The White House recently told the press there couldn’t be more difference between my position on gay marriage and President Obama’s.

On reflection, I agree.

President Obama’s position on marriage is constantly “evolving,” as he so often says.  He’s not sure what marriage is, or what it should become, and no doubt right now he’s consulting highly-paid polling experts to determine how his position – and marriage itself – should morph next.  This should come as no surprise given the President’s musings about the other great moral issue of our time, the protection of human life.

In a 2008 campaign forum, Pastor Rick Warren asked, “at what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?"  Obama answered, “Well, you know, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a science perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.” But as an Illinois State Senator, Barack Obama articulated a very clear view of when a baby was granted rights.  He was the only senator to vote against the Born Alive Infants Protection Act in committee; legislation that protected babies who survived an abortion and were born alive. He was the only senator to speak against it on the senate floor. 

At the time, the constitutional law professor boldly asserted, that “whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or other elements of the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a–a child, a 9 month old–child that was delivered to term.” He says children only have rights who are 9-months old and delivered at term. So, does that mean any child born before 9 months is not entitled to rights?

By contrast, millions of Americans, including myself, know what we think about human life and marriage. We know not only what we think but why we believe what we believe.  We know that some truths are bigger than the next election and should not shift with political consultants’ advice. And among those great, enduring, and foundational truths, I believe, are life and marriage.

An unborn child is not just a clump of cells.  He or she is a human life, as worthy of basic dignity and respect as any one of us.  Each precious, irreplaceable human life is too infinitely valuable to permit courts to redefine its meaning away. I fought against Partial Birth Abortion, a horrific procedure supported by President Obama, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. When the highest court found the law banning the practice unconstitutional, I sent it back to the justices a second time so they could get it right.

Marriage is, and has always been through human history, a union of a man and woman – and for a reason. These unions are special because they are the ones we all depend on to make new life and to connect those new lives to their mom and dad.

A husband is a man who commits to a woman, to her and any children she may give him. He commits to his wife without any reservations, to share with her all his worldly goods and to exclude all others from this intimate communion of life.  From this vow of marriage comes a wonderful and unique good: any children their union creates will have a mom and a dad united in love, in one family.

That’s the special work of marriage in law – to connect things that otherwise fray and fragment: love, life, money, moms, and dads.

A man who does not seek to do this – who doesn’t choose to give himself to a woman and any children they may have together in this unique and special way – may well be a very good man and have wonderful other kinds of relationships, but he isn’t seeking to be a husband. We can’t redefine reality to accommodate politically fashionable wishes.  Words matter because they capture enduring and timeless truths about human nature and about the common good.

Lawyers cannot create life and did not create marriage. And lawyers (whether on the bench or in politics) have no business redefining either to suit the shifting winds of fashion, or worse, for political expediency.

I know so many single moms who work so hard and do such a great job raising children. We need to applaud every heroic parent working hard to raise good kids regardless of whether or not they are married; just as we need to protect all our children, born and unborn, those lucky enough to have the gift of a married mom and dad and those who do not.

We can do this without cravenly surrendering timeless truths about marriage and human life.  We don’t want liberal media-approved lawyers and politicians massaging the meaning of words, or judges implementing vast social changes without the consent of the governed, or, frankly, politicians like President Obama who cannot even tell you what marriage will be next week.

In positions of power, we need men and women of character, willing to stand up and defend what they think is right and to level with the American people.  America is hungry for leadership.  I have found everywhere I go across this great land that people appreciate it if they know you’re the kind of man they can trust to tell the truth on important issues even if they do not agree with you on every issue.

Marriage is a society’s life blood.  Not everybody can or will marry, but all of us (married or not) depend on marriage in a unique way.  Marriage is foundational: it creates and sustains not only children but civilization itself.  This is an institution which protects our liberty.

A president who, after thousands of years of human history, a Harvard law degree, and four years in the White House, cannot tell us with certainty what he thinks marriage or life is, is not worthy of the trust of the American people or a second term in office.  It is time for leadership in America.  It is time again to stand for self-evident foundational truths.

