What I would do about Sotomayor

Author: Rory B. Bellows

Nothing. I’d knock her around for the line about the Court of Appeals is where policy is made. I’d ask the usual questions about judicial activism, but I don’t think the GOP should go overboard. I do not say this out of squishy fears about offending latinos or playing into identity politics. I say this is the tact the GOP should take for the simple fact that of all the people Chairman Obama could have picked, he made an average selection.

Look, Sotomayor is not going ot re-invent the wheel legal theory. She is not going to make intellectual hefty arguments that could sway Justice Kennedy on one of those 5-4 cases. She is what she is. She’ll sit there, take up space and vote the way the editorial page of the New York Times tells her to vote. Conservatives should hope this nomination goes through or else Chairman Obama could actually appoint someone competent.

New Jersey still hates Jon Corzine

Author: Rory B. Bellows

Even the Daily Kos is showing that New Jerseyans are fed up with Jon the Taxer. In the left wing websites latest poll Corzine has the upside down rating of 36% approve and 56% disapprove.

More interesting to Republican primary voters, yet another poll shows Steve Lonegan leading Corzine. This poll shows Lonegan up 43-40%. Chris Christie also leads Corzine 46-37%. Do not believe there is only one Republican who can win this race.

Chris Christie is a whiner

Author: Rory B. Bellows

We can enever can get specifics out of Chris Chrisitie because he is too busy saying he will have to look at the mess Jon Corzine has left us. Wow. What leadership. The only bigger baby in politics is Barack Obama who I believe even blamed George Bush for the fact that Jake Peavy turned down the trade to his beloved White Sox. It’s pathetic when Obama spends day after day blaming all of his mistakes on W and it’s really cheap for Christie to have to avoid saying anything about anything by blaming Corzine. He wants to run the Thomas Dewey “Our future is ahead of us” campaign and he’s faced with a primary opponent, Steve Lonegan, who has offered concrete proposals as to how he will dismantle the levithian that is New Jersey’s government. I understand Christie is sitting in a strong position, but if you are running as the man of action in the US Attorney’s office then you cannot have your campaign be about nothing. It’s unseemly when politicians parade around blaming everything on their predocessors. No one put a gun to your head and made you take the job. This is a position you wanted. If we are going to get the same old crap sandwich for the next four years, why bother?

New Jersey G.O.P. Shows Same Moves in the Ring

Author: Aaron

I know most of the people that read this blog hate the New York Times.  I am not one of them, in fact if you get passed some of the liberal propaganda in the paper, it is actually quite great.  I think this article in yesterday’s Times portrays New Jersey’s Republicans very well.  It is an extremely funny piece by Peter Applebome, and I highly recommend everyone take some time to read it.

“True, the site was the Steve Malzberg conservative talk radio show Wednesday afternoon on WOR, not WrestleMania XXV. But, as the June 2 primary approaches, it’s hard not to see New Jersey politics as more and more like professional wrestling, only with guys you really, really don’t want to see in spandex tights or black unitards.

The performers all play familiar, tightly scripted roles: the fire-breathing conservative, the electable Republican moderate, the Democratic heavyweight. The elections play out in predictable cycles, first in the right versus right-center Republican undercard and then in the main bout in November. And upsets happen with the frequency of the Undertaker delivering a Tombstone Piledriver to a semiconscious opponent and not winning a match.

Aside from Bret D. Schundler, an unconventional conservative who was the Republican nominee for governor in 2001, the establishment moderate always seems to win the Republican primary. And their reward has been losing every statewide race since Christie Whitman was elected governor in 1997. New Jersey hasn’t elected a Republican senator since Clifford Case in 1972.

One could argue that circumstances this year are particularly propitious for a different script. It would, in fact, be true. One could also argue that Rey Mysterio, hit on the head with a chair and lying half dead in the ring, can’t possibly get off the mat until, wow, he stirs and miraculously recovers.

Even Steven M. Lonegan, the former mayor of Bogota, and this year’s conservative standard-bearer, concedes the story line has been déjà vu all over again, with the Republican establishment candidate running right in the primary, winning the nomination, then tacking back to the left in the general election and losing.

