Hypocrites Can Still be Right
Discussing Gov. Mark Sanford’s press conference, one of my co-workers suggested that maybe the time had come for the Republican Party to surrender its claim to represent family values.
Dinesh D’Souza put it in em>Letters to a Young Conservative<- to paraphrase- Republicans accept that people aren’t perfect, and that even those who proclaim family values will fail (the reference, written in 2002, compares former President Clinton to then- Majority Leader Gingrich), but that the movement should not follow the failures of the imperfect beings who are family values proponents.
Instead, the fight must continue through its supporters’ failures. And yet when supporters of an issue keep failing and failing and then fail again, after a time one begins to wonder: maybe there’s a deeper problem here?
Yet I think there are three reasons rank-and-file Republicans should not give up the fight.
First: it really is true that strengthening families is vital to national economic prosperity. Stronger families enjoy higher incomes and depend less on government aid. Their children achieve more, are less likely to get into trouble with the law, and more likely to pass success onto children of their own.
Second: hypocrisy is by no means a Republican monopoly. Look at Democrats who send their children to private schools while opposing vouchers (one now resides in the Whte House) or who defend the earth while using megawatts of electricity to cool their mansions (one nearly made it to the White House in 2000).
Third: it is appallingly unjust to allow the sins of politicians to be used as a weapon against the beliefs of their voters.
For those who really believe in the family values movement, we must convince the rest of America through constant, unceasing examples of upstanding moral behavior, forgiveness for those who fall short, and ready reminders that it IS the conservative social movement that will help keep America great, not the low moral standards of the Democratic Party. A failed high standard is certainly better than a successful low moral standard.
Dinesh D’Souza put it in em>Letters to a Young Conservative<- to paraphrase- Republicans accept that people aren’t perfect, and that even those who proclaim family values will fail (the reference, written in 2002, compares former President Clinton to then- Majority Leader Gingrich), but that the movement should not follow the failures of the imperfect beings who are family values proponents.
Instead, the fight must continue through its supporters’ failures. And yet when supporters of an issue keep failing and failing and then fail again, after a time one begins to wonder: maybe there’s a deeper problem here?
Yet I think there are three reasons rank-and-file Republicans should not give up the fight.
First: it really is true that strengthening families is vital to national economic prosperity. Stronger families enjoy higher incomes and depend less on government aid. Their children achieve more, are less likely to get into trouble with the law, and more likely to pass success onto children of their own.
Second: hypocrisy is by no means a Republican monopoly. Look at Democrats who send their children to private schools while opposing vouchers (one now resides in the Whte House) or who defend the earth while using megawatts of electricity to cool their mansions (one nearly made it to the White House in 2000).
Third: it is appallingly unjust to allow the sins of politicians to be used as a weapon against the beliefs of their voters.
For those who really believe in the family values movement, we must convince the rest of America through constant, unceasing examples of upstanding moral behavior, forgiveness for those who fall short, and ready reminders that it IS the conservative social movement that will help keep America great, not the low moral standards of the Democratic Party. A failed high standard is certainly better than a successful low moral standard.