Steve Bainbridge manages to write Barry Goldwater out of the conservative movement. Only “annoying libertarians,” you see, think the federal government has no business dictating morality to the public, or thinks it’s beyond the government’s constitutional power to do so. I still remember back around 1981, when Goldwater was told that Jerry Falwell said that “all good Christians” should oppose some vote or other of Goldwater’s. Goldwater responded along the lines of “I think all good Christians ought to kick Jerry Falwell in the ass.” We could use more of such sentiment these days.
Unfortunately, many Christian “conservatives” only support limited government when they are out of power, as is amply indicated by this William Bennett column calling for federal legislation to “promote a more decent society.” I actually do see plausible a reason to sympathize more with right-wing Christian statists than with left-wing secular statists–the moral issues Christian activists want to regulate tend to have more externalities attached to them than the economic activities left-wingers tend to get agitated over (though gay marriage is a huge exception). But statism, especially when it manifests itself in a lust for federal power, is against the American conservative tradition, and you don’t have to be an annoying libertarian to see that.
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