“It’s the same show over and over again, and over and over again the Republicans have lost,” he said. “And the worst thing is that we haven’t done anything policywise to turn New Jersey around and make it an economic power again. It’s been an utter failure on the part of the party.”

Mr. Lonegan, who played the same role in 2005, has appealed to the Republican base with conservative staples (anti-abortion, anti gay marriage, cracking down on illegal immigration, solving the fiscal mess in Trenton), combined with a centerpiece issue of a flat tax and calls for radical downsizing of state government.

It got enough traction with Republican primary voters that Christopher J. Christie, the former United States attorney for New Jersey, who seemed inclined to dispense with the preliminary act, was forced to re-engage, establish his own conservative bona fides and run ads taking on Mr. Lonegan. Polls now show Mr. Christie with a lead of around 20 percentage points, but some say the race is tighter than that.

THE primary reason for thinking the main bout could be different, of course, is that polls indicate Mr. Corzine is in worse shape than Mickey Rourke’s character in “The Wrestler.” Amid a widespread sense that New Jersey government is hopelessly broken, and crushing property tax bills, Mr. Corzine, with approval ratings hovering around 40 percent, defines an incumbent in danger of losing his job. If Mr. Christie wins the Republican nomination, his image as a corruption-busting prosecutor won’t hurt, either.

But Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said it’s still the same story line, with voters needing more than a compelling personal story to elect a Republican.

“What voters really respond to is the level of specificity that gives them a way to hold someone accountable, and Chris Christie is avoiding like the plague making any such statement about any issue, and I think that’s going to hurt him when this becomes a race of attacks back and forth on personal levels, which it will,” Mr. Murray said. “He has nothing to fall back on.”

And, given the off year, with only a smattering of major races including Virginia governor, New York City mayor and New Jersey governor, the national Democrats — starting with Barack Obama — can do a lot more to help Mr. Corzine than the national Republicans (Newt Gingrich? Dick Cheney? Sarah Palin?) could do for Mr. Christie.

Nothing is forever, and maybe this will be the year the New Jersey Republicans manage not to lose. Given the state’s horrific fiscal mess, it would be a novel idea if the main event came down to who has the best ideas for solving it, starting with property taxes. But that’s probably a story line too outlandish for anyone to believe.”

New York Times Link

Romney’s Endorsement of Christie May be the End of the Lonegan Campaign

Author: Aaron

Chris Christie received another big boost today when former Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney endorsed him in Haddonfield.  While Christie’s conservative character has been questioned by those on the far right, the endorsement of a prominent conservative and front runner for the Republican Nomination for President in 2012 should quell some of those skeptics.

While I am an ardent Lonegan supporter, I have a deep respect for the job Chris Christie has done as attorney general, and will support the candidate if he beats Steve Lonegan in the primary. As the June 2nd primary gets closer, it seems as if the Lonegan campaign is fading into the night, and that the Chris Christie train is way ahead of the game.  While I believe that Lonegan is the stronger conservative choice for New Jersey, something has to be said for the string of conservative endorsements that have gone the way of Christie.  The Lonegan campaign is having a very hard time painting Chris Christie as the the moderate of the race, while he is picking up every major conservative endorsement in the nation.

Lonegan’s endorsements do not stack up with Christie’s, neither does hisi rhetoric.  While Christie was busy being endorsed by Mitt Romney, a prominent national figure; Steve Lonegan pickd up the endorsement of the Minutemen.  The group of angry Americans “protecting” our border, from the “scary” illegal immigrant.  Please Lonegan, how can the State Party take you seriously when you blast the institution, try to portray Chris Christie as an abject failure, and then pick up endorsement from Joe the Plumber and the Minutemen?  While you did pick up the support of Congressman Ron Paul, he did not do you the favor of showing up at a rally or a fundraiser for you.  He simply sent out an e-mail to his following in New Jersey delivering his “support”.

