Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 11:28am

Why We’re Not Going Anywhere

Archdiocese launches Campaign for Religious Liberty

Let me explain, in as clear and precise terms as I can, why social conservatives are not going anywhere, nor should they go anywhere, but should remain right at the heart of the conservative movement and gain acceptance among libertarians as well, and should reject as the foolish garbage that it is all suggestions to the contrary.

First, our principles are not electoral losers. Leftists believe they are on “the right side of history”, comparing the campaign for “marriage equality” with every civil rights struggle of past eras. They believe that this fact is reflected in the way the youth vote splits and the purported reasons why. At the same time, they gloat and brag about the size of the Democratic share of the minority vote.

The merits of the “marriage equality” campaign don’t need to be discussed here. I’ve discussed them to death on this blog in previous posts. The fact remains that minorities are opposed to “marriage equality.” If Hispanics can be won over to the GOP on the immigration issue, it will put a stop to this “wrong side of history” nonsense for a generation. The uncomfortable alliance between racial minorities who hold socially conservative views and white liberals will finally be blown apart. Unlike them, when racial minorities finally do side with the GOP en masse, we won’t attribute white liberal hatred for them to “racism” (even though it sure looks like it sometimes). This is a battle of values, not skin colors, and a failure to see that is one of the reasons why the white liberal left will never win the future they mistakenly believe to be theirs.

Second, the Obama regime has made an enemy of the Catholic Church. I do happen to agree with those commentators who believe that “the Catholic vote” doesn’t exist anymore, due to the widespread heresy and apostasy among people who continue to identify as “Catholic.” But it is not “the Catholic vote” that the Church’s continued opposition to the Obama regime will ignite. As the battle lines become more clear, people of all religious faiths and even those with no religious faith at all who value the rights of their fellow citizens will rally to our side, and in fact are already doing so. The HHS mandate is being challenged in several dozen lawsuits, and two injunctions have been granted to plaintiffs on the grounds that they have a reasonable chance of demonstrating its violation of their First Amendment rights.

I have nothing but contempt for those cowards who want to drive social conservatives out of the conservative movement at the hour they are facing down the unjust laws of the Obama regime. This is the same regime that was so arrogant and hateful of religious institutions that it sought to control how churches ordain priests and ministers, and was defeated 9-0 by the Supreme Court. I expect hypocrisy and hate from the left, which speaks of “liberation” and “equality” as it seeks to demote religious citizens to second and third-class status; from people who call themselves conservatives it is enough to make one sick.

As for libertarians, it is in their vital interest to support and join our fight. This is not about personal approval or disapproval of what people do with their genitals or any political effort to mandate such things for the unwilling. This is about our right to exist as authentic believers outside the four walls of the Church, a right guaranteed by the Constitution and bled for by generations of Americans. Anyone who calls themselves a “libertarian” and supports the trodding under of states’ rights, private property, and the First Amendment is either a phony or is hopelessly ignorant of the real issues at stake.

Just as it has throughout its entire history, the Church is attempting to check the will of would-be tyrants. The Church has the potential to become the greatest symbol of resistance to Obamunism in the United States, but only if cowards and phonies are exposed for what they are and they are driven out. The lines wrapped around Chick-fil-A’s around the country were mostly attributable to popular outrage that private citizens and businesses would be persecuted for expressing their sincerely-held religious beliefs. Only an insane, self-loathing party of morons would disregard that.

Third, as I have said before, the problem is not with our values, but with their articulation. The Akins and Mourdocks are not inevitable, and though they may be fine men in their personal lives, they ought to be ruthlessly purged from politics and replaced with people who know the tricks and traps of the leftist media. A conservative walking into any media interview ought to go in prepared for a violent rhetorical battle and not expect anything but the most uncharitable treatment. They ought to be ready to articulate a clear and defensible position, and fend off questions designed to lead into electoral gaffes that profit the Democrats. Such training ought to somehow become mandatory, because it is absolutely necessary given the overt, naked, and shameless political agenda of the media. We cannot send one more fool into battle on our behalf.

