Merci.

Fixed.

I think there is good reason to suspect the motives of those advocate the surrender in the culture wars as somehow being a panacea for conservative electoral prospects. This goes for so-called "social liberal, fiscal conservative types" like media conservatives and poltical consultants.

It's not a conspiracy, just human nature. If you inhabit a world where you are made to feel constantly embarassed by cultural conservatives or religious people and forced to constantly justify and rationalise your political alliance with them, then by nature you are going favour a hypothesis that allows you to do without them. And naturally, so-cons are going to distrust their motives - timeo danaos et dona ferentes.

That's not to say that they are actually right on the merits. Surrendering ground in the culture war might be the best strategic option for cultural conservatives. However, I don't think Rob Long, Rick Wilson and Mike Murphy should be surprised that people need convincing from people with better social conservative bona fides.

Thanks - I think that is probably right and it is quite legitimate to criticise somebody who falsely holds themself out as a paragon - if indeed that's what they have done.

The crime, however, is dishonesty in projecting that image - not failing to live to standards they sincerely hold.

I have to reject the contention that luck has (much) to do with it. My marriage works because my wife and I have worked really hard at making it work.Like any investment, there were probably times when both of us may have questionned whether we had had made a mistake but, butressed by the Catholic religion's teaching on the vocation of marriage - that it calls upon spouses to imitate Christ with love for each other even when unmerited -we work through what problems we have.It isn't serendipity or romance that makes a marriage work - it's hard work, investment and grace.

And such heroic output! (same goes with NTK w/Charen and Nordlinger).

Hope it keeps up.

I'm thinking Social Conservatives need to "Go Gault" for a while. Cede the G.O.P. to the libertarians and so called - "fiscal conservative, social liberal" types. Cease to be actively involved and just carp loudly about how there's "no difference" between Gary Johnson and whoever the Dems serve up in 2016.Will it take "stopping the motor of conservatism" to stop believers in the ficticious libertarian majority to realise that they are, at best, partners in the limited government movement.

The dumbest part of the whole thing is that ditching social conservatives shows the very bone-headed lack of long term thinking that everyone is complaining about.A huge part of the conservative coalition is, and always will, consist of orthodox Christians. These people have zero-room to move on marriage and life matters. It's a simple question of: do you want those people in your coalition or not? If so, then the long term answer is to make social conservatism more palatable to the rest of the public.And that's hardly impossible - look at the huge strides SSM has made in the past 20 years. What it does take is a concerted effort to take continuous small steps in that direction. For social conservatives, that means the discipline to pick battles wisely - e.g. partial birth abortion, gender selection abortion etc. For metropolitan conservatives and libertarians, it means showing the good grace not to ridicule or dismiss social conservative concerns at every available turn. And yes, that includes an effort NOT to publicly make common-cause with social engineers just for the purposes of burnishing your 'cool kid' bona fides.

It would be far better, in my view, for social conservatives to start pushing back by using the left's own tactics. The left (and the type of libertarian who is essentially an unemotional liberal) love to push traditionalists into the corner by bringing up pregnancy by rape which, thank God, is quite rare.Pro-lifers should push back by focussing on sex-selective abortion - which is all too common. If conservatives were to rally around this cause, it would put the left on the back foot of having to defend the indefensible and would expose liberalism's internal contradictions. The logic of the matter would surely lead a lot of people to be less reflexively "anti-pro-life."Seems to me that is a better long term strategy than immediately ditching between a third and a half of your coalition to go after the high-hanging fruit of metropolitan elites, movie producers and newspaper editors.

And just to add one more thing - I really like James Delingpole as a writer. He is very entertaining. I always make sure to read everything he writes in the Telegraph and the Speccie. He's also done a great public service by so spectacularly exposing the climate charlatans.

However, he's no Mark Steyn - who combines entertaining writing and wit with what is obviously a more systematic mind. One of Steyn's great insights is that the distinction between true fiscal conservatism and public morality is false.

So ditching social conservatism shouldn't only be seen as tactically stupid, but wrong on the merits too.

One of James's most underrated Telegraph colleagues is Ed West. He's a good fit as the potential English Mark Steyn and is a lot more clearsighted on the utopian pretensions of unthinking libertarianism. A little while ago he quite correctly observed:

Libertarianism has grown in reaction to the enormous expansion in the state, but if more people were socially conservative we wouldn’t need a enormous taxes to pay for social services, prison, broken homes or, indeed, treating drug addicts – and drug legalisation wouldn’t be such a problem.

Haven't the exit polls now shown that Romney actually beat Obama among white millennials? Given that the election was lost among hispanics and blacks (who are more socially conservative than whites) how on earth does anyone reach the conclusion that turning away from values voters is the way to go?

If anything, wouldn't it make more sense (for long-run) to ease-back on the fiscal conservatism (in the short-run)? That seems to be the lower hanging fruit, after all. Given the apparent unpopularity of prudent financial governance - it is clear to me who needs whom more at the moment.

Rob, I know you hate having to be damned by association with social conservatives. Given the part of the world you live and work in, I can understand (and relate). Until you can demonstrate - with maths - that doing so would be a net increase in the GOP constituency, however,  I think you have to just get over it.

Speaking as a left-footer I find the topic of the male priesthood to be a really interesting intersection of Catholic theology and Conservative philosophy. 

While we can discuss the reasons for why God wills that only men are validly ordained, that discussion really is conjecture only. The official reason given in the Catechism, after all, is that the male priesthood is a tradition instituted by Our Lord himself.

But this should be a persuasive argument to a conservative. In the same way we recognise a free economy as the distillation of millions of efficient economic decisions, we also see tradition as the distilled wisdom of the ages. Or, as FA Hayek said: "It may indeed prove to be far the most difficult and not the least important task for human reason rationally to comprehend its own limitations. It is essential for the growth of reason that as individuals we should bow to forces and obey principles which we cannot hope fully to understand, yet on which the advance and even the preservation of civilization depend."

I can vouch for that and worse. In 2001, our quitely anti-American Prime Minister Helen Clark (now a powerful UN figure - quelle surprise) scrapped the entire air combat wing of the RNZAF - so now we don't have any combat aircraft.

While I really hate to speak ill of my own country- but we really are content to just bludge off America's security umbrella and peerless military while complaining about the same.

Do you mean McAvoy Republicans?

I'm not an American (just a pro-American) but I will never forget that day. I was 15 at the time and was swotting for an upcoming maths exam when my mother came and told me "they've attacked America!"

Everything just stopped for a few days, even in this foreign country. It was just so surreal. 

The deaths were bad enough - though speaking as a foreigner we have seen similar disasters before and since. The really disconcerting thing, from our perspective, was how wrong it felt.

Even the anti-Americans were I think forced to confront the extent to which order and global normalcy is held in place by America's power. That some people had the means and the confidence to strike at America, in New York City, was unnerving.

11 years on and, by God's grace, no repeat attacks. But after that ominous day, allied people of America should take her for granted. I know I won't.

It's more that it's kind of an unrigourous thing to say. After all, the statement, "The President did a good thing despite being a liberal" is hardly the equal in moral content to "The President did a good thing despite being black."

No, I think this is a bit too sensitive. While it may be edifying to have liberal members it is certainly worth remarking on - because, after all, isnt centre-right politics is Ricochet's raison d'etre? I put it to you that the analogy to race cannot hold, therefore, and it would be more better to compare the situation to sports fandom - Team A supporters joining Team B's fansite. Not objectionable, but interesting nonetheless.

Let not your heart be troubled.