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This video makes for hilarious – if frustrating – viewing. Leading Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum ludicrously posits that left-wingers in America are massive advocates for too much freedom…and cites this as a problem.
[L]eave it to far-right, fundamentally religious Christians to come full circle, meeting up with commies—in true East meets West fashion—to declare that America is not really about the pursuit of happiness, and that freedom really means freedom to be responsible and subservient to the values dictated to you by on high (or Santorum, his Congregation and extended brethren).
If Santorum and his ilk keep forcing me to agree with left-wingers – in this case, that Santorum is pure evil – it is going to be a very, very long election year.
30 comments to Rick Santorum: Left-wingers are too libertarian, destroying America with their freedom
I think what you are seeing is the split between the various factions in the Republican party. The social conservative faction (Santorum), the NE Republican faction (Romney), the fiscal conservative/small government faction (Gingrich/Paul), various other bits and pieces. The Tea Party itself was mostly driven by fiscal/small government ideas, but the there is certainly overlap between the different factions. As a rule of thumb, all radical movements want to resort to coercion at some point because they are impatient and coercion looks like the simplest way to achieve their ends in the face of opposition. I suspect that would even be true of libertarians, for they haven’t escaped their human heritage and seem oblivious to its nature.
At the risk of repeating myself from the Iowa post, but this post just reinforces what a vile maggot Santorum is.
I’m a Paul man, but if it’s between Santorum and Mitt, I’m Mitt all the way. Santorum is pretty much the opposite of everything a libertarian would support. He’s openly in favour of big government as long as it imposes his agenda. I’m surprised that Paul Marks, someone whose opinion I respect, is supporting Santorum. If it’s between Santorum and Obama come November, then I’m with Barry…
…well actually with Gary Johnson but you know what I mean.
I wouldn’t stick Gingrich in the fiscal conservative/small government faction.
Yeah, I think you are right. He’s more of a self promoting, zillion zany ideas, let’s experiment with government power, sort of guy. Perry seems a mix, too much public religion for my taste. But at this point I’d probably vote for Perry.
I know nothing about the man, only that he invokes torrents of negative buzz. What i take from this clip is that he believes individuals dont live in a bubble, they have responsibilities to those around them. In and of itself that seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Gerry Doyle of Bab 5 fame skewers Santorum here. Santorum is no different than socialists, instead of using Marx to dictate people’s actions he wants to use the Bible.
The man shows himself to be a collectivist, who believes liberty means the freedom to do what the state tells you. I look forward to seeing this clip used in an attack ad, with a suitable Soviet choir backing track.
Well, they are. Only it is freedom from responsibility and paying for your own mistakes. As long as that responsibility isn’t tied to whatever pet cause they’re promoting (militarism, national service, etc.) at any given time.
I don’t see what is so objectionable about saying people have a responsibility to their families, parents should stay together and create a nurturing environment for their children ahead of their own personal happiness and killing an unborn human is wrong.
These views would all have been part of a pretty mainstream moral outlook about 30 years ago, before the great social revolution.
I don’t see what is so objectionable about saying people have a responsibility to their families, parents should stay together and create a nurturing environment for their children ahead of their own personal happiness and killing an unborn human is wrong.
First, the important question: How is any of this a matter for the Federal government? Where in the Constitution is the minutiae of family or criminal law placed within the Federal domain?
There are worse things for children than divorce. A marriage where one (or both) parent is abusive is worse. Or where one parent or the other (or both) is constantly looking for a fight. My grandparents’ generation was not at all perfect and I don’t buy for a minute that their era was anything close to idyllic.
I spend all too much of my life inside of other people’s family problems. If you ask me, the second time that I end up in the middle of someone else’s family business, it’s a good time to consider separate addresses. (Not that I’d make that a matter of law either…)
Obfuscation by labels and misconceptions.
And it is too complex to think through, really. If one does everyone is bored by the time you get there, anyway.
Personally I’d go for a fairly fundamentally sound Christian. Like Sarah Palin.
But then nobody was listening then, either.
“First, the important question: How is any of this a matter for the Federal government? Where in the Constitution is the minutiae of family or criminal law placed within the Federal domain?”
