Editorials

Reaching Across the Divide on Moral Issues in the GOP

In Rand Paul’s most recent speech on Saturday, (at the California Republican Convention), he made a pitch for diversity in the GOP. Now, Libertarians, like conservatives, and leftists, have a strong ideological base that cannot be compromised. So, when a politician of the right mentions diversity, I often wonder what he means; modify our beliefs or modify our audiences. I know what the Left means, and they have us beat in this regard, for if you will 1) believe what they say (even though it is more often a lie) or 2) do what they tell you, they don’t care what color, ethnicity, sexual-orientation, sexual proclivity, employment status, literate-illiterate, sleep on grates at nigh, or in Beverly Hills, they want you to join up with them, and they will move heaven and earth to hook you up with some local handler who will make sure you can vote, even if you can’t speak a single word of English. And bring a friend.

If this sounds like the politics of inclusion, well it’s not, for while Democrats make no bones about the kinds of voters they want, they are as equally adamant about the kinds they don’t; Christians. And there is no compromise in them.

So, when a Republican pitches that tired old saw of inclusion, the leftwing definition is always the first to come to mind, for Republicans have sent out mixed signals even during the Reagan days as to who it didn’t want gumming up the GOP ranks. And lo and behold, Christians are also high among GOP lists. This puts Republicans at a distinct disadvantage, for while they would like to have more people of color, more gays, more Latinos, unmarried professional women, they also want them from certain educational and economic strata. Nationally, rank-and-file Republicans have been labeled for this kind of class consciousness when probably it hasn’t existed there since before FDR, and today geographically can only be found in large concentrations in the northeast. Still, as Virginia has proved, this attitude still defines almost every state GOP committee in America, who do seem to still live in another era.. Fearing they may be unwashed, they don’t look kindly to shaking hands with people who dig in the earth and have to take their boots off at the door.

The GOP has been snookered, finessed, call it what you will, but it has also been hung by its own petard, for the largest voting bloc in America, those Christians, is the one they most dislike shaking hands with, while at the same time the Democrats can swat them away as easily a gnat..

So there is still this element of “class” in the GOP that needs to be thrown down, and I  hope that’s what Rand Paul was directing his remarks to in California. Imagine how our political world would change if Republicans actively sought out the moral black or Latino voters, instead of treating them as if they were part of a larger lock-step herd, when in truth they are probably the majority…even in the federally-protected inner city of barrio even. Imagine the preachers who could work with the GOP to bring these things about (at some personal risk, I might add,) It would be Martin Luther King all over again, only in Cleveland, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston instead of  Alabama and Mississippi. If only the GOP would speak in that direction, and act like the meant it. Imagine the young professional women who don’t sleep around, and don’t join parades advertising that fact, but who nonetheless can’t escape the “war on women” propaganda they hear every day on Facebook and Twitter from their peers, all because there are no counter arguments aimed at them.

We know that 2.3% of the voters are gays, and many believe they have a constitutional right to get married. We know that the incontinent-thigh, party girl wing of  unmarried professional women make up less than 5% of that demographic, yet, thanks to the leftwing formula I quoted above, they receive all the political massage they can handle, while the far-larger Waiting-to-Meet-Mr-Right young women  couldn’t find a GOP message directed at them with a divining rod.

This puts Democrats in the enviable position of being able to tell a full 40% of the American voting public to go to hell, while the GOP is scared to death to say the same thing to only 7%. Even as Democrats are as disliked more than ever in their history, and marching into what may be a significant sea-change in American politics, this is a worrisome statistic, for it almost assuredly means that any wave will likely peter out in a short period of time.

That said, you’d think I’m suggesting the GOP should try and make nice with the “religious Right” again. Well actually, no. Instead, I think the moral Right should develop a plan that by-passes RINO prigs, and reach out directly to the GOP, only not through the state and national committees, but to the candidates themselves, and the to voters directly. What directly.

But with a slightly changed message.

I recommend employing the Llul (pronounced Yoohl) Theorem, (named for Ramon Llul, a 13th Century Franciscan monk, who debated Muslims in North Africa using (mathematical) logic, since they already had their own “good book”. Llul realized that  arguing “It is written” from the Bible would win no points at all. In the end, he was so good at winning these arguments, at age 82, the Muslims stoned him to death.”)  Using his example, instead of Bible thumping, make the case for “morality” in terms of national and cultural survival, and use Darwin, not God to back up your arguments. For you see, on issues of cultural survival, Darwin generally agrees with God and common sense. I wrote about this back in 2013, and am building a book around this central theme…:

That the laws of morality as handed down by God and almost all the other religions, are affirmed in current understandings in the sciences of anthropology and animal behavior, only they are not stated in terms of individual salvation, but rather in group survival, as well as individual survival, for almost all human behavior can be labeled as either “survival-enhancing” or “survival-endangering”…

…and the easiest debating point for the GOP  is that the Democrats pander to survival-endangering behavior. The Dems cannot fight back on these issues if formatted in this way.

