{"id":12911,"date":"2012-01-04T09:55:25","date_gmt":"2012-01-04T14:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=12911"},"modified":"2012-01-04T09:55:25","modified_gmt":"2012-01-04T14:55:25","slug":"santorum-is-the-spock-with-a-beard-universe-version-of-ron-paul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/01\/04\/santorum-is-the-spock-with-a-beard-universe-version-of-ron-paul\/","title":{"rendered":"Santorum is the “Spock with a beard” universe version of Ron Paul"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Tanner<\/a> enumerates the Santorum attributes his evangelical conservative fans seem to find most attractive:<\/p>\n

\n

There is no doubt that Santorum is deeply conservative on social issues. He is ardently anti-abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, and no one takes a stronger stand against gay rights. In fact, with his comparison of gay sex to \u201cman on dog\u201d relationships, Santorum seldom even makes a pretense of tolerance. While that sort of rhetoric may play well in Iowa pulpits, it will be far less well received elsewhere in the nation.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

Santorum\u2019s voting record shows that he embraced George Bush\u2013style \u201cbig-government conservatism.\u201d For example, he supported the Medicare prescription-drug benefit and No Child Left Behind. <\/p>\n

He never met an earmark that he didn\u2019t like. In fact, it wasn\u2019t just earmarks for his own state that he favored, which might be forgiven as pure electoral pragmatism, but earmarks for everyone, including the notorious \u201cBridge to Nowhere.\u201d The quintessential Washington insider, he worked closely with Tom DeLay to set up the \u201cK Street Project,\u201d linking lobbyists with the GOP leadership.<\/p>\n

He voted against NAFTA and has long opposed free trade. He backed higher tariffs on everything from steel to honey. He still supports an industrial policy with the government tilting the playing field toward manufacturing industries and picking winners and losers.<\/p>\n

In fact, Santorum might be viewed as the mirror image of Ron Paul. If Ron Paul\u2019s campaign has been based on the concept of simply having government leave us alone, Santorum rejects that entire concept. True liberty, he writes, is not \u201cthe freedom to be left alone,\u201d but \u201cthe freedom to attend to one\u2019s duties to God, to family, and to neighbors.\u201d And he seems fully prepared to use the power of government to support his interpretation of those duties.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Tanner enumerates the Santorum attributes his evangelical conservative fans seem to find most attractive: There is no doubt that Santorum is deeply conservative on social issues. He is ardently anti-abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, and no one takes a stronger stand against gay rights. In fact, with his comparison of gay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,84,10,53,13],"tags":[601,360,727,196,322,266],"class_list":["post-12911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-government","category-liberty","category-politics","category-usa","tag-abortion","tag-christianity","tag-cronycapitalism","tag-lgbt","tag-nannystate","tag-protectionism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-3mf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12912,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12911\/revisions\/12912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}