I didn’t hear Santorum saying the minutiae of family law or criminal law should be placed within the Federal domain in that video. What makes you think that is what he wants to do? All I heard was a man expressing moral views that would have been quite normal 30 years ago but are now deeply unfashionable especially in the progressive media.
Sunfish your second point is the classic straw man that progressives commonly wheel out when they wish to attack the idea of the tradditional family.
There is much research that shows children do best when raised by both natural parents living together as husband and wife.
There was some recent research in Canada that showed children who live with their mothers and a man who isn’t their father are ten times more likely to be abused than those who live with their 2 natural parents.
You won’t see this in any British research because our Governments statistics didn’t record wether the parents were married, or if both were the childrens natural parents. It would not have suited there agenda to record this information.
George,
30 years! If you’d said 50 maybe. But the fundamental point here is who says it. Now I am socially liberal but really I’m a monogamous married man so I am practically speaking effectively socially quite conservative. But I am how I am because I am that way off my own bat and the last fricking thing I want is to be told how to behave by government. I think that is vile.
And yes, I’m glad some others mention Gary Johnson. It horrifies me as a libertarian the extent to which some grown adults feel the need for a Mummy & Daddy to tell them how to behave. Sorry to the Ricks but if it comes down to that we’ve lost. Any attempt to impose morality of any description is not morality. It is the use of force and hardly libertarian. I’m saying there are an awful lot of things I don’t approve of which are neither against the law nor should be. It does morality a disservice to use the full apparatus of the state to enforce it.
It outrages me how sure in their morals these moralists are that they think they’ve just been up Mount Sinai for a chin-wag with God yet don’t think we can make our own minds up. I mean is it actually moral to do X or not fo Y because you might go to jail?
Santorum is utterly illiberal and that is not based on his views but his intention to implement them by state force. Lead by example but not coercion.
George, the problem is, of course, is whether the President of the United States of America has any business dictating your morality.
I don’t think it’s any of Uncle Sam’s business whether I behave in a *moral* manner. I believe it’s their business to that I conform to federal laws; of which I believe far too many are the result of some perverted sense of ‘morality’.
That’s the problem – you run out some interesting and supportive evidence for your point, but …
1. Determine why it’s any business of Washington that the child of two adults should ‘do best’. Define ‘best’. Best for whom?
2. When children are ‘abused’ by their parents, I’m sure some crime or offense somewhere on the statute books was been committed. Prosecute based on the commission of a crime, not via an actuarial table. Isn’t that why municipalities employ policemen and not mind-readers?
3. Around these parts, you’ll find a variety of opinions on whether marriage is a ‘social good’, but more so on whether it’s any of the government’s business whether I am married, or even to whom I can be permitted to be married.
Frankly, I don’t believe that what amounts to a social contract with another consenting adult is any of the government’s business, and to the extent that the IRS ‘needs’ to know of my married status, I’d rather we abolish joint tax filing and all ‘benefits’ that accrue to me as a result of having made a (private) choice.
Back to the main point – the concern about the executive imposing far-reaching legislation based on a moral foundation – e.g. ‘Compassionate Conservatism’ as a relatively recent example from the GOP camp – I think it’s quite appropriate to be concerned about the moral stance of the person that people intend to elect – my preference being someone who has a relatively strong judeo-christian ethic. However, it’s equally important for me to know whether he’s going to impose his moral code upon me utilizing the state’s monopoly on violence.
I’ve seen nothing the counter my concerns over Santorum (or any of the GOP candidates other than Ron Paul, for that matter). The only comfort is that I don’t see him gaining the nomination.
The ‘fix’ is in, everyone but Romney has had a fork stuck in them. We’ve heard almost nothing from the press about Romney’s ‘negatives’, because they want to keep their powder dry for the real election.
I didn’t hear Santorum saying the minutiae of family law or criminal law should be placed within the Federal domain in that video. What makes you think that is what he wants to do?
Then why, during his extended job interview for a Federal government job, did he even bring it up?
I think a more vital question about Santorum and the other candidates is which of them supported the bill that allows the American Military to indefinitely detain an American citizen. I’m guessing all of them except Ron Paul.
Obama would be coorporate fascism plan A, Romney or whoever coorporate fascism plan B.