Christians sometimes forget that many Mosaic laws are codified in law, crimes such as theft  and murder, and of that is because they are also universally accepted. They are not religious per se.  Individuals, even those who are not religious at all, understand this, for much of this sort of conduct effects the survival of their own house. While legal, abortion and homosexuality can still shake a house’s foundations. This is instinctive in parents especially. But it is often difficult for these people to shake hands with people shaking a Bible in their face. It even aggravates me at times. And I have a Bible and carry it often. I suppose a few liberals actually raise their children to be gay, still, at some point most realize that the blood line ends there. (This may even be a good thing, even according to Darwin.) God’s law says that a gay person will have to face judgment, while Darwin’s laws only says that as long as it is a tiny percent of the population the damage (judgment) falls only on the individual. This is a consequence of free will. But Darwin agrees, gay marriage can destroy the entire institution and put the entire culture at risk. (I believe leftist planners even know this, and that this is the desire outcome, in fact.) This is an argument the GOP can win, but only if there  is common ground found between Christians and non-believers, and the issue properly framed. Likewise, most parents know that promiscuous sexual behavior lessens a daughter’s choices in the pool of men she eventually may want to spend the rest of her life with. Some girls even fluke their way out of that pool altogether. Singles-bar habits are hard to drop once Mr Right comes along, I’m told. Again, if occurring in large enough numbers, the entire moral society can be at risk, which we are seeing played out in Russia and large swatches of western Europe today.

I can’t tell you the number of fine mainstream church-going, conservatives I know who are scared to death of the Christian right. Much of it is cultural and class-based. It’s like running into Virgil, who cuts my grass, or my waitress, Flo, down at the Greasy Spoon, or Wanda who does my wife’s hair at the Cut N’ Curl,  at a cocktail party. These are folks they really don’t meet socially, especially with a Manhattan in their hand. They speak of them as if they crawled out from under a rock. They accuse them of trying to outlaw homosexuality (which they can’t, and don’t) or ban abortion or even contraception. I expect to hear this from the Left, for their followers are gullible anyway. I even saw a Bruce Braley ad against Jonui Ernst saying she wanted to ban abortion there, in the Iowa senate race. But where do everyday Methodists, Presbyterians and Anglicans get political news that is so much like the swill the left spews out, and oh, so wrong? I’ve asked but can’t find out.

Especially now, national survival, cultural survival, is a winning political argument. It is a debate we can win every time, claiming new voters even quicker than Reagan could grab them, but in places where, if we carried a Bible, we couldn’t even get inside the door. Remember, this is politics, and the only possible value politics can have to religion is to keep our ground fertile so that we can then go on about preaching and teaching God to individuals. We’re trying to rescue America here, and not the Pentecostal church, and keeping that ground fertile is the main reason for saving America. If you can’t understand, crawl back under that rock, and sleep in the contentment that you will be the one the alligator eats last.. Just know that is also the accepted practice of the Left (they have their own religion, too), only their purpose is to use politics to keep this very ground as sterile as possible for all other religions other than their own..

It’s an axiom I’ve used for years, and which applies to religion and politics as well as law: You cannot debate religion with political arguments, and you cannot argue politics with religious ones.

So, as to the GOP, who should first extend the hand of comradeship, it should be the religious Right who should be the moving party.  First, they have to show they don’t have a Bible stuck up under their sleeve, for these days that is the deal breaker, and that is the political truth of it. I believe men like Rand Paul would be the perfect intermediary. Along with individual candidates. If you have the money, buy your own time. But I wouldn’t bother with state and national committees, for they only want to see a check in your hand. They’re already paying too much money for bad advice, and wouldn’t know good if they saw it.

If you agree, Tweet this to as many religious groups as you can find, for the left is having a high old time laughing about the fact that the religious right has been shout out. #DarwinAgreesWithGod

truth

About the art: This was painted by a Russian artist named Nikolai Gay around 1900, under the sponsorship of Leo Tolstoi. It’s title is “What is Truth?”  It was designed to show how the nobility viewed their backward citizens of the provinces, especially to simple people of faith. This is when Pilate asked Christ “What is truth” then walked away without waiting for an answer, then walked onto the porch to tell the people that he”found  no fault in this man”. Tolstoi, in writing about it said that Christ felt sorry for Pilate. I guess people of rank want their truth wrapped only so-so. The Russian royalty hated it, (it hit too close to home, I suppose) and refused to allow it to be shown. Tolstoi had a friend at a museum in Moscow buy it, but it was never shown at exhibit.

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