Michelle Bachman is a very intelligent woman, well-schooled in the use of the media to advance her message.  More so than many politicians, she chooses her words with care and skill.  She understands exactly how to use words to reach her target audiences--and those words speak for themselves.  It is clear that she would like to be elected.  If appeals to some ideal of "family" can help her get elected, she will make that appeal.  If appeals to some other message are required to build her version of a Republican coalition, she will send that message as well.  There is no disagreement that she means what she says.

Again, 200 word is limiting.  I never said I am in favor of undoing marriage.  I said I am in favor of eliminating government laws.  Marriage can do just fine without big government setting the rules.  The only reason for government rules was property.

And if you want to follow the stream of my thought you may also read a bit of Richard Weaver, Russell Kirk, Chronicles Magazine.  Favorite business leader was Roger Milliken.  Roger "got it" about the role of business in community.

Perhaps you should think again about Sharia being "here."  By some accounts the scope of the Sharia compliant global finance market already exceeds $1 trillion.  It may be fair to say that you cannot expect to do significant business in Middle Eastern, South Asian, London, French, or German markets without being willing to engage in, or at least explore, Sharia compliant business dealings.  US export driven companies will have to be ready to adopt Sharia compliant practices if they expect entry into some new markets.

The real issue is not whether some man in New Jersey wants his divorce court to apply Sharia; the real issue is whether the "free traders" are willing to go "all in" on Sharia or if folks are willing to draw a line.

So your concern is with what I will call "Sharia as applied in some countries."  If you did a little web search of your own (or perhaps participated in the market) you might discover that a growing segment of the private equity market invests in for lack of a better term "Sharia compliant" investment vehicles.  Sharia prohibits certain business conduct that might otherwise be "legal."  Thus, for the market in "Sharia compliant" private equity to expand, by necessity, US courts must be willing and able to apply Sharia to resolve business disputes.  When the choice of law provision in a private contract reads "Sharia" it will be Sharia.

Now, on "public policy" grounds US courts may void certain contract clauses.  If you have a blanket Sharia ban that would be one option.  But a blanket ban on Sharia in US courts is not capital investment friendly, or business friendly.

That's why I ask.

Actually I asked a question: what aspects of Sharia do conservatives find distasteful?  I also suggested that one could advance proper legal arguments to oppose Sharia, in the same way we oppose adoption of "foreign" laws every day.

I also suggested that we may have much to learn from the Moslem community.

Finally I suggested that Bachman's vow to oppose Sharia did not reflect any real reflection or thought about Sharia.  I agree with you that our "friends" in Egypt and Iraq often betray our values.  I am not sure if that is attributable to Sharia, or to the fact that their political aims may diverge from ours.

Which gets back to my question: what is wrong with Sharia?  Your point is very good, it does not respect women. What else is wrong?

Let me put it this way, the reason that traditional marriage had such strong legal protection was that property law depended on that protection.  The presumption that a baby born to a married woman was fathered by her husband is overwhelming.  The law had to work that way.

DNA testing eliminates the need for that presumption.  Paternity can be proven by a simple test.  Thus, the traditional reason for marriage laws is gone.

Thus, because there is no longer a reason to worry about  property you need another reason for marriage.  There may be other reasons to like marriage.  I am not such the romantic that I think most people ever thought much of those reasons.

We are moving into a realm better for another topic.  Agreed we have too much regulation.  Disagree re big business.  Big is per se bad: should go back to the day when big was enough to warrant anti-trust.  Today "too big to fail" should mean too big to continue as a single entity.  Further, with "globalization" big means that the system is gamed against small localized start ups. For example, look how big agri business is gaming food rules to stifle small local organic farms growing heirloom product.  What today are "free range chickens" is how greatgrandmother preferred to raise them on the farm in the 1940s.

Tropes.  Politics is contested with tropes, not merely with literal "true" statements.  Ever since Everett Dirksen (R. Illinois) helped LBJ pass civil rights in 1964 and 1965 Republicans have been running away from equality for African Americans.  George Wallace (D. Alabama) was the first master of this act in 1968.  Nixon co-opted the Wallace strategy and  the "Lost Cause" has been a staple of Republican campaign rhetoric since then.  Bachman was not speaking a "truth" about African Americans so much as she was using a trope to let  the racist wing of the Republican party know that she is "safe."  She was signaling that she hopes the Wallacites remain part of her Republican coalition.

I am curious to know which part of Sharia conservatives find offensive or disturbing.  I would suggest that in many respects Sharia is something that would be embraced by social conservatives because many Sharia principles are identical with the aims of social conservatives.  For instance, Sharia rules regarding marriage prohibit gay marriage.  Likewise Sharia prohibits liquor and gambling. 

And far from suggesting that Sharia would limit religious freedom, Dhimmi or Dhimmitude (under the more traditional forms of Sharia) would seem to guarantee to Christians the freedom to practice their faith and to apply Christian laws (e.g. dietary laws) to their daily practice.

