A new poll adds more heat to the GOP civil war — the Tea Party's lack of interest in the religious right's agenda...
Remember when Evangelicals were the staple of the Republican coalition? Turn them out and you could win any national election. Well, they are fast becoming the fringe of the GOP, based on recently released research from focus groups conducted by Stan Greenberg, James Carville and Erica Seifert for Democracy Corps.
The GOP is now roughly split into three factions: one-third Evangelical, one-quarter Tea Party and one-quarter moderates. These focus groups, which were purposely assembled homogeneously to encourage participation, were chosen because they comprise the base of the Republican Party.
True, the Tea Party has its own goals and it’s wreaking havoc on the Republican Party and the nation. But what’s striking about the insights gleaned from the groups is that both moderate and Tea Party Republicans view the Evangelical agenda as a total distraction.
Evangelicals are apparently beside themselves over losing the culture wars. According to the memo, they “believe their towns, communities and schools are suffering from a deep ‘culture rot’ that has invaded from the outside.” Their main focus is homosexuality, but they’re also concerned about the decline of small homogenous towns.
But the Tea Party folks couldn’t care less about social issues.
Ted Cruz is trying to combine the Libertarian wing of the Tea Party with the religious right. It will be interesting to see how that will work out for him. Rand Paul is already clued in to this dilemma as is Paul Ryan, who already encountered a sh*t storm in trying to push Ayn Rand and stay true to his Catholicism and had to "clarify" his position.
It's just not possible to combine Libertarianism or Objectivism with the social conservatism of the religious right without compromising one or the other.
9 comments:
Tom,
Makes sense as the libertarian principle is "anything goes" and the religious right is certainly not on board with that...
What is also interesting to me is that both of these groups probably comprise approx. 2/3rds of Christendom in the US...
rsp,
Yep. Ayn Rand and Christianity don't mix. Nor was Ayn Rand a libertarian since she supported a government enforced gold standard. But she and von Mises got along fine!
But it's becoming clear to me that Christians will have to lead the fight against slavery to the banks just as they led the fight against chattel slavery.
Seeing the aging demographic on religion and the younger generation that generally finds the churches irrelevant or worse, I can't help but wonder if this divide has anything to do with age. Unfortunate the pollsters don't make mention of the age patterns.
Of course it is possible to combine libertarianism with "social conservatism" because one's lifestyle should not be a political matter. The conservative Christians could simply live in their own enclaves with their own Christian schools and the black atheist antigun lesbians can live in another. The Randian, atheistic, pro-gun and socially "liberal" influences of the various individual libertarian activists over the years have precluded outreach to people who are not pro-gun atheist social "liberals". That needs to change.
Mike Norman can now delete my dangerous comment.
You wish you were dangerous, Bob. But you're not. I was once where you are now but unlike you (so far), I can learn.
My secret? I read the Bible. That allowed me to leave mises.org and Lew Rockwell in the gold dust they suffocate in.
F. Beard:
I'm sorry to hear that you have abandoned the non-aggression principle and the prohibition against fraud.
Bob,
Have I? The bankers have cheated us with counterfeit money so where are Austrians wrt universal restitution with real money? Nowhere to be found? Because they believe one wrong, unethical inflation of the money supply, is legitimately countered with unethical deflation? Perhaps if they were shot with a barbed arrow they would realize that pulling it out is NOT the correct solution?
Face it, Bob. You've been deceived by gold loving, fascist usurers. And I give you the benefit of the doubt in so saying.
That could happen in a more sane environment, but given the political and electoral process in the US, it's not.
The choice is a strong, cohesive US with broad political agreement on national policy or breaking up the union into states and regional alliances, as it was at the outset when the states decided on a federation with a strong center instead of a loose confederation. This was an exigency of the times, since Britain could pretty easily have picked off loosely confederated states one by one.
Facing off against large developing nations like Russia, China, India, and Brazil, whose interests are not completely aligned with those of the US, a strong central government is still a requirement for this region to continue to chart its own course.
While I would prefer more decentralization with open borders and the winding down of the importance of the nation state, I am also aware that the direction is toward global fascism under transnational institutions and corporations under the banner of neoliberalism.
Short of a shift in the level of collective consciousness in the direction of greater universality, a sane future will remain out of reach, even though the resources, knowledge and tools are available now. As Russell Brand pointed out in New Statesman article reflecting his mentors, this is a spiritual (but not religious) issue, spirituality being concerned with experiencing unity underlying diversity. Then and only then is it possible to live unity and celebrate diversity.
The path of history is leading in that direction but there is still a way to go. However, globalization and networking resulting from technological innovation are speeding up the process.
In addition, there is a lot going on beneath the surface of public awareness, which is media led and distorts the picture, that is encouraging of positive change. There is a large transdisciplinary literature on this, especially since the Sixties, but excepting rather isolated instances it remains subcultural wrt "the news."
The non-aggression principle, the prohibition against fraud, and all other anti-social behavior is only overcome societally, that is, on a large scale, by a rise in the general level of consciousness to the point where universality is felt and the unity of being begins to be perceived on a widespread basis.
Marx thought that this could be achieved by changing the material (cultural and institutional) infrastructure, but that is incorrect. Others have made the same mistake. The cultural and institutional infrastructure is a manifestation of the level of consciousness of a population. The tail does not wag the dog.
How to change the level of consciousness in the direction of greater universality. This is the subject of perennial wisdom. The level of collective consciousness is the outcome of the level of individual consciousness, but not additively owing to a resonance effect and entrainment. This can work for good, i.e., greater universality and unity, or bad, greater absorption in individuality and difference.
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