It is a shame that Lonegan has a terrible campaign team that cannot set the record straight with New Jerseyians.  It is terrible that his campaign decided to turn his actual accomplishments and beliefs into complete jokes for the rest of the moderate Republicans to laugh about.  New Jersey needed a conservative voice and Lonegan was that individual, unfortunately his campaign butchered his image, made him look like an angry politician, and put the endorsements of the Minutemen and Joe Wurzelbacher on their pedestal of fame.  Sorry guys, but the Minutemen are crazy, flat out.  Want to protect America’s border? Join the border patrol, don’t prance around the sun-belt toting guns and confederate flags.  The reason why the Republican Party is in jeopardy is because of trash like you. Please stay away from the Republican Party, because you don’t help us, you hurt us.

Joe the Plumber, look you were able to get something out of Barack Obama that no other politician or talk show host could.  Good for you.  But please, leave the Republican Party and conservatives alone, your endorsement is not a plus for any campaign.  In fact it shows a lack of credibility within a campaign, similar to the way an endorsement by an organization like the John Birch Society would show.

New Jersey, had a chance with Steve Lonegan but blew it. Now with less than a week until the Primary, we must hold our breaths and hope that he could pull out a miraculous win.  If Lonegan by some miracle wins, he should fire his entire campaign team and start from scratch.  And if Christie wins, we must all back him with everything we got.  It is not merely individuals that we elect but ideas.  Christie believes in the vast majority of basic conservative principles, and if he wins we must help him defeat Jon Corzine in November.

Obama targets Chrysler dealers that were GOP contributers

Author: Rory B. Bellows

And this is why we don’t want the government in bed with private enterprise. So far, all the Chrysler dealers, save one, contributed to Republicans during the 2008 election cycle. Included in these closings was a dealership owned by a GOP Congressmen and the shutting down of dealerships that are competitors to former Bill Clinton Chief of Staff Mack McLarty.

Welcome to Chairman Obama’s America.

Get Your Corzine Times Fix

Author: Aaron

The Republican Governors Association has re-launched the Corzine Times.  An online “newspaper” that will keep New Jersey, and the rest of the Nation up on happening of our failure of a governor, Jon Corzine.

Republican Outreach

Author: Aaron

Rory, I couldn’t agree with you more. The Republican Party has had a PR problem of late, but a candidate like Marco Rubio could transform the Party. Similar to the way Barack Obama took the Democrats by storm in 2004, Marco Rubio has the charisma, character, and conservative principles to lead the Republican Party. It is a complete and utter sham that the NRSCC came out in support of Charlie Crist. Crist represents more of the John McCain’s of the Republican Party, not the new leadership that we so desperately need.

Republicans in the Senate have declared time and time again, that we lost the election in 2008 due to a lack of standing for principles. They have said time and time again that the only way to appeal the masses in the United States is to return to those conservative principles. The NRSCC endorsing Crist over Rubio shows more of the same. The same failed policy that eventually led to our embarrassing defeat last November, and a policy that will undoubtedly be a loser on 2010 and 2012.

A return to Conservative principles is vital to Republican success. However principles alone will not grant us victory, while we were all quick to bash the celebrity like persona of Barack Obama, the Republican Party needs a candidate that can appeal to the public the way Barack Obama did. We need a candidate with charisma, we need a candidate with people skills, that is young and appeals to all voters. The Republican Party is quick to reference Ronald Reagan, as a true conservative. We say time and time again that Reagan Democrats have to be lured back to the Republican Party in order to win again. However, Reagan Democrats didn’t just like Reagan because of his Conservative politics. They liked him because he appealed to their belief system and way of life.

Reagan didn’t dismiss everything Democrats said, heck he had to deal with a democrat controlled House his entire 8 years in office and had to deal with liberals like Tip O’Neill. Yet Reagan still managed to have his legislation passed, we need someone with great communication skills, but most of all we need Republican Outreach.

Ronald Reagan was the “Great Communicator” because he appealed to all sorts of Americans. In fact, Reagan may have been the most successful outreach politician in the History of the United States. If the Republican Party wants to emulate Reagan, start with outreach. Start with bringing in the Hispanic, black and gay vote. In 2004, the Hispanic vote carried then President Bush to re-election. While he only garnered 45% of the Hispanic vote, that was a 10-point increase than the votes he received in 2000, and represented 1.2% of the entire popular vote. However McCain returned to 2000 numbers and lost the Hispanic vote 67%-31%, not only losing those millions of voted, but giving them to Obama in his stead. If the Republicans want to return to dominance we need to bring that support back to our base.