As you can see, I'm slowly dipping my toes back into Ricochet, but as you can probably also see, my mind is troubled. The Middle East is still roiling, but I feel far apart from the ordinary world, still--it all seems to be taking place in a galaxy far, far away. My mind is still back in an apartment in Washington where nothing seemed real but one elderly woman's final days. And those final days were slow indeed, a time out of time. It was one of those weeks--or maybe two weeks, I lost track--that drew back the curtain of denial we all place over reality in our efforts to stay sane. The plain fact is just staring at me now, impossible to forget: We age--we really age--then we die--we really die--and then somehow we disappear. We're just gone. 

Somehow in our culture the iron wall between religion and state has been transmogrified into a wall between religion and society. We never discuss religion in much depth in mixed company. Someone who comes up to you at  cocktail party and discusses his relationship with God--or his lack thereof--is considered maladroit, a violator of an unspoken taboo. The conversation feels awkward and one instinctively changes the subject. (This is not so in Turkey, where it is not uncommon, within minutes of meeting someone, to be asked what you believe about God and challenged to a debate about your beliefs.) 

Well, enough of that. It's on my mind, and this is an interesting group of people.

What do you believe about God? What is God? How did you arrive at your beliefs? How do you defend them against competing claims, and why? What standards of evidence do you use? How strong is your faith? When has it been challenged? What restored it?

Do you believe in an afterlife? If so, what is its nature? Why is it so hard to communicate with the dead? 

My father so enjoyed last week's contest that he suggested another one. He'll be adjudicating again. 

Proposition: The problem of evil is as great for atheists as it is for believers.

This week's prize is a handsome 1953 Buick Skylark in matador red or one of two handsome Ricochet glory badges. There are three doors, behind one of which is the Skylark. Say you pick Door 1. I open Door 2 to reveal a Glory Badge. Do you want to switch your pick? 

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal has provided an excellent service. He simply points to two pieces of advice offered by the same Washington Post/Slate advice columnist, Emily Yoffe, as part of a discussion of why social conservatism has much more appeal than, well, the folks at the Washington Post and Slate and other elite institutions realize. Here's the first piece of advic from Emily Yoffe's "Dear Prudence" column:

Q: I attend a small university studying engineering. I hold traditional values and I would like to get married to a woman willing to stay home and raise our children. I am lucky enough to not have any student loans and will be able to support a wife and children on my salary. Preferably, I would like to marry a woman who has a college degree and is smart because we would match intellectually and she would provide the best environment for my children. Women I meet on campus frequently call me sexist. I never thought of myself as sexist because I have no problem whatsoever with women who work in general and I respect my fellow female students and professors. Just because I don't want my wife to work does not mean I think women in general shouldn't work. Am I sexist? Is there any way I can meet a woman who shares my values, or was I born 40 years too late?

A: You sound like the male equivalent of the bride in the letter above who much preferred planning her wedding without the bother of a real person to marry. Of course we all have ideas of what our ideal life would be, then life happens and we have to--even want to--adjust to reality. Yes, there are women, even well-educated ones, who would prefer to stay home with their children. But dictating these terms before you've even gotten far enough to go steady makes you sound rigid, dictatorial, and yes, sexist. Instead of announcing your life plan for the so-far nonexistent woman you plan to marry, you should just date interesting, intelligent women and find out what they want out of life. But if you're determined to only spend time with women who meet your qualifications, go to a rally for Rick Santorum. He shares your views of women's roles, and during his Q&A ask if he can fix you up.

Now, I come from a different culture, one where even women who work want husbands who will sacrifice as necessary to enable women to spend more time at home with their children. The man could use more flexibility, perhaps, but the snide and judgmental tone from Yoffe -- the intolerance, as it were -- is really striking.

I'll let Taranto summarize the other piece of advice, lest I run afoul of the Code of Conduct:

In an earlier column, she responded in blasé fashion to a (fictional, we hope to God) letter from a man who claimed to be carrying on a homosexual affair with his own fraternal twin brother: "When people ask when you're each going to go out there and find a nice young man, tell them that while it may seem unorthodox, you both have realized that living together is what works for you," she advised.

