Glad to know that post didn’t go unnoticed. I think your statement that something changed in the country since the Revolution would be considered an understatement.

It seems to me that the part of the country that could be described, to use Walter Russel Mead’s term, Jacksonian, is ebbing, and what is on the rise is a population infatuated with what I would call a sort of technocratic parochialism, by which I mean a belief in rule by an aristocracy of “experts”. I believe Paul Johnson used a similar description in his account of modernism in his “Modern Times”.

The country made up of self-sufficient and territorial famers who wanted the crown to stay out of its business is slowly becoming a country made up of individuals in isolation that views it as the states responsibility to manage the rough edges of lifes inconveniences. This trend is not unstoppable in my opinion, but it certainly seems to be moving in the wrong direction.

“There is nothing wrong with the message of Romney or the Republican Party. That message elected a majority of Representatives, so it achieved majorities in the majority of congressional districts.”

The House Republicans lost the popular vote by over 1 million votes – though they still did three and a half million votes better than Romney. Gerrymandering is a heck of a drug, but not a basis for either winning presidential elections or hoping to turn clear presidential defeats into victories. The Senate Republicans lost twenty-five out of thirty-three Senate races. The message is not fine. There is lot that isn’t fine.

“A national popular vote would make smaller, more conservative states even more powerless nationally, and make them feel like a suppressed minority, thus.inviting them to look outside the established form of the Constitution for real political equality.”

You want to see what a real crisis of legitimacy looks like? Try one in which the Electoral College allocation is changed such that the Democrats win the plurality of the popular vote by almost five million (or around 3.6 percent), a majority of the states, and most of the largest states and still lose the presidency because of the gerrymandering of House districts. Now there is zero chance of such an outcome since the bad faith at work is so obvious. The Republicans need more voters. There is no way around that.

Thanks for your thoughtful response, which I have just now read. I think you’re making a good point in identifying what seems to be an inherent advantage the Left has in politics these days – politics takes up more real estate in the mind of the typical leftist than that of a typical conservative or classical liberal. This disparity in enthusiasm even existed back when the Left was clearly a minority faction. For example, my understanding is that, back during the days of the campus protest movement in the 60s – most students (even at Columbia) were against the radicals and occupiers. But the energy was on the side of the radicals. (I hasten to add that I was not actually on any campus in those days. I’m old, but not that old.) Even when conservatives had their greatest political triumphs – in 1972 (yes, Nixon was not really a conservative, but still), in 1980, 84, 88, in 1994 – it was really the reaction of a mostly inert “silent majority” to what then still seemed an alien threat to their interests and way of life.

That said, if you take a very long historical view, it does seem that the political enthusiasm, energy and commitment of those whom we now call “conservatives” or “classical liberals” was once greater. Take, for example, the American Revolution. Something has changed since then.

So you are capable of a lucid contribution afterall! And here I thought you were a troll off your med’s all this time. My sincere apologies.

Your critique of the problem of abortion for Republican’s is well posed and true within the limits in which you treat it. There are, however, at least two rejoinders that I think should come to mind.

1. The tactical disadvantage of the Republican position applies until you consider the official position of the Democratic party which supports, among other things, late term abortion, albeit under qualifications (which, lets admit it now, are about as meaningful as the requirement of a doctor’s prescription for ‘medical mariquana’).

On the late-term abortion front public sentiment has been moving to the right as the science of ultra-sound et al., has continued to improve. So the Democrats have an equal but opposite problem to the Republicans for they want abortion without meaningful qualifications.

So, to be precise, the debate around abortion will generally be won by whomever succeeds in framing the debate. If Democrats succeed it will be because voters will be thinking about all those pregnant women who are victims of rape, or are at risk to their health. If the Republican’s win it will be because voters will be thinking about those ultrasounds of their children at 6 months where all the features of a healthy human child are visible but in miniature.