Let me sum it up for Americans who care about liberty and are distraught over the encroachments of the Obama regime: our fight is your fight. We are not fighting for something conjured up in the hysterical imaginations of demented liberals, namely the power to tell people how to live their lives. We couldn’t do that if we wanted to, and we don’t. We are fighting for our First Amendment rights, for our private property rights, and for the rights of the states under the 10th amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This fight affects everyone.

If you abandon us now, you will find yourselves alone when the regime and whatever monstrosity follows after it comes after the things you value. First they came for the churches. Will you say nothing?

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anzlyne
anzlyne
Wednesday, November 14, AD 2012 2:39pm

Great post.

Paul W. Primavera
Wednesday, November 14, AD 2012 2:39pm

This is a good post, Bonchamps. This is subject matter in which you are very knowledgeable and very articulate. Thank you.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Wednesday, November 14, AD 2012 3:41pm

I think this minorities are really social conservatives thing is bunk. When you have aroung 65 to 70% of black children in this country born to sinhle mothers, calling thme social conservatives is grossly ignorant at best. The situation with Hispanics is similar As Heather MacDonald points out:

“I spoke last year with John Echeveste, founder of the oldest Latino marketing firm in southern California, about Hispanic politics. “What Republicans mean by ‘family values’ and what Hispanics mean are two completely different things,” he said. “We are a very compassionate people, we care about other people and understand that government has a role to play in helping people.”

The idea of the “social issues” Hispanic voter is also a mirage. A majority of Hispanics now support gay marriage, a Pew Research Center poll from last month found. The Hispanic out-of-wedlock birth rate is 53 percent, about twice that of whites.”

Now, this is not to say we should jettison social issues. Not at all. Anyone who even has a cursory knowledge of how economics and culture affect one another knows that it would drive the final nail in the GOP coffin if they further capitulated on this issue. After all, the left understands the connection very well, which is why their push for a nanny state has ahd a symbiotic connection with their push for “liberalization” of socila issues.

As and far as the Akin and Murdoch situations are concerned, the biggest problems weren’t their gaffes but the way the republican party under the leadership of Mitt Romney this election cycle, threw them under the bus.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Wednesday, November 14, AD 2012 4:07pm

Oh, I do not think that social conservatism hurts the GOP either. In fact, as I said, to operate under that misconcption will be the death knell of the party. It’s just that this idea of minority social conservatism as a means to pander to them vis-avis social conservatism is non sense. What these pro-illegal immigration repulicans are trying to do, in effect, is sell them a knock off item when they can get the real thing at the same or even a cheaper price.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, November 14, AD 2012 4:39pm

I think the Blacks and Hispanics who do vote Republican tend to do so mainly because of the social issues. I agree with Greg that this is overblown, but I do note that most elected officials who are Black or Hispanic and Republican tend to be quite solid on the social issues.

If we can stop illegal immigration, a big if, I think the Hispanic population over time will trend Republican like most immigrant groups if they prosper. Blacks are a much greater problem for the Republicans making inroads but they are a shrinking section of the population, largely due to an atrociously high abortion rate, something that quite a few Black leaders used to be concerned with until quite recently in historical terms.

One of the factors that may impact on Black allegiance to the Democrat party long term is the shrinking of Black urban centers in the North as Blacks move out to multi-racial suburbs and the South.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Thursday, November 15, AD 2012 1:32am

“I think the Blacks and Hispanics who do vote Republican tend to do so mainly because of the social issues.”

I cdertainly blacks and Hispanics in the lower income brackets who vote republican do so mainly because of social issues. Whether or not this is true of blacks and Hipsanics in the upper income brackets do so I don’t know.

Whether or not we can stop illegal immigration outright is, as Donald says, a big if. But we can secure the border to where we get it under control. Problem is, the federal government, regardless of party, lack the will to do so. To get a good insight into how bad the problem is, particularly in Arizona, I would urge readers to read Jan Brewer’s book, Scorpians for Breakfast. Then you will understand why I find Cardinal Dolan’s remarks so scandalous as well as the “orthodox” Catholic commentariat’s silence, let alone failure to denounce them.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Thursday, November 15, AD 2012 4:56am

Surely, a fundamental conservative ideal is free and consensual relations between individuals and groups, as expressed in the great Physiocrat principle, “trade knows no frontiers.”

