So this is the part where I address offer some magic bullet answers to current conservative positions that to me are hard to defend even from a conservative point of view. I'm going to just very briefly make some suggestions about a broad spectrum of political issues and invite discussion here on facebook about them. This is my version of a top ten list for light consideration by moderate conservative and independent thinkers. Read to the end before you get mad.
Immigration
Everyone in complicit in this situation. Everyone caused illegal immigration. The government failed to secure the borders and ignored the issue too long. Private industry was quick to use illegal labor all across the US, increasing demand and opportunity for illegals while remaining actively resistant to laws that would toughen enforcement on them. Illegal immigrants were, well, immigrating illegally. And us, the consumers and citizens, enjoyed the fruit of cheap labor without protest until we started seeing Spanish signs in our local grocery store and got nervous about how many Latino faces we saw in our communities.
So wherever you think the bulk of the issue resides, the fact is the situation 'is what it is' and we're all in it together. You can't resolve it by lamenting what we should have done. Our economy is integrated with illegal labor so tightly that the idea of fixing it by force removing those people from our society has all the wisdom of deciding to remove your appendix and reaching for a hedge trimmer to do so. So despite how it should be, what are we going to do about it?
The only answer to that question that makes any sense involves accepting that we can't have the immigration situation we want unless we accept the one we have. This means finding a way to crack down hard on the incentive and ability to jump the border while at the same time making the existing situation legal. We can't reasonably or practically undo the mistakes of the past. What we can do is close off the continuation of the illegal immigration process and give a path to citizenship for those already here. Anything else is wishful thinking and fantasy, ignoring the blame everyone shares for this in order to establish a scapegoat to bear the brunt of our mistake. Complex situations like this are no place for pure principle or ideology – the question is how to we end illegal immigration, not how to we punish everyone who took advantage of a system established by all of us to bring them here.
Gay Marriage
No matter what law you pass, there will be homosexuals. These homosexuals will continue to want to be with one another in romantic relationships, continue to raise children, continue to work among us, continue to provide services you want, and continue to participate in all other ways in our society. No law we ever pass will change that. Even societies that have decided to exterminate homosexuals through violence have failed to stop the above truths.
So where is the benefit to anyone, whether it's a conservative church or the nation, in carving an exception in our rights and benefits to avoid including homosexuals? What exactly do we get in return for doing so? A homosexual man doesn't wake up on day, turn to his partner and say “Gosh, Ted, we still can't get married, I better go find me someone with a vagina.” The relationships remain as they always have been, but the benefits provided by government - created to help support and encourage our society's interactions - are withheld. Does the church benefit? Are there less gay people because of it?
Absolutely not.
Look, this is one of those issues conservatives need to let go. No homosexual marriage as understood by the state has any impact on your marriage or your faith. Anyone who has attended a marriage ceremony at a evangelical congregationalist church then a American Baptist church would be even more perplexed that either would think homosexual marriage is a bigger threat than the other denomination’s idea of Christian marriage. Recognition of homosexual relationships is an administrative necessity. Stop trying to make it more than that. It does nothing more than shift tax status and make other benefits reflect those they actually cover accurately. It is preposterous to suggest that denying a homosexual second mother and 'housewife' inheritance rights leaving this woman and her child in the cold if the primary provider dies is somehow protecting God's kingdom, your church or your marriage.
Regulation of Business
I started my own Internet firm back in the early 90's. We were one of the vanguards in private Internet service provision. What I remember most as a businessman struggling to make my small corporation successful in a new market and state capitol city was how much easier it would have been if the EPA had been abolished.
What? Not even close.
