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Change, yes, but for what?

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Further to yesterday’s post (we ain’t done with that topic, just you wait). Brian Lilley surveys the state of affairs and asks whether the GOP ought to drop social conservatives to woo voters. Well.

While it’s true that change is sometimes good and that it’s always a smart idea, and not just in politics, to ponder what might have gone wrong in order to improve our lot in the future, there are certain things that ought not to be changed because they are right. Being unpopular is one thing, and if you care about being more popular, then yes, you’d probably be out there (along with David Frum) saying the GOP ought to lose its embarrassing so-cons and move bravely forward to where all the cool kids hang out.

But the larger question is twofold: 1) is it right? and 2) will it work? And my answer is no and no. If you believe, say, that abortion is wrong and you care about it enough to get involved in public affairs, then the idea that you should shut up about it in order to win power so that you can get into a position of power where you’ll be able to do precisely nothing about the issue because you ran away from it during the campaign is horrifying. And for a good reason. Plus it’s unlikely to work anyway; look at Stephen Harper. Ya think supporting him because he’s marginally less pro-abortion (we hope) than the other guys does anything?

So. The answer to Brian’s question is: It depends. If your main concern is to be more popular and win power, then maybe you ought to move away from the uncool kids with their sexual hangups (ugh, people who think having kids is neat – how perverse is that?). But if you care more about the issue than about how personally awesome you are deemed to be, don’t listen to those who are trying to convince you that you should do the wrong thing for the wrong reason. If that means yet another split on the right, so be it.

Like they say, change is sometimes necessary.

The folly of trying to appear “moderate” at all costs

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Oh boy, the fun we’ll have in the next couple of years trying to figure out whither conservatism. I continue to maintain that so-called conservative parties ought to be – at least somewhat – conservative. The same way NDPers ought to be, well, NDPesque (Liberals can continue to be for themselves; they’re the only ones who really care). As this little gem of reasonable argumentation explains, “It’s obvious that, whatever face Harper presents to Canadians, his dark grass roots will always be showing.”

Though to be fair, Ms. Zerbisias has a point. (Really. I looked.)

Conservatives, social or otherwise, will continue to press for their agenda, the same way public-sector unions or artists or auto workers or nurses push for theirs. That’s just life, no matter how some columnists dislike it (and no matter how much I dislike public-sector unions). And yes, conservatives, especially the social kind, and putting pressure on the leadership of the so-called “Conservative” party to move in their preferred direction. What else they gonna do? Push in the opposite direction? Suddenly turn around and say, you know, we’ve always been completely wrong, let’s advocate for even more abortions?

The more Stephen Harper tries to distance himself from what the grassroots of his party really want, the more dishonest he looks. And the more annoyed grassroots conservatives get. That is what people used to describe as a “lose-lose” situation. If you’re going to be accused of having a hidden agenda no matter what, why not pay some attention to what the folks in your own party are saying? Engage them, argue with them, fine. But at least do it out in the open instead of trying to pretend there ain’t no grassroots.

Social issues more popular than McCain

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So says Karl Rove. Faint praise, methinks (who really likes the good Senator, I wonder?), but still.

9. Culture matters. Suggestions that we abandon social conservatism, including our pro-life agenda, should be ignored. These values are often more popular than the GOP itself. The age of sonograms has made younger voters a more pro-life generation. And California and Florida approved marriage amendments while McCain lost both states. Republicans, in championing our values agenda, need to come across as morally serious rather than as judgmental. More than 4 million Americans who go to church more than once a week and voted in 2004 stayed home in 2008. They represented half the margin between Obama and McCain. [emphasis mine]

Mmm. Serious not judgemental. I’ll make sure to keep that in mind.

This is getting weird

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We’re starting to quote Camille Paglia approvingly altogether too often in these parts. But golly, she has another neat piece. Which includes this little gem:

I like Sarah Palin, and I’ve heartily enjoyed her arrival on the national stage. As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is — and quite frankly, I think the people who don’t see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn’t speak the King’s English — big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist. I stand on what I said (as a staunch pro-choice advocate) in my last two columns — that Palin as a pro-life wife, mother and ambitious professional represents the next big shift in feminism. Pro-life women will save feminism by expanding it, particularly into the more traditional Third World.

