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Is Social Conservatism Finished as a Nationally Competitive Ideology?

Is social conservatism finished as a nationally competitive ideology?

  • Yes

    Votes: 27 50.9%

  • No

    Votes: 26 49.1%
  • Total voters
    53
I think the march toward socialism is inevitable and conservative values are doomed. When a country gets rich fat and lazy off the hard work and hard values of it's founders there is a tendency for the new generations to become weak little pampered cowards and the once strong country is eventually conquered by "the barbarians from the north". As a history buff I have read about this phenomena over and over from Rome to civilization after civilization in Europe , it's just the natural scheme of things.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
I think the march toward socialism is inevitable and conservative values are doomed. When a country gets rich fat and lazy off the hard work and hard values of it's founders there is a tendency for the new generations to become weak little pampered cowards and the once strong country is eventually conquered by "the barbarians from the north". As a history buff I have read about this phenomena over and over from Rome to civilization after civilization in Europe , it's just the natural scheme of things.
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You sound like a self-loathing Marxist, you know that, right?
 
sawyerloggingon said:
I sound like someone who has studied history and seen this scenario play out time after time.
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I was making a joke about how you basically gave into Marx's understanding of historical development, but did so begrudgingly.
 
I hope social conservatism is not dead.... our society won't survive without it.
( if you define social conservatism as consisting of abortion,same sex marriage, and smoking weed... you only understand a very small slice of the pie)
 
I think one of the real related issues is whether the increasing attacks against those who are paying more in taxes than they take in services will vote more on that issue than say social issues that keep a fair number of wealthy people in the dem corner-mainly abortion, gay rights, environmental issues and disgust with the religious right in general
 
NO. There will always be a significant number of social conservatives.

Will they be able to win elections in the future? Sure. A coming together of the right factors at the right times will result in wins.

The pendulum swings back and forth between left and right and it is best not to get too focused on the here and now and one needs to take the long historical view.

As far as ideology goes, the vast majority of Americans are NOT ideological but are far more pragmatic in their approach. Ideology - conservative or libertarian ideology - will never be the dominant force but it will always be something which commands a sizable minority of people and will be a force to be reckoned with.
 
TurtleDude said:
I think one of the real related issues is whether the increasing attacks against those who are paying more in taxes than they take in services will vote more on that issue than say social issues that keep a fair number of wealthy people in the dem corner-mainly abortion, gay rights, environmental issues and disgust with the religious right in general
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That is really a non starter and a non issue to all but a few people obsessed with that false premise. The fact is a simple and obvious one: the relationship between a citizen taxpayer and their government is NOT one of a retail shopper and a business. It is silly to whine and cry about what you get back versus what you pay. And lets face it Turtle, all you talk about this issue and your invocation of your sacred classification of the almighty NET TAXPAYER has never even resulted in you or anyone else being able to define or quantify such a term so that it can be applied across the board and identify who is who. Its simply a fallacy from the get go that only occupies a few people obsessed with the sillyness of it all.
 
johnny_rebson said:
Maybe some people considered the last two GOP presidential nominees to be too moderate.
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Of course there are those on the fringes who feel this way. Let us hope they continue to control the GOP and get their way for a long time in Republican nominees at every level. Look what happened in Missouri and Indiana Senate races when the whackos run off at the mouth and expose their extremism.
 
haymarket said:
That is really a non starter and a non issue to all but a few people obsessed with that false premise. The fact is a simple and obvious one: the relationship between a citizen taxpayer and their government is NOT one of a retail shopper and a business. It is silly to whine and cry about what you get back versus what you pay. And lets face it Turtle, all you talk about this issue and your invocation of your sacred classification of the almighty NET TAXPAYER has never even resulted in you or anyone else being able to define or quantify such a term so that it can be applied across the board and identify who is who. Its simply a fallacy from the get go that only occupies a few people obsessed with the sillyness of it all.
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Opinion noted and rejected as no responsive. the fact is-the dems won a majority of those who are paying little or no income taxes while the GOP won a majority (though not as much) of those who are paying income taxes. Your party appeals to the takers, mine the makers.
 
johnny_rebson said:
Maybe some people considered the last two GOP presidential nominees to be too moderate.
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While Romney may have been very moderate, he was portrayed as a hard-nosed social conservative who is against abortion,etc. The fact that those social positions were so heavily stigmatized says a lot about the credibility with voters on socially conservative positions.
 
TurtleDude said:
Opinion noted and rejected as no responsive. the fact is-the dems won a majority of those who are paying little or no income taxes while the GOP won a majority (though not as much) of those who are paying income taxes. Your party appeals to the takers, mine the makers.
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The fact is that I hit far too close to home on your own feelings on this issue and that is why you reject them out of hand rather than to examine your own extremism on this issue.

And none of your drawing these silly lines in the sand separating Americans from each other matters to anybody but a few on the right obsessed with this issue. The obsession with the separation of the federal income tax from all other taxes is an intellectually dishonest and fraudulent tactic designed to paint a false and skewed picture of the real tax burden in this nation.

I thought you were a libertarian? You refer to MY PARTY and seem to be proud of your mainstrem Republicanism.
 
More conservatives voted this election than in 2004. Even if Romney had gotten the same percentage share of their vote as Bush -- meaning more votes from conservatives than Bush, a darling of conservatism, received -- he would have lost the popular vote by about a million votes. I think it is pretty safe to say that Romney's moderatism did not cost him enough with conservatives to lose the election. There are simply not enough to have made a difference.
 
haymarket said:
The fact is that I hit far too close to home on your own feelings on this issue and that is why you reject them out of hand rather than to examine your own extremism on this issue.