The Republican Party should not stop at the Hispanic vote, rather they should begin outreach to the black population as well. Historically, Republicans and the Black Community share a common ground on civil rights and social conservatism. While fiscally the two may grow further apart, outreach has to start somewhere, and if we want any support from the black community we must garner at least 25% of the black vote. The Black vote, as we saw in 2004 can change an election, both statewide and nationwide. In California critics claim that the Black Vote single handedly defeated proposition 8, while nationally they helped elect Barack Obama to the Presidency.

The Gay vote is another demographic that the Republican Party should embrace, not distance itself from. While once again we may not agree on every issue, outreach is about drawing a group of people in, not pushing them away. While socially the Republican Party may disagree, fiscally Gay Americans could be as conservative as Barry Goldwater. However without the proper outreach and acceptance of Gay Americans in the Republican Party, we may never discover that potential.

The Republican Party has a serious outreach problem, however just as conservative principles do not agree entirely with the gay vote, or black vote, keep in mind that neither do all liberal policies. The difference is that the democrats have embraced these minority voters because they give leeway on some issues. Ronald Reagan, widely considered one of the most conservative, and definitely most beloved President of our generation did the same. We are quick to forget that the federal government expanded on Reagan’s watch. The conservative desire to outlaw abortion was never seriously pursued. Reagan broke with the hardliners in his administration and compromised with the Soviets on arms control. His assault on entitlements never materialized; instead he saved Social Security in 1983. And he repeatedly ignored the fundamental conservative dogma that taxes should never be raised.

Reagan was so successful because he brought everyone in. He didn’t determine who could and could not participate in Republican politics, he was great at PR, and due to his mastery in communication, conservative principles were more easily implemented.

Republicans are doing themselves a disfavor by not endorsing politicians like Marco Rubio. Rubio encompasses a Reagan like persona that we have not seen since Ronald Reagan and may never see again. He is conservative, principled and most of all appeals to all voters, because in the eyes of Marco Rubio every person is important, and that mentality is exactly what the Republican Party needs.

A great idea for GOP Hispanic outreach

Author: Rory B. Bellows

Instead of holding fire on Sotomayor, I think they should for other reasons and I will get into them in my next post, to try to reach out to Hispanic voters, why does the GOP not do the simple thing of support Hispanic candidates?

Down in Florida there is a contested primary to fill the seat of retiring GOP’er Mel Martinez. The first candidate in the race was Former Florida Speaker of the House Marco Rubio. Rubio is a 37 year-old, talk the talk and walk the walk, conservative Cuban. All the enlightened chattering classes say the GOP needs to appeal to younger and Hispanic voters. The GOP has a dynamic, young, Hispanic candidate in a state where you can run as a real conservative and win, so what do they do? The National Republican Senate Campaign Committee endorses liberal Republican Governor Charlie Crist about 4 seconds after he enters the race.

I mention this because today Governor Crist broke his no new taxes pledge when he signed a budget. This was one week after he authored an op-ed piece where he boldly stated “Let there be no doubt–I am a fiscal conservative” to answer charges he was an irresponsible charlatan due to his support of Chairman Obama’s swindle us package. What message does this send to Hispanics when the national Republicans, who had earlier pledged to stay out of primaries, stick the shiv in the ribs of the brightest young Hispanic star the Republican Party has? Instead of dithering over how to attack Judge Sotomayor the Republican Party blew the chance to support, rather than attack, a prominent Hispanic who is all the things we want Republicans to be- sound on fiscal issues- in favor of a man who believes in nothing and he will sell out anyone and everything in order to win an election?

This is an election where the Republican Party can take steps to reclaim the mantle of fiscal responsibility and show openness to Hispanics and the national Republican Party wants to do neither. It’s not like the Democrats have a juggernaut of a candidate lined up. The favorite for their nomination is Congressmen Kendrick Meek. Meek is a telegenic member of the Congressional Black Caucus, but without Obama on the ballot to ignite black turnout it will be an uphill climb for him to defeat any Republican. By supporting Crist the GOP is sending the message that Hispanics are only welcome on its terms and that the national Party has no fundamental disagreements with Chairman Obama and his lackeys in Congress.

