This is more evidence of the problem with the Republican Party. It’s like no one knows what a conservative is anymore. Look at this tweet. It’s misleading.
Conservative = support and tolerance of individual liberties. “Social Conservative” = Michelle Bachmann, Tony Perkins, Rick Santorum, etc.
All conservatives are social conservatives because conservatism, as Ronald Reagan said, is a three-legged stool: fiscal conservatism, social conservatism, strong national security. If you remove any leg of the stool, you don’t have conservatism and the country flounders.
A conservative supports the Fourteenth Amendment in accordance with ensuring that all states uphold God-given rights, particularly those delineated in the Bill of Rights, within their borders. The Fourteenth Amendment ensures that no state may deny the rights delineated in the Bill of Rights to any person. No state may allow murder. No state may allow wife-beating. No state may ban guns. No state may allow abortion, either, because the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees every innocent person the right to life. Libertarians disagree with that. They believe that this interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment is “big government.” Liberal Democrats believe that “rights” refers to whatever the majority opinion says “rights” are, rather than sticking only to our basic God-given rights. Their formula is the big government formula. The libertarian rejection of the idea that the federal government must defend our individual rights against state government tyranny leads to state tyranny over individual rights.
There is much more to being a conservative than fiscal conservatism. Unless you are a social conservative, you are not a conservative. Unless you believe in a strong national defense, you are not a conservative. Rick Santorum, Tony Perkins and Michele Bachmann are conservatives. Sarah Palin and Rand Paul are not because they reject the socially conservative principle (which is in the Republican Party platform, by the way) that all innocent human life is protected by our FEDERAL Constitution. Newt Gingrich is a conservative. So is Bobby Jindal. So is Todd Akin.
I realize there are people who will get angry by my saying Sarah Palin, Rand Paul and others (like Rick Perry) who have said they believe in “states rights” on the abortion issue are not conservative, but a conservative is someone who defends our individual rights above ALL LEVELS of government – whether local, state or federal. It makes no sense for a Republican to defy the platform and claim that a state legislator has the right to vote for abortion considering that our state legislatures have Republicans serving in them. No, a Republican is for all levels of government defending our individual rights. If America followed the Constitution, our president would order all abortion clinics closed, and send the National Guard to close the abortion clinics in every state that refused to do so. If a conservative president did that in America today, however, there would be rebellion, most especially from libertarians claiming that it would be an abuse of power for a president to send the National Guard into a state to do anything.
And that is why our country is screwed up. There is not enough public concensus for true conservatism, and so everyone who is a conservative has to deal with the reality that we are dealt — a Godless country that, on the Left, believes government should do everything including picking what light bulbs we will use, and, on the Right, would take up arms if the federal government tried to close abortion clinics, claiming it’s tyranny. Because our country is so screwed up, we’ll do well to turn it back to prosperity, and to liberty and justice for ALL.
There can’t be anything close to justice for ALL when so few people know what real justice is, and when so few people know what a real conservative is.
To those claiming that social issues dragged the Republican Party down in 2012, check out this report from Family Research Council:
In a year in which the losing candidate for president, Republican Mitt Romney, won 48 percent of the popular vote nationwide, the one-man-one-woman marriage position strongly outpolled Romney in all four states where the marriage issue was on the ballot.
These states are considered to be “blue” states: Minnesota, Maryland, Washington and Maine. If Santorum had been the nominee, he would have made the case for marriage. Romney was practically silent on the issue, plus his record does not indicate support for marriage. If the GOP had nominated a candidate who would stand up and make the case for marriage, as Rick Santorum does, it seems likely that he’d have not only fared better than Romney but may also have helped to swing all four states into the pro-marriage category. You see, unless you make a case for something, your side is going to lose. If you make the case, your side is more likely to win. Think about it. If you are going to court, do you want an attorney who is going to be silent about your argument? No. To win the case, you want your attorney to argue your side. That is the only way to win. Santorum can do that. Romney didn’t even try, and his record on the issue is liberal. There’s no way of knowing for sure if you’re going to lose a case if you hire an attorney who won’t argue your side, but doesn’t common sense tell us that our chances are better with someone who can make the case?
This post is not for Kenneth, my one monthly contributor. (Yes, one.) Thanks, Kenneth. For everyone else, the tip jar is empty. Regular readers know that I am a disabled single mom of four who does not receive welfare, disability assistance, Medicaid, food stamps, etc. Now and then, we do go to the local food bank (private, local charity), and the kids’ father provides for us some, but we are still well below the poverty line. If you are a regular reader, please consider a $5/month donation to help. I use the money to support my children in their extra-curricular activities (sports, chorus, vocational studies, etc.), to buy clothes for them, extra school supplies, etc. I do not spend money on frivolities. Example: the only article of clothing I have purchased for myself in the past year has been a Rick Santorum t-shirt, and that was to help with his campaign. One of my sons is working and so he was able to purchase his own Christmas present — a deer rifle. I don’t have any extra money to spend on Christmas. When I have blogged on this before, I received about $25 in donations but one of my Obama-supporting readers called child protective services to report me for not signing up for government programs while being in a state of what she deemed to be “need.” We are not in “need,” in the sense that we are not doing without basics like food, shelter, and medical care, but then, we do not consider things like being on the Cross Country team a “basic need” as others might. Anything you can donate will be used to give my kids a better life. Thank you.