But when a decent young man professes a desire to marry an old-fashioned girl and take financial responsibility for his family, Yoffe treats him as a deviant. She denounces him as "sexist" even though he is careful to affirm that women have every right to work outside the home if they choose to do so. He mentions nothing about politics, yet she feels compelled to bring Santorum, the feminists' Emmanuel Goldstein, into the mix.

Yoffe's hostility to this young man tells us more about elite culture than it does about her personally.

I can think of no better example of the "new tolerance," as D.A. Carson puts it in his new book The Intolerance of Tolerance. It's not tolerant so much as embracing of any social system that has no standards, quite intolerant of those that do, and firmly positioned to provide a morally relativistic philosophy in defense of this intolerant tolerance.

For the past few years, Sarah Palin has been making a movie about herself.  Actually, she hasn't been making it, but she initiated the project. From Real Clear Politics:

Shortly after Republicans swept last November to a historic victory in which Sarah Palin was credited with playing a central role, the former Alaska governor pulled aside her close aide, Rebecca Mansour, to discuss a hush-hush assignment: Reach out to conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon with a request. Ask him if he would make a series of videos extolling Palin's governorship and laying to rest lingering questions about her controversial decision to resign from office with a year-and-a-half left in her first term. It was this abdication, Palin knew, that had made her damaged goods in the eyes of some Republicans who once were eager to get behind her potential 2012 presidential campaign.

The response was more positive than Palin could have hoped for. He'd make a feature-length movie, Bannon told Mansour, and he insisted upon taking complete control and financing it himself -- to the tune of $1 million.

To anyone who thinks she's a lightweight, or not-so-bright, think again.  This is some gutsy, long-term thinking.  With an emphasis on gutsy:

Though she did not have any editorial role in the project, Palin facilitated access for Bannon and his film crew to key Alaskan defenders who were involved with the major achievements of her administration, and the filmmaker spent several weeks in the 49th state gathering archival film and conducting research and interviews for the project. He and his team took extraordinary measures to keep their endeavor secret.

The movie, according to many sources, is done.  And it's impressive.  It's a large-lens look at Palin's life, time in office, and genuine accomplishments.

It's also a fairly complete look at the controversial governor.  Again, from RCP:

To convey Bannon's view of the pathology behind Palin-hatred, the film begins with a fast-paced sequence of clips showing some of the prominent celebrities who have used sexist, derogatory and generally vicious language to describe her.

Rosie O'Donnell, Matt Damon, Bill Maher, David Letterman, and Howard Stern all have brief cameos before comedian Louis C.K. goes off on a particularly ugly anti-Palin riff.

"I hate her more than anybody," C.K. says at the end of his tirade, the rest of which is unfit to print here.

Bannon intends to release two versions of the film. An unrated edition will contain some obscene anti-Palin language and imagery, while the other is targeted to a general audience and will seek a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.

Again, this is a canny move, both from the perspective of the filmmaker -- more controversy = more ticket sales -- and from the point of view of Palin.  The unhinged hatred people have for her makes her even more popular with some people.  Even people like me, who have reservations about her presidential run.

And she is running for president.

How do I know?

When's the premiere of the movie, you ask?  Next month.

Where's the premiere of the movie, you ask?  Iowa.

Sarah Palin is running for president.  And this film is her opening shot.  From all reports, it's a big one.  Despite my misgivings, I have to say: I wish her well, and I'm rooting for her.  I just haven't figured out exactly what I'm rooting for her to do. 

By now most of you know that I live in Istanbul, but it occurred to me this morning that I'm not sure where most of our members live. Are there other expatriates among us? Outstripp, you're in Japan, right? I know we have a lot of Californians. Where do the rest of you live? Did you grow up there? If you moved there, why? Do you like it there? 

Local flora and fauna? Favorite local pastime? Are your neighbors friendly? Do you think you'll stay there? 

