Meaning, he can’t possibly support a liberty agenda — and as a moral scold will take away your March Madness pools and your Fantasy Football leagues. After he’s done taking away your right to slide a jimmie on your whipstick.
Or else it doesn’t mean any of that.
There’s a difference between being a moral scold and being a dictator. Just as there’s a difference between agitating and advocating for certain legislation (Santorum opposed gaming in PA and is a proponent of online gambling regulation) and trying to use the courts to institute your values agenda against the will of the voters.
If Santorum opposes gaming, that’s his prerogative as a citizen and, if it comes to that, as a legislator. And it is our prerogative to tell him to sod off and worry about more pressing issues, if that’s what we believe in. More of concern to me would be if Santorum began trying to heavily regulate internet access and cyber movement.
What I like about Santorum is that he lets you know where he stands on issues. When asked, he responds — he doesn’t dodge the question. Agreeing with him on individual issues is not a prerequisite for recognizing that he understands how the constitutional system was set up to work — and that he’ll honor that system. Moreover, his “values” agenda has the constitutionally salubrious affect of re-invigorating the very ideas of state sovereignty and 9th and 10th Amendment protections: should some state decide, on the legislative level, to ban gaming (with support of the public), some other state is likely to allow it and either reap the financial rewards or pay the social price.
Such competition is both healthy and clarifying — and it has the additional affect of bringing politics back to local level where it belongs.
Santorum’s suggestion that freedom isn’t absolute — in the abstract — is clearly correct: we don’t allow people to shout “fire” in a crowded movie theater, and we don’t allow children to drink alcohol or drive automobiles (though we’re cool, in certain places, with them circumventing parental consent and notification and having a doctor scrape the proto-human out of them, if that’s their bag); only if Santorum overstepped by trying to force his agenda on us against our will is this a problem.
Again, I don’t agree with him. But then, I don’t have to. And that’s a change. I hope.
(h/t Jim Geraghty)
It’s telling that many of his critics fear his broad dictatorial powers if elected president, yet bemoan the lack of the same powers in their elected savior, all without the least trace of irony or selfconsciousness.
Here’s something that Santorum said in an interview recently:
I would think that a politician merely expressing a sentiment that people disagree with is not as tyrannical as, say, imposing a mandate that all institutions must offer contraception coverage, or which mandates what kids have in their lunchboxes. But based on what I have seen in other places around the dextrosphere, I guess we’re supposed to hyperventilate just as equally.
You remember when that socialist Ronnie Whatshisname was always going on with that “Just Say No” crap? Honestly, I’m surprised the Republic survived those hellish years…
Santorum makes a clear distinction about what he would do and not do as President and what he would talk about as President. That distinction is purposefully obscured by the opposition.
Bottom line, Santorum has standards that he articulates very well. The left, having no standards, naturally attacks someone who is principled.
It will be interesting to see if this whole “This is who I am and I won’t apologize” type of politician catches on.
Important enough to be repeated.
It’s something I have written about again and again … Law that governs human behavior is merely a subset of morality … the basement floor as it were. How one furnishes and decorates the upper floors is the province of society and individual choice.
The Left advocates that if it’s not illegal then it’s moral (e.g. the “I [am proud to have] had an abortion” t-shirts from Planned Parenthood) … so when they find something they consider immoral (transfat, incandescent lightbulbs, wood fireplaces, cigarettes, males seducing females) they immediately want laws against it.
Now, tell me again who it is that wants to control other people? The Santorums or the Marcottes?
How one furnishes and decorates the upper floors is the province of society and individual choice.
The hell you say.
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Er, this, I mean.
Santorum needs to speak plainly in the debates every time questions about this stuff come up. He knows he can’t do anything about gambling or birth control or whatever gets someone’s panties in a bunch from a legal standpoint on his own, and he needs to emphasize that. It would help if he would compare himself to Obama on this and explain about government overreach and what he thinks is the proper role of the government and the President.
The problem is, we’ve become so used to an intrusive government regulating our every move that people believe the President can do just about anything he wants to and nothing can stop him. The fact that Obama believes this as well is not helping.
Ba-dum-bum, tchssssssss
charlesaustin, I don’t care that supporters of The Won are disappointed that The Won doesn’t have dictatorial powers.
I do care, however, that The Won is disappointed that he doesn’t have dictatorial powers.
I think that’s a pretty good contrast: On one side we have Rick Santorum who respects that there are limits on our form of government versus President Obama who doesn’t respect that there are limits on our form of government.
I’m cool with legalizing gambling…after we get rid of the entitlement “safety net” so I don’t have to pay the dumb shits grocery bill after he blows all his money trying to fill an inside straight.