P.S. Child protective services did come to our home, but when they realized that we are not doing without basics and that the call was politically motivated and by someone who does not know us at all, they left us alone. Still, this experience gave me an education on the state our country is in today, where charity is rare, even among those who claim to believe in it, and government dependency is demanded by many. It is also testimony to the fact that not many people have extra money to donate to people who are also struggling.
NOTE: The first button is for a one-time donation and you can enter in your own amount. The second button is to donate an amount automatically each month.
Patriot Voices co-founder Rick Santorum, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association held a press conference on November 26, 2012 to voice their opposition to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Video below. Please contact your U.S. Senator and ask him to OPPOSE this treaty. Share Rick Santorum’s Facebook status with your Facebook friends and Retweet this tweet from Karen Santorum and Patriot Voices.
The etymology of the name ‘Santorum’ is an interesting topic to me personally because of the irony involved in the “gay rights” movement’s attempt to “redefine” the word as an attack against Rick Santorum’s consistent stand for traditional marriage. Not everyone is Catholic, and as is evidenced by the tremendous amount of support delivered to Rick Santorum by the Evangelical community, one does not have to be Catholic to love Rick Santorum. Still, I think it’s a good idea to point out the etymology of the name “Santorum” and what it means to me personally when I see this name being perverted in the public arena, particularly online.
The etymology of the name “Santorum” is available at Italy World Club:
It was possibly a medieval first name, taken from the Latin expression “Dies Festus omnium sanctorum” (where Sanctorum is genitive plural of Sanctus), that is, the Feast of All Saints; Santorus was a name sometimes given to children born on that day. Or it was possibly connected to someone acting as a saint, or who had connections with religious things, as a sacristan or seller of religious items.
“Santorum” is derived from the Latin word “sanctorum” which refers to holiness, or saints. The Litaniae Sanctorum is the Litany of the Saints, for example. Mind you, this is not something Rick Santorum advertises, nor would I recommend that he advertise it. It just “is.” If his name had been “Alvaro” or “Bucato” or “Calantini,” I submit that the Left would not be trying to redefine it. They are doing this precisely because of its etymology.
Rick Santorum and his daughter Bella
If you Google “Santorum Latin” you come up with some expletives from the people who hate him. I know that they are doing this because they love perversion and because they seek to destroy the reputation of anyone who loves holiness. This is not to say at all that Rick Santorum is himself holy, but rather that he is someone who, like me, admires holiness. His daughter Bella is a living image of Christ in the world, and she is in the center of the Santorum family as that image of Christ. They adore her and care for her because they know she is that image of the Christ child in their lives. It is because Rick Santorum admires holiness, instead of admiring or upholding perversion, that he is attacked.
It is also, at least in part, due to hatred of Catholicism itself that he is attacked. The only Catholic a Democrat can stand is a Catholic who rejects Church teaching on life and marriage. If the Santorums had aborted Bella, and upheld abortion as the Democrats do, he would be their darling.
On some level, I think those who seek to redefine “Santorum” understand that “Santorum” has Latin roots in “Sanctorum” — Holiness. Michele Bachmann is just as much a threat to their agenda on the issues of life and marriage, and they hate her just as much as they hate Rick Santorum, but it is not “Bachmann” that they sought to “redefine.” Though they have attacked her just as vociferously as they have attacked Santorum, it was the name “Santorum” that they sought to redefine. They hate “holiness.”
Unfortunately, many people are blaming Rick Santorum for the fact that he is being attacked this way. They say that it is his fault that these attacks are showing up on Google. I notice that these same people never exactly ran to the aid of Michele Bachmann when she was being glitter-bombed. This tells me that they are not that passionate about defending conservatives and conservatism. Rather, they prefer to help the attackers with their silence or by blaming the one being attacked. As for the attempt to redefine “Santorum,” I would say that Google regulates search results all the time, and so it is partly their responsibility, but it is primarily the responsibility of those who are doing the attacking. I’m not sure where the idea comes from that we’re supposed to blame the person being attacked instead of the people doing the attacking. (That same argument was launched by the establishment against Todd Akin for his remarks on abortion in cases of rape.) The blame lies with those who have a role in regulating it and with those who are doing the attacking.
Catholics know that the Left is also seriously engaged in trying to redefine “Catholic” as we can see from the many so-called “Catholic” groups that support grave sins like abortion and homosexual “marriage.” There is mostly silence on that reality from the political sphere, but for Santorum and for other social conservatives, there is blame for the one being attacked, not solidarity against those doing the attacking.
