Everything is Different Now
As recently as this past Friday, I would still have said that the single, overriding issue in this election year would be the economy. Yet in the past 100 hours, Planned Parenthood and its pro-choice supporters in the press have savaged the Komen Foundation; the Obama administration, which might easily have backed down from its regulations forcing Catholic health care institutions to provide contraceptives in direct violation of Catholic teaching, has instead mounted a public relations offensive to insist upon its position; and the Ninth Circuit has ruled unconstitutional California's Proposition 8, issuing its decision in language so self-righteous and so bald that it could only have been intended to insult the millions of Californians who supported the ballot measure.
The sacredness of human life. Freedom of religion. The ancient understanding of marriage. Whether we have all become the subjects of an arrogant, overweening judiciary or whether we can reclaim the right to govern ourselves. Those are now the issues.
Already the highest in a generation, the stakes in this election have just risen.
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Dec '10
Re: Everything is Different Now
Peter, you're not suggesting some kind of conspiracy by which the left energizes the dem base, are you?
Re: Everything is Different Now
Can't tell you about the Dem base, but I can tell you that I'm energized.
Re: Everything is Different Now
Actually King I'm hoping for the opposite.
This may be the kick in the rear the surprisingly quiet Tea Party needs to get back in gear. It could also cause the Libertarian Tea Partiers and the Social Cons to put down their weapons in the war for the heart and soul of the Republican Party and pair up against the liberals like they did in 2010.
Dec '11
Re: Everything is Different Now
It seems like the best candidate to address these issues is about to win the caucuses that are being held in Missouri and Minnesota today.
May '10
Re: Everything is Different Now
So who will be the first idiot to ask Gov. Romney about polygamy in light of the Prop 8 decision?
Jan '11
Re: Everything is Different Now
And you don't need to believe all three are under attack to get energized -- any single one is enough to get our people fired up.
Jan '11
Re: Everything is Different Now
Well, the best candidate to talk about them, maybe...but if you want to get something done, talk to Mitt. ;-)
Aug '10
Re: Everything is Different Now
Tristan Abbey
Well, the best candidate to talk about them, maybe...but if you want to get something done, talk to Mitt. ;-) · 1 minute ago
I think "something" should be in italics.
As in, Mitt will get something done. Don't ask me what it'll be, but it'll be something.
Feb '11
Re: Everything is Different Now
It may be that Santorum suffers here. First of all, people will focus on social stuff at a time when he wants to (or should want to) get on to other issues. He is already seen as one-dimensional.
Second, although he may deal with social issues better than Romney, that's not what the swing voters want to see on the agenda.
Apr '11
Re: Everything is Different Now
Israel P.
It may be that Santorum suffers here. First of all, people will focus on social stuff at a time when he wants to (or should want to) get on to other issues. He is already seen as one-dimensional.
Second, although he may deal with social issues better than Romney, that's not what the swing voters want to see on the agenda. · 1 minute ago
That may be, but too often GOP candidates rush to get the swing voters before they have even begun to solidify their base.
Re: Everything is Different Now
The stakes have not risen. They are merely more visible.
Mar '11
Re: Everything is Different Now
Indeed - the Obamacare chickens are coming home to roost, and if Mr Obama wins (as per Rob's prediction) we will in the next few years be up to our necks in chickens.
I hope Mr Santorum does well today - he may be our only hope.
May '10
Re: Everything is Different Now
Here's hoping an uproar about this that causes Obama to back down, plus perhaps a Holder resignation/firing over Fast and Furious, creates a storyline of "the wheels are coming off the Obama administration" just before the election.
Jun '11
Re: Everything is Different Now
Double plus like! Oops, slipping into our possible future tongue.
Aug '11
Re: Everything is Different Now
Yes, but someone has to write that story. The press? Hmmm. Nope, I don't see it happening.
The press is going to cover for Obama like never before.
Edited on February 7, 2012 at 9:59pmAug '10
Re: Everything is Different Now
Peter,
Would you like the Orange Pekoe or some Earl Grey ?
Sugar ?
So nice you could make it to the party.
Mar '11
Re: Everything is Different Now
Some of us have gone near deaf from beating this drum, Peter.
Mar '11
Re: Everything is Different Now
Even better: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Supreme Court Justice, for goodness' sake, today is quoted as saying that that the U.S. Constitution isn't really the model for modern states. NYT clears the space before her. The Left is tired of being constrained by constitutional democracy and will use Obama's 2d term to push harder for increased freedom to do whatever it thinks will advance the cause of Social Justice, because Social Justice trumps all. Woodrow Wilson is smiling somewhere.
Sep '10
Re: Everything is Different Now
Nov '10
Re: Everything is Different Now
What's sad in all of this is that many libertarians -- Tommy De Seno prominently -- cannot see that SSM is intrinsic to the very logic of the welfare state. Marriage was never understood, contrary to Tommy's imposing of anachronistic readings onto history (he seems to think marriage was always a thorough-going private matter), as unions between discrete, autonomous individuals. This goes directly to my point in my "cleavage" post about libertarian autonomy and its tendency to paradoxically exacerbate the very problem (the welfare state) that it seeks to correct.
In correction of something Tommy said in comment to a post from yesterday, coverture laws were not about "dominance and submission." Coverture laws were a way of treating a man and a woman a single person in a marriage -- i.e., prior to postmodernism, people did not conceive of human beings primarily as discrete, autonomous individuals.
Edited on February 7, 2012 at 11:08pm