In other words, the free movement of labour and capital are the conservative default positions. Of course, restrictions can be justified in particular circumstances, but conservatives should never allow themselves to be misrepresented as the protectionist or anti-immigrant party.

WK Aiken
WK Aiken
Thursday, November 15, AD 2012 7:51am

In the words of the populist comic strip Pogo, “We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us.”

“the problem is not with our values, but with their articulation.” That, right there, is the heart of the matter. Why was Reagan popular? He wasn’t nicknamed “The Great Communicator” for nothing!

[Sidebar: I would ask Mr. Mockeridge to visit an urban church some Sunday morning if he believes that social conservatism is dead in that area. Would that some of the fervor found there could infuse our Catholic parishes!]

It has to start in the primaries, where people will run who don’t give a rat’s patoot whether they win the nomination as long as they get the ideas out there, articulate, principled and clear.

We must abandon the left’s “groupthink” politics (even as they are being used here) and formulate ideas and propositions, based on principle and character, that can be articulated in such a way as to appeal to individual people as individuals. The Left herds us into groups and then creates issues that put us into contention with each other: Classic “divide and conquer.” That tactic itself needs to be exposed and blared from the rooftops and when opposed, blared even louder. The evidence is damning and the counterpoint automatic.

Just as a shift from peacetime to war can mean a wholesale change in leadership (remember Admiral Husband Kimmel and General Walter Short,) the key now is to identify and “hand out gold watches” to GOP establishment members who can’t get by their shopworn stereotypes and “Ken” doll notions. We did not ask for this war but it is here, “and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

All that need be done is what Bonchamps spells out in the last section. We need warriors who are fully aware of the enemy’s tactics and capabilities. The sine qua non of political candidacy should be an at-minimum-conversational familiarity with Sun Tzu, Machiavelli and Clausewitz as well as Scripture. Drop the silver-spoon whitebreads and get some honest to gosh scrappers in there. Stick to policy but pull no punches. Stir up passions! Speak to the people as people and not demographics.

Like all bullies, the Left is confident only when it thinks its target is cowed and suppliant. It is time to dispel this illusion.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Thursday, November 15, AD 2012 8:00am

Of course, restrictions can be justified in particular circumstances, but conservatives should never allow themselves to be misrepresented as the protectionist or anti-immigrant party.

A country is not a hotel. The social and political disruption which would attend open borders would be a nightmare. There are two sorts of countries which can tolerate free immigration:

1. Societies of migrants with a great deal of unsettled lands (with the proviso that it helps if the migration streams are not from irreconcilable groups).

2. Countries which are unattractive in which to settle.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Thursday, November 15, AD 2012 9:01am

Art Deco

In a world in which economic growth increasingly depends on the cross-border movement of goods, services, technology and capital and where the old barriers to such movement have been reduced or eliminated, as obstacles to progress, it is difficult to see why flows of labour should not yield similar benefits.

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Thursday, November 15, AD 2012 9:02am

[…] Why We’re Not Going Anywhere – Bonchamps, The American Catholic […]

Art Deco
Art Deco
Thursday, November 15, AD 2012 9:27am

In a world in which economic growth increasingly depends on the cross-border movement of goods, services, technology and capital and where the old barriers to such movement have been reduced or eliminated, as obstacles to progress, it is difficult to see why flows of labour should not yield similar benefits.

The fundamental neoclassical theory predicts gains from trade in factors of production. Econometric analysis of the dimension of those gains reveals (with regard to trade in labor) the following:

1. The gains are small
2. They accrue predominantly to the immigrant populations themselves (the residual to the extant population amounting to around 0.1% of gross domestic product).
3. The benefit to the extant population is crucially dependent on welfare policy.

The main brain for this sort of empirical study in this country is George Borjas, who is not an advocate of unrestricted immigration.

Also, the social and political challenges which derive from ‘diversity’ are not captured in economic statistics.

Kyle Miller
Kyle Miller
Thursday, November 15, AD 2012 12:34pm

In discussing minorities and values voters, keep in mind that 73% of Catholic Latinos and 95% of black Protestants voted for Obama. They did this knowing, well some of them knew, Obama’s support of infanticide, abortion, gay marriage, anti-religious freedom and secular humanism. These groups may be values voters, but self-interests trump all other interests.

