Romney and the Social Issues

Recently one of my Facebook friends made the following observation about the election.  She said, “Why are conservative bigoted white men wasting so much time and energy fighting homosexuality? It may take years, decades, who knows...but the LGBT community will eventually win the fight. They'll be able to marry, have rights with respect to their significant others, to be open without ridicule, etc. So why is the whole planet wasting SO much time dealing with this issue? Isn't it exhausting?”

So who are these conservative white men that she is referring to?  I consider myself a conservative who also happens to be white and male and here is where I am at on this issue.  If the citizens of a state, either through their elected officials or through direct referendum choose to expand the definition of marriage and confer these rights on same sex couples, I will respect the law and its citizens.  I feel that my position is shared by many thoughtful conservatives who like Bill Bennett, former secretary of education under Reagan who said on a Daily Show with John Stewart, “John, why do you keep harping on the gay rights agenda? you won! Its over.  Time to move on.”  This was in response to a brow beating that Stewart was giving Bennett on the subject even though it was neither brought up by Bennett nor did it have anything to do with the book Mr. Bennett was there to promote.

Most Conservatives/Republicans can identify with Bill Bennett.  The Gay/Lesbian agenda is a train that has left the station.  It is rolling and not worth fighting over, there are bigger issues to deal with.  For the most part, we simply want to avoid the question and avoid the inevitable beatings.  Its not as if we think that expanding the definition of marriage in this manner is a good idea (we don’t), we simply are resigned to the inevitable expansion/adoption of this right in our communities and have made a decision, it is not worth fighting for.

Not one major Republican leader actively promotes any policy that would suggest that they would interfere with a State’s right to determine its own laws when it comes to most social issues including the marriage issue.  Mitt Romney is a big state’s right guy and this issue would be way, way down on his agenda of items requiring action.  My evidence for this?  In neither of the two debates was the issue brought up.  I have not heard any major policy speech by either Romney or Ryan address this issue from a policy perspective.

Here is what I do hear from Mitt Romney: First, the economy is suffering, GDP has been growing more slowly for the last two years, jobs are down, people are suffering because they cannot find decent work at decent wages.  Secondly, our federal debt is over $16 trillion dollars.  Over the past 3 1/2 years the current administration has added to the debt by over $1 trillion annually.  Finally, we have an administration who is not leveling with the American people about our foreign policy as evidenced by the nearly two week time frame in which the situation in Benghazi was blamed on a you tube video by various administration officials including our Ambassador to the UN, when overwhelming evidence pointed to this being a terrorist attack.  Why would the administration mislead the American public on this issue for such a long period of time, even when their own investigators were saying otherwise?  Why would our State Department deny requests for additional security made by the Ambassador’s staff?

When I consider the issue of whether Frank can get married to Matt or Lisa can get married to Susie in the light of these three fundamental issues that lie at the core of what a federal government should be doing, the gay agenda does not hold a candle.  And I like Bill Bennett (and other thoughtful conservatives) are begging “ENOUGH ALREADY, YOU HAVE WON THE DEBATE ON THE ISSUE” lets move on to more important topics such as:

• Economic Growth and Job Creation
• Balancing the Federal Budget and returning our country to fiscal sanity
• Operating with a realistic and honest foreign policy that respects our allies, condemns acts of terror, pursues foreign policies that are designed to keep this country and its citizens safe.

These are the critical issues.

There is no credible evidence that a Romney/Ryan administration would focus on much if anything beyond these three critical issues (with perhaps the exception of education).  Yes I know social values are one topic of 27 issues addressed on his website, but I would argue that there is nothing in his speeches nor his advocates talking points that suggest that this would be anything besides a low priority issue.  According to his own website, his top issues are: 5 Point Plan, jobs for Economic Growth, Foreign Policy, Smaller, Simpler, Smarter Government, Taxes.  So the Social Issues don’t make it into the top 5 and is relegated to three paragraphs as one of 27 overall issues.  The threat to the GLBT community is way, way, way overblown.

So your concern for the Gay Lesbian agenda is Straw Man.  Meant to point to something that fires up peoples concerns but at the end of the day has little meaningful substance.  Stop with the straw man already, YOU WON!!!!  Let’s focus on the most important issues, jobs and the economy, creating a plan to get the budget under control and a foreign policy that avoids the murder of Ambassadors and keeps American’s safe.

What say you?

Is the Tea Party Selfish and Bigoted?

Recently an acquaintance  wrote a Blog entitled: Who's Sorry Now.  In the Blog the writer begins with some statements that are allegedly attributed to the "Tea Party" and then goes on to state that their views on who makes up the tea party and their motivations.

Below is my point by point response to their allegations.  Tell me what you think.

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Red,

I have a different take on your characterization of the tea party. 

In your post, you begin by stating, “The Tea Partiers have a lot of interests, most of which consist of things they are against.”