Is there some place you'd rather live? Where?

The photos are places I've lived. I don't think I've written about either place. Does anyone recognize them?

I hate coming to conclusions until I’ve heard all the facts, but sometimes a piece of a story is just too irresistible to refrain from commenting about it.

Trayvon Martin killer George Zimmerman took the stand in his bail hearing. In a legally unnecessary apology to Trayvon’s family, he said of the boy, “I did not know if he was armed or not.”

Good grief. Why in the world would his attorneys allow him to say that?

If George didn’t know Trayvon was armed, the less reason there is to shoot him.  Even if true, that didn’t have to come out now, and it only makes George look worse not better.

Certainly there are situations where an unarmed man (boy, rather) can be shot in self-defense.

However, George may have poisoned his own jury pool.  If I’m the prosecution or Trayvon’s family, I’m keeping in the public ear as long as I can George’s admission that he did not know if the boy was armed, and still shot him.

The picture released today of the bloody back of George Zimmerman's head lends credibility to the claim that Trayvon banged George’s head on the ground.

Now, what I’m about to write may come from a certain cultural background, and it also may not vitiate George’s claim of self-defense, but here it goes:  George Zimmerman should have taken his beating like a man and shouldn’t have shot a boy.

The facts that have come out so far (granted they could change) are that George Zimmerman targeted the boy, not the other way around.  George was being a bully.  If the boy started beating up the bully, then the bully should have at least expected that he could lose the fight, since the police advised him that they didn’t need him following Trayvon. That Trayvon could have kicked George’s rear-end is exactly WHY the police told him they didn’t need him to follow Trayvon.

A fair conclusion is that when George’s “neighborhood watch muscles” failed him, he cowardly went for his gun and shot an unarmed boy.

If he legitimately thought the boy was going to kill him that could change my mind.  But until that evidence comes out, George Zimmerman is a punk who shot a boy he did not conclude was armed.

And he has a lousy lawyer.

After the flaming I've had on Ricochet recently with regards to homosexuality and drugs legalization, I've learned my lesson and now plan to stick resolutely to uncontroversial subjects.

So: abortion.

Here's a story in the UK press that my wife (who like me would consider herself a conservative) and I both found pretty shocking.

To obtain a termination under the Republican plan, women in Virginia would first be made to have an ultrasound, which would allow them to see their foetus and to hear its heartbeat.

During the first three months of pregnancy – when 80 per cent of abortions occur – such an ultrasound must be carried out by vaginal probe. The plan is furiously opposed by women's rights groups and Democrats.

It is due to be signed this week by the state's governor, Bob McDonnell, who is a high-profile ally of Mitt Romney, and is frequently tipped as a potential Republican vice-presidential candidate.

Opponents have grouped it with comparable rules elsewhere in the US, along with new measures to restrict contraception, to claim that the Republicans have launched a "war on women's health".

Virginia Democrats who oppose the ultrasound bill said that it would force women to undergo an invasive procedure that was akin to "state-sponsored rape."

Now I don't know how fair a representation this is of the facts on the ground. But I can tell you that even if it contains a scintilla of truth, it's an approach that most of us on this side of the Atlantic - including I'm guessing maybe 80 to 90 per cent of conservatives - would find wantonly vindictive and unpleasant. Some of you, I know will dismiss us as bien-pensant Euro weenies who have long since lost the moral plot. But speaking as one of the reddest-meat, most pro-gun, most anti-big-government, pro-Constitution, pro-liberty, pro-American conservative you are ever likely to meet, I'd just like those of you who support these kind of measures to pause and consider how it makes you look from the outside.

The reason I'm a conservative and proud to be a conservative is because I believe that ours is the philosophy that truly values human beings and works with human nature. The reason I despise liberals - well, not so much liberals, as their political philosophy - is that I see in almost everything they believe a deep intolerance masquerading as virtue, a determination to impose their Weltanschauung on EVERYONE, an urge to bully and control because, darn it, they KNOW they are right.