Paul W. Primavera
Thursday, November 15, AD 2012 1:07pm

Kyle has a point, but it isn’t in self-interest to vote for a candidate who supports the murder of your unborn children. It isn’t in self-interest to vote for a candidate who supports curtailing your most cherished freedoms into the closet while parading filth out in public for your children to emulate. It isn’t in self-interest to vote for a candidate whose economic policies keep your people shackled to the public treasury instead of being able to stand up independently without government telling you what to do. Truthfully, I do not think that these people really know what their self-interests are. 🙁 I don’t mean to detract from Kyle’s point – they vote for what they think is in their self-interests, but not for what is really in their self-interests. And then we conservatives are called closed-minded, hateful, intolerant racists because we think its immoral to murder a black or Hispanic baby – or any baby for that matter.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Thursday, November 15, AD 2012 1:13pm

“[Sidebar: I would ask Mr. Mockeridge to visit an urban church some Sunday morning if he believes that social conservatism is dead in that area. Would that some of the fervor found there could infuse our Catholic parishes!]”

I’m not sure of what you mean by this question. But the fact of the matter is that Hispanics and blacks are not nearly as socially conservative as those who tell us we need to pander to them are. When you have up to 70% out of wedlock birthrate among blacks and 53% out of wedlock births among Hispanics, you cannot honestly claim that they are predominately socially conservative. Just because you attend Church doesn’t mean you are socially conservative. There are many regualarly mass attending Catholics are not social conservatives.

Kyle Miller
Kyle Miller
Thursday, November 15, AD 2012 1:53pm

By “not practicing,” I would include voting as a practice that has not shown to follow social conservatism some are perceived to espouse. Voting and lifestyles are becoming bedmates. Voting is less driven by what we should do and more driven by what I want. It wasn’t always this way, but more of America is willing to go off the moral cliff. If America showed as much concern for the moral cliff as it does for a hyped up fiscal cliff, there would be no fiscal cliff. But worrying about social values is such a “what’s good for society, the country as a whole” issue. That can’t stand up to the self-interest draw of a fiscal cliff hot topic. That will affect my pocket book!

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Thursday, November 15, AD 2012 2:00pm

I’m sorry, Bonchamps, but this is not even remotely relavent to the issue at hand. If yu want to support this or that immigration policie, do it on the basis of its merits, not as a means to pander to a particular racial or ethnic group. To do so would kill the GOP.

Foxfier
Admin
Thursday, November 15, AD 2012 3:51pm

Blacks and Hispanics are much like the “Catholic” vote: an illusion.

Some people are going to be socially biased against the GOP because they’ve been lied to, and some people just want handouts. It would be much more useful to start sorting people as “cultural democrats” vs “active democrats” and go after votes that way.

We will not win over people who care more about sex and free money than principles; we already have the people who care more about not killing babies than free money and sex. We need to reach the people who voted for Obama because “that is what decent people do.”

Mia
Mia
Thursday, November 15, AD 2012 10:29pm

Greg: “Then you will understand why I find Cardinal Dolan’s remarks so scandalous as well as the “orthodox” Catholic commentariat’s silence, let alone failure to denounce them.”

100% with you there, bro. Dolan is, and has been, incompetent.

Women on both sides detest him now. The left-leaning women despise him simply because he is a male, and see him as a male that wants to take away their freedom to choose. Faithful women on the right detest him because he has effectively (through is ineffectiveness) stripped us of our freedoms, soon right down to the freedom of a healthcare worker to not perform or assist in abortions and dispensing abortifacients.

So yes, despise (God forgive me, but this man is not a good shepherd) is the proper word here. And I suspect Our Lady is not real happy with him either, and if Momma ain’t happy…

Paul W. Primavera
Friday, November 16, AD 2012 6:11am

I am very disappointed in Cardinal Dolan and the majority of the USCCB. I had hoped. That his invitation of Obama to the Al Smith dinner was a backfire on Obama, but after seeing photos of him and Obama laughing it up, I was revolted.

Kyle Miller
Kyle Miller
Friday, November 16, AD 2012 4:07pm

Tonight’s reading assignment: Mt 9:10-13 or Mk 2:15-17

Kyle Miller
Kyle Miller
Friday, November 16, AD 2012 4:17pm

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