Yesterday Melissa Clouthier, whom many of you know as @MelissaTweets on Twitter, wrote a post about the “needless division between social cons and fiscal cons.” Clouthier believes that the 60 additional GOP congressmen and six additional GOP senators are already finding areas within the Republican agenda to disagree with rather than coming together to fight against liberals and progressives. Clouthier points to an open letter released Monday in which GOProud and some Tea Party leaders called for Republicans to focus only on fiscal issues and leave the social issues at home for another day.
Clouthier proposes the question, “Does this mean that the majority of Republicans or even Independents no longer care about social issues like abortion and gay marriage?” She says no. But she goes on to list several reasons why many do not want social issues at the forefront of any discussion in Congress at the moment.
She lists the following, and I respond to each:
1) “If the country goes belly up, the social issues become moot.”
This just doesn’t make any sense. I’m not quite sure why someone would believe that social issues are no longer important just because there are economic hardships. We can look back to many times in our country’s history in which social issues were still fundamentally important even in times of strife or struggle. Consider the foundations of our country. When Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, his focus was to establish liberty and freedom from the tyranny of the British Empire. And yet one of Jefferson’s main struggles in writing the document was the social issue of slavery.
2) “Social issues serve to divide in a time when the American populace needs to be united against an overreaching government.”
This is true…well, the back bit is. The current administration and Congress are overreaching. The government is spending more money than it takes in, taking on responsibilities it was never intended to take on, and spending tax money on programs that it was never empowered to create.
We know that the government is overreaching because the creator of the Constitution, James Madison, stated, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
However, at the same time the Obama administration has pushed back against social issues as well. The administration has financially supported abortion in foreign countries, has encouraged the gay agenda, has fought against traditional moral values, and has spit in the face of the fact that our country was very much founded as a Christian nation. Part of the very definition of conservative-libertarianism (which Clouthier claims as her ideology, as do I) is that the individual who holds that ideology is an individual who finds that there is tension between liberty and morality. The very nature of the conservatism within conservative-libertarianism is to maintain a strong belief in traditional moral and family values.
I hold that an individual who is willing to throw away part of her ideology to fight for another part of her ideology never held true to the first part to begin with. You cannot simply put on speckled glasses and focus on one sector in which the Obama administration and current Congress have been detrimental. The administration and outgoing Congress have rendered havoc in both fiscal and social arenas. Why in the world would we as conservatives allow our fundamental principles and beliefs to be trampled on for the sake of money? In the end, that is exactly what we are doing. I will not apologize for the statement and belief that moral social values are the bedrock of society. I have no desire to be fiscally rich and morally bankrupt.
3) “Limiting the government necessarily also means stopping the funding to egregious socially repugnant issues.”
Clouthier’s third point is abstract. She isn’t wrong but she isn’t right either. You can limit the funding of “egregious socially repugnant issues” (by the way, I love your phrasing of that, Melissa!). However, not all social issues are social programs, just like not all social programs have anything to do with social issues. So limiting or stopping funding for certain programs is not the end-all, be-all solution for social issues.
Her example of Gov. Christie’s defunding abortion clinics in New Jersey as solely a fiscal policy solution just doesn’t work either. You can paint a white horse black but that still doesn’t make it a black horse. Christie is dealing with social issues. Just because he dealt with abortion by rescinding funding does not mean that he has not dealt with the issue.
Now, don’t get me wrong; Melissa Clouthier is a fine conservative-libertarian. But I think that she missed the boat on this one. I did not send my representatives to Washington to have my ideology represented in part. I want my representatives to be debating and discussing the issues, all the issues. I want them debating social issues. There is nothing wrong with debate and discourse. Additionally, there is no reason to believe that debating social issues will prevent a conservative representative or senator from carrying out their due diligence when it comes to fiscal issues. There is no evidence, especially considering that none of these rookies have even taken a step into the halls of Congress, that they will not be able to deal with social issues and deal with fiscal issues at the same time.
Finally, someone please explain to me when we would get back to social issues if we put them on hold? Who decides when the economy is back on track? How strong would it have to be? And who would decide what is strong? Who is the almighty and ubiquitous voice we trust to say, “Okay everyone, we have now won the fiscal battle in Washington. It’s now okay to start discussing and defending social issues.” The idea is ridiculous. Getting fiscal issues “right” in D.C. could be a 20-year battle, conservative majority or not. And who decides what “right” is? Let’s also bear in mind that conservatives don’t totally agree on how to get fiscal problems solved either.
Fiscal issues are “how issues” and how issues will always exist and those problems will always need to be solved. Social issues are “why issues” and why issues will always be questioned and debated. You cannot put social issues on hold in the legislature any more than you can put fiscal issues on hold.
Originally posted at thelobbyist.net.
Nick R. Brown is the founder of the political commentary site thelobbyist.net, and director of the candidate evaluation site ConservativeCongress.com.