And none of your drawing these silly lines in the sand separating Americans from each other matters to anybody but a few on the right obsessed with this issue. The obsession with the separation of the federal income tax from all other taxes is an intellectually dishonest and fraudulent tactic designed to paint a false and skewed picture of the real tax burden in this nation.

I thought you were a libertarian? You refer to MY PARTY and seem to be proud of your mainstrem Republicanism.
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Opinion noted and rejected because you are trying to guess what my feelings are and what you claim is extremism is colored by your own positions which are far left of mainstream America.

I am a libertarian and I generally vote GOP because of the two parties that have a chance of winning, the GOP is closer to libertarian ideals on the rights I value the most
 
TurtleDude said:
Opinion noted and rejected because you are trying to guess what my feelings are and what you claim is extremism is colored by your own positions which are far left of mainstream America.

I am a libertarian and I generally vote GOP because of the two parties that have a chance of winning, the GOP is closer to libertarian ideals on the rights I value the most
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Nobody that has been here for more than a few months has to guess what your feelings are, what your motivations are and what your opinions are Turtle. You have made all that as clear as a newly windexed window on a sunny day.

You have a right to vote any way you want to vote.

You have a right to call yourself anything you want to call yourself.

I just find it interesting that on sites like this libertarians are more common than lice on a mangy street cur but at election time they always find it more than convenient to urinate on their own supposed values and take the easy way out and simply vote Republican.

Its easy for anyone to proclaim that they are LIBERTARIAN but at the rare instances when push comes to shove and it actually counts in the real world for something other than chest thumping and boasting, they back away and vote REPUBLICAN.

Of course the LIBERTARIAN pin-up boy Ron Paul has been doing it for a long time now so we should not be shocked that others ape his cowardly and self serving political behavior.
 
haymarket said:
Nobody that has been here for more than a few months has to guess what your feelings are, what your motivations are and what your opinions are Turtle. You have made all that as clear as a newly windexed window on a sunny day.

You have a right to vote any way you want to vote.

You have a right to call yourself anything you want to call yourself.

I just find it interesting that on sites like this libertarians are more common than lice on a mangy street cur but at election time they always find it more than convenient to urinate on their own supposed values and take the easy way out and simply vote Republican.

Its easy for anyone to proclaim that they are LIBERTARIAN but at the rare instances when push comes to shove and it actually counts in the real world for something other than chest thumping and boasting, they back away and vote REPUBLICAN.

Of course the LIBERTARIAN pin-up boy Ron Paul has been doing it for a long time now so we should not be shocked that others ape his cowardly and self serving political behavior.
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I differ from you on this one. I think that this is the sensible political course for libertarians. Attempting at getting at that 5-10% marker, although bold, ambitious, and idealistic, often does not come and frequently doesn't benefit them afterward. Infiltrating one of the two major parties has more relative impact. That being said, I, of course, am not generally sympathetic to libertarians or their philosophy, and after this election, even my feeling of political expediency went away after noticing from my own personal angle, that it is a dead-end for Republicans.
 
Krhazy said:
For two consecutive elections now -- one in which Republicans won by large margins, and now one in which Democrats won despite the economy being heavily against them -- social issues seem to have cost Republicans major Senate seats in right-leaning states. The issue of abortion seems to be killing Republican candidacies. Gay marriage is turning a corner in popularity. And the demographics are shifting extremely quickly even further to the left.

I think it's usually a terrible idea to say "such and such an ideology is dead" after an election. These things have a tendency to turn around somehow or another. But it's hard to avoid the conclusion after the past four years that this country is shifting dramatically, social conservatism is no longer a winning ideology nationally, and it is unlikely to be one again for the foreseeable future.

What do you think?
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I think the cult of personality has raided the White House and it's here to stay. It's hard for anyone to win an election when you're running against Santa Claus. Christmas has come early for the Obamacrats.
 
Dooble said:
I think the cult of personality has raided the White House and it's here to stay. It's hard for anyone to win an election when you're running against Santa Claus. Christmas has come early for the Obamacrats.
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It wasn't really cult of personality, though there is much of that, Republicans simply were not able to persuade enough of the right people to jump sides.
 
Fiddytree said:
It wasn't really cult of personality, though there is much of that, Republicans simply were not able to persuade enough of the right people to jump sides.
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"Persuasion" had nothing to do with it. Obama won despite his failures with the economy. Only a strict kool-aid drinker or Welfare monger would give this guy four more years. And both of those are no where near Republican.
 
Both of the major parties are socially conservative and it's obvious.

capital punishment, the war on drugs, the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretaps, SSM, NDAA, "In God We Trust", the pledge of allegiance
 
I wouldn't say social conservatism is dead, but I will say that it's taken it's first death blow. It'll still be around for awhile, but it will no longer be a large, domineering political stance that it once was. We'll probably see social conservatism as a competitive political idea on local levels for a long time, however. I think that America is finally beginning to move more toward the left overall, but it's going to be a slow process. I think one of two things will happen in the next election: social conservatives will make an even harder push than they did this time, which will end up hurting them in the long run, if we see more of the likes of Mourdock and Akin, or they'll redefine themselves, and give themselves a fresh breath of life, at least for a time. We'll probably also see the rise of third parties, but that's for another thread.
 
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