I don't know what 'small business' means to regulation fixated conservative politicians, but I don’t remember government regulation coming up as a source of any costs when I owned my own business. Hell, I don’t remember it coming up as a big issue when I was a junior executive at a telecommunications company. My concerns were who out there can afford my product? How do I get my name out there? How do we stay ahead of our quickly evolving competitors? I was much more concerned with my community's employment rate and level of household disposable income than any other macro business effect. What the hell would eliminating the EPA or FDA or even the FCC do for me? Maybe drop my monthly costs? Sure, that would be okay, ate least until the telco giants drove me out of business by engaging in monopoly practices nobody was there to watch anymore, but it wasn't even on my top fifty things that government could do or not do to impact my earnings. Most real businesses agree: Regulation isn't an issue.
The biggest economic boom we've seen in the last twenty years was under Clinton when the tax rates were significantly higher on everyone and regulation was far more aggressive than it is now. Regulation is not holding us back. Regulation is not an issue to anyone whose revenue stream isn't so large that repeated regulatory costs might actually add up to something. This isn't about small business nor is it anything average Americans should be worrying about. Watching tea party parrots talk about the evils of the EPA is both comical and tragic. If we want to focus on 'right sizing' government, this is as much a distraction as peering into NPR for lost change in the couch.
Global Warming
We are the only country in the world that still openly claims to doubt the evidence concerning human contribution to climate change. Not only has the rest of the first world moved on to building policy around this fact, it's become one of those things they talk about like the stock market or the economy: A given, ongoing truth that requires attention as efforts are made to balance economic needs with a potential threat if those needs are pursued recklessly.
A vast majority of world scientists agree humans are contributing to global warming. The evidence supporting global warming is staggering. But our conservatives sit back on the sidelines and say “Hey, they never proved cigarettes cause cancer either.” then cock the finger pistol, point at the American public and wink. Instead of returning the one finger salute these jackasses deserve for feeding us this garbage, conservative voters embrace the denial. They tout American exceptionalism that makes a few corporate paid 'experts' worth more than rest of the world's combined science. Meanwhile, increasingly severe weather ravages the world and gets written off as 'a bad year'. Every year. Each getting worse.
Look, nobody likes to deal with issues like this because environmentalism always competes directly with economic development. But denying that it's happening is making us look like morons. There are a thousand arguments to be made about prioritizing economic growth over emissions controls, but conservatives need to stop pretending the problem isn't happening and instead stand with priorities that emphasize business first while acknowledging what the rest of the world knows.
I get embarrassed every time I hear a presidential candidate or major politician spew this denial crap. It's up there with the birther claims. It's making us the laughing stock of international politics and the denial of basic scientific fact is contributing to the world's shaky faith in our national leadership.
Abortion
See Homosexuality and Gay Marriage above.
The exact same argument applies. Abortions will happen whether or not they are legal. We have to stop the war on the state's effort to regulate a practice that is even more ghastly if made illegal or ultimately impractical and start focusing pro life ideas into protecting actual children. There are plenty of threats to children worth the time and conviction displayed against abortion and it would actually have an effect on the number of children who die each year. Pro life doesn't and won't.
Drugs
I know this comes as a surprise to …. oh hell, I can't even do this, it doesn't surprise a damn one of you.
PEOPLE LOVE THEIR INTOXICANTS – YEA YOU TOO, MR. CONSERVATIVE
We all do. Whether it's a glass of wine that calms our nerves or a shot of Jack at a bar, a nicotine rush during our break or that cozy buzz that comes with Nyquil giving us assurance we're on our way to sleepytime when we're sick. We love em, we chase em, and we are often irresponsible dolts when we over indulge. We need to stop denying this truth and start trying to establish a more rational policy towards dealing with drug abuse.
Conservatives are as much substance abusers as anyone else, but they've established a system of high brow rhetorical morality that condemns drug use out of hand. Like their rhetoric on family values - regularly derailed by infidelity scandals among their representatives that are now so commonplace as to be predictable - the stance conservatives take towards drugs is simply outmoded, Victorian, and false.