This is not how I find people who support the tea party.  In fact, quite the opposite.  I find members of the tea party to be genuinely for principles of liberty and the values embedded in the constitution.  In fact, this is it’s mission statement taken from the teaparty.net website…

The Tea Party movement is a grassroots movement of millions of like-minded, Americans from all backgrounds and political parties. Tea Party members share similar core principles supporting the United States Constitution as the Founders intended, such as:

• Limited federal government • Individual freedoms • Personal responsibility • Free markets • Returning political power to the states and the people

You claim the “They are against government”.  I disagree, as noted above they are for limited government which is something quite different from “against government”.   You state that they “aren’t all that concerned over its regulating Wall Street.”  On this one, you may have a point.  But you see it is not because no one cares about the corruption and self-serving actions taken by individuals during the Wall Street meltdown.  Rather, the tea-party is for “Personal Responsibility” and holding those individuals who contributed to the meltdown accountable for their actions.  The best way to do this is to have a vibrant court system in which injured parties have the right to recourse.  In addition, where federal and state laws have been broken, those responsible should be brought to justice.  Additional regulation makes companies and institutions beholden to bureaucrats rather than clients and customers.  An environment where bureaucrats  hold significant sway on businesses and business decisions often leads to inefficient responses to customer needs and higher costs to meet the regulations which we the consumer then pay for.  Further, and perhaps more dangerous, is the risk that what may start out as a well-intentioned program with well-meaning civil servants evolves into a corrupt system in which government bureaucrats become susceptible to bribes and other forms of corruption so that companies yield to a temptation of focus on achieving influence rather than serving customer needs.  This is the dark side of regulation.

You said, “ They’re against immigration”. First, I go back to the mission statement and ask, in what part do you see anything that has to do with immigration?  What evidence exists that they are against immigrants.  The tea party members that I know don’t hate immigrants, they respect and admire immigrants.  A mantra that is shared with the tea party is one that is on all of our money, “E Pluribus Unum” , “Out of many, One”.  This is a uniquely American principle that says, the rights embedded in our constitution are available for all regardless of blood line or ethnic background.  Yes, we may have come from many different backgrounds but regardless of our ethnic heritage, we are all Americans and have a common creed that binds us such that any individual is free to pursue happiness in their own way.  Finally, I personally have enormous respect for those who came to this country and properly pursued citizenship.  A wonderful couple I know have shared with me their long a arduous journey to citizenship from their native Nairobi.  My respect for them is unbounded.  Regardless of your stance on the issue of immigration, I simply think that is unfair that this wonderful couple invested themselves into the legal immigration process while others simply cross the borders and take up residence.  What is fair about that?  Either we should allow all people from all countries to come to the US without regard to any standards or immigration policy or we respect the need for a rationale policy of how we manage the process of integrating those from other countries into our society.  It is absolutely unfair to single out one group, primarily from one country and provide them with a special standard that is not applied to others from the rest of the world.

You said, “They don’t like paying taxes, but don’t seem to care much one way or the other about high income tax cuts or other benefits like the multitude of loopholes that benefit the very rich.”  The issue here is one of free markets vs government solutions.  First, it is well documented that the top earners in our country already pay a disproportionate share of taxes.  According to the National Taxpayers Union, The top 1% of all Adjusted gross earners pay 36.73% of the Federal Income Tax.  The top 5% of AGI pays 58.67% of the Federal Income Tax.  Now you apparently feel that is not enough.  My question is what do you think is the right % that the top 5% should pay?  Nearly 60% is not enough????????  From my point of view, this a a grossly unfair burden on a very limited number of individuals and makes us as a nation even more dependent on the success of these individuals for our total tax revenue.  This seems like a risky proposition to me.  Our revenue fortunes rise on these individuals success.   With so much of our present revenues dependent on the success of these individuals, wouldn’t it make sense to encourage even more success for them as this would translate into higher government revenues?

You said. “They dislike people of color on general principle” again, where do you find that in any of the tea party principles?  This is not my experience at all.  Have I ever seen a nut who claims some tea party affiliation ever rant in a thoughtless bigoted manner?  Simple answer yes!  Still that is not an indictment of the entire group.  Evidence of bigotry and stupidity is something that is not limited to a few kooks who claim tea party affiliation.  I see evidence of crazy bigoted behavior on all sides of the spectrum.  (I can send you a you tube link that documents clearly racist behavior against a group of white supporters of a candidate in the Richmond, VA area from the last election cycle, while police simply looked on with little regard)  My point here is that the bigoted and senseless behavior of a few should not indict an entire group.

Finally, you state, “Most of them don’t care about outsourcing jobs because their number is currently top heavy with pensioners”.  I have a different interpretation, going to the principle of free market ideals.  Another way to describe outsourcing is “free market” of capital and labor.  If a shoe manufacturer is forced to maintain a US work force and the labor costs are much more that a competitor, then the finished goods for each will have different prices for similar quality shoes.  The US company must either charge higher prices to maintain margin and therefore lose share or they choose to charge the same price in which case their margins are squeezed.  In either case, this ultimately leads to the shoe manufacturer going out of business and then all of the jobs are lost.  That is not how to create jobs my friend.

Ok, that is enough for today.  Thank you for letting me offer you my point by point response to your provocative post.  I welcome your respectful response back.

LetFreedom_Ring