Having said that, the fact that the press is asking the Akin’s of the world about raped women and not the Obama’s of the world about the biologically irrelevant distinction between a child at 8 months versus at birth points to the extrinsic disadvantages a biased press has introduced that conservatives continually have to overcome.

2. Your accurate characterization of the “no abortions, but …. ” predicament of the conservative position assumes, admittedly for good reason, the existing political-centric view of abortion. By which I mean that the matter of abortion is dealt with as strictly a subject of jurisprudential and legislative concern.

The problem is that abortion is really first and foremost a personal, societal and moral concern which, in a hypothetical world in which the life of a pre-born child were acknowledged as having equal value to a born child, society at its most local levels would do all it could to provide the kind of support necessary to the woman, and the woman as well as society would be conscious of the value of the life of that child such that they would do what they could to ensure the child would live.

In such a world a Roe vs Wade type Law would either be viewed as repulsive and shot down, or at least rendered practically irrelevant by virtue of the attitudes and actions of citizens of that society.

The fact is this hypothetical world does not exist, but it represents what I think is the proper pro-life alternative to the present state of affairs. The challenge of Conservatives is that as long as our political assumptions take into acount only the relationship between the individual and the state, any political topic where the role of supportive local communities is the proper solution will never be considered among the alternatives and so topics such as abortion will appear untenable unless the individual is given complete discretion on all matters personal and moral even at the expense of another human life.

In this respect the matter of Abortion is illustrative of the myopia of our present political discourse that operates as though the world consists only of the individual and the state and thereby ensures the continuing atrophy of those local resources that could offer a better, more effective way of solving what, from from an individual-state perspective appears so irresolvable.

“W/re Rick Perry, I was not saying that the man has no political talent – obviously, he does. What I meant was, he does not have the makings of a president, and, if he ever got himself nominated, would have been roadkill in the same way Santorum (for whom I have more respect, by the way) or Gingrich would have been. Granted, that’s not based on close observation and study, as you have done, but that’s my intuition, based on my limited exposure to the man.”

Yeah, you’re right about Perry (and Santorum – Gingrich wasn’t even a serious candidate) in a general election. Romney really was the strongest general election candidate. Stillm if he had respected the challenge, he could have given Romney a tougher run for the nomination. That’s what sticks out to me about Perry – that he seemed to think it was easy.

Michael,

“They fear long-term incapacity, serious disease, major injury death, and the medical bills that accompany them.” What sensible people (who are not also incredibly brave) don’t fear those things? As for policy replacements to Obamacare that deal with some of those concerns, see above.

“It wasn’t the honesty of the remark that set Romney back, it is the dishonesty of so many Americans who took up the chorus of scorn against it.” I’m not aware that it is dishonest to point out that not all of the 47 percent of tax units who have no income tax liability “believe that they are victims” and you can “never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Akin co-sponsored a bill with Paul Ryan with language in it that essentially brought to the fore the idea of “legitimate rape”. It was a hard right, pull no punches pro-life bill, so obviously pro-choice factions were going to go after Akin and Ryan for it. He was then asked to justify his stance which is how his gaffe got out. I saw a bit of stuff at the time that tied Akin+Ryan together…and that is how you get to Romney.

To be somewhat controversial about it, I think you can take the position of John McCain or the position of Akin, but that you have to take the position of Akin if you are serious about advancing pro-choice legistlation.

Now Akin and Ryan wanted to limit federally funded abortions in the case of rape, but wanted some way of “authenticating” the rape…not just check the box and say you were raped. It was actually due in part to his thinking along these lines that he made the gaffe in the first place. But I think apology for the gaffe was probably even the wrong policy. (not because it isn’t a bad or dangerous brand…but because if you are serious about the policy sometimes you have to take a punch on having an offensive brand, and it isn’t like you aren’t being controversial by making legistlation dealing with abortion in the first place.) If you have to apologize for the “gaffe” then you might as well pack it up on the abortion issue in the first place, and argue that being pro-life is for theoretical Kantians! Akin and Ryan had already proposed a bill where if the statement of facts is written by a pro-choice voice, they end up saying that Akin is going to question women who have been raped and make them relive the trauma! In this sense the Akin gaffe was just a party admission.