Well, it’s not just POTUS an morality. Mr Santorum seems not to have read the declaration of Independence or the Constitution. This one would imagine would be a minimum requirement for a prez hopeful.
I agreed with every word about personal responsiblity and community. People looking out for and helping each other.
But what has this got to do with the STATE?
Yes all the Founders agreed that liberty without virtue would die. They did not want people to screw anything that moved, or drink till they lay down in the gutter and died in their own vomit.
But where did the Founders say that the STATE should make people “just and good” (the great flaw in Aristotle’s “The Politics” where he has “the Polis”, which may or may not mean the state, helping people to be just and good – so that they might be free, for a man who is a slave to his passions is not free, he is a “natural slave” and soon will be enslaved).
It is quite true that the left (the Fabian “free love” movement, the “cultural Marxism” of Herbert Marcuse and so on) viewed the “sexual revolution” as a WEAPON – a way of undermining personal responsibilty and cultural insitutions such as the family.
For where civil society (such as the family) declines the COLLECTIVE (after a period of chaos and death) steps in – people will BEG them to step in. That was the plan from the start (they SAID SO).
The decline of “cultural conservativism” MUST lead to the rise of the state (the Welfare State and a lot more) – it can lead to nowhere else (other than everyone starving to death or dying in their own vomit).
But the great mistake Santorum (and, with no intention of bigotary on my part, a lot of Catholic thinkers) makes is to think that the STATE can reverse this.
The argument is that that state policy (welfare benefits, “legal” baby killing, “Progressive” education – and so on) created the cultural decline (which is indeed heading towards cultrual collapse – and WAS ALWAYS INTENDED TO).
So the state should be able to reverse it – a FALLACY.
Take the example of a vase.
One can use a hammer (the state) to smash the vase.
But can you use that same hammer (the state) to MAKE vase?
Civil society (including such things as the family and personal responsbilty and community invovlement – real Founder Father stuff) CAN NOT be restored by government action.
That is not the NATURE of the state – of the SWORD OF STATE.
It can not be used to CREATE (not good things) only to DESTROY.
For many years after World War II – New York City (under Mayor Wagner and so on) was the heart of “liberalism”.
Both of high taxes and welfare and of the denial of (the spitting on) personal responsiblity and the family.
“Do anything you FEEL like” was the motto of Time Square – of the drug addicts dying in the gutters and the children selling their bodies.
Freedom is not “do anything you FEEL like” it is about choosing to do what is right by your REASONING.
“reason is the slave of the passions” is simply not true, people can resist their impusles and MUST DO (if they and others are to flourish).
As for “and ought to be the slave of the passions” that is the position of the pig.
New York City collapased into financial and moral bankruptcy in the mid 1970s – and people there have since tried to rebuild something.
However, places like San Francisco are on the same dark road.
As recently as the 1950s San Francisco as a middle class city . Now it is a city of the rich (who can indulge every vice) and the very poor – the beggers on the street. And not much else. Taxes (which the rich can afford or avoid – and the poor do not pay) and regulations have driven out most other people.
This can not last, it is not a “city” as Aristotle, or the Founding Fathers (or Santorum) understand the term.
And Jefferson and the others would be HORRIFIED by such developments.
Where Santorum’s error lies is looking to the STATE to restore virtue in a place like San Francisco.
It can not be done – not that way.
Perhaps it can not be done AT ALL – in which case the fate of such places will be grim indeed.
But “of one thing I am certain – we will not get moral improvement from the state” Gladstone.
This position is shared by the Founders (in spite of them, like Gladstone, being obsessed with moral improvement and virtue being the only solid foundation to preserve liberty).
And this is what I think Santorum does not understand.
Very traditional Republican line from Santorum – including the bias towards manufacturing industry (cut corporation tax for all enterprises – but a zero rate for manufacturing).
I suspect he will not get much support from what Marxists call “finance capital”.
Their economic line (bugger the heartland, it is just “fly over country”, – give us more and more credit money subsdies) is unlikely to appeal to someone with coal mining (and so on) roots.
And the endless drugs and hookers and so on, is not likely to put the bankers, and so on, in his good books either (so they are unlikely to fund his campaign).
Very Roman Republican.
