Today’s Lesson In Progressive Politics: Rick Santorum (?!)

February 17, 2012

The Republicans are really not making it easy for conservatives like me in this election year. We don’t trust Romney, we don’t like Newt, we think Paul’s nuts. But generally speaking we like Santorum. Then he goes and gets all Progressive on us.

Rick Santorum on Internet gambling:

I’m someone who takes the opinion that gaming is not something that is beneficial, particularly having that access on the Internet. Just as we’ve seen from a lot of other things that are vices on the Internet, they tend to grow exponentially as a result of that. It’s one thing to come to Las Vegas and do gaming and participate in the shows and that kind of thing as entertainment, it’s another thing to sit in your home and have access to that it. I think it would be dangerous to our country to have that type of access to gaming on the Internet.

Freedom’s not absolute. What rights in the Constitution are absolute? There is no right to absolute freedom. There are limitations. You might want to say the same thing about a whole variety of other things that are on the Internet — “let everybody have it, let everybody do it.” No. There are certain things that actually do cost people a lot of money, cost them their lives, cost them their fortunes that we shouldn’t have and make available, to make it that easy to do.

Oh, brother…

First off, Rick, the Constitution does not grant us rights. It limits the government from infringing on the rights that are our birthright, that are given to us by God.

I’ve been pretty consistent in my support for Rick Santorum during this process, going so far as to officially endorse him on my Twitter account. But my support has also always been fairly tepid. Of the four remaining candidates, I think he’s the most conservative in his core beliefs. Romney has been saying all the right things, but he gives the impression that he’s spent the last few years with a Rosetta Stone of conservative speech. Catch Romney off the cuff and he’s liable to tell you that he believes the minimum wage should go up every year indexed to inflation, a mind-bogglingly unconservative sentiment.

Still, my tepid support for Santorum is being strained to the limit with this latest dose of Progressive inanity.

The rap against Santorum from the Left is that he is a wacko Christian Papist who wants to establish a theocracy, ban birth control, and force everyone to go to Church on Sunday. It’s a bogus charge. Santorum is a Catholic and has firmly held beliefs that are rooted in his faith. But the idea that he is getting his marching orders from Rome is as offensive today as it was when John F. Kennedy was accused of the same thing. Kennedy! A man and, indeed, an entire family that wouldn’t care about Catholic doctrine if it bit them on their collective fanny. But there is still a strain of anti-Catholicism in politics and the media, and many of the charges against Santorum are the result of it.

My main concern with Santorum has always been that he is an acolyte of George W. Bush’s “Compassionate Conservatism.” When Bush said “When people are hurting, the government’s got to move” he stuck a dagger into the hearts of conservatives everywhere. Conservatives believe that when people are hurting the government’s got to move as far away as possible. Santorum, on the other hand, sees absolutely nothing wrong with feeding Leviathan to promote conservative philosophies. The problem with that, of course, is that the first rule of conservatism is to stop feeding Leviathan.

There are a lot of reasons to be opposed to internet gambling, but Santorum’s reasoning is no different than the reasoning of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg when he tries to ban trans-fats, or Michelle Obama when she wants school cafeterias to stop serving food kids actually like, or Barack Obama when he wants to the government to provide health care for everyone. In this stance, Santorum is just another Big Government Nanny State-loving Progressive. There is, in fact, more Progressivism packed into these two paragraphs than in anything Mitt Romney has said during the campaign. Social engineering from a conservative is no less odious than it is from a Leftist, even though I may agree with the desired result.

A political philosophy that tries to dictate to the people based on what politicians believe is “for their own good” is not conservative. It speaks to the same sort of arrogance and elitism that are the hallmarks of Progressivism. Sadly, Rick Santorum has stepped through that door. If he doesn’t backtrack on this, and explain that he really meant something he didn’t say, I may end up swinging my support over to Romney. And good Lord, I don’t want to do that.

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Today’s Lesson In Progressive Politics: Bev Perdue

September 28, 2011

Bev Perdue, the Governor of North Carolina, has come out in favor of suspending elections for a few years. She thinks this will allow lawmakers to concentrate on fixing the economy and not worry about getting themselves elected.

“You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It’s a little bit more contentious now but it’s not impossible to try to do what’s right in this state. You want people who don’t worry about the next election.”

For the Left, this is nothing new. Suspending or denying elections has been the pathway to dictatorship for Leftists from Lenin to Hitler to Castro to Chavez. It speaks to the mindset that the people who vote are the rabble, and that the elected officials are the wise intellectuals who can solve problems through Brain Power and, in Obama’s case, Word Power.

This Kinsleyan gaffe comes on the heels of former Obama budget director Peter Orszag’s commentary in The New Republic that, to achieve our goals, we just need less democracy. It also follows about a billion columns by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman where he wishes that America were more like the Communist dictatorship China, because China can mandate and enforce policies without fretting over any political fallout. Even the President of the United States has made several comments about wishing he could “work around” Congress, displaying a total lack of understanding in the concept of co-equal branches of government, as well as a desire to concentrate considerably more power into the hands of one man (himself, coincidentally).

For the Progressive, society and government can be perfected. The history of bloody tyranny dovetails with the history of trying to create Heaven on Earth (“immanentizing the eschaton” in Eric Voeglin’s words). Progressives believe their ideas can shape human destiny only for the better, that a Utopia will be created if only we would do what they want us to do. They disregard the play in Thomas More’s word “Utopia,” that it comes from the Greek words meaning “no place.” For the Progressive, Utopia is just another mandate away, virtue can be ordered and enforced, and those who oppose their ideas are obstacles that must be overcome by whatever means are necessary. From the baseless slanders of Tea Party America on one end of spectrum to the horrors of the Holocaust and the Holodomor on the other, Progressives view their opponents as an enemy that must be marginalized, vanquished, or destroyed. From “individual mandates” to suspended elections, creating a perfect society must be legislated and enforced to overcome those who think they know better than their more enlightened Progressive leaders.

Of course, the media provides cover. The headline of the article about Bev Perdue’s wish for less democracy is: “Perdue jokes about suspending Congressional elections for two years.” Jokes? It’s crystal clear from the quote, presented above in context, that this was not a joke. “I really hope someone can agree with me on that,” she says after calling for suspending elections.

Well, har-dee-har-har.

Hot Air has more.

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Posted by Blaknsam