But this stance isn't just wrong, it has a price tag. We incarcerate thousands of young people who are caught engaged in non-violet drug offenses who are then converted into real criminals as they spend their formative young adult years in San Quinton instead of UCLA. It costs to imprison them, it costs later when they select 'drug dealer' as their career instead of 'manager' and it costs in enforcement dollars.
It really doesn't have to be this way. We can save millions every year by simply agreeing that non-violent drug offenders should be fined and/or given community service and other restorative punishments instead of jail time. It's a easy fix, and it's not soft on crime at all. The big deterrent for a drug user is a consequence that disrupts their daily life and routine then returns them to it. Destroying someone's routine and life hurts too, but after the first year they build a new one in prison, and the deterrent is nowhere near as strong as they reinvent themselves among the worst of the worst.
Let's stop being prudes about it, and start dealing with the reality of American drug use and what makes sense as a consequence for abuse: Swap 5 year mandatory prison terms in Texas for marijuana possession for a six month community service project and everyone benefits except the criminals.
Conclusion
I think conservatives have so much to offer when it comes to political dialogue. Some of my favorite intellectuals and thinkers are politically conservative and stand for the practical implementation of values such as small government, personal initiative, fiscal responsibility, individual liberty, and private enterprise. But these men and women are being dragged down by the new conservative mob of unthinking mouth breathers who espouse irrational positions like the ones above as the primary reason for their cause, completely ignoring what gave the Republican party and conservative politics its historic strength.
This ignorant emotionalism has managed to get such a foothold in the Republican party that the candidates are parroting their uninformed base and focusing on issues wildly unpopular in the general electorate. It has gotten so bad that Republicans have resorted to sabotaging the voting process in the states because in order to please their base, they have to say things that make them sound insane to most voters. The only way to hold onto power then is to make sure the sane can't vote at all.
This is NOT who Republicans and conservatives are. This is who they have become, and it needs to change. It is time for the Republican party to drop its social issues, embrace its historic platform values, and resume it's position as the moderate conservative voice of reason against the ideals and constructionism of the Democrats. This is a tenable, rational, electable conservative position that so far the Republicans have been to frightened to take because they fear the rabid beast that has become the voice of their 'tea' party.
Immigration
Everyone in complicit in this situation. Everyone caused illegal immigration. The government failed to secure the borders and ignored the issue too long. Private industry was quick to use illegal labor all across the US, increasing demand and opportunity for illegals while remaining actively resistant to laws that would toughen enforcement on them. Illegal immigrants were, well, immigrating illegally. And us, the consumers and citizens, enjoyed the fruit of cheap labor without protest until we started seeing Spanish signs in our local grocery store and got nervous about how many Latino faces we saw in our communities.
So wherever you think the bulk of the issue resides, the fact is the situation 'is what it is' and we're all in it together. You can't resolve it by lamenting what we should have done. Our economy is integrated with illegal labor so tightly that the idea of fixing it by force removing those people from our society has all the wisdom of deciding to remove your appendix and reaching for a hedge trimmer to do so. So despite how it should be, what are we going to do about it?
The only answer to that question that makes any sense involves accepting that we can't have the immigration situation we want unless we accept the one we have. This means finding a way to crack down hard on the incentive and ability to jump the border while at the same time making the existing situation legal. We can't reasonably or practically undo the mistakes of the past. What we can do is close off the continuation of the illegal immigration process and give a path to citizenship for those already here. Anything else is wishful thinking and fantasy, ignoring the blame everyone shares for this in order to establish a scapegoat to bear the brunt of our mistake. Complex situations like this are no place for pure principle or ideology – the question is how to we end illegal immigration, not how to we punish everyone who took advantage of a system established by all of us to bring them here.
Gay Marriage
No matter what law you pass, there will be homosexuals. These homosexuals will continue to want to be with one another in romantic relationships, continue to raise children, continue to work among us, continue to provide services you want, and continue to participate in all other ways in our society. No law we ever pass will change that. Even societies that have decided to exterminate homosexuals through violence have failed to stop the above truths.