I referred to another example of this in my most enjoyable podcast with Paul Rahe the other day.  The one where I cited the truly disgusting Anti-Saloon League chief enforcer Wayne Wheeler who just knew that alcohol was so wrong he considered it perfectly acceptable to persuade the US government to poison the nation's supply of industrial alcohol which (as everyone knew) was being used to make moonshine. This "Formula No. 5" - a mixture of methanol, pyridine bases and benzene,  resulted in 10,000 deaths.

Wheeler joked about this: "If a man wishes to violate the Constitution of the United States he should be free to commit suicide in his own way."

I worry about this strain in US Conservatism, a) because I think it confirms all liberals worst prejudices and b) because it makes it that much less electorally attractive to the nation as a whole.

Discuss.

Ann Coulter headlined last week's CPAC when she said that if Chris Christie doesn't run for president in 2012, Mitt Romney will get the GOP nomination--and lose to Obama. "By the way," she concludes, "I warned you about McCain." 

Only a few short days later--and just a day after Obama unveiled his laughable $3.7 trillion budget--Politico is reporting that the New Jersey governor is heading to Washington to deliver a speech about fiscal responsibility: 

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is bringing his blunt talk about fiscal responsibility to Washington this week in a speech sure to stoke speculation about his national prospects – which have intensified in recent weeks as some Republicans openly fret about the strength of their 2012 field.

Like Christie himself, the message he’ll deliver Wednesday at the conservative American Enterprise Institute is unorthodox and straightforward: he accuses both parties, Democrats and Republicans alike, of “timidity” in the face of the coming fiscal calamity.

“It’s hard, but it can be dealt with,” Christie said of his speech, previewed for POLITICO, which will focus on his battles with the state’s teachers unions. “I’m a little mystified as to why they’re not doing it, on either side. Because what we’ve shown in New Jersey is that the public is hungry for this.”

“I don’t think anybody’s ever accused me of being ambiguous. So I think when I get done, they’ll have a good idea of what I’m talking about,” he said.

Christie is candid about his willingness to consider national office in the future but insists he’ll be sitting out 2012, saying he is “challenged and content and excited to be the governor of New Jersey, and I got a lot of work to do here – we are far from being fixed.”

“I’m not running for president,” Christie, 48, said by phone from his desk in Trenton Monday. “And I don’t know anybody who would want somebody like me as their vice president.”

We shall see about that. Will Christie take Coulter's words to heart? 

In his forthcoming book, Coming Apart, The State of White America, 1960–2010, Charles Murray writes about the perils of the upper-class elite setting policy that affects regular Americans, with whom these elites have little to nothing in common.  Because their bubble is so thick, the elites are vulnerable to making huge policy mistakes, despite their best intentions.

To help you determine how thick your bubble is, Murray has produced a quiz whose score will place you into one of the following categories:

• A lifelong resident of a working-class neighborhood with average television and moviegoing habits. Range: 48–99. Typical: 77.
• A first-generation middle-class person with working-class parents and  average television and moviegoing habits. Range: 42–100. Typical: 66.
• A first-generation upper-middle-class person with middle-class parents. Range: 11–80. Typical: 33.
• A second- generation (or more) upper-middle-class person who has made a point of getting out a lot. Range: 0–43. Typical: 9.
• A second- generation (or more) upper-middle-class person with the tele- vision and moviegoing habits of the upper middle class. Range: 0–20.Typical: 2.

Three of the Young Guns crew have thus far taken the quiz, and I was shocked to discover that with my score of 26, I have the biggest bubble.  When I protested to the group that Californians need a separate quiz, Meghan Clyne responded, "No, I think that's the point--to live in California (at least, northern California) is to have separated oneself from the mainstream of the rest of the country."  Touché.

Take the quiz here (questions begin on page 103), and report back with your score.
 

Update:

For those of you joining late who don’t wish to wade through the 125 comments, the post below was a thought experiment to test a hypothesis, not a serious condemnation of Safe Haven Laws.

