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What Makes a SoCon?
A few days ago, several Ricochetti on the member side were kicking around an idea for a podcast featuring social conservatives. (Want to read those in-house conversations? You need to be a member.) It was a good discussion and one that’s been mirrored behind the scenes at the site (we take your suggestions seriously).
It brought an interesting question to mind, however. What makes someone a SoCon? I’ve never used the label in reference to myself because I’m generally fine with gay marriage as a policy matter (though I’m totally opposed to the means by which it’s been gaining ground) and I know that’s usually a litmus test. That said, I’m also pro-life, firmly in favor of the various Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, anti-assisted suicide, totally opposed to the contraception mandate, deeply troubled by the pervasive breakdown of the family, and generally convinced that both the law and the culture are developing an ominously antagonistic posture towards people of faith. So wouldn’t it be sort of weird to say I’m not a social conservative?
You tell me. I’m genuinely curious as to what our readers think the term means, and what the essentials of the SoCon creed are.
Oh, one other thing — if this turns into a 350-comment thread arguing SSM, you will all be sent to your rooms. No dessert.
Published in General, Religion & Philosophy
The State should stop encouraging the spread of societal disease.
Lucy: “I wanted to reply that you really can’t have morality without liberty. Morality has to be freely chosen to be moral.”
I had no idea you were a closet libertarian.
Nice try. I don’t claim to be Libertarian. A lot of what they have to offer I like, but they lose me on many social issues. With the risk of breaking Troy’s rule here, SSM is a state issue. Ditto abortion. I believe in the 9th and 10th amendments. I have come across many of Libertarians who just do not feel the same.
Conversely you can’t have liberty without morality either.
Most SoCons on Ricochet are “libertarian” to some extent. All varieties of conservatives on Ricochet agree on the general goal of limited, local government.
With exceptions (anti-sodomy laws, for example), libertarians and SoCons would probably be happy with pre-FDR government… or at the very least prefer to undo the LBJ’s Great Society.
We come at problems different ways. And not all of our disagreements are trivial. But there is a lot of overlap.
Before Ricochet, I didn’t know someone could be essentially both, like Mollie Hemingway.
I don’t think my SoCon credentials are challenged.
I’d lay down my arms tomorrow if I were guaranteed that questions of family, marriage, abortion, maybe education and religion, would be addressed by my state. I’d even consider it if I could be guaranteed these issues be handled by my own city.
But if these issues are to be addressed nationally, then I must fight them nationally.
EdG’s comments are generally in accord with mine -but my main objection is that the ways in which I wish to live, in the communities in which I wish to live, are being systematically suppressed by people who don’t live here.
Damn yankees go home and screw up your own communities, but leave mine the hell alone.
I suspect by the standards of Ricochet, I’m not one.
I get the sense that being pro-chastity, pro-sobriety, pro-decency, and pro-life isn’t, by itself, enough. That how far you’re willing to go to enforce these things also matters. That I’m not horrified by the thought of adoption markets or all forms of artificial reproductive technology also might put me outside the SoCon camp here, even though by wider cultural standards, I’m distinctly socially-conservative.
They’re both symptoms of the larger culture of irresponsibility.
See, here is an example of how even fellow SoCons often seriously disagree with each other.
I have argued for years that the most fundamental definition of marriage cannot possibly be a state-by-state issue (and my argument is now, arguably, verified by the case before the Supreme Court). One state can honor another’s errant contracts, but they must at least basically agree on component definitions.
Likewise, national consideration of abortion laws is inevitable, because how we define personhood in regard to protection of life itself is a debate every bit as important as 19th-century debates over the definition of common humanity (slavery). It speaks to who we are as a united people. That is not to deny the varying progress made against abortions at the level of individual states.
I offer these as summaries only. I don’t want to derail Troy’s thread either.
I misspoke — corrected to say “national income tax.”
This is a chicken-or-the-egg dilemma. In other words, it’s both/and, not either/or.
The problems can be traced to both government and culture; to both laws and norms. The solutions must come from both theaters as well, simultaneously.
We want limited, local government. I’d love it if a Republican President and Congress took a sledgehammer to the status quo and eliminated a major agency or program every month. But that alone only opens opportunities for the traditional norms which once lessened needs and filled the roles which government now claims. Limiting government is only half the challenge.
That seems to be the major distinction between people who identify themselves foremost as libertarians and people who identify themselves foremost as SoCons. Libertarians have a more limited scope of interest. SoCons believe more is necessary for a free and respectable society. We respect a free market, but we don’t believe it is a panacea.
Well regarding SSM–again I don’t want to make this into that–I don’t see why it is so hard for Cali to issue a document indicating that homosexuals be given the same legal respect as heterosexuals and have Texas honor that document. On the flip side, I don’t think the state–on any level–should define what “marriage” is and open the door for the Jacobite homosexuals to attack Christians and their property (that is happening and will expand if SCOTUS does the wrong thing). I just don’t see what the big deal with preventing homosexual couples from being able to file a damned joint tax return.
If i think in dictionary terms, Social Conservative comes off to me as being interested in conservation of the social order, which begins with the family and extends outwards in concentric circles (workplace, school, community, etc.)
I think that my personal claim to being a social conservative hinges on the idea that I will be doing everything in my power to steer my newborn daughter away from kardashian-ism, bridezilla-ism, and libertine-ism. And that this kind of effort doesn’t legitimately stop at my front doors edge; as many libertarians doth protest. (Although, the degree decreases with distance from my family)
Views on politeness, vice, fads, or style do not occur in a vacuum. They come from somewhere. And I will not be silent; for my children’s sake.