So where is the benefit to anyone, whether it's a conservative church or the nation, in carving an exception in our rights and benefits to avoid including homosexuals? What exactly do we get in return for doing so? A homosexual man doesn't wake up on day, turn to his partner and say “Gosh, Ted, we still can't get married, I better go find me someone with a vagina.” The relationships remain as they always have been, but the benefits provided by government - created to help support and encourage our society's interactions - are withheld. Does the church benefit? Are there less gay people because of it?
Absolutely not.
Look, this is one of those issues conservatives need to let go. No homosexual marriage as understood by the state has any impact on your marriage or your faith. Anyone who has attended a marriage ceremony at a evangelical congregationalist church then a American Baptist church would be even more perplexed that either would think homosexual marriage is a bigger threat than the other denomination’s idea of Christian marriage. Recognition of homosexual relationships is an administrative necessity. Stop trying to make it more than that. It does nothing more than shift tax status and make other benefits reflect those they actually cover accurately. It is preposterous to suggest that denying a homosexual second mother and 'housewife' inheritance rights leaving this woman and her child in the cold if the primary provider dies is somehow protecting God's kingdom, your church or your marriage.
Regulation of Business
I started my own Internet firm back in the early 90's. We were one of the vanguards in private Internet service provision. What I remember most as a businessman struggling to make my small corporation successful in a new market and state capitol city was how much easier it would have been if the EPA had been abolished.
What? Not even close.
I don't know what 'small business' means to regulation fixated conservative politicians, but I don’t remember government regulation coming up as a source of any costs when I owned my own business. Hell, I don’t remember it coming up as a big issue when I was a junior executive at a telecommunications company. My concerns were who out there can afford my product? How do I get my name out there? How do we stay ahead of our quickly evolving competitors? I was much more concerned with my community's employment rate and level of household disposable income than any other macro business effect. What the hell would eliminating the EPA or FDA or even the FCC do for me? Maybe drop my monthly costs? Sure, that would be okay, ate least until the telco giants drove me out of business by engaging in monopoly practices nobody was there to watch anymore, but it wasn't even on my top fifty things that government could do or not do to impact my earnings. Most real businesses agree: Regulation isn't an issue.
The biggest economic boom we've seen in the last twenty years was under Clinton when the tax rates were significantly higher on everyone and regulation was far more aggressive than it is now. Regulation is not holding us back. Regulation is not an issue to anyone whose revenue stream isn't so large that repeated regulatory costs might actually add up to something. This isn't about small business nor is it anything average Americans should be worrying about. Watching tea party parrots talk about the evils of the EPA is both comical and tragic. If we want to focus on 'right sizing' government, this is as much a distraction as peering into NPR for lost change in the couch.
Global Warming
We are the only country in the world that still openly claims to doubt the evidence concerning human contribution to climate change. Not only has the rest of the first world moved on to building policy around this fact, it's become one of those things they talk about like the stock market or the economy: A given, ongoing truth that requires attention as efforts are made to balance economic needs with a potential threat if those needs are pursued recklessly.
A vast majority of world scientists agree humans are contributing to global warming. The evidence supporting global warming is staggering. But our conservatives sit back on the sidelines and say “Hey, they never proved cigarettes cause cancer either.” then cock the finger pistol, point at the American public and wink. Instead of returning the one finger salute these jackasses deserve for feeding us this garbage, conservative voters embrace the denial. They tout American exceptionalism that makes a few corporate paid 'experts' worth more than rest of the world's combined science. Meanwhile, increasingly severe weather ravages the world and gets written off as 'a bad year'. Every year. Each getting worse.
Look, nobody likes to deal with issues like this because environmentalism always competes directly with economic development. But denying that it's happening is making us look like morons. There are a thousand arguments to be made about prioritizing economic growth over emissions controls, but conservatives need to stop pretending the problem isn't happening and instead stand with priorities that emphasize business first while acknowledging what the rest of the world knows.
