[extropy-chat] No Joy in Mudville

[Kevin Freels]

Nice analysis. I am one of those pro-choice, atheist, libertarian
republicans. :-)
I am surprised you didn;t mention that the democratic party likes to pass
anti-gun laws, hate speech laws, stealing private property for environmental
reasons, and rediculous requirements on business owners such as laws to
prohibit smoking in restaraunts and handicap access to stripper stages.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "J. Andrew Rogers" <andrew at ceruleansystems.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 3:08 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] No Joy in Mudville


>
> On Nov 5, 2004, at 12:06 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote:
> > Let's just start with ... er, Republicans (all generally speaking here)
> > support a woman's right to choose?
>
>
> Yes.  It has been dropped as a real platform for a reason -- there was
> no consensus within the party.  I do not personally know any
> Republicans that are not pro-choice, and I know quite a few
> Republicans.
>
>
> > Republicans led the marches for civil
> > rights, gay rights and women's rights?
>
>
> You may want to read some history.  The Democrats were on the wrong
> side of a great many civil rights issues.  They've only claimed many of
> them after the fact.  The Deep South has been pretty much 100% Democrat
> for more than a century up until the last few years and one of its core
> constituencies.  Any faults regarding civil rights you see evident in
> or would paint on the Southern culture throughout history you'll have
> to paint on the Democratic party.  Which includes race, gender, and
> sexual orientation discrimination.
>
>
> > Republicans want to support stem
> > cell research?   Republicans want the separation of church and state?
>
>
> Yes, and yes.  Your analysis has been shallow.
>
> The Republicans are a coalition of two major factions, a libertarian
> faction and a religious conservative faction.  They have competing
> motivations but they've learned to get along.  They originally formed a
> coalition to deal with the Democratic party back when they were a
> juggernaut for most of the 20th century.
>
> The religious conservative faction objects to stem cell research on
> moral grounds.  The libertarian faction likes the research but objects
> to the Federal government funding it, particularly since there is no
> real shortage of private funding for it.  The obvious policy compromise
> is to reduce or eliminate Federal funding of the research.  The
> libertarian faction has long kept the religious faction in check with
> respect to the separation of church and state.  I am not a Republican
> but I am an atheist, and I've never felt threatened by the bogeyman of
> the "religious right" in a legal sense.  The Republican party has no
> designs toward establishing a state religion nor would the libertarian
> faction allow anything vaguely resembling that.  And if the militant
> atheists in some Democrat factions would stop going out of their way to
> antagonize the religious Republicans (and yes, this does happen), this
> would largely dissipate as an issue.
>
> You need to learn to look at Republican policy from this perspective.
> Little gets done that does not pass the filter of both the libertarians
> and religious conservatives.  This means that compromises usually only
> include things that both factions can agree on from an ideological
> standpoint.  A few bones get thrown and occasionally there are very
> heated discussions within the party, but nothing really gets out of
> control.
>
>
> There are many, many pro-choice, atheist, gay-friendly Republicans,
> primarily because the Republicans only rarely step on the toes of these
> quasi-libertarian folks and vice-versa.  Why do you think it is that
> drug legalization has occurred primarily in western Republican states
> rather than Democrat ones?  The different factions have different
> proportional strengths in different parts of the country.  Your view of
> Republicans is a highly biased caricature.
>
>
> > And - horror of horrors - do you *really* want to see what a
> > conservative
> > Supreme Court?
>
>
> Right now, I would settle for a non-activist court.  The liberal courts
> have an egregious record in this regard (in evidence in the circuit
> courts and some State supreme courts), and to a greater extent than
> conservative courts generally.  This is something I follow pretty
> closely, and the track records are not even close to similar in this
> respect.  Knowing nothing else, I would choose a conservative court
> over a liberal court, only because conservative courts have a better
> track record of interpreting various constitutions in a reasonable and
> consistent fashion.  That would be playing the odds.
>
> The push for more conservative courts and constitutional amendments
> rather than legislation is a backlash against what is rightly perceived
> as excessive and extra-constitutional legislation from liberal activist
> courts.  I only hope that the conservative courts do not escalate the
> situation by responding in kind.
>
> cheers,
>
> j. andrew rogers
>
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