Again, as noted, you do not have to be a Catholic to support Rick Santorum. Ask all the diehard supporters he has from the Evangelical community, if you doubt that. He does not seek to impose Catholicism on everyone. Rather, he believes (rightly) that Catholicism is consistent with the founding principles of our country and he takes that passion and applies it to defending those founding principles. This is why his passionate Catholicism makes him such a staunch defender of authentic across-the-board conservatism that is similar to that of Ronald Reagan’s. (Reagan won the Catholic vote for good reasons.) Having said that, still, as a Catholic, I must say that I recognize that there is a great spiritual battle going on all around us that is invisible. Also as a Catholic I believe that everything happens for a reason that is a part of God’s plan. Finally, I know, as a Catholic, some things about human nature (consistent with traditional conservatism), such as that hatred of “old white men” is merely a reflection of the Left’s hatred for paternity and the traditional family unit. They hate Fatherhood. They hate God. Their cartoon image of God is of an old white man, hence they demonize “old white men” in their discourse against conservatism. They are not comfortable saying out loud that they hate the idea of God and paternity and the traditional family unit. So, they say that “old white men” are the problem in the Republican Party and in America. In like manner, their hatred of “sanctorum” (holiness) is reflected in their hatred of Santorum, who loves holiness in his love for Bella, the image of Christ in his home.
That is my opinion, based on the facts I have offered about the situation. You don’t have to agree with me on this to support Rick Santorum, but it is where I am on the matter. It’s all quite fascinating to me and I look forward to seeing how it continues to play out in the road ahead for Rick Santorum and for our country.
I’ve chatted with the young campaigners who have committed to ‘get in the vote for Santorum’. These squadrons of newby college graduates are answering the phones; begging for donations; and doing all the nitty-gritty office work. And are they Catholics and singing from the same hymn sheet as Santorum? No, a lot of them are Evangelical Christians, and they sound 100 percent behind Santorum. One very polite chap that I spoke to, Charles, said to me, ‘Mizz Reagan ma’am, I’m a Protestant, but I fully support Rick Santorum, a Catholic, he’s definitely Catholic, that’s clear for everyone to see. And as a Protestant, I invite you to support us. Thank you for calling Rick Santorum for president.’ Santorum’s campaign managers who answer the phone know that I’m not a voter in the US. They know that as a simple journalist, I do not have mega-bucks to donate to the campaign. Yet, their spirit of enthusiasm and their joyful voices are infectious. You can compensate someone to sit by a phone, but you cannot pay someone to have genuine optimism and verve in their voice. There is something noteworthy in the joyful spontaneous way that the campaigners encourage you to support their candidate Santorum.
By the way, my favorite Italian, and a true Passionist saint, is still St. Gemma. St. Gemma, pray for us, and pray for the Santorums.
Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum says he is “open” to another run for president in 2016. Santorum was asked about a possible presidential campaign Monday at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
“I’m open to it, yeah,” Santorum replied. “I think there’s a fight right now as to what the soul of the Republican party’s going to be and the conservative movement, and we have something to say about that. I think from our battle, we’re not going to leave the field.”
In 2012, Santorum won nearly 4 million votes and 11 GOP primary contests—the same number of states, he pointed out, Ronald Reagan won in his failed 1976 presidential bid. The nomination eventually went to Mitt Romney, whom Santorum argued did not focus on what he considered the “main issue” of the race: The role of government in the lives of Americans.
This may sound weird, but I had no earthly idea if he was open to running or not, was not going to speculate about it, and was not surprised to hear that he’s open to it. On some things you really do just have to “Let go and let God” and this is definitely one of those things for me. I’m glad to hear this news, but in my mind, it’s not fun to ride a roller coaster. It’s best to take things in stride.
Rick and Karen Santorum, during the 2012 GOP primary, speak to supporters at an Arizona Republican Party fundraiser in Phoenix, Arizona. PHOTO: Gage Skidmore
Lying headlines and shabby op-eds are a good way to destroy the reputations of Christians, right, Mr. Milbank? Grown-up reasoning would be the hard way to make your case. Milbank would have us believe that Rick Santorum, the father of a disabled child who opposes this legislation precisely because it is an issue dear to his heart, is a man who just wants to do whatever he can to make sure the disabled among us are treated indecently. I do not think Milbank is so ignorant as to believe his own lies. Rather, I think this is an intentional lie to convince people who don’t really know Rick Santorum to believe that he is a scum-bag.
Like its predecessor, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the CRPD is opposed by pro-family conservatives due to its usurpation of parental rights and the negative impact of such on disabled children. The Associated Press story, reprinted at The Washington Post, is more clear than Milbank’s hit piece about what the proposal involves.
Santorum, accompanied by his wife Karen and three of his seven children, including a disabled daughter, focused on a provision that says the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration for children with disabilities. Home schooling groups and others have said this could lead to the state, and not the parents, making decisions on what is in the best interest of a child, including whether home schooling is appropriate. That provision, he said, is “a direct assault on us and our family.”
That doesn’t sound at all to me like someone interested in “opposing the disabled.” But again, it’s just easier for people like Milbank to use lies to smear Rick Santorum’s reputation than it is to argue his case like a grown-up.
Rick and Karen Santorum’s grassroots organization, Patriot Voices, has a petition you can sign to stand with them in opposition to this treaty. As a grown-up, as a parent, and as a disabled person, I’ve signed it and I hope you will, too.