The “Republican cloth coat” (as the saying went even in the 1950s). Lots of “thrift, hardwork and self denial”.
It was actually “liberals” (the high tax and spend “do whatever you FEEL like” brigade) who tended to flaunt their wealth.
Still the conversation is pointless anyway.
Mitt Romney will be the candidate.
A person who combines a traditional lifestyle himself – just as tradtional as Santorum’s, with the capacity to wink at the lifestyle of others.
Mitt has already had lunch with Jamie Dimon (of J.P. Morgan Chase).
“Do not worry my dear Sir – the easy money will carry on flowing to you. Would I like a …….. no, thankyou, I do not personally indulge and should not that child be in school at this time of day?”
Cynical (and hypocritical) perhaps (I say “perhaps” as Mitt could defend his conduct as simply being in the world as it is) – but I will still be supporting Mitt after he gets the nomination.
Interesting that Santorum said he would vote AGAINST the Texas antisodomy law (of course the Supreme Court does NOT have the right to just strike down such laws).
I wondered which way Santorum would go on that – on the point about which way you would vote if a member of the Texas State Legislature.
Something can be sin without being a CRIME – and if it is not a CRIME (an aggression) under natural law, then it should not be made a “crime” by a State statute.
Quite correct.
Now let us apply that principle to some other things…..
If Santorum and his ilk keep forcing me to agree with left-wingers – in this case, that Santorum is pure evil – it is going to be a very, very long election year.
Looks like the first of my Predictions for 2012 (posted on Dec 31) came true:
The Mayan Doomsday Prophecy will get a lot of serious attention when Cthulhu places second in the Iowa Caucuses.
On further reflection, the reporter should have asked, “What role, if any, does the government play in all this,” and Santorum should have anticipated that a lot of viewers have that question in their minds and volunteered an answer without being asked.
By the way Hereford is one of the places (although with Hay-on-Wye which is only a bus ride away) that I regret never visiting in the year I lived on the West side of this island – I will never see such places (which is unfortunate).
Alan – yes, Santorum is dreadful at communication.
I listened to him for about five minutes before he said (in passing – without any emphasis at all) that he would have voted in favour of getting rid of the Texas (and other) anti sodomy Statutes.
Most people are not going to sit and listen (and listen carefully) while the man goes for a random walk of words (only dealing with the important issue long into his remarks – and then only in passing and without emphasis).
“F” is a fair judement on his communication skills.
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I think what you are seeing is the split between the various factions in the Republican party. The social conservative faction (Santorum), the NE Republican faction (Romney), the fiscal conservative/small government faction (Gingrich/Paul), various other bits and pieces. The Tea Party itself was mostly driven by fiscal/small government ideas, but the there is certainly overlap between the different factions. As a rule of thumb, all radical movements want to resort to coercion at some point because they are impatient and coercion looks like the simplest way to achieve their ends in the face of opposition. I suspect that would even be true of libertarians, for they haven’t escaped their human heritage and seem oblivious to its nature.
At the risk of repeating myself from the Iowa post, but this post just reinforces what a vile maggot Santorum is.
I’m a Paul man, but if it’s between Santorum and Mitt, I’m Mitt all the way. Santorum is pretty much the opposite of everything a libertarian would support. He’s openly in favour of big government as long as it imposes his agenda. I’m surprised that Paul Marks, someone whose opinion I respect, is supporting Santorum. If it’s between Santorum and Obama come November, then I’m with Barry…
…well actually with Gary Johnson but you know what I mean.
I wouldn’t stick Gingrich in the fiscal conservative/small government faction.
I wouldn’t stick Gingrich in the fiscal conservative/small government faction.
Yeah, I think you are right. He’s more of a self promoting, zillion zany ideas, let’s experiment with government power, sort of guy. Perry seems a mix, too much public religion for my taste. But at this point I’d probably vote for Perry.
I know nothing about the man, only that he invokes torrents of negative buzz. What i take from this clip is that he believes individuals dont live in a bubble, they have responsibilities to those around them. In and of itself that seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Gerry Doyle of Bab 5 fame skewers Santorum here. Santorum is no different than socialists, instead of using Marx to dictate people’s actions he wants to use the Bible.