Obama’s new court pick

Author: Rory B. Bellows

You. Act. Surprised. We have a leftist on the court. I understand Chairman Obama wants a leftist on the court. He wants a woman and hispanic to check the boxes of the democratic coalition. Fine. Chairman Obama won the election and he gets to pick whomever he wants as a Supreme Court justice. But that does not mean the other side does not get their say and the appointee should not be throughly questioned so America knows what they are in for. And they are in for lurch to the left.

Justice Sotomayor believes the court is where policy is made.

She is an advocate of racial discrimination as evidence by her vote on the Ricci case and pro-union voice. Even the liberal The New Republic has a failry damning piece about her temperment and intellect. I suppose it could have been worse, Jermiah Wright or Bill Ayers could have been on the choice but I cannot imagine a member of the judiciary held in such low esteem being the nominee.

Obama Nominates Sonia Sotomayer for US Supreme Court

Author: Aaron

Barack Obama has nominated Sonia Sotomayer to replace retiring justice David Souter on the US Supreme Court.  Sotomayer, a judge for the Second Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals would be the first Hispanic Justice to serve the highest court in the nation.

While Sotomayer is at this point not well known by the general public, one issue this year alone that she has already voiced her opinion on is the current Supreme Court Case Ricci v. Destefano.  A case that revolves around the reverse discrimination of four firefighters from New Haven, Connecticut.  In a nutshell, these firefighters applied for a raise and when no racial minorities applied for the job, their resumes were thrown out and they were not given the raise.  The firefighters sued, and the case eventually reached Sotomayer’s Second Circuit court.  While the rights and accomplishments of these firefighters were blatantly disregarded by teh fire department, Sotomayer sided against the firefighters, implying that they had no rights violated at all.

I say imply because Sotomayer offered no explanation for her vote, rather she silently sided with the group that clearly violated the rights of the firefighters. This is cause for concern, and the most pressing issue at hand for Sotomayer’s nomination. While she did her job by voting that the fire department was within constitutional jurisdiction, she should have offered a statement as to why she sided that way. Furthermore, if the case is overruled next month by the Supreme Court, her vote against the firefighters will show her lack of constitutional understanding for the highest court in the nation.

While we will learn more about Ms. Sotomayer over the course of this nomination process, it is imperative that she is in fact a reliable judge who does not legislate from the bench or vote according to political beliefs. Rather Ms. Sotomayer must strictly enforce and defend the constitution, if it turns out that she is in fact an activist liberal judge, with blatant disregard for the constitution, she should be heavily defeated. However according to an article about Ms. Sotomayer on the New Republic’s website, she is in no way a definite liberal vote. While she of course is a liberal judge, she may be the least liberal appointment that Obama could nominate. This in no way, shape or form is a victory for conservatives, but perhaps we should all breathe a sigh of relief that President Obama didn’t nominate someone like Stephen Reinhardt for the job, because that would be a disaster.

GOP Primary Endorsements

Author: Rory B. Bellows

So I got an email from the Lonegan campaign about Christie racking up newspaper endorsements from liberal newspapers. I highly doubt that in New Jersqey newspaper endorsements mean all that much. This is not New Hampshire or Iowa where there is a newspaper such as the Union Leader or Des Moines Register that is central to state politics.

Interestingly enough, after I received that email I opened up this mornings New York Post to find that they had also endorsed Chris Christie. Given that the Post is not exactly the place Keith Olbermann goes for inspiration for his Speical Comments, I was curious as to why they would endorse Christie over the more tradionally conservative Lonegan. The Post’s endorsement boiled down to one thing: electiblity. The Post, as I do, see Christie as a small ‘c’ conservative. He is not going to engage in inflammatory rhetoric nor is he going to pursue an ideological agenda, but he does understand there are limits to government power. He believes there is a place in our lives for government and that government can be a force for good but it cannot be all things to all people. He may or may not believe government is as restrained in its ability to act as I do, and the Post notes this when they say Christie has been short on specifics, but the paper views him as the man to take down Corzine and check the out control democratic legislature.

