There are three pillars of the Reagan Coalition: Social Conservatives, Economic Conservatives and National Security Conservatives. When all three of these pillars are united, the Republican Party wins. When they are not united, disaster happens.
That is what happened in 2006 and 2008. There was no unity between these three pillars. That is the reason for the massive losses on November 4th. Some in the party, like Colin Powell, are saying that we should abandon Social Conservatism altogether, but the GOP moved away from Social Conservatism in 2008 and we lost big time. Clearly, abondoning Social Conservatism is not the way to go.
Ken Blackwell, writing for Town Hall, shows us what this unity means for us and why it is so important. He writes about the concerns of Social Conservatives:
| The issue of judges, most especially the Supreme Court, has been the foremost issue for social conservatives for a generation. It has been the highest priority for the pro-life movement ever since Roe v. Wade in 1973. Lawsuits since 2003 involving gay marriage have made it the focal point on that issue as well. The courts have also been ground-zero since the 1960s on controversies involving faith and religion. And after the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, the courts might become the central arena over Second Amendment rights as well. |
But that doesn't mean that Economic Conservatives shouldn't be right alongside:
| In 2007, the Supreme Court handed down Massachusetts v. EPA, where some states were suing the federal government to force the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate all sources of carbon dioxide. The theory was greenhouse gases such as CO2 cause global warming and should be designated a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. The Court stunned legal observers, turning all sorts of longstanding legal doctrines on their heads, and decided the suit was proper. It then ordered the EPA to decide whether CO2 and other greenhouse gases affect the environmental and, if so, to set up a regulatory scheme that will control every source of these gases in America—including every car. The EPA is still working to implement the Court’s order. This decision, criticized by conservative legal scholars as an activist ruling, could cost the American economy hundreds of billions—and possibly over a trillion—dollars. The EPA case will impact countless businesses across the country, with devastating consequences. Economic conservatives should wake up to this decision as a sign that a 5-4 majority of the four liberals on the Court, plus the Court’s one moderate, are willing to engage in economic policymaking through judicial fiat that could have a crippling impact on business. |
And what about National Security Conservatives?
| The Supreme Court has recently begun second-guessing the policy judgments of the president and Congress on how to manage national security matters arising from an ongoing war. This is completely unprecedented in American history. The most extreme example was the Boumediene v. Bush decision. The Supreme Court held in a 5-4 split decision that the writ of habeas corpus extends to terrorists captured on the battlefield that are not U.S. citizens and held on foreign soil. Habeas corpus gives these terrorist detainees the right to challenge their detention in civilian U.S. courts. Military personnel can be forced to testify under oath and classified evidence can be forced to be revealed. All the other rights designed to protect American citizens can be exploited by our enemies to gain release back onto foreign battlefields. This stunning decision changes American national security policy forever. Dozens of lawsuits are already underway, brought by many of these terrorists seeking either release or for the government to publicly expose the intelligence gathered against them and their terrorist networks. One national security law expert I consulted informed me this one decision is the single worst national security mistake the Supreme Court has ever made in our country’s history. |
All three branches of Conservatism must unite now and over the next four years do everything in our power to prevent the socialists in the Obama Administration and the socialists of the Democrat Party from completely taking over our judicial system and forever ruining the fabric of the American way of life with their twisted ideas of government intervention enforced by judicial activists who are not responsible to any electorate.
You can access the complete article on-line here:
Reagan Coalition Must Unite
Ken Blackwell
TownHall.com
December 12, 2008
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