But I don’t see how the long run pro-life vision could ever get away from this progressive/pro-choice critique. While a lot of pro-lifers might think that it is somewhat plausible that abortion will be banned outright, this I think can never happen. I do think Roe v. Wade has been watered down from a fundamental right, to getting what is essentially intermediate scrutiny in Gonzales v. Carhart. For what it is worth I do not know of a single nation in the world were abortion is banned outright (illegal with no exceptions). In Gonzales you are talking about partial birth and health of the mother exceptions.

If you are pro-life obviously you are going to be argueing for recognition of a rather narrow set of “health of the mother” exceptions… And pro-choice folks are going to call you names and say you hate women because you don’t recognize or leave room open for condition X, Y, or Z. What kind of meanies are republicans picking on women with Fibromyalgia? (for example).

So there are literally 100′s of potential political gaffes that could come up from talking technically and honestly as a congressman about just what is and is not an acceptable medical condition. The same would be true if as a congressman one is argueing or thinking ahead along the lines of what a prosecutor/State might argue to deny an abortion. (In the particular case of Ryan and Akin, what should count as legal exception in a pro-life position.)

But if you are ever going to make the pro-life position credible this is what you are going to have to take on! (No wonder McCain and most republicans don’t want to touch it).

No one is going to take the pro-life position seriously or use it as anything but a sort of tired get out the vote, unless it has a clear idea about what sort of exceptions it is going to allow.

Basically the end game on a pro-life position looks something like Abortion is illegal…but… You can get waivers for rape, maternal life, health, and/or mental health. (In moving from fundamental right to intermediate scrutiny…to rational basis it seems highly likely that even if the Supreme Court leaves part of it up to the states, they would retain and require a sort of due process to recognize these exceptions.)

Which probably means that it ends up like a hearing in a state familly law court before a Judge or an ALJ (maybe some other administrative body, that can act quickly)… But even then…in hearings for waivers of parental consent, for minors…someone has to be the “meanie” and argue the case against…

So in the end game for abortion, some fairly liberal states might just have a check the box system(or retain something like current law)…but in all likelyhood in a state like Louisiana, under say a fairly conservative governor like Jindal… You would end up with some prosecutor argueing that the petitioner was not actually raped, or that the rape was in some fashion not a legitimate rape (in a case where it is unreported?).

The problem for the pro-life side thus from a familly law standpoint would seem to be that in the best case pro-life scenario you are looking at some sort of ugly process, where someone has to look an actual human being in the eye and make that “gaffe”!

The petitioner was not legitimately raped (they never filed a police report?), therefore I ask the state to deny the petition for a waiver permitting an abortion!

Or perhaps you just have abortion be illegal, but you hand out the waivers for rape, maternal life, health, and/or mental health, on a sort of check the box basis.

All of this depends in part on the Supreme Court and seems unlikely…but abortion being banned outright seems impossible. A good chunk of strategic democrats(not necessarily progressives), sort of want to see Roe overturned, just to put tremendous political pressure on Republicans from such a scenario…

But if these strategic democrats think being selectively “pro-life” is so good for them…perhaps it is because Republicans recognize Akin’s comments as an immediate gaffe and haven’t done any real policy thinking about what being Pro-Life would really mean in practice!

My guess is that if strategic democrats want Roe overturned, then stategic Republicans do not want it overturned! That is it is quite possible that they both see the same realism and acknowledge the Akin comment as a universal gaffe.

One problem is that you have strategic republicans and strategic democrats at every level of every issue.

“It’s hard to resist the conclusion that these consultants and operatives and “strategists” are mostly concerned with perpetuating the party and the movement for the purpose of keeping the gravy train running to themselves.”

A good chunk of them are, and they think it makes them authentic conservatives. After all it seems selfish, and it maintains the status quo! If they were less selfish and wanted change, wouldn’t that make them progressives?