On several anti-gay marriage threads, it is posited that gays shouldn’t qualify for marriage recognition because they cannot breed.  Some claim it may actually affect the social norm of heterosexuals to marry and have children, and there is a government interest in maintaining procreation.

Yet no one can describe the mechanism – exactly how government recognition of those who cannot breed will affect the behavior of those who can.  I suspected it is an excuse to get to a desired result; that the proponents of the idea don’t actually believe government has such power of persuasion over the second group by the simple act of recognizing the first group.

To test their commitment to that theory, I posted below and adopted their claim: That government recognition of one group (those who are abandoning their babies) will cause another group (those who are not) to be affected on the decision to abandon their babies too.

In this thread, the idea that others would have their attitude affected about child rearing based upon government recognition of those who are abandoning their children was denied.  The almost mystical power of persuasion the government can have over one group by recognizing another disappeared.

When stopping gays marrying was the desired result, government power of persuasion was claimed.  When the desired result was saving children, government power of persuasion to cause child abandonment (by assisting in the abandonment!) was at one end of the spectrum denied and at the other end ignored.

______________________________________________________________________

That country would be America.   Do you even recognize her anymore?

All 50 states have adopted a form of the Safe Haven Infant Protection Act.

Under the law, within 30 days after birth, you can drop your child off at any police station or hospital and walk out.     

In fact, the law has a slogan:  “No shame.  No blame.  No names.”

No names?

If no parent comes back to claim the child for 21 days, the State will move in Court to terminate the parental rights of the parents and allow for adoption. That means there will be no child support responsibility of the birth parents, either.

I suppose we can call it the pro-orgy law, because there seems to no longer be any government disapproval of reckless sex.  One can imagine some sympathetic people this might help, but isn’t this also an easy out for the prostitute, the philandering man and shameless tart?

I recalled this law when discussing gay marriage with member KC Mulville. 

KC, like many of our members, had made the point that gay marriage is unwarranted because marriage is inexplicably tied to birthing children, and it is an accepted truth that “society demands biological parents raise their children.”

Not anymore.  Now that every state allows you to rid yourself of parental responsibility with the ease of dropping off your child like she were a pizza, the once accepted truth that society demands we care for our children is now an untruth. Demand it?  Society is no longer even suggesting it.

If the case against Gay Marriage is that government acceptance of a behavior is an encouragement of the behavior, then what behavior is this law encouraging?

I will concede a couple of points.   We’ve always allowed people to give up their children for adoption.  This just makes it easier, and perhaps the ease is exactly what gives me pause.  Once we remove any consequence to birthing a child, haven’t we devalued human life? Haven't we accepted hedonism?

Also, this law has obvious cross-over to the abortion debate.   I can see a pro-life position in this, by telling women if they feel emotionally unready to be a parent, or to cite the Supreme Court, not financially ready (as vulgar as I find that excuse, it is part of the basis for the Court’s opinion), then all they need to do is let the child live, and society will care for the child.

Of course, this has to be like poison to anyone who has a sliver of traditionalism or social conservatism (not to mention parental instinct).   Nothing in this law stops a rich and ready person from transferring their child-rearing responsibility to the State, even if the excuse is they are too lazy or simply can’t be bothered.  Or they wanted a boy, not a girl.   Or this child is too sick and inconvenient.

If our culture of family values is spiraling downward, the state promoting a no cost, no shame abandonment of children has to be the latest point on the continuum toward the destruction of nuclear families that has at the other end no fault divorce and the repealing of alienation of affections as a tort.

So I again turn to the Ricochet political and cultural noosphere for answers.  What do we think of these state sanctioned and supported child abandonment laws?   Net positive or net negative?

From the lede of a story at Politico today:

Former New York City Mayor and 2008 Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said Thursday evening that he was concerned that Republican stances on social issues makes the GOP look “like it isn’t a modern party.”

“I think the biggest problem right now, I think abortion you can work out… but I think the gay rights issue is a more current one right now. I think beyond all the religious and social parts, it makes the party look like it isn’t a modern party, it doesn’t understand the modern world we live in,” Giuliani said on CNN’s “OutFront.”