MSNBC has a front page article today about how a BYU student received a note from a fellow student that her outfit wasn’t chaste enough. Everyone doing their little piece for the cause.
Re: the “piece of aspirin between the knees” joke:
If Santorum picks up Newt’s pugnacious attitude towards the press, how can we not nominate him?
So, Rick is the new angry little attack muffin?
Newt chats
No, leigh. You still hold that title.
And how about the Colorado public high school student who refused to literally sing the praises of Allah and had to leave school because of the death threats?
See Charlie Rose interview here.
To borrow JD’s elegant phrase: Charlie Rose is a mendoucious twatwaffle.
[…] RELATED: More from Bruce McQuain at The Conservatory. A rebuttal at Protein Wisdom. […]
[…] RELATED: More from Bruce McQuain at The Conservatory. A rebuttal at Protein Wisdom. […]
Excellent excellent Santorum work at that Charlie Rose interview. I’m feeling a tingle.
That’s uncalled for, Rob. I’m none of those things.
No, he’s the happy attack muffin, smiling all the while. It’s a good skill to have, really.
I’ve been thinking about this: Santorum is the Egg McMuffin of candidates.
Fortune (happenstance, accident, chance)
Fortune (great wealth)
Lotto, lottery (the idiot tax)
Exploitation. (It’s not bad for you.)
Government run exploitation. (See? It’s good for you, you non-Lotto-playing free-rider bastards. What’s next, a mandate everyone plays?)
OT: sdferr, there is an article in the newsfeed over at Ricochet that is in answer to the professor’s piece(s) you linked before the Outlaw Blackout. The author says much of what I was trying to say, but he does it in a lengthier format. The piece is probably on the second or even third page by now. I’d link it but I am still having to do a work around to get to the current PW page.
PS, ignore the author’s funny hat. The message is serious.
He’s welcome to dislike anything he cares to. As long as he doesn’t try and force his preference on others, “for their own good”.
My good is MY business, not yours. I’ll take care of it, so butt out.
How hard is that to understand, you pathetic Dem herd-beasts?
I think I know which guy you intend leigh, KC Mulville(?). I believe he used to be a priest or was on the road to priesthood, before resigning his vocation (or however that’s called). Chances are I read his response to Rahe the day it was published, though I confess his thesis doesn’t stick in memory.
That’s him. They both make good arguments. I was pleased to read KC Whatever’s response since it is from a guy who is still in the trenches and not in the chain of command or observing it from an academic POV. The gist was that he felt, as did a lot of commentors, that Rahe was using a broad brush in his portrail of the American Catholic Church as being a complicit partner in government meddling.
Anyway, it was interesting and Rahe weighs in in the comments, as well.
Rick Santorum does not need to make enemies with libertarians…
This is a wrestling video you may not like… Hey, I do not care about Rick’s past as much as his vision for the future. But he needs to spell that out. And saying he is about driving libertarians from the GOP is not helping.
I want to know how Newt, Mitt and Rick intend to deal with this…
This one blew the top of Mrs. view’s head off
Santorum vaguely affirmed a woman’s right to choose her career and gallantly insisted that “the section was written in large part in cooperation” with his (non-working) wife, Karen
7 home-schooled children = non-working, to our Compassionate Betters
The condescension literally drips off the page of Shapiro’s review but it has led me to buy It Takes a Family
MSNBC has a front page article today about how a BYU student received a note from a fellow student that her outfit wasn’t chaste enough. Everyone doing their little piece for the cause.
Holy smoke. As a BYU alum, I can testify that this kind of idiocy (self-appointed enforcement of the Honor Code) has been going on for DECADES on the BYU campus.
It drove me absolutely insane, because 99 times out of 100, the enforcer was engaging in nothing but moral preening.
And you know what my biggest shock was when I went to Cornell after six years at BYU?
THE SAME CRAP HAPPENED AT CORNELL!
The biggest difference, though, is that at BYU (a) There actually is a written Honor Code that everyone (faculty and students) must sign on to prior to being accepted at the uni, and (b) The self-appointed scolds are always laughed at for being so utterly pathetic.
OTOH, at Cornell, (a) There was no written agreement about what you can and cannot do (b) Particular assumptions about reality have not been set down as foundational to the university’s mission (d) The moral scolds are taken extremely seriously, and laughing at them is considered to be beyond the pale.
BTW, here’s the outfit that the poor pathetic scold sees as a violation of the Honor Code.
It’s obvious that the poor sot found his hormones in an uproar at the sight of her and concluded that she must be doing something wrong. She isn’t. Her outfit is perfectly within the honor code.
