Courage Isn't Enough
To no one's surprise, a group of soon-to-be-officially-unemployed college students hissed, booed, and forgot their usual obsession with "fostering a climate of open enquiry" and promoting "dialogue" and "discourse" when an invited guest had the courage to oppose 99 % of his audience on gay marriage: my generation's self-identified "civil rights struggle."
Mr. Santorum pointed out that marriage is more than a relationship of consent between adults: it is the building block of society because it is the building block of the family. He has eloquently pointed out that marriage is not a private matter because it directly affects the public welfare: the societal values of altruism and compassion that liberals always drone on about are expressed best if the family is intact. It is interesting how people who celebrate every form of "peace" and "love" do not have much sympathy for the only type of peace and love that has made society run for 2,000 years: the peace and love of a healthy, structured, traditional family.
My worry is that Mr. Santorum's courage isn't enough to make an impact on young professionals entering the work force for whom marriage is a conveniently far-away abstraction. He should spend more time(and he has already done some good advocacy on this topic) discussing the cold-hard-numbers game: the health of our economy, our industry, and our GDP actually suffer along with marriage when it is attacked in this way. The root of most social pathologies is ultimately a breakdown in the idea of the traditional family. And the root of much economic dysfunction and current-day poverty is social pathology.
Conservatives advocate for liberty because they assume that Americans are responsible enough to use their birthright wisely and well. Thus, a person trying to put the brakes on the dismantling of traditional restrictions may sound dissonant to an audience worrying about the disappearance of liberty in America. Mr. Santorum should spend the rest of his time on the national stage pointing out that liberty cannot coexist with a sick culture. Modern day liberalism demands a sick society and no liberty. How can he best get his message across?
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Dec '10
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
How can he best get his message across?
When you figure this out, please let me know. It's a near daily battle in my life.
Jul '11
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
Has he considered pepper spray. It works well on those with no substance and oodles of confidence.
Dec '10
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
He made a good start in the debate this morning talking about the connection between success in life and traditional families. It is a good line of attack with good documentation.
Oct '10
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
Someone might want to look back and consider why a certain Roman Emporer dictated marraige and it is limits in the first place. Had nothing to do with religion.
Social order was the order of the day and still is.
May '10
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
I am just so grateful that he's given so much thought and consideration to the connections between these things. Grateful that he has that moral courage. Grateful that he had confidence in truth, commitment to persuasion, and enough optimism about American voters' goodness that he's willing to try.
I'm looking forward to seeing what he does in the coming days and weeks. And to watching him surprise and outwit the pundits who are so sure Americans will reject him out of hand for his alleged extremism.
Dec '11
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
Mitch Daniels was right.
Dec '11
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
Vasant, I would encourage you to watch the entire video that's embedded at the Daily News story. Yes, there was a smattering of booing and at times the students began to talk over Santorum because they were so eager to have a dialogue with him.
But no one made an effort to shout him down. By and large, it was a very well-behaved crowd and there was far more respectful applause than there was booing.
Your post does those students a disservice.
Jun '10
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
A 1968 Prediction:
ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF, PAUL VI
(July 25, 1968)
HUMANAE VITAE excerpt:
"Consequences of Artificial Methods
17. Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection."
Nov '10
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
As people increasingly come to see themselves as pure individuals, unmoored from authoritative traditions or teachings, arguments against SSM become increasingly otiose.*
The great hastening of open-ended individuality has been radical feminism. This has led to an increasingly androgynous society. It matters not a whit that most young women today disavow the label feminist. They embody its major teaching in the conviction that "career, career, career!!" -- along with some promiscuity -- must come prior to finding a husband and family.
Men are honor-seeking beings. It's a profound point. If men are not able to out-earn women and accrue honor which comes from providing for a family, then men will increasingly "drop out," as we're lamenting today. In our increasingly androgynous society, it strikes people as ever more bizarre to hear that, if women understood themselves correctly, what they really want is men who will be both husbands and fathers to their children.
The defining virtue for men is courage; for women, modesty = women want to be cherished; men want honor.
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* This isn't an argument for not making arguments against SSM. Better to go down with "guns blazing and and flags flying" to noble defeat.
Edited on Jan 8 at 7:34pmDec '10
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
Amen, brothers Robert and North Star! And this is why conservatism is such a tough message to sell. It's deep and thoughtful and requires virtues stemming from selflessness. All attributes which are counter-cultural today. Time for prayer, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be...
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
Nobody's Perfect: Vasant, I would encourage you to watch the entire video that's embedded at the Daily News story. Yes, there was a smattering of booing and at times the students began to talk over Santorum because they were so eager to have a dialogue with him.
But no one made an effort to shout him down. By and large, it was a very well-behaved crowd and there was far more respectful applause than there was booing.
Your post does those students a disservice. · Jan 8 at 7:22pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5dftF2a-tk. The title of this video is "Santorum booed off stage." Several newspaper outlets said the same thing. I do agree with you that many of the students may have wanted an honest dialogue.