The man shows himself to be a collectivist, who believes liberty means the freedom to do what the state tells you. I look forward to seeing this clip used in an attack ad, with a suitable Soviet choir backing track.
Well, they are. Only it is freedom from responsibility and paying for your own mistakes. As long as that responsibility isn’t tied to whatever pet cause they’re promoting (militarism, national service, etc.) at any given time.
I don’t see what is so objectionable about saying people have a responsibility to their families, parents should stay together and create a nurturing environment for their children ahead of their own personal happiness and killing an unborn human is wrong.
These views would all have been part of a pretty mainstream moral outlook about 30 years ago, before the great social revolution.
First, the important question: How is any of this a matter for the Federal government? Where in the Constitution is the minutiae of family or criminal law placed within the Federal domain?
There are worse things for children than divorce. A marriage where one (or both) parent is abusive is worse. Or where one parent or the other (or both) is constantly looking for a fight. My grandparents’ generation was not at all perfect and I don’t buy for a minute that their era was anything close to idyllic.
I spend all too much of my life inside of other people’s family problems. If you ask me, the second time that I end up in the middle of someone else’s family business, it’s a good time to consider separate addresses. (Not that I’d make that a matter of law either…)
Poor Richard, he willingly attended two religious schools and now the rest of the world will have to hear about it….
Who cares if Hermain Cain f***s like a rabbit.
Bring him back.
Obfuscation by labels and misconceptions.
And it is too complex to think through, really. If one does everyone is bored by the time you get there, anyway.
Personally I’d go for a fairly fundamentally sound Christian. Like Sarah Palin.
But then nobody was listening then, either.
They are clever and they’ve got you on the run.
Indeed, John.
Sunfish said
“First, the important question: How is any of this a matter for the Federal government? Where in the Constitution is the minutiae of family or criminal law placed within the Federal domain?”
I didn’t hear Santorum saying the minutiae of family law or criminal law should be placed within the Federal domain in that video. What makes you think that is what he wants to do? All I heard was a man expressing moral views that would have been quite normal 30 years ago but are now deeply unfashionable especially in the progressive media.
Sunfish your second point is the classic straw man that progressives commonly wheel out when they wish to attack the idea of the tradditional family.
There is much research that shows children do best when raised by both natural parents living together as husband and wife.
There was some recent research in Canada that showed children who live with their mothers and a man who isn’t their father are ten times more likely to be abused than those who live with their 2 natural parents.
You won’t see this in any British research because our Governments statistics didn’t record wether the parents were married, or if both were the childrens natural parents. It would not have suited there agenda to record this information.
^before any one comments I used the term straw man incorrectly in my above post
George,
30 years! If you’d said 50 maybe. But the fundamental point here is who says it. Now I am socially liberal but really I’m a monogamous married man so I am practically speaking effectively socially quite conservative. But I am how I am because I am that way off my own bat and the last fricking thing I want is to be told how to behave by government. I think that is vile.
And yes, I’m glad some others mention Gary Johnson. It horrifies me as a libertarian the extent to which some grown adults feel the need for a Mummy & Daddy to tell them how to behave. Sorry to the Ricks but if it comes down to that we’ve lost. Any attempt to impose morality of any description is not morality. It is the use of force and hardly libertarian. I’m saying there are an awful lot of things I don’t approve of which are neither against the law nor should be. It does morality a disservice to use the full apparatus of the state to enforce it.
It outrages me how sure in their morals these moralists are that they think they’ve just been up Mount Sinai for a chin-wag with God yet don’t think we can make our own minds up. I mean is it actually moral to do X or not fo Y because you might go to jail?
Santorum is utterly illiberal and that is not based on his views but his intention to implement them by state force. Lead by example but not coercion.
George, the problem is, of course, is whether the President of the United States of America has any business dictating your morality.
I don’t think it’s any of Uncle Sam’s business whether I behave in a *moral* manner. I believe it’s their business to that I conform to federal laws; of which I believe far too many are the result of some perverted sense of ‘morality’.
That’s the problem – you run out some interesting and supportive evidence for your point, but …
1. Determine why it’s any business of Washington that the child of two adults should ‘do best’. Define ‘best’. Best for whom?