This kind of scolding behavior seems to be endemic to undergrad-age students, though. They’re right at the age when they start making judgments for themselves, they’re idealistic, and they have no experience with the real world whatsoever (not to mention the judgment centers of the brain don’t clunk into place until age 25).
#SMOD2012
This week’s Richochet podcast features VDH and Paul Rahe (wherein we’re introduced to the correct pronunciation of his name: RAY).
A maximum of good thinking with a minimum of japery.
VDH was quite succinct and pointed, and Paul did not bother disguising his affinity for Santorum. Lileks remains the best choice they could make for a host.
how convenient
link
I publicly call on ABC to out that hack. There is no journalistic cover for putting that kind of anonymous story out.
i’m sensing megan’s daddy
My theory is it’s one of the gals from Maine.
a memeorandum thread reports rick saying this: me yea tell me sumthing new
link
I’d not vote for Romney. I’d vote against Jeb Bush.
They’re framing it as a dude. My money’s on maverick.
oh my
After Centuries of Secrecy, Vatican Vexed by Leaks
Have you seen Olympia Snowe?
There is no GOP establishment! Repeat that often enough and you might believe it.
I know that if Rick Santorum gets to be president he will not create a theocratic V for Vendetta fascist state. I know he would be a decent enough President and about a 100 times better than Obama. And I know if it were presented to him by Congress he would sign legislation repelling Obama care and invoking a Ryan budget.
My fear is Santorum will never get the chance because he lacks the skills to parry the attacks that are coming his way.
http://news.investors.com/article/601602/201202171814/obama-uses-birth-control-misdirection.htm Mark Steyn has a pretty good article with a graft that shows how screwed we are…but not in a good way.
Indeed, Jeff. However. I do not want a moral scold as my nominee, let alone my President much more than I want a dictator.
AND I also don’t really distinguish between a moral scold you says outloud that he would attempt to legislate morality and one that just wants to “talk about it”.
Rick Santorum is a non-starter for me. And as Ace points out 100% accurately, if you’ve lost a conservative who is turned off by the moral scolding, how in the hell do you think you have a snowball’s chance in hell at attracting anyone else ?
You don’t.
Burn down the Republican party. Nuke it from orbit, its the only way to be sure.
I guess it’s silly to think anyone should be less intolerant of an unabashed godbotherer than the godbotherer-haters dishonestly claim he is of them.
So you don’t differentiate between holding personal views about morality and using the government to force those views on others against their will, even when the person holding the personal views says explicitly that many of his personal views are not the purview of the government.
In short, you have a litmus test for politicians, namely, that they cannot ACTUALLY believe the tenets of their religious faiths.
Got it.
Romney’s your guy, then. He’ll only force on you what he’s poll tested that you want, and he’ll hold every opinion available so as not to offend.
Is this the same Ace who told us that Palin, Bachmann, Cain, et al., were stupid, unpolished, awful non-starters, and who is now severely and conservatively supporting Mitt Romney?
Let me retort: if you’ve lost the conservative who was willing to vote for nearly any other candidate EXCEPT Romney<, how in the fuck to you expect to get your base out during a general election other than by telling us that he's a bit better than Obama? Oh, and remember: should Santorum win the nomination and you choose to stay home, you're really voting for Obama.
Mitt Romney couldn’t sell Alpo to a starving dog.
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It’s funny that to so many “conservatives,” a guy like Santorum, who was willing to defend liberty (that is what he’s doing by not only refusing to condemn “income inequality” but in fact actively embracing it as a symptom of liberty, per Hayek, while others on the right run from such things because they fear how such a thing sounds), is a non-starter, but a guy who won’t repent for having brought the State directly into your body via state-run health care is the candidate they’ll go to war behind.
And I’ll venture that’s because so many who’ve been playing conservative are, it should be obvious by now, not. They’re Republicans. And they’re content with a sprawling government and bureaucracy so long as they get lower taxes and their turns at its helm from time to time.
My own take is that they are Republicans in the same respect that Kim Philby was a Brit.
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Fixed that.
Nobody ever seems to stop and notice that “conventional wisdom” is carefully crafted to push an agenda by media-savvy operatives who do not have Republican voters’ best interest at heart.
The Republican voter who makes decisions based on “conventional wisdom” reveals himself to be even more stupid than the
independentdisengaged, apathetic, low information voter whose opinion is worth about as much as a bucket of warm piss on any other subject at any other time.Rick Santorum Addresses Detroit Economic Club
Glenn Beck and Rick Santorum discuss libertarians.