Tag Archives: Fiscal Conservatism

Videos

MUST-SEE: Michele Bachmann’s passionate and inspiring speech at CPAC 2010

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OH MY. You really, really, really need to watch this speech.

Part 1:

Topics: The “Miss Me Yet” billboard in MN, her son persuades a liberal to be a conservative, grass roots conservative activism in ND, the importance of liberty, Obama’s anti-americanism, bailout mania, federal spending.

Part 2:

Topics: The national debt, nationalization of industry, public/private economy, socialism, inflation, Greece, “fantasy economics”, FDR and the forgotten man, small business, the Constitution, the vision of America, private property.

Part 3:

Topics: The revolutionary war, self-government, American history, the story of America, self-sacrifice, American exceptionalism.

This is great. What I like about Bachmann more than anything else is that she comes across as totally unguarded and genuine. And when you put her in front of a room of conservatives, she just does it even better. This speech is TWICE as good as Marco Rubio’s speech that I posted before. And it’s well-delivered, too.

UPDATE: Muddling Towards Maturity likes the George Will CPAC speech.

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Commentary

Rick Santorum explains why socialism is hostile to the family

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Story here at the Ruth Institute blog.

Excerpt:

Both the family and the Church stand in the way of socialism’s triumph, former US Senator Rick Santorum told Christians gathered for the 17th International Week of Prayer and Fasting last week. The pro-life champion warned attendees, however, that both institutions are under heavy attack from Obama-administration policies.

“We are under a great assault with this President and this Congress on the issue of life. We are under a great assault, maybe even greater assault, on the foundational issue of the family,” Santorum told those gathered for the October 11 dinner at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.

And more specifically:

Santorum argued that Obama’s reforms will transform health-care into “an account in the federal government” in which “accountants” or Congress will determine how much healthcare an individual gets “as part of our budgetary process.”

Once the health-care of individuals is totally dependent on the central government, the left has secured power, Santorum explained.

[…]The Netherlands, “the most liberal country in Europe” today, Santorum said, is the only country that “did not go along with the Nazi doctors in doing sterilizations and abortions” and suffered persecution for it.

“And yet, within two generations, as a result of socialized medicine and the government’s attempt to contain costs, doctors were turned into accountants,” said Santorum.

Now in the name of cutting costs, Dutch doctors counsel assisted suicide, deny care to premature-born babies under 25 weeks, and euthanize children born disabled.

“This is the custom and the practice in socialized medicine countries, who have limits on budgets. It is simply too expensive to do it any other way,” reiterated Santorum.

Read the rest here.

Social conservatives, repeat after me: SMALL GOVERNMENT IS GOOD. Do it yourself – don’t hand your money to a bunch of secular ideologues and then hope they will take care of you. They will use that money to take care of themselves.

Commentary

Can a social conservative support social safety net programs?

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The full text is available in a PDF here. (H/T Stephen Baskerville)

I highly recommend this essay to social conservatives who do not yet understand why limiting the size of government is vital to preserving the autonomy of the family.

Every social conservative should be in favor of limited government, even in fiscal matters, not just on social issues. In my view, any social conservative who wants the government to tax “the rich” or big corporations is in reality undermining social conservatism.

The more money is taken from individuals, families and corporations, who have no political power to influence your family, and given to secular-left government bureaucrats who cater to left-wing special interest groups, the more the family is endangered.

Excerpt:

State controlled programs today in developed countries, almost universally, are polyamorous-friendly and monogamy-hostile. This is unjust from every perspective of political analysis because those who choose monogamy are, generally, the most effective, the cheapest and the safest in raising the next generation.

But they are unjust mainly because it is a universal, inalienable right of parents to raise their children as they see fit, including raising them in their culture.

Further, the social welfare state asks the monogamous to support the polyamorous, and uses the universal safety net insurance scheme (or taxes) to ensure that the monogamous pay more to support those who choose the polyamory culture. This is plainly unjust, but even more so because the monogamous do not have their own culture-friendly programs and their own children are the target of the culture of polyamory’s “Janissary” scheme. Justice will increase and tensions decrease when that culture of polyamory begins to pay its own costs.

One way to progress in this direction and to make the behavioral bureaucracy to serve both cultures is to give all parents, parents of both cultures, and control over the program money set aside for their children. That is giving parents vouchers, in one form or another for all three program areas

The social welfare safety net will still be in place but the parents (be they monogamous or polyamorous) will choose who holds the net in place for their children.

This requires a huge political effort on the part of the monogamy culture. Diverting the flow of money from the special interest groups (organized doctors, teachers, schools) and instead directing the voucher money (cost per child served) to the parent– who can then choose the individual doctor, teacher or school they want. The professionals will still receive the same amount of money. But instead of serving a bureaucracy they will be cooperating with the parents. But such a change is a big one in the political order and the culture of monogamy must harness itself to the task.

The whole thing is worth reading.