2. When children are ‘abused’ by their parents, I’m sure some crime or offense somewhere on the statute books was been committed. Prosecute based on the commission of a crime, not via an actuarial table. Isn’t that why municipalities employ policemen and not mind-readers?
3. Around these parts, you’ll find a variety of opinions on whether marriage is a ‘social good’, but more so on whether it’s any of the government’s business whether I am married, or even to whom I can be permitted to be married.
Frankly, I don’t believe that what amounts to a social contract with another consenting adult is any of the government’s business, and to the extent that the IRS ‘needs’ to know of my married status, I’d rather we abolish joint tax filing and all ‘benefits’ that accrue to me as a result of having made a (private) choice.
Back to the main point – the concern about the executive imposing far-reaching legislation based on a moral foundation – e.g. ‘Compassionate Conservatism’ as a relatively recent example from the GOP camp – I think it’s quite appropriate to be concerned about the moral stance of the person that people intend to elect – my preference being someone who has a relatively strong judeo-christian ethic. However, it’s equally important for me to know whether he’s going to impose his moral code upon me utilizing the state’s monopoly on violence.
I’ve seen nothing the counter my concerns over Santorum (or any of the GOP candidates other than Ron Paul, for that matter). The only comfort is that I don’t see him gaining the nomination.
The ‘fix’ is in, everyone but Romney has had a fork stuck in them. We’ve heard almost nothing from the press about Romney’s ‘negatives’, because they want to keep their powder dry for the real election.
Then why, during his extended job interview for a Federal government job, did he even bring it up?
I think a more vital question about Santorum and the other candidates is which of them supported the bill that allows the American Military to indefinitely detain an American citizen. I’m guessing all of them except Ron Paul.
Obama would be coorporate fascism plan A, Romney or whoever coorporate fascism plan B.
Well, it’s not just POTUS an morality. Mr Santorum seems not to have read the declaration of Independence or the Constitution. This one would imagine would be a minimum requirement for a prez hopeful.
I agreed with every word about personal responsiblity and community. People looking out for and helping each other.
But what has this got to do with the STATE?
Yes all the Founders agreed that liberty without virtue would die. They did not want people to screw anything that moved, or drink till they lay down in the gutter and died in their own vomit.
But where did the Founders say that the STATE should make people “just and good” (the great flaw in Aristotle’s “The Politics” where he has “the Polis”, which may or may not mean the state, helping people to be just and good – so that they might be free, for a man who is a slave to his passions is not free, he is a “natural slave” and soon will be enslaved).
It is quite true that the left (the Fabian “free love” movement, the “cultural Marxism” of Herbert Marcuse and so on) viewed the “sexual revolution” as a WEAPON – a way of undermining personal responsibilty and cultural insitutions such as the family.
For where civil society (such as the family) declines the COLLECTIVE (after a period of chaos and death) steps in – people will BEG them to step in. That was the plan from the start (they SAID SO).
The decline of “cultural conservativism” MUST lead to the rise of the state (the Welfare State and a lot more) – it can lead to nowhere else (other than everyone starving to death or dying in their own vomit).
But the great mistake Santorum (and, with no intention of bigotary on my part, a lot of Catholic thinkers) makes is to think that the STATE can reverse this.
The argument is that that state policy (welfare benefits, “legal” baby killing, “Progressive” education – and so on) created the cultural decline (which is indeed heading towards cultrual collapse – and WAS ALWAYS INTENDED TO).
So the state should be able to reverse it – a FALLACY.
Take the example of a vase.
One can use a hammer (the state) to smash the vase.
But can you use that same hammer (the state) to MAKE vase?
Civil society (including such things as the family and personal responsbilty and community invovlement – real Founder Father stuff) CAN NOT be restored by government action.
That is not the NATURE of the state – of the SWORD OF STATE.
It can not be used to CREATE (not good things) only to DESTROY.
To give practical illustrations.
For many years after World War II – New York City (under Mayor Wagner and so on) was the heart of “liberalism”.
Both of high taxes and welfare and of the denial of (the spitting on) personal responsiblity and the family.
“Do anything you FEEL like” was the motto of Time Square – of the drug addicts dying in the gutters and the children selling their bodies.
Freedom is not “do anything you FEEL like” it is about choosing to do what is right by your REASONING.
