A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on January 31st, 2008 in Campaign News

I was just watching the replay of last night’s CNN Republican Presidential debate. I heard enough to figure out what was bothering me and flipped over to MSNBC. I mean - isn’t there any news from today?

The problem is that you have a bunch of people trying to “out-conservative” each other and they really have no idea what conservative ideology is. For example, take this little exchange, where Mitt Romney attacks John McCain’s conservative credentials:

JANET HOOK, LOS ANGELES TIMES: Governor Romney, you’ve spent the last several days warning voters that John McCain as president would follow, quote, “a liberal, Democratic course.” But, by most measures, doesn’t he have a pretty mainstream conservative record?

ROMNEY: I’m sure on many issues he does, and he’s a good Republican. I wouldn’t question those credentials at all. But there are a number of pieces of legislation where his views are out of the mainstream, at least in my view, of conservative Republican thought.

So, for instance, he’s opposed to drilling in ANWR, I believe. If I’m correct — correct me, Senator. He voted twice against the Bush tax cuts. Only two Republicans did that.

He is a co-author of McCain-Feingold, which I think took a whack at the First Amendment and I do believe, as well, hurt our party pretty significantly. And I think it’s made money have an even greater influence in politics today, not less influence.

He also was one of the co-authors of McCain-Kennedy, the first bill, by the way, not that bad. About 5 percent or 10 percent of the people, by our calculation, got a form of amnesty. Most people went home.

Under the final version of McCain-Kennedy, everybody who was here illegally, other than those who committed crimes, was eligible to receive a Z-visa. For $3,000, they got to stay here for the rest of their life. That’s not a Republican thought.

And then now McCain-Lieberman, which is a unilateral — meaning U.S.-only imposed — cap-and-trade program, which puts a burden, as much as 50 cents a gallon, on gasoline in this country. It basically says Americans are going to pay for the cost of global warming, not the Chinese and Indians and forth.

So those views are outside the mainstream of Republican conservative thought. And I guess I’d also note that, if you get endorsed by the New York Times, you’re probably not a conservative.

Here’s the issues he picks: 1) ANWR; 2) Tax cuts; 3) McCain-Feingold; 4) Immigration; 5) global warming/international competition. The fact that he jumps on these shows that he doesn’t know conservative ideology. The fact McCain can’t pin him to the mat shows he doesn’t either.

1 - Drilling for oil in ANWR is two issues, rolled into one. The first is conservation of a fragile ecosystem. The second is the false argument of energy independence.
1a. Conservation of an ecosystem - Conservative faith in a free market could be used to make ANWR off-limits for drilling. How? Simply force exploration companies to incorporate all external costs into the royalties they pay the government. Tell - let’s pretend it’s Exxon - “You want to drill? Fine. First, you are going to pay the United States government 95% of the profit earned on any oil that is produced, either at the time it is produced or when it is actually sold, whichever is higher. It’s our oil. It represents a theft of resources from future generations. You can either get by on 5% of market value or leave it alone. It forces the company to pay for damage done to the environment locally and across state and national borders.” There is nothing in conservative ideology that says multi-billion dollar businesses should be awarded conssessionary terms for our finite natural resources.
1b. Energy independence - it’s a myth. It isn’t going to happen. Not only that, but there is no reason why we should suddenly turn on our trading partners, Canada and Mexico. The idea that we are supporting terrorists abroad by importing oil may be true, but let’s identify which countries we are talking about and ban imports from them. There is no reason why we should punish faithful trading partners in order to snipe at a few less faithful suppliers.

2 - tax cuts - I know a lot of people think that conservative ideology demands tax cut after tax cut. It doesn’t. Barry Goldwater and Robert Taft before him spent more time worrying about the deficit than they did about high taxes. If you want to understand why, listen to Ron Paul. Not only did Ronald Reagan raises taxes as President, he did it as Governor as well. What Taft and Goldwater understood - and what Paul understands now - is that there is no difference between a higher tax today with no deficit and a lower tax today with a high deficit. Government must pay for what it spends, either today or tomorrow, and that means it has to tax someone somewhere. Quit fixating on tax cuts and try to wrap your head around matching spending obligations with taxing responsibilities. If you’re goin to cut, say where and when and how. Otherwise, you’re just pandering.

3 - McCain-Feingold - The idea that banning massive infusions of cash into federal elections somehow interferes with anyone’s right of free speech is stupid. The fact that you have to purchase airtime on television stations that are regulated as inter-state commerce over airwaves that are owned by the public and held in trust for licensing by the federal government should be proof enough that we are not talking about FREE anything. There is no inherent right to buy an election. Saying anything similar to that is an affront to democracy. It is not anti-conservative to defend democracy and ensure free and fair elections. Romney claims his party was hurt by McCain-Feingold - so what does that tell you about the function of their party? Held in trust by corporate America, maybe?

4 - Immigration - Americans want their children to go to school, learn a trade or profession, and get a high paying job that will let them do a bit better than their parents. So who can we depend on to do the low-paying service jobs? The immigrants who are drawn here - not necessarily by the promise of freedom - but by the ability to enrich themselves through hard work. The immigrants story is the living embodiment of conservative values - pulling one’s self up by the boot straps. If work is to be honored, it has to be honored with action, not with lip-service.

5a - Global warming - America should lead the way because America is strong enough to lead the way. Investing in green technology and pushing for green industries creates high-paying jobs right here in America that cannot be outsourced. McCain has his best line in defense of this - “If I’m wrong, then we’ll just pass along a cleaner planet. If I’m right, then we’re doing the right thing.” (or something to that effect)

5b - International competition - We shouldn’t be trying to build the American economy by taking advantage of poor people in India, Micronesia, or other developing areas. Any company that wants access to the American economy should be willing to pay their fair share to make sure American workers are affluent enough to afford the products offered. That means they should be penalized for raping the American economy by moving their headquarters to Bermuda to escape taxation. They should also pay their fair share of taxes because business depends on functional government to provide roads, ensure a predictable and fair system of laws are enforced equitably, and to ensure that workers and consumers have full access to the market-place. Import taxes used to enforce those very conservative, rule-of-law ideas. Those principles have been abandoned by those who would reduce “conservative” to “profiteer”.

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