Here I disagree. Democrats have a normal double digit advantage in party ID here in New Jersey. Yet in poll after poll, Lonegan runs even with Corzine or leads him by a margin that is within the margin of error. There is a great myth going around that Chris Christie is the only man who can beat Jon Corzine. That just is not true. In a poll released by Monmouth Univeristy, 47 percent of New Jersey voters, and 35 percent of New Jersey Democrats, say they would be more likely to vote for a Republican candidate for Governor if he promised a property tax cut. Lonegan is campaigning on a 20 percent property tax cut while Chris Christie has offered nothing in this regard. Taxes, spending and regulation are Steve Lonegan’s strong suit. He has a proven track record in this regard. With Chris Christie we have to trust in the fact that in his time as US Attorney he proved competent and willing to do the right thing. Lonegan has a record and a message that has appeal to over one third of Democratic voters. This election will not be a repeat of the Schundler/McGreevey fiasco of 2001 where McGreevey was able to scare the electorate on social issues. No one cares right now about abortion or gay marriage. This is election is set up for any Republican to win. Especially a Republican who wakes up every day for the sole purpose of cutting taxes.

Don’t Just go to the Beach, It’s Memorial Day

Author: Aaron
Memorial Day is a day to remember those that sacrificed everything, for the preservation of our freedoms. The day we remember those men and women that gave their lives defending our freedom and our way of life. So it goes without saying that America’s way of honoring those that paid the ultimate price for our country shows the lack of respect between US Soldiers and American Civilians.

Memorial Day is supposed to be a day when we take time out of our day to pay respect to those that rose to the occasion and stood up for what they believed in. However in the United States we have turned Memorial Day into a vacation, holiday weekend. Where Barbeques are rampant, the greatest sales of the season hit department stores and family vacations rule the weekend. How pitiful we have become.

Over the course of my life I have spent multiple Israeli Memorial Days in Israel. Now that is a memorial day. Not a holiday. I don’t want to hear happy Memorial Day when I walk in the streets, or have a good memorial day. I want to hear stories about those that stood up for the United States, I want to see liberals and conservatives pay respect the way all Israelis pay respect on their memorial day. Once you spend an Israeli Memorial day in Israel or Yom Hazikaron (the Day of Remembrance), you feel almost ashamed at what your country has done to what is supposed to be a somber day.

While the Israelis may screw up time and time again, Memorial Day is one thing they have right. First of all the day revolves around visiting the graves of loved ones or close friends fought in war. While war is far more prevalent in Israel than it is in America, and no one, and I mean no one, does not know someone killed in a war in Israel, everyone liberal, conservative, religious or not religious pay their respects for those that gave up everything for Israel. At around 10:00 AM throughout the country a siren goes off, and the country stops. This siren is a national siren that tells everyone to take a minute out of their day and pay respect, cars pull over to the side of the road, bakers come out of shops and everything in the nation stalls.

Every Israeli feels the sense of personal thanks, no one in Israel takes for granted their freedom or fallen soldiers. There are no sales, no barbeques and the only family reunions revolve around cemeteries. That is respect, that is honor. In fact the Israelis got it so right that they made the day after Memorial Day, Independence Day. So families who lost loved ones could exist, could then enjoy the fruit of their sacrifice the very next day.

Americans needs to adopt an Israeli mentality when it comes to Memorial Day. While I am grateful to the men and women who sacrificed everything so that I can be free, it is quite hard to keep a respectful manner during this weekend. While Memorial Day is a National Holiday, it should be a respectful holiday that doesn’t mark the beginning of summer, but reminds us what America is all about. Because of those soldiers that gave everything, Americans can pursuit life, liberty and happiness.

Too many Americans take for granted the basic freedoms that we have here in the United States, and should take a day out of their year to honor those that make it possible. Those that protest against the armed forces should see on Memorial Day why those soldiers that they protest against are the ones that preserve their right to protest. We have taken enough for granted already in this country, and everyone should thank a veteran. If you live in, or near New York City, fleet week is taking place, but is coming to an end soon. The next time you see a sailor in the city, or an armed serviceman or woman stop and thank them. They will not think your weird, or think that you are trying to poke fun, in fact they will think that someone is actually grateful for the sacrifice they are making. Too often our armed servicemen and women go unnoticed, and they can never be thanked enough. Today should be a day to thank them. If you are on your way to the shore don’t just go down for fun at the beach, but stop and attend a Memorial Day service. Hear the stories about how liberty and freedom prevailed. Remember, if you can read this thank a teacher, but if you can read this in English thank an American Soldier.

