There are huge differences between fiscal conservatives and social conservatives.
Fiscal conservatives often whine about domestic spending. Public education, taxpayer supported health care, job training and economic development are generally bad ideas.
Social conservatives talk a lot about freedoms even as they try to force their views on the rest of us.
They want to peek inside your doctor's office and dictate what services you can get. They want to put certain material into the classrooms and revise textbooks to eliminate realities they find objectionable. They want to look into your bedroom and tell you who and how to love.
Some of those desires may seem peculiar or invasive, even to people who live really dull lives. But social conservatives are scary for other reasons.
All this talk about returning America to the values that the founding fathers intended. They draw their loudest applause when they talk about restoring, not creating, freedoms we've enjoyed in the past. They contend these things were never intended by the founding fathers.
They insist they love the U.S. Constitution, yet they object or condemn some of its most wonderful tenets. They consider the role of the federal judiciary, by its very mandate, charged with interpreting the constitutionality of federal laws, reactionary and warranting restrictions and greater controls.
The question numerous pieces of legislation designed to ensure constitutional protections for all parties, both citizen and visitor. And they lament actions taken by Congress and affirmed by majorities of the legislatures of the states which alter the laws of the land and grow our Constitution as a living document.
When they talk about returning the nation to some unidentified past, what do they they really mean? Could it be they want a time when most if not all supervisors and people of power were white and male?
Are they seeking a time when women of any color or nationality had no real power and even their rights to property were based upon the whims of their fathers or husbands? Do they long for a time when immigrants, documented or not, were subject to exploitation and had few opportunities to seek relief in the courts?
Perhaps they wish to return to those times when law abiding people of varied backgrounds could be denied their franchise or dispossessed because of their race, gender, ethnic origin, religion, physical impairment or sexual orientation?
The danger here is that no one ever really explains what they mean when people considered the most promising conservative politicians start waxing nostalgically about the values of the past. That's scary!
Opportunity in America is far less exclusive than it was even a few short years, and definitely a couple of decades ago. What may be the good old days for some seems like a return to a past with limited choices for a heck of a lot of Americans.
Fiscal conservatives often whine about domestic spending. Public education, taxpayer supported health care, job training and economic development are generally bad ideas.
Social conservatives talk a lot about freedoms even as they try to force their views on the rest of us.
They want to peek inside your doctor's office and dictate what services you can get. They want to put certain material into the classrooms and revise textbooks to eliminate realities they find objectionable. They want to look into your bedroom and tell you who and how to love.
Some of those desires may seem peculiar or invasive, even to people who live really dull lives. But social conservatives are scary for other reasons.
All this talk about returning America to the values that the founding fathers intended. They draw their loudest applause when they talk about restoring, not creating, freedoms we've enjoyed in the past. They contend these things were never intended by the founding fathers.
They insist they love the U.S. Constitution, yet they object or condemn some of its most wonderful tenets. They consider the role of the federal judiciary, by its very mandate, charged with interpreting the constitutionality of federal laws, reactionary and warranting restrictions and greater controls.
The question numerous pieces of legislation designed to ensure constitutional protections for all parties, both citizen and visitor. And they lament actions taken by Congress and affirmed by majorities of the legislatures of the states which alter the laws of the land and grow our Constitution as a living document.
When they talk about returning the nation to some unidentified past, what do they they really mean? Could it be they want a time when most if not all supervisors and people of power were white and male?
Are they seeking a time when women of any color or nationality had no real power and even their rights to property were based upon the whims of their fathers or husbands? Do they long for a time when immigrants, documented or not, were subject to exploitation and had few opportunities to seek relief in the courts?
Perhaps they wish to return to those times when law abiding people of varied backgrounds could be denied their franchise or dispossessed because of their race, gender, ethnic origin, religion, physical impairment or sexual orientation?
The danger here is that no one ever really explains what they mean when people considered the most promising conservative politicians start waxing nostalgically about the values of the past. That's scary!
Opportunity in America is far less exclusive than it was even a few short years, and definitely a couple of decades ago. What may be the good old days for some seems like a return to a past with limited choices for a heck of a lot of Americans.
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