Again, a blanket promise to oppose Sharia (without some explanation) smacks of more racism by Bachman.

I will add this, there might be good legal reasons to oppose Sharia, but those arguments would be the same type someone makes when they suggest that New York should not adopt laws that have been adopted in California.  But Bachman is not making legal arguments.  Instead, she is appealing to prejudice.

You can make the point the old fashioned way, by explaining that it is intrinsically bad and describing things that make it self-evident.  If you want to explain that contemporary social policy is bad, you can cite good research that establishes some cause/effect relationship that makes your point.

To get at your broader point, it is a standard "trope" in "Lost Cause" rhetoric to mention the comparative "goodness" of slavery days.  The suggestion that something was "better" under slavery is per se racist.  Slavery is morally repulsive.  Any suggestion to the contrary usually is done as part of some nod and wink appeal being made to a closeted racist audience.  It is like saying something of the form: "we all know that when good Christian people ran the show ..."

And who governed the United States?  During 1992-2000 Bill Clinton.  From 2000-2008, George Bush.

George Bush did nothing to preserve manufacturing jobs in the United States.  To the contrary, he ushered them out the door with "globalization" agreements that permitted large companies to close US factories, and move production overseas without penalty.

So called free trade agreements and policies of the sort favored by Bush are the tools of large corporations to bid down wages by shipping jobs overseas where workers can be paid a substandard wage and forced to work in substandard conditions.  It is also the tool used by large corporations to make small domestic startups non-competitive.

If I start a company in the US, I must follow US law on pollution, waste, labor, etc.  If I am a large corporation, I simply move manufacturing overseas -- pollute, pay substandard wages, etc. and ship goods back to the US (and crush my start up domestic competitors).

Bush policies are pro large corporation, and anti-small business.

That long history was obviated by modern DNA testing.  In the olden days, you needed strict marriage rules so that men could know who their children were.  In particular, where inheritance was done via primogeniture, it was vital that your first son be your own.

Also, given that the leading men in communities might be away on long military campaigns for extended periods of time, strict marriage rules were required so that there was a bit of order for the men to return to.  Can't very well have a system where the strongest and bravest go off to fight a war, and the weaker men who stay at home get all the girls.  We can speculate what may actually have happened.  But again, the rules were written to make the system work.  Today we are good enough to send women off to war with the men.

Actually I am somewhere closer to the Fugitive Poets and Agrarians.  Big business is as dangerous as is big government.  Indeed, transnational big business may be more dangerous than big government because it lacks attachment to any state (and it lacks a soul).  Likewise individual liberty is to be strongly preferred to statist control.

The troubling places for me (largely unaddressed on this forum) begin in places like zoning, property taxes, and highways. Local government..  Decisions on where and how to build interstate highways (and their rebuilding today) have profound economic and social consequences.  Indeed much of the destruction of small town American can be traced directly to the Eisenhower (Republican) decision to build the interstate highway system, and to subsidize commercial aviation.  Likewise the destruction of American inner cities can be traced to Republican 1950s urban renewal plans.

We live in a country of suburban sprawl because of Republicans, not statist Democrats.

Lucy

That is exactly my point.  Someone makes a racist statement, then footnotes the words and explains the statement is really not that bad and she didn't author the words herself anyway.  This has been operating practice among some Republicans since Richard Nixon co-opted the strategy from George Wallace back in 1968.  Bachman is pulling out the same playbook to appeal to a certain electoral crowd for the primaries.  The pledge is a twofer for Bachman.  She can build ties to the statist social conservatives and she can do a nod and a wink to the crowd that has never come to terms with the fact that "equality for all" actually means all, not just some favored group.  Her statist flank is covered because she has pledged that "big government" power will be used to foist their social and religious beliefs on everyone.  And her "lost cause" flank is covered as well.

It is really off topic here, but I am saying that Republicans who oppose the NLRB decision are telling American workers that Republicans favor a policy where companies may break freely bargained labor agreements by moving jobs elsewhere.  Indeed, what Republicans who oppose the NLRB decision are saying to the American worker is: get used to accepting "third world" wages, because if you do not, companies are free to move your jobs elsewhere.

The Republican message is becoming increasingly clear.  Republicans do not favor policies that help working Americans.  Republicans favor policies that benefit a narrow group of investing Americans.

Republicans have done  zero to protect high wage manufacturing jobs in the United States.

Eating is an addiction too, so is playing golf.  By your logic it would be proper to install scales at fast food outlets and require clerks to hand out meals based on a customer weigh in.

What is the different between a man who spends a many dollars a summer on new golf clubs and weekly rounds of golf, and a similarly situated fellow who spends the same money on sex? Both are hobbiests.

What is the difference between the woman who places an NSA ad on Craigslist, and one who places an ad somewhere else and wants money for the encounter?

If wanton sex is a sin, convert the sinner to your faith.  But don't enlist the police to enforce your faith as a matter of law.