the point that more than half of people in the U.S. fell right off the tax rolls. 

Has the United States of America reached the Alex de Tocqueville moment when,”The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money?”   What’s your price?

Edited for spelling 3/28/2012 BBN

Republicans: we eat our own

Can you imagine the grief of fighting the Progressives AND the Conservatives from the right, all the time? Do you ever send approval to our elected officials when they do the right thing? Do you ever offer constructive ideas, or do you bounce around like a ping pong ball, from one sound bite presented by the the lame stream media to another, with no control over your own direction?

Case in point:  I’ve been following the blogs and the rants and reactions to what they perceive as compromise on the part of Republicans, according to reports in the New York Times‘ and the Houston Chronicle’s coverage of yesterday’s interview with Senator John Cornyn of Texas on Fox News Sunday.  It seems very few people look for the original video, which is on-line, here,  at Fox News.

Senator Cornyn flatly stated that the Republicans will not support and the American People do not want tax increases. From a more balanced article on the interview at the Wall Street Journal:

Republicans want major spending cuts before they agree to increase the debt cap. Many insist the budget deal can’t include any tax increase. But like Mr. Cornyn, some have opened the window to raising federal revenue. That could pave the way for an agreement.

Mr. Cornyn said Sunday he wanted any broad revamp of the tax code to be revenue neutral, meaning it shouldn’t bring in more cash than the current system. There may not be enough time to strike such a tax deal before Aug. 2, he said.

“But it ought to be the first thing we turn to, to make our tax code more rational. We could bring down rates, eliminate a lot of the tax expenditures and loopholes,” he said.

If the sides don’t reach a long-term budget accord this month, Mr. Cornyn said Congress may have to approve a short-term deal.

“The big problems aren’t going to go away if you cut a mini-deal, all it does is delay the moment of truth. So I’d say better now than then, but if we can’t, we’ll take the savings we can get now and we will re-litigate this as we get closer to the election,” he said.

The Dems WANT the government to shut down. They can’t wait to blame it on the unyielding, “political” Republicans. Worse, they’re floating the idea that Obama can ignore Congress’ will on the debt ceiling. And somehow, the far left always manages to control one another and stay on the same page while revving up the mob that wants to redistribute wealth, secure abortion on demand and declare war on our family values and children’s innocence but not on terrorists from a culture that would kill them in a minute for the very things they support.

The media, the Left, and our own reactionary mob will convince the rest of the country that the Republican leadership’s attempts at solutions are worthless political posturing. Our mob will be worse: making the perfect the enemy of good and dredging up old slights and rivalries.

I’ve been writing about Senator Cornyn and the ceiling debt, but could just as well be discussing Governor Perry or any number of State and Federal politicians and issues. If you’re at all able, look for the original source and/or two reports before making up your mind when you hear or read anything our Republican leaders in the media.