“Absolutely,” Giuliani added, when host Erin Burnett asked if the Republican Party’s positions on social issues could lead to the rise of a third party.

As we've seen from any number of threads on Ricochet in the past, these questions are just as divisive here as anywhere else. So here's my challenge to the membership: put aside the normative questions for a moment. As a matter of sheer political calculation, is Giuliani right or wrong about the electoral wages of social conservatism?

The prize: Signed copies of The Devil's Delusion. 

The proposition, from Christopher Hitchens:

 What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.

Prizes for the best argument in favor, or against.

My father will be judging the contest.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head at point-blank range today outside a Tucson, Ariz., grocery store where she was holding a campaign event. At least 12 others were also shot.

I'm stunned. 

Last night in a comments thread, some of us discussed how the standard for Mitt Romney always seems to be so much higher than for his opponents. A perfect example of this is what happened in Ohio. If Rick Santorum had pulled out a victory there, everyone would be congratulating him on his huge victory. When Romney wins, we get all sorts of people opining on how weak he is. He absolutely trounced in the delegate count last night and we're being told he had a bad night?

And yet, I'm hearing the same thing from people I respect. Jim Geraghty writes "Mitt's Got Trouble. Right Here In River City." And Byron York writes:

[Ohio Attorney General Mike] DeWine, who famously endorsed Romney and then left to join Santorum, had a point.  For the Romney campaign, Super Tuesday was supposed to be the day the long, disorganized, and often painful effort by conservatives to deny the inevitability of Romney's claim to the nomination effectively ended.  Instead, despite his narrow win in Ohio and victories in his home state of Massachusetts, Vermont, Virginia, Idaho, and Alaska, the day's results left Romney's opponents, especially Santorum, with reason to stay in the race, and Romney himself, still, after these many months, a weak frontrunner.

As the polls closed yesterday, I was willing to accept the inevitable. These post-Super Tuesday essays are not what I expected. One Romney supporter asked on Twitter:

Again I ask, what Romney positions do you disagree with?

I'm sure it's frustrating for those on board with Romney that the rest of the GOP electorate is so resistant. But if they earnestly want to understand the problem, they simply have to address what both Geraghty and York mention in their posts: Obamacare and the trust issue.

I'm going to steal this directly from The Weekly Standard's Jeffrey Anderson, because I can think of no better way to make the point. It's long, but for a reason:

Here’s what the two leading Republican presidential candidates said last night, in total, about Obamacare: 

Mitt Romney (from 10:35 to 10:40):

“He [President Obama] passed Obamacare.  I’ll repeal Obamacare.”

Rick Santorum (from 8:12 to 16:00):

“We have people who believe that America’s best days are behind us. They believe that it’s no longer possible for free enterprise, a free economy, and free people to be able to build strong communities and families and be able to provide for themselves and their neighbors. No, we now need an increasingly powerful federal government to do this for us. [Cries of ‘No!’]

“The reason that Karen and I ultimately decided to get into this race was because of that issue and, in particular, one issue.  I’ve said it [in] almost every stump speech I’ve given.  If it wasn’t for one particular issue that to me breaks the camel’s back with respect to liberty in this country — and that is the issue of Obamacare.

“What we will go to in a very short period of time — the next two years — a little less than 50 percent of the people in this country depend on some form of federal payment, some form of government benefit, to help provide for them.  After Obamacare, it will not be less than 50 percent.  It will be 100 percent. 

“Now every single American will be looking to the federal government, not to their neighbor, not to their church, not to their business or to their employer, or to the community or non-profit organization[s] in their community, [but] will be looking always to those in charge, to those who now say to you that they are the allocator and creator of rights in America. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the beginning of the end of freedom in America.  Once the government has control of your life, then they gotcha. 

“That’s why we decided to step out.  As you look, I mean, Karen and I [have] seven children, ages 20 — ages 20 to 3, not exactly the best time to be out running for president of the United States.  We’ve given up our jobs.  We’re living off our savings.  Yeah, we’re makin’ a little sacrifice, for a very, very big goal — and that is replacing this president, on November [6th] of this year. 