God Bless, and I hope you all have a meaningful Memorial Day. Make it count.

My thoughts on gay marriage

Author: Rory B. Bellows

In response to Aaron’s post on gay marriage, I will do something I rarely, if I have ever done on this site, offer some thoughts on social issues.

The fundamental problem with gay marriage is that the debate over it is another example of the dumb downed nature of our society. There is no constitutional scholarship or understanding of what the document says and its intellectual underpinnings.

People run around all day talking about the right to marry whom you want. I realize this will be a losing argument because it cannot be distilled down to a bumper sticker or 30-second TV spot, but there is no such thing as a right to marry. You do not have a right to things. You have a right to be free from government intrusion. If you read the bill of rights, the document is filled with negative rights. It lays out what the government cannot do. This is because it costs nothing to enforce a negative right. If the police kick down my door in the middle of the night with no warrant, it costs society nothing for me to show up to court and prove that they violated my fourth amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure.

Contrast that with marriage. What if no one in America would perform a marriage ceremony, straight or gay? What would you do? Someone would file a lawsuit and some judge would force someone to perform a marriage ceremony. Positive rights, like marriage, mean you have a claim on someone else’s life regardless of them giving their consent.

Another problem with the gay marriage debate, it extends the notion of state sanctioned marriage. Why do we need the permission of some government busy body in the form of a piece of paper issued by the state to be married? The problem with state sanctioned marriage is the 1138 supposed “rights” gays are being denied by states banning same sex marriage. What rights are you entitled to by virtue of being married? The problem is not that gays are denied the right to marry, but that we created almost 1200 “rights” to give to married couples. Again, these are all sorts of positive rights that entitle you to things; these “rights” do not protect you from unwanted government intrusion so therefore they are not legitimate rights in the first place. If Republicans want to reclaim the mantle of limited government and individual freedom they should advocating dismantling the nanny state that creates rights for married couple as opposed to expanding the fictional right to marry

Thirdly, there is nothing in the constitution that even authorizes the parties to take a stand on social issues. Social issues are left out of the constitution for one very good reason. That reason is that the constitution restrains government except to act in certain enumerated ways. In order to ratify the constitution nine of the 13 states had to agree to create the federal government. The document could only be ratified if the enumerated powers of government were such that a broad swath of society agreed those were legitimate functions of government. This idea that the powers of government could only be expanded with large numbers of people agreeing is born out in the fact that it is difficult to amend the constitution. The tenth amendment states that the powers not delegated to the federal government are the province of the states. I do not know about you, but I do not see anything in the document that says the federal government has province over the institution of marriage. The battle over marriage is being fought at the state level, where it should be. No one should have a problem if some states want gay marriage and others do not. If the laws of a state bother you that much you are free to move.

Where the argument and our politics were screwed up was the Roe decision. In Roe, the court intruded on a states’ rights issue to substitute their own judgment to force their views on everyone. People are rightly afraid of unelected, unaccountable courts making policy. This has happened in some states. And you can see the passion the court creating policy creates in states like California with hotly contested proposition 8 which overturned the state supreme court’s decision that gays have a “right” to marry. Contrast this with the quiet nature of the Vermont legislature’s overriding the governor’s veto of a bill that would have legalized gay marriage. When social issues are addressed through the proper channels there is little outcry because if the citizens of a state are so outraged over the actions of their officials they are free to vote them out in the next election.

The final problem with the GOP adopting a national position in favor of gay marriage is the acceptance of the statist notion of group rights. Statists like to claim there are things such as gay “rights” but they do not do it out of a love of liberty but a love of government and its power. Creating group rights is a way for statists to destroy the notion that we are individuals, but rather members of groups. By making us members of groups, statists are able to divide us up into warring camps and stage contests to assemble the largest mobs in order to have control over the levers of power. By dividing us into groups statist politicians are able to sell the idea that unless they are in power groups whose rights are dependent on the government creating them are at risk of losing them. The premise of group rights is that you are entitled to rights because of your membership in a group. Nothing in the discussion over group rights has anything to do with individual freedom and liberty because those concepts are at direct odds with the statist notion of group rights.