[h/t Five Feet of Fury]

Two myths down

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A fascinating column in the New York Times (yes, you read that right), about oxytocin and attachment theory. Not that we can explain everything using a simple hormone. But there is a lot of truth to this stuff. Especially:

Over the past few decades federal and state governments have spent billions of dollars trying to improve high schools. Much of the effort has gone into trying to improve individual math and reading scores. But the effects have been modest and up to 30 percent of students drop out — a social catastrophe.

The dropout rates are astronomical because humans are not machines into which you can input data. They require emotion to process information. You take kids who didn’t benefit from stable, nurturing parental care and who have not learned how to form human attachments, and you stick them in a school that functions like a factory for information transmission, and the results are going to be horrible.

[…]

If I had $37 billion, I would focus it on the crucial node where attachment skills are formed: the parental relationship during the first few years of life.

Here you will notice he does not mention the need for more – and better – institutional daycare (pardon me, early childhood education). Most normal people know the best place for a young child is at home with his or her parents. In most cases, anyway. Yet countless women are being pressured into returning to work shortly after having a baby, and we all know how popular institutional daycare is with politicians. Problem is, none of that is good for the kids (it’s not brilliant for the moms either).

You might also notice an issue the columnist didn’t mention. Thirty-five years after Roe v. Wade, it’s hard to argue that legalizing abortion has given us a society where every child is “wanted”. If they were as wanted as all that, kids wouldn’t be flung into daycare before turning one, and they wouldn’t have the kinds of emotional issues David Brooks talks about (to say nothing of what Miriam Grossman has documented).

Not bad, for a NYT column.

Ah, yes. The Important People Act, no doubt…

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Eliot Spitzer will face no charge. I will feel warm all over.

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Andrea notes the article says “Federal prosecutors announced Thursday that they will not bring criminal charges against Eliot Spitzer for his role in a prostitution scandal, removing a legal cloud that has surrounded the former governor since his epic downfall eight months ago.” Remove the legal cloud–sure. I think a couple other ones may hang around yet.

Can I say, me too?

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Michelle Malkin reacts to the post-election trashing of Sarah Palin by sore-loser anonymous “aides”. Two paragraphs stand out:

Sarah Palin worked her heart out. She energized tens of thousands to come out who would have otherwise stayed home. She touched countless families. I didn’t agree with everything she said on the campaign trail. But two fundamental conservative stands she took mattered greatly to me: She vigorously defended the Second Amendment and the sanctity of life more eloquently in practice than any of the educated conservative aristocracy.

And she did it all with a tirelessness and infectious optimism that defied the shameless, bottomless attempts by elites in both parties to bring her and her family down.

Well said.

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Andrea adds: I continue to defend Sarah Palin. Why? That the media thinks she is stupid don’t make it so. (NB: Incorrect grammar used purposefully.) When, in rare moments, her personality was allowed to shine through the thick media filter, all I ever saw was a warm and genuine woman. I will never be a fan of career politicians. I will never be a fan of a politician for whom defending basic human rights is “above his pay grade.” Abortion is the crucial social justice issue of our time. It takes a certain amount of smarts and courage to see that. Smarts Palin had and Obama did not. On election night, when I watched, some were taken aback by my support for Palin. Well, let me repeat it: I stand up for Palin, and will continue to do so.

(I have a lot more to say on directions the GOP can and/or should take now. And let me assure you, they don’t involve going soft on abortion. That is a recipe for ensuring the GOP never recovers.)

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UPDATE: Michelle M. set up a site where you can write Gov. Palin to express your support or gratitude or both.

Your morning smile

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Courtesy of the Onion:

WASHINGTON—African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation’s broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, “It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can’t catch a break.”

Happy voting day, America!

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Vote, and get a free coffee.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2J8KJDsqqY]

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Andrea notes that coffee helps me to care. Every single day. I’m probably at about 3 cups of caring already, and it’s not yet 9 am.

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