“In order to make that happen, the Republican party has to nominate somebody who can talk about the broad vision of what America is.  As I talk about in every one of my speeches, I talk about how important it is that [we] remember who we are.  Ronald Reagan, in his farewell address to the American people, worried about whether America would remember what made us great — that we are not a great country because we have a great and powerful government; we are a great country because we believe that rights don’t come from the government, but as…our founding document, the Declaration of Independence says, our rights come to us from our Creator. 

“The government’s job and the Constitution of this country was intended to do one thing — protect those rights, so each and every one of you would have the opportunity to build their own life, to take your own path, to create a strong family, strong neighborhood, community, state, and country.  That’s what made America great.  We built a great country from the bottom up. 

“And we need people to go up against President Obama and his vision of a top-down [model of] government control — of not just health care, but of energy, and of manufacturing, and of financial services, and who knows what else is next?  But this is a president who believes that he simply is better able to do this than you are; that he will be fairer than you are with your fellow man.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is an election about fundamental liberty, and the signature piece — the signature piece of legislation that points this out, where you have economic ‘rights’ created by the government, and then the government using its heavy hand to force you to buy insurance, to force you to take policies that you don’t want, and of course to force you to take coverages that may even violate your faith convictions….

“In this race, there is only one candidate who can go up on the most important issue of the day and make the case — because I’ve never been for an individual mandate, at a state or federal level.  I’ve never — I’ve never passed a statewide government-run health-care system when I was governor because, well, I wasn’t governor.  But Governor Romney did. 

“And now we found out this week, not only did he pass it in Massachusetts, he advocated for it to be passed in Washington, D.C. in the middle of the debate on health care. 

“It’s one thing to defend a mandated, top-down, government-run health-care program that you imposed on the people of your state.  It’s another thing to recommend and encourage the president of the United States to impose the same thing on the American people.  And it’s another thing yet to go out and tell the American public that you didn’t do it. 

“We need a person running against President Obama who is right on the issues and truthful with the American public.”        

Some people are willing to put their faith in Romney. Some need much more convincing. More than six words devoid of any principle or reasoning, that is.

This is not an unfixable problem, but it is one that needs addressing soon.

Last week, firefighters in rural Tennessee stood by and let a man’s house burn to the ground because the homeowner had neglected to pay the $75 fee for opt-in fire emergency service.

Homeowner Gene Cranick and his family lost all their possessions as well as their three pets in the blaze. Though firefighters were at the scene to battle the fire on neighboring property, they refused to put out the fire on the Cranicks' property. The mayor of the South Fulton (which is the closest city to the Cranick’s rural home) cited moral hazard as the reason why firefighters could not help the man once the fire had already begun:

"Anybody that's not inside the city limits of South Fulton, it's a service we offer. Either they accept it or they don't," said South Fulton Mayor David Crocker….[He] said that the fire department can't let homeowners pay the fee on the spot, because the only people who would pay would be those whose homes are on fire.

Daniel Foster has a great discussion about the story over at The Corner. “This is bad for the libertarians,” Foster says.

I have no problem with this kind of opt-in government in principle — especially in rural areas where individual need for government services and available infrastructure vary so widely. But forget the politics: what moral theory allows these firefighters (admittedly acting under orders) to watch this house burn to the ground when 1) they have already responded to the scene; 2) they have the means to stop it ready at hand; 3) they have a reasonable expectation to be compensated for their trouble?

…I’m a conservative with fairly libertarian leanings, but this is a kind of government for which I would not sign up.

The pressing questions: What should the firefighters have done in this scenario? Is this story evidence of the inherent failures of libertarianism? And lastly, for which type of services is opt-in government appropriate?

(h/t Kenneth and Trace)

Whatever you may think about marriage--of any variety--you'll definitely get a more intelligent discussion of it on Ricochet than at the 2012 College Convention in Concord. 

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