“reason is the slave of the passions” is simply not true, people can resist their impusles and MUST DO (if they and others are to flourish).
As for “and ought to be the slave of the passions” that is the position of the pig.
New York City collapased into financial and moral bankruptcy in the mid 1970s – and people there have since tried to rebuild something.
However, places like San Francisco are on the same dark road.
As recently as the 1950s San Francisco as a middle class city . Now it is a city of the rich (who can indulge every vice) and the very poor – the beggers on the street. And not much else. Taxes (which the rich can afford or avoid – and the poor do not pay) and regulations have driven out most other people.
This can not last, it is not a “city” as Aristotle, or the Founding Fathers (or Santorum) understand the term.
And Jefferson and the others would be HORRIFIED by such developments.
Where Santorum’s error lies is looking to the STATE to restore virtue in a place like San Francisco.
It can not be done – not that way.
Perhaps it can not be done AT ALL – in which case the fate of such places will be grim indeed.
But “of one thing I am certain – we will not get moral improvement from the state” Gladstone.
This position is shared by the Founders (in spite of them, like Gladstone, being obsessed with moral improvement and virtue being the only solid foundation to preserve liberty).
And this is what I think Santorum does not understand.
As for tax policy (and so on).
Very traditional Republican line from Santorum – including the bias towards manufacturing industry (cut corporation tax for all enterprises – but a zero rate for manufacturing).
I suspect he will not get much support from what Marxists call “finance capital”.
Their economic line (bugger the heartland, it is just “fly over country”, – give us more and more credit money subsdies) is unlikely to appeal to someone with coal mining (and so on) roots.
And the endless drugs and hookers and so on, is not likely to put the bankers, and so on, in his good books either (so they are unlikely to fund his campaign).
Very Roman Republican.
The “Republican cloth coat” (as the saying went even in the 1950s). Lots of “thrift, hardwork and self denial”.
It was actually “liberals” (the high tax and spend “do whatever you FEEL like” brigade) who tended to flaunt their wealth.
Still the conversation is pointless anyway.
Mitt Romney will be the candidate.
A person who combines a traditional lifestyle himself – just as tradtional as Santorum’s, with the capacity to wink at the lifestyle of others.
Mitt has already had lunch with Jamie Dimon (of J.P. Morgan Chase).
“Do not worry my dear Sir – the easy money will carry on flowing to you. Would I like a …….. no, thankyou, I do not personally indulge and should not that child be in school at this time of day?”
Cynical (and hypocritical) perhaps (I say “perhaps” as Mitt could defend his conduct as simply being in the world as it is) – but I will still be supporting Mitt after he gets the nomination.
Interesting that Santorum said he would vote AGAINST the Texas antisodomy law (of course the Supreme Court does NOT have the right to just strike down such laws).
I wondered which way Santorum would go on that – on the point about which way you would vote if a member of the Texas State Legislature.
Something can be sin without being a CRIME – and if it is not a CRIME (an aggression) under natural law, then it should not be made a “crime” by a State statute.
Quite correct.
Now let us apply that principle to some other things…..
Looks like the first of my Predictions for 2012 (posted on Dec 31) came true:
But seriously folks…I think George has it right. Much of what Santorum discusses deals with the individual’s role in (private-sector) community.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100127395/crony-capitalism-is-failing-lets-try-the-real-thing/
On further reflection, the reporter should have asked, “What role, if any, does the government play in all this,” and Santorum should have anticipated that a lot of viewers have that question in their minds and volunteered an answer without being asked.
Santorum gets an F in communication.
Alisa – yes a very good article.
By the way Hereford is one of the places (although with Hay-on-Wye which is only a bus ride away) that I regret never visiting in the year I lived on the West side of this island – I will never see such places (which is unfortunate).
Alan – yes, Santorum is dreadful at communication.
I listened to him for about five minutes before he said (in passing – without any emphasis at all) that he would have voted in favour of getting rid of the Texas (and other) anti sodomy Statutes.
Most people are not going to sit and listen (and listen carefully) while the man goes for a random walk of words (only dealing with the important issue long into his remarks – and then only in passing and without emphasis).
“F” is a fair judement on his communication skills.