Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Social & Religious Conservatism.

The man suspected of the Washington police massacre turns out to have been pardoned by former Arkansas governer Mike Huckabee, which pretty much torpedoes his shot at the Republican presidential nomination for 2012. Quite rightly too.

Mike Huckabee is described as a social conservative, but that is only true on matters where politics intersects with religion- abortion for example. Law and order are very much social issues yet Huckabee's position on crime puts him well to the left of supposed social liberals like Rudy Guiliani. Social conservatism is not the same as religious conservatism even though the two may overlap on occassion.

It is unwise for political conservatives to conflate the two positions, even if practical politics creates an alliance between political and religious conservatives. Experience shows that conservatives motivated soley by religion tend not to be too bothered about secular conservative issues, to take an extreme case look at the ease with which ex Sandinista Daniel Ortega has won over the Catholic church simply by banning abortion.

1 comment:

asquith said...

Aye- they tend to be quite good at being pro-immigration, too.

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2845

(Although from what I can gather most American politicians are, including high-ranking Republicans & Democrats alike, so that's not such a distinguishing mark).

Good to see some nice splits. Personally I always went with Democrats, if for no other reason because they're slightly less religious, slightly more liberal on Huckabee-esque issues, & have a slightly less interventionist foreign policy. Not that I'm always particularly happy, but I do generally think Republicans are worse.