But repeatedly talking over someone is not how people express interest in a conversation; it is how they smother something they don't want to hear. Hissing, and booing an invited speaker who has no way of responding is not the way to achieve discourse. And from the sound of it, that wasn't just a few people.
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
Vasant Ramachandran
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5dftF2a-tk. The title of this video is "Santorum booed off stage." Several newspaper outlets said the same thing. I do agree with you that many of the students may have wanted an honest dialogue.
But repeatedly talking over someone is not how people express interest in a conversation; it is how they smother something they don't want to hear. Hissing, and booing an invited speaker who has no way of responding is not the way to achieve discourse. And from the sound of it, that wasn't just a few people. · Jan 8 at 8:17pm
I wrote about the slanted media coverage here. The Los Angeles Times, in particular, was awful.
Dec '11
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
Santorum was not booed off the stage, far from it. And the students, while lively, were far from disruptive. Besides, booing to disapprove of a particular answer is nothing unusual in political forums
I would go so far as to say that the clamor from Tea Partiers in most of the Townhall meetings in 2009 and 2010 was far more raucous than what we see in this video.
I read several stories about Santorum's appearance and will say that all of them mischaracterized it, so you're not the only one. But the video clearly shows otherwise.
May '10
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
You know what I think, NP? I think you are so consumed with "the social issues" that you would rather see a managerial progressive than Santorum in office.
Nov '10
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
katievs
You know what I think, NP? I think you are so consumed with "the social issues" that you would rather see a managerial progressive than Santorum in office. · Jan 8 at 8:29pm
In a certain, extremely qualified sense, NP might be right. The problem I have with Santorum is that he's perhaps a very bad messenger what's otherwise an incredibly vital message. One is allowed to be angry from the Left. But not from the Right. Politics, late modernity, takes the incredibly odd form of the apolitical against the political...
Oct '11
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
Robert Lux:
This has led to an increasingly androgynous society.
I've noticed this as well. For example, the store American Apparel (probably safe for work, but you never know with them) doesn't separate its men's and women's clothing in the store; if it wasn't for their long-torsoed t-shirts I wouldn't waste my time scavenging through the racks. While I bow to no-one in my love of the early-70's glam rock movement (not to be confused with the mid-80's glam metal farce), it can be disconcerting.
Generally, I'm for veering from traditional gender roles when individuals' circumstances favor it (e.g. stay-at-home dad phenomenon), but I don't like when it's done just to make a point. I still think conservatism is best when it defaults to tradition, but is open to changing circumstances and norms. We're not all David Bowie's yet, but we aren't Paul Bunyan's either.
As to the audience's reaction to Santorum: I've seen far worse reactions from conservatives at health care townhalls.
Dec '11
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
You know what I think, NP? I think you are so consumed with "the social issues" that you would rather see a managerial progressive than Santorum in office.
Here's what I think: nominate Rick Santorum and lose in a landslide. Most American voters are sick of the culture wars - they want a turn away from the politics of the past.
Aug '10
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
That's how They win. They intimidate people, screaming insults at them and denouncing them as bigots. Since most people aren't political, they simply want Them to go away. They hope that if they don't complain about the latest incremental affront to their culture, They will be mollified, and the whole unpleasantness can be forgotten. But this is precisely what motivates Them to their next excess, because They can't feel good about themselves unless they are in that screaming, denouncing mode.
If you don't fight about "gay marriage", you'll eventually be fighting against the idea that you're a bigot if you don't at least try gay sex; or fighting against the idea that your son can decide he'd rather be a girl, and start using the ladies' room; or fighting against polyamory, or "man-boy love". There is no limit to the perversion that They will support if it gives Them the excuse to insult you.
Edited on Jan 8 at 10:56pmDec '11
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
That's how They win.
They are the American public. And here are the facts: only 20% of the American public wants to ban abortion under all circumstances. And 53% of the American public is now comfortable with gay marriage. That first number is going to continue to decrease, while the second is going to increase.
This isn't 1988, when Pat Robertson won 25% of the Iowa caucus.
The nation has moved on. Pound the table all you wish, but the religious right has lost the culture war. The question is whether you want to lose everything else by your stubborn insistence upon your moral superiority. Most Americans believe in live and let live.
Aug '10
Re: Courage Isn't Enough
I see the creation of a lost generation of young people who've completely swallowed the feminist line that gender is a problem to be solved, a cage to be escaped, an injustice to be remedied. They need to be asked why, exactly, they think that happiness will result from taking a fundamental fact of life, one that has been central to human history, and brainwashing themselves until they feel they've successfully abolished it. Why, other than out of a fervent commitment to an ideology, would anyone find androgyny to be in the least bit appealing?
I doubt that the enormity of what has been done to their psyches has even occurred to them. Many will never have a "normal" relationship, untarnished by the vain attempt to abolish the gender differences between them and their mates. Men acting more like women, and women acting more like men, do not make men and women more attractive to each other or more desirous of each other. It may make a handful of homosexuals a bit less miserable, but leaves everyone else more alienated and adrift.