I am used to some degree of racism in politics. I come from Los Angeles, originally, and ethnic identity politics there can be nasty. There is also quite a bit of discussion of the ‘immigration issue’ that is less concerned with illegal immigration than with not liking Mexican-Americans. On the other hand, I grew up in a suburban town so ethnically mixed that there were no such thing as ‘white’, ‘black’, or ‘Latino’ neighborhoods. Everyone lived next door to everyone and the dividing lines were economic rather than racial. Despite my experience with racism in politics (admittedly far short of the lovely Senator Bob Corker), however, I had absolutely no experience with genuine hatred for one’s neighbors because of their race.

So I understand being shocked.

I love this sentence: “I believe people are infantile enough on their own without active legislation legitimizing infantilism.”

Your description of your area of the country is shocking to me. Growing up in the Bronx (and living mostly in the Bronx or Manhattan until 2 years ago) that sort of racism in politics is not something to which I’ve really been exposed. Then again, I was not especially politically aware until a few years ago.

I now live in a suburb of a small urban center in South Carolina. Even seeing the occasional confederate flag, my husband and I have witnessed far less overt racism here than we did in NY, but more bigotry against gays. (The SC GOP platform still includes a section about preventing gays from becoming teachers.) I’ve found that most of the Republicans in the state legislature are basically pro-life, anti-gay marriage Democrats, and while the occasional GOP activist spews some ridiculous racist nonsense, I haven’t seen enough campaigning here to know if racism and sexism are particularly evident. But believe me, I’ll be watching for it as we move into the 2010 campaign.

I know you live in the South too, but I don’t know details about your precise location and social circle nor do I have any intention of asking if it’s not offered. I live in a largely rural area on the TN/VA border that is not just ‘the South’ but very definitely ‘hillbilly country.’ There are more people like me here than one might expect, but the majority of the voting public consists of Moral Majority-type religious right Republicans of the Cal Thomas stripe. Much more importantly than the voter-base, the majority of the Republican candidates for office are of this stripe as well.

One of our two GOP Senators won election in a tight race he was predicted to lose with a tv commercial depicting his young, single black opponent’s dates with white women. Not any inappropriate affairs or scandals, just noting his opponent was a black man who had at least one white girlfriend. He managed to add misogyny to racism by throwing in a condemnation of said white girlfriends as ‘his bimbos.’ More importantly than the commericial itself is the fact that kind of commercial WORKS here in TN.

I’m as uncomfortable with the corporate-police-state-fascism idealized by neoconservatives as with the theocracy idealized by the religious right, and those two groups between them control the balance of GOP power and no one can be truly accepted as a leader or valid spokesman of today’s GOP without the approval of both. Look at the public pillorying of respectably conservative Charlie Crist and Jon Huntsman (neither one exactly an anarcho-socialist)for their support of Obama’s economic policies, which themselves were more safely Hooverian (with a few New Deal touches) than socialist. Witness the transformation of Mitt Romney (who once ran against Teddy Kennedy from the left, promising to legislate for federal gay marriage) into a culture warrior and John McCain’s embrace of the very religious right leaders he had vocally repudiated as bad for the party in 2000. Witness the VP nomination of Sarah Palin, on whom we emphatically disagree and on whom I’d rather not say more.

The ‘Moral Majority-type Christians’ who you consider a minority among Republicans ARE, in many ways, the Republican Party. They are the voting bloc most reliable in their turnout, the group Republican candidates in most districts in most states must please to be nominated or elected. They are the special interest group with the largest seat at the table and most reliable for the largest amounts of money. Their leaders are the most influential vote-getters. The ‘bright young Republican stars’ like Palin and Bobby Jindal come from their numbers.

I’m NOT going to pretend that the nanny-state does NOT have a lot of mainstream support in BOTH parties (especially at the state level) when it comes to things like marginalizing smokers, forcing unfunded mandates of auto insurance, passing seat-belt and motorcycle helmet laws, and quite a bit more. They do. As, essentially, an anarcho-socialist (in core philosophical ideals, I realize the utter impossibility of functioning anarchy or a truly socialist economy on any pragmatic level and I don’t advocate or want either) I don’t like that influence. I believe people are infantile enough on their own without active legislation legitimizing infantilism. However, I think the desire for a nanny-state is a natural confluence of the fact that many modern adult Americans ARE fundamentally infantile and the fact that many people feel the need to insulate society so such people do not get hurt.

