It is always a good idea to sell out your principles (and the truth about the supremacy of limited government systems) for momentary gains in electoral politics.

Not only is the suggestion that we should adopt the "popular" parts of the liberal platform morally repugnant to any conservative with principle who believes in Ltd. Gov and free markets, but as the post-Clinton democratic party's failure shows, abandoning longstanding principle for political expediency is at best a myopic electoral strategy.

What I'm really waiting for are all the folks who think "Big government conservatism" is utter baloney to start voting these bums out. We don't need more stupid policy. We need someone with the charisma and character to stand up to the masses who want more spending and less freedom and tell them why, for two hundred years now, we've always known that is the wrong solution.

I think this whole premise also underestimates the willingness of many lower-income conservative voters to try free market solutions to economic problems. Many have a deep recognition that the health of business--small and large--is usually proportional to their own economic well-being. Not all working-class Republicans are Bible-thumpers.

Parties change to meet changes in the real world. The Taft-led GOP was isolationist before the Cold War; the Democrats used to have a whole segretationist wing.

Douthat and Salam's point is that across-the-board tax cuts as the centerpiece of the GOP agenda is not going to sell like hotcakes to middle and lower-class voters anymore because they don't feel overtaxed and would rather have portable health care than another $200 every April. The GOP would be wise to recognize this and throw those voters a bone every once in a while.

Or it would be wise to do the right thing, realizing that tax cuts ACCOMPANIED (caps for emphasis not anger) by checks on spending and the expansion of economic freedom are what lead to sustained economic growth and wealth increases across the board.

You boil a frog slowly. This country is a republic and not a democracy because the founders saw a delicate balance in public policy. We should not centralize power in the hands of the few, because "enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm"; neither should we sacrifice good policy to misguided popular passions and a "debased taste for equality" when what is needed is courageous, intelligent, and principled electoral leadership (note: leadership, not pandering for votes).

Considering that real wages for low income workers fell 14% between 1979 and 1993, it would be risky for the GOP to forever ignore the gap between rich and poor. Reagan claimed that a rising tide lifts all boats? But does it really?

Besides the political ramifications there are the moral ramifications of what happens to a society's sense of community when there is a sense of a growing gap between the "haves" and the "have nots." We in the Christian community are too busy fighting each other to provide that sense of community by common worship.

Social conservatism is more like Elmer's glue than cement. Over time, if economic conditions worsen for low to middle income workers, social issues alone will simply not hold folks together.

I would contend that some forms of "social conservatism" are actually more like socialism than cement (or a liberal, constitutional republic).

It's too bad we don't have the leaders to stand up and make the case like Reagan and Goldwater did. One day we'll get to the point where American pharmaceutical companies are no longer defeating diseases at such a blistering pace and American companies in the Silicon Valley are no longer leading the crusade to connect the world (cheaply) and we'll wonder where all our "compassion" has taken us.

If there is a real case to be made (as Joel seems to be hinting--and maybe there is) then make it. To argue the political expediency of bad policy solely as a play to maintain power is cowardly, weak, unprincipled, and the most troubling part of modern American democracy (and yes, you can apply that to many of our problems--military, economic, and social).

The First Church of Free Market has another online meeting with the true believers raging against the apostates.

But the truth is that the tax breaks for the wealthy and other big breaks for business no longer automatically lead to good things for the employees. Not even close to always. The extra money recieved is just as likely to be invested overseas as in America. The ego of the typical CEO has him convinced that all success comes down to his wonderful decision making and the peasants are interchangable with the other peasants in some other country who work for a tiny fraction of those spoiled Americans and don't get any health benefits either. Many Americans don't buy the BS shovelled by you true believers any more because they see the truth that you won't admit about what's really happening to them under a system close to what you want. They're bright enough to figure out that the current approach to health care doesn't work all that well for them anymore (Ask any GM employee or retiree. I know one that's worried.). My bosses tell me that the way the insurance companies treat small business is why I haven't gotten a raise in six years. And if they're lying (I really don't think they are.) doesn't that prove yet another point?

Alright Jim, I am ready to believe you. Let's pick a series of economic indicators and compare them with kinder, gentler, societies. How about unemployment rates over the past twenty years, scientific patents, economic growth, average household income, income mobility (i.e. the ability to swithc social classes), and capital investment. If those are generally better in countries that are moving progressively more collectivist (France, Germany, Switzerland) than in countries that are either already economically free or moving towards it (Singapore, the US, in the moving category, maybe even India and China) then we have a discussion on our hands. If those European examples are unfair, we could always site the compassionate redistributive policies of Zimbabwe or Cuba. And that is leaving out all of the moral and historical reasons (ie. rights doctrine, the Constitution, etc.) for maximizing freedom within the bounds of certain legal principles.

