Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

Today, if Republicans had learned the right lessons from the Westerns, or at least John Ford Westerns, they would not be the party of untrammeled freedom and maximum individual choice. They would once again be the party of community and civic order.

They would begin every day by reminding themselves of the concrete ways people build orderly neighborhoods, and how those neighborhoods bind a nation. They would ask: What threatens Americans' efforts to build orderly places to raise their kids? The answers would produce an agenda: the disruption caused by a boom and bust economy; the fragility of the American family; the explosion of public and private debt; the wild swings in energy costs; the fraying of the health care system; the segmentation of society and the way the ladders of social mobility seem to be dissolving.

But the Republican Party has mis-learned that history. The party sometimes seems cut off from the concrete relationships of neighborhood life. Republicans are so much the party of individualism and freedom these days that they are no longer the party of community and order. This puts them out of touch with the young, who are exceptionally community-oriented. It gives them nothing to say to the lower middle class, who fear that capitalism has gone haywire. It gives them little to say to the upper middle class, who are interested in the environment and other common concerns.

-- DAVID BROOKS

I agree with this, to a point, but David leaves unaddressed how the Republicans are not the party of freedom and individualism on sexual morality (specifically on abortion and same-sex marriage), but the Democrats are. As Wendell Berry explains, especially in Sex, the Economy, Freedom & Community, you cannot have community without order, and you cannot have a workable order as long as both economic and sexual decisions are wholly privatized -- that is, as long as they are considered only a matter of consequence between the parties making those decisions. Because in reality, they aren't: the entire community, one way or another, has to bear the burden of those decisions.

So: David is right in that the Democrats seem to speak more the language of civic order and commitment today. But I don't see either party being willing to connect the dots that Wendell Berry, among others, has connected.

-- ROD DREHER

A large part of the secret of President Obama's political success is his self-presentation as calm, judicious, and fair-minded -- and his ability to depict his opponents as intemperate and extreme. You'd think by now that Obama's opponents would have figured out this trick. You want to beat him? Great. Be more calm, more judicious, and more fair-minded. Don't be provoked. Don't throw wild allegations. Don't boycott. Don't lose your temper.

Instead, we get Anger Theater. It's not smart. And it's not working.

-- DAVID FRUM

To win back the trust of the American people, we must be a "big tent" party. But big tents need strong poles, and the strongest pole of our party -- the organizing principle and the crucial alternative to the Democrats -- must be freedom. The federal government is too big, takes too much of our money, and makes too many of our decisions. If Republicans can't agree on that, elections are the least of our problems.

-- JIM DeMINT

Do you even think he realizes how "government makes too many of our decisions" and "social policies should be set through a democratic process" are the complete, utter, opposites of each other? It ain't unelected judges who brought us Social Security, Medicare, and the various other "tax and spend" policies DeMint decries. We got those through the democratic process.

-- DAVID SCHRAUB

Would a center-right equivalent of the neoliberals call for reform of the warfare state as the neoliberals did with the welfare state? After all, it is the foreign policy and national security elements of center-right policy thinking that are some of the most calcified, reflexive and tied to entrenched interests. They are also among the least popular in large swathes of the country–the same swathes where Republicans are dwindling in number. There is a growing number of domestic policy reform thinkers on the right, but to the extent that there are any who are interested in significantly changing and reducing the size of the warfare state it is typical that they are libertarians or hard-right conservatives, the very opposite of the supposedly reasonable and appealing "centrist." The present "centrists" are the ones most wedded to the status quo on the size and use of the military and the U.S. role in the world. We certainly need a better sort of "centrist," assuming such a thing is possible.

-- DANIEL LARISON

[T]he death of former Congressman and 1996 vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp has reminded some conservatives that the GOP used to be a party that featured a much bigger tent, welcoming politicians like Kemp into the fold despite large disagreements on fundamental issues. During his political career, Kemp broke with the conservative base on "red-lining" by banks (discriminating against minorities in their lending practices), poverty programs, and, most notably, immigration reform. He was proud of his association with more moderate Republicans like Pete DuPont and counted many Democrats among his friends.

To say that Kemp would have been drummed out of the conservative movement today for his support for illegal alien amnesty is self-evident. But here was a politician who helped turn Ronald Reagan’s ideas into policy, someone who probably agreed with the conservative base 90% of the time. How can any party or movement that seeks majority status so blithely dismiss conservatives like Kemp and refuse them a seat at the table?

-- RICK MORAN

Margaret, I just don’t get it. We’re in a global economic crisis, America ’s fighting two wars, there’s genocide in Darfur, AIDS running rampant, and a pretty good shot that we could all be killed by bird flu or swine flu or some other animal flu in a year or two. And yet, the conservatives out there want to talk about gay marriage with Miss California. Silly me. I assumed it would have been Miss Arkansas.

Really?

So the Republican party has another washed up beauty queen as its spokesperson. I guess we can all look forward to a Palin-Prejean ticket in 2012. Lord help us. I mean it. Really.

-- HELEN PHILPOT