For these reasons: I’m a social conservative.
I would say that’s fairly accurate. And I would add that traditional conservatives (I don’t care for the SoCon label) see human nature as partly degenerate and flawed and that cultural laws need to be instituted for the betterment of society. I would argue that Libertarianism is not conservative at all, especially when it comes to social issues. It shares with the Liberals a view of human nature that is idealistic, that individuals don’t need any regulations and that selfishness (otherwise known as radical individualism) is actually good for society.
Huh? You make the Libertarian mistake of projecting the economic good from free markets to cultural issues. That is just flawed.
By the way, I had opened another post on this subject on the Member Feed, titled, “The Foolishness of Libertarian Cultural Positions” Here:
http://ricochet.com/the-foolishness-of-libertarian-cultural-positions/
Although I promised Lucy P I’d stay out of this, I can’t because FiCons have the same goals as SoCons; we simply believe that people are motivated by different things.
It really is all about the donuts:
1. Take away the financial incentives to be a “baby mama.” That alone could eliminate illegitimacy which is the single most destructive influence upon American society.
2. Take away the govt safety net for college scholarships; tuition would go down dramatically and regular folks could afford to send their kids to college on their own dime.
3. Raise interest rates to encourage more saving and less irresponsible spending.
FiCons believe that people are fundamentally flawed but that their behavior can be easily reigned in by the power of self-interest.
I would combine Luke’s and Manny’s comments.
SoCon’s place the fundamental economic unit at the family level, whereas libertarians place it at the individual level.
SoCon’s (traditional conservatives) believe in that human nature is flawed, and only through constraints placed on individuals through family, religion, and society can man hold back the darker half of their natures. Libertarians are much more likely to believe that individuals are generally good and don’t need to be constrained by these institutions.
You are right, they are both harmful. But one can always reform the errors of the great society. Putting the sexual revolution genie back in the bottle is near impossible and has had far, far more harmful effects.
Excellent summation! Thanks.
EThompson,
I think most the SoCon’s (traditional conservatives) here at Ricochet would agree with you on these items.
The difference is that while SoCon’s would take away “baby mamas” welfare check with one hand they would give it back with the other hand through voluntary charity. The difference is that charity creates a feeling of moral obligation on the part of the receiver that doesn’t generally come with a welfare check.
If by the State you mean the Federal government, then the answer to all of these questions is to get out of the way. Don’t, for example, read a right to abortion into the constitution thus nullifying each state’s individual laws. Don’t read a right to gay marriage into the constitution, thus nullifying each state’s individual laws. Don’t read a right to a prayer-less public school classroom into the constitution. Let religion out of the tiny box it has been squeezed into, in which it can only be mentioned in the privacy of one’s home or church.
Yes, I was going to come back and add that.
I think the comments suggesting that SoCon’s (traditional conservatives) want to impose morality through government is a slander. Progressives want to impose morality through government. In the early days of Progressives explicitly wanted to impose Christian morals through government. Today the Progressives want to impose their enviro-secular-feminist-diversity morality through government. The only difference between the Progressive agenda in 1915 and 2015 is that the morality of the elite has changed.
There is a small minority of people out there that didn’t get the Progressive memo in 1960’s that still want to impose Christian morality through government, but generally they aren’t very conservative in any other aspect like economics, etc. Some of these self-label as SoCon’s, but I would consider them Christian Progressives.
I prefer the term traditional conservative.
Perhaps you’re a little too pessimistic about the prospects of correcting course from the Sexual Revolution, Manny? I read about young women recognizing, personally, the emotional harm they can do to themselves … these stories give me hope that the “fashions” can change.
The “Great Society,” on the other hand, is promulgated through laws and regulations and bureaucracies.
It seems to me more likely that growing numbers of young women (young men, too!) Will learn from their slightly-older neighbors and make better personal choices, than that we can easily and quickly dismantle the formal structures of the War on Poverty.
(I’m feeling optimistic, today)
Hmm. Well it looks as though you and I are pretty much in exactly the same camp, but I consider myself SoCon by Ricochet standards, and answered the question accordingly. It always depends on who you’re talking to, doesn’t it? Everything is relative.
By the way, the “you’re a libertarian” lines in this discussion kind of remind me of the discussions I used to get into with some of my liberal friends. They’d say, “You have to call yourself a feminist. You believe in equal rights for women.” And I’d say, “OK, then I’m a feminist.” Then they’d say, “You can’t be a feminist without believing in abortion on demand, and government funded contraception, and the Democratic party, etc. . . .” Catch-22. I give up.
Perfect.
Yes. I’m with Aaron that we all have a lot of common areas of agreement like this. It perhaps would be ideal if we could focus on them, but then it would be much less interesting. It’s the lines of disagreement that are comment fodder.
I would like to hear the Libertarians’ reaction to this, but I am not sure that it is a fair characterization of their ideas. And, from my point of view, fallen human nature makes a strong central government particularly dangerous. Aaron is right about this. Let government be local and limited. And get the Supreme Court’s ugly mitts off of the laws the states and localities produce in response to the need “for the betterment of society.”
I’m a social conservative because I’m annoyed when people call themselves fiscal conservatives. I don’t want to be one of them. They have as much redeeming social value as Marxist-Leninists.
So I call myself a social conservative, fiscal libertarian, and anthropological liberal.