I get embarrassed every time I hear a presidential candidate or major politician spew this denial crap. It's up there with the birther claims. It's making us the laughing stock of international politics and the denial of basic scientific fact is contributing to the world's shaky faith in our national leadership.
Abortion
See Homosexuality and Gay Marriage above.
The exact same argument applies. Abortions will happen whether or not they are legal. We have to stop the war on the state's effort to regulate a practice that is even more ghastly if made illegal or ultimately impractical and start focusing pro life ideas into protecting actual children. There are plenty of threats to children worth the time and conviction displayed against abortion and it would actually have an effect on the number of children who die each year. Pro life doesn't and won't.
Drugs
I know this comes as a surprise to …. oh hell, I can't even do this, it doesn't surprise a damn one of you.
PEOPLE LOVE THEIR INTOXICANTS – YEA YOU TOO, MR. CONSERVATIVE
We all do. Whether it's a glass of wine that calms our nerves or a shot of Jack at a bar, a nicotine rush during our break or that cozy buzz that comes with Nyquil giving us assurance we're on our way to sleepytime when we're sick. We love em, we chase em, and we are often irresponsible dolts when we over indulge. We need to stop denying this truth and start trying to establish a more rational policy towards dealing with drug abuse.
Conservatives are as much substance abusers as anyone else, but they've established a system of high brow rhetorical morality that condemns drug use out of hand. Like their rhetoric on family values - regularly derailed by infidelity scandals among their representatives that are now so commonplace as to be predictable - the stance conservatives take towards drugs is simply outmoded, Victorian, and false.
But this stance isn't just wrong, it has a price tag. We incarcerate thousands of young people who are caught engaged in non-violet drug offenses who are then converted into real criminals as they spend their formative young adult years in San Quinton instead of UCLA. It costs to imprison them, it costs later when they select 'drug dealer' as their career instead of 'manager' and it costs in enforcement dollars.
It really doesn't have to be this way. We can save millions every year by simply agreeing that non-violent drug offenders should be fined and/or given community service and other restorative punishments instead of jail time. It's a easy fix, and it's not soft on crime at all. The big deterrent for a drug user is a consequence that disrupts their daily life and routine then returns them to it. Destroying someone's routine and life hurts too, but after the first year they build a new one in prison, and the deterrent is nowhere near as strong as they reinvent themselves among the worst of the worst.
Let's stop being prudes about it, and start dealing with the reality of American drug use and what makes sense as a consequence for abuse: Swap 5 year mandatory prison terms in Texas for marijuana possession for a six month community service project and everyone benefits except the criminals.
Conclusion
I think conservatives have so much to offer when it comes to political dialogue. Some of my favorite intellectuals and thinkers are politically conservative and stand for the practical implementation of values such as small government, personal initiative, fiscal responsibility, individual liberty, and private enterprise. But these men and women are being dragged down by the new conservative mob of unthinking mouth breathers who espouse irrational positions like the ones above as the primary reason for their cause, completely ignoring what gave the Republican party and conservative politics its historic strength.
This ignorant emotionalism has managed to get such a foothold in the Republican party that the candidates are parroting their uninformed base and focusing on issues wildly unpopular in the general electorate. It has gotten so bad that Republicans have resorted to sabotaging the voting process in the states because in order to please their base, they have to say things that make them sound insane to most voters. The only way to hold onto power then is to make sure the sane can't vote at all.
This is NOT who Republicans and conservatives are. This is who they have become, and it needs to change. It is time for the Republican party to drop its social issues, embrace its historic platform values, and resume it's position as the moderate conservative voice of reason against the ideals and constructionism of the Democrats. This is a tenable, rational, electable conservative position that so far the Republicans have been to frightened to take because they fear the rabid beast that has become the voice of their 'tea' party.
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