Note that "maximizing freedom" does not mean tax cuts for big oil and subsidies for Boeing with tax raises for the little guy. It means pulling government intervention back at all levels. Making it easier to start small businesses, and navigate tax codes. Breaking barriers to entry in industries that are de facto protected by government subisidies (farming, shrimping, steel working, etc.). And I'd also like to note that GM is not a failure because the CEO makes too much money and it is not a failure because the government didn't give them enough money. There are dozens of reasons--among them poor engineering and creative design, preexisting pension policies that exasperrated cost woes, and failure to predict demand patterns with higher fuel prices. Would you have the government pay for a bunch of cars to save those 30,000 jobs, Jim? Why is it that whenever a business fails we look to Washington? Sometimes these things happen. I love that GMs crappy design relative to Japanese, Korean, and Chinese counterparts is suddenly a reason for senate intervention and moral indignation. Poor businesses fail. Good ones succeed. That is the pain of capitalism. As Japan found out throughout the 1990s, the more you prop up failing businesses, the more you prevent the dynamism that keeps unemployment low and technological innovation high.

As for my primary point--that sacrificing the heart and soul of philosophic conservatism to get Tom DeLay 3% more voter turnout is both practically stupid (see the Clinton legacy comment on the Democratic Party 8 comments ago that no one has responded to) and morally reprehensible. I think you would agree with me here. If you are right that the middle class needs government help, don't they need that help regardless of the votes that supporting that help would garner? Or should sound policy and moral courage be abandoned completely for the practicalities of electoral success?

I sympathize with those who note that sometimes a little compromise is needed to win for the good guys (for now it is good to keep good relations with Pakistan, as much as possible, even though they are far from perfect--wouldn't want to totally turn a nuclear power ready to go at India over Kashmir with lots of influence in the war on terror cold on us would we?); but at some point, your end goal becomes power, not good. And compromises for personal power are worthless and disgusting. If the Republicans keep power at the expense of conservative values, what good is their influence?

Finally, "The First Church of the Free Market". How can I counter that argument? Obviously if someone believes strongly enough in a series of principles and is willing to argue them that person is a fundamentalist, unworthy of thoughtful consideration, right? And it is also obvious that someone who believes in a series of political principles consequently makes them his primary articles of faith. And obviously those political principles are the result of blind faith, not thought, study, or consideration. After all, the average American knows that things are terrible right now.

Praise Friedman! Hallelujah. I think your caustic whit and exasperation with argumentation have shown me the light.

John -- Did you bother to READ the Douthat and Salam article, especially the prescriptions in the second half? There's nothing collectivist about increasing tax breaks for large families and passing market-friendly health care reform. Health care is consistently the #1 domestic policy issue here in the United States, and the GOP would be fools not to do something about it. And I don't mean a huge payoff to seniors and the drug industry like the medicare bill.

You can't boil frogs if voters have kicked you out of the kitchen.

I think it has more to do with the power shift in the United States. Back when being a conservative Republican meant something, those with the most money were mostly fiscal and social and economic conservatives, and a majority of people who wanted "that life" adopted those values. Therefore, implementing policies, passing laws, and creating tax incentives to benefit them were popular and, for the most part, good for the country.

Now that the power shift of wealth and political clout has shifted to those of a less conservative and (in fact) more socialist persuasion, the things that get people elected and reelected have changed. It's tough to make those changes without losing identity, and I think the Republican party is experiencing what the Democrats experienced in the late 70s with the advent of the "Reagan Democrats."

The problem is that for conservatives to drum up more votes by appealing to their more conservative base means that they're on the lunatic fringe of the right, just as the more liberal candidates tend to go so far left they've almost got their heads on backwards.

It's going to take sifting to sort out the teams again, and I suspect that some of those who used to be of one party will be more comfortable with a different one in the very near future (if not already).

John,

As regards social mobility in the U.S. see:

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3518560

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030901/hutton

Global economic competitiveness? See:

http://www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Global+Competitiveness+Programme%5CGlobal+Competitiveness+Report

That report places Finland ahead of the U.S. but countries that in your theory couldn't be all that effective surround the U.S. with most of the top 10 countries having those amenities such as effective universal health care systems.

As far as economic status is concerned if you like GDP per capita as a measurement look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita

And it's not just the 30,000 jobs at GM. The current system just doesn't work. And the prescription of let the chips fall where they may just won't work in a modern society.