Of course, corporate-police-state-fascism is a confluence of the fact that so many modern Americans are fundamentally infantile and the fact that many people feel the desire to perpetuate and profit from it. So the two problems have the same cause and the only solution, really, is to keep trying to educate people to realize their potential as individuals.

Right now, as conditions exist, I am less repulsed by the nanny-state than by the corporate-police state or by the bald-and-repugnant social Darwinism that anarcho-capitalists of various stripes offer in its place. It’s the least of those three evils.

I try to advocate for a mature, adult relationship between the members of society as what we are… interdependent individuals sharing the same existence.

To fall prey to small bit of plagiarism, the thing about saving the world is that it inevitably includes whatever you happen to be standing on at the moment. :)

My personal opinion, and I know individual mileage varies a great deal, is that the nanny state and the religious state are both examples of the ‘tyranny of the majority’ Alexander Hamilton was worried about in the Federalist Papers. The democratic process clearly can’t protect the rest of us from them if the majority is inclined to pass them, but that doesn’t make them acceptable or right and so I do what I can to present alternate views.

But you must realize that liberal nanny staters are just as guilty of legislating against sins that only harm the sinner, perhaps even more so. Trans fats, clove cigarettes, and failing to wear seat belts may not bring on the wrath of God, but they most certainly bring out Democrats in full force to protect us from ourselves.

Obviously laws against murder, rape, and theft not only protect our delicate sensibilities, but our rights to life and liberty. As I wrote, there is an overwhelming moral consensus that those crimes are wrong, and the legal and constitutional issues are clear. My point is that other rights and wrongs are not so cut and dried. That’s why we have jurists, legislators, and the democratic process to help us work through the murkier issues.

I’ll stop here before I wander even more off topic.

Homosexuality and abortion are very controversial and contentious issues, but even from the most traditional religious point of view homosexuality is a sin that harms only the sinners and no one else. It’s clearly not a matter for government intervention. If one believes a certain way, someone may be damned to hellfire and one may wish to save their souls… but the government is not intended to be instrument to save their souls or visit temporal hellfire.

Of course, this is based on my own civil libertarian philosophy. The mileage of others may vary. Still, I’m sure you have to concede that murder, rape, and theft protect victims from more than just being offended. ;)

Not that I think it’s our business, but I could understand the impulse to shame Sanford for his affair if conservatives believed that the potential for public censure would deter future extramarital affairs. But everyone knows that’s not true. If you look at the comments on my post at Smart Girl Nation (see the trackback link above your first comment), you’ll see that for social cons, this is all about punishing Sanford for his infidelity and “lack of character.”

I agree with your points about moral superiority, but I would argue that most laws on the books are designed to outlaw “the moral failings of the heathen.” It’s just that with murder, theft, and rape we’ve come to a moral consensus, and with gay marriage, abortion, and other contentious social issues, we haven’t.

I agree with you about political witch hunts, and certainly none lives up to their own ideals 100 percent of the time. Not even me, despite my best efforts. However, my ideals do not include a legislative demand that everyone else live up to my ideals or face criminal penalty or loss of constitutional rights for that failure. I’d say that small difference is writ very large in the minds of many people (both the secular humanists opposed to being forced to accept religious legislation whose values they do not accept and classical Protestants like myself who believe very strongly in the separation of Church and state) who resent having our personal spirituality and morality legislated from the statehouse or DC. Those who wish to legislate against what they perceive as the moral failings of the heathen are making a moral statement of superiority that ‘the heathen’ are going to resent.

That’s the big issue, really. Christian conservatives make a claim of moral superiority that is denied by an accurate reading of their own religious texts, and seek to impose their standard by law based on that superiority. When they show themselves to be as human as ‘the heathen’, then ‘the heathen’ are going to be understandably irked. Trying to minimize the very real facet of ‘moral reform’ whose real aim is quite simply to make everyone keep dirty secrets in the closet so no one is offended in a dark mirror of the equally objectionable ‘political correctness’ of the left is simply not going to work for a lot of us.