I have no problem if Republicans in New Jersey want a different policy on social issues than Republicans in Utah. That is how these issues should be decided. But at a national level, the Republican Party needs to embrace the idea of liberty, not equality. Those two principles cannot be happily married. The position of the Republican Party should be that social issues are best decided at the state level because our constitution established the states as laboratories of democracy. And they should be allowed to experiment.

Republicans and Gay Marriage

Author: Aaron

Why is gay marriage a hot topic for the Republican Party? That question baffles me time and time again, and each time I think about the issue I get more and more frustrated. The Republican Party is the party that was founded on equal rights, the party that ended slavery and most of all the party that is supposed to embrace the constitution. So why do so many republicans fight against gay marriage? Is it really that detrimental to society, will it really hurt America? If people actually believe that gay marriage will hurt society, well I have news for you. Equality does not hurt a nation it only makes it stronger.

Please, don’t go around claiming that I am now a liberal, that is the type of nonsense driving herds of potential followers away. Call the taxing, swindling, global warming hysteric a liberal. Call the individual that calls for “spreading the wealth” a liberal, but it is time to stop calling proponents of gay marriage liberals. The tag liberal is offensive, flat out, when I or anyone else calls someone a liberal it is meant to make them feel inept, those that pursue freedom should not be offended.

In reality we should be worried about those that oppose gay marriage. These are people that are trying to clamp down on personal and individual freedoms. Were those that fought against anti-miscegenation laws liberals or freedom seekers? Did they harm America by fighting against laws that banned members of opposite race to marry? The famous Supreme Court case Loving v. Alabama, which claimed all anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional, was solved only 42 years ago. 42 years is not that long of a time, but surely only white-supremacists that resemble more of Nazi Germany than the United States of America would find these anti-miscegenation laws permissible in today’s world.

The Republican Party has an opportunity to open up to a whole range of new supporters. Supporters that believe in true conservative values, but shy away on Election Day due to what is in large part, blatant homophobia. Imagine if the United States told a heterosexual male or female that they cannot marry the person they love of the opposite sex. That would infuriate all heterosexuals, especially those that believed in abstinence. Yet when it comes to infringing the rights of people who are just as much in love as a heterosexual couple, conservatives often claim that they are not “normal” and it is not “natural”. Who made you the judge? Why is it that you are conservative on every issue, from taxation to gun laws, but when it comes to the the pure essence of what America was founded on, individual freedom, you swing to the side of fascists like Mussolini and Adolf Hitler.

Either you believe that the state should control the lives of its citizens, or you believe that freedom is acquiescent to America. Its one or the other, if you believe in hypocrisy, that some individual liberties should be controlled by the state and others shouldn’t, that doesn’t make you a conservative, it makes you a Democrat.

It bewilders me when Republicans condemn the actions of gay Americans, but gush over television shows like “Who Wants to Marry A Millionaire” and “The Bachelor”. The American media has made love into a game show that revolves solely around good looks and wealth. Meanwhile those that find true love are discriminated against on a daily basis in 46 of 50 states. If you have religious convictions keep them to yourself, this is America, although we are free to practice any religion that we choose, we are not free to enforce Judeo-Christian laws on the rest of the country. And another tidbit for those that question gay marriage based on religious beliefs; look at yourself in the mirror before you question the “faith” of others. Do you follow the 10 commandments? The 10 commandments that god said are punishable by death if not followed? Or do you only criticize others for “going against the bible”.

Republican Party, it is time to drop the subject. Our country faces far greater threats than the love that two people of the same sex have for each other. A financial crisis that has no end in sight, a war with religious extremists that want us all dead, and a government that is trying its hardest to push the US into a socialist peoples republic. Not only should the Republican Party support gay marriage, they should lead the way in fighting for it. Once again, we are the party that fights for the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Let’s stick to our constitutional values, especially when it comes to individual freedom.