Those of us who have read the 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding the federal mandate for gay marriage can only shake our heads at the ruling itself, while uproariously laugh at the dissent, written substantially by Chief Justice Roberts, but with noticeable Scalia flair:
Of course the opinion’s showy profundities are often profoundly incoherent. “The nature of marriage is that,through its enduring bond, two persons together can findother freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality.” (Really? Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie. Expression, sure enough, is a freedom, but anyone in a long-lasting marriage will attest that that happy state constricts, rather than expands, what one can prudently say.)
All joking aside though, it is remarkable how quickly the dynamic has changed over the last week. Two issues that were significant wedge drivers have been lifted off the table, leaving progressives the two issues that matter at the moment: America’s foreign policy decline and the wobbling economy.
Republicans can take heart. After all, the hard work of putting culture in front of politics is now front and center for social conservatives. For 40 years we have tried legislating morality only to learn that what is important is legislating morally. Now we are faced with the far more valuable task of fixing the families in the pews, one by one.
Politics follows culture; culture eats strategy for breakfast. No one steeped in conservative ethics from Burke to Hayek to Chambers to Reagan to Sowell denies otherwise. The great task of the modern conservative remains — as it did in the days of Russell Kirk — with the regeneration of the spirit:
“The twentieth century conservative is concerned, first of all, with the regeneration of the spirit and character — with the perennial problem of the inner order of the soul, the restoration of the ethical understanding, and the religious sanction upon which any life worth living is founded. This is conservatism at its highest.”
— Russell Kirk, “The Conservative Mind” (1953)
This is not a suggestion that we pivot away from social conservatism, but rather we change the arenas in which those battles are fought. Kitchen tables, churches, parishes, conversations with friends and family — the same way the pro-life movement has done it in the wake of Roe v. Wade since 1973. Slowly but surely, the pro-life argument has carried the day — not through legislation, but because the culture prevailed and changed the politics.
Such is the task of non-profits and churches. Conservatives engaged in the political arena have other advantages.
The global setting? Islamist terrorism is on the rise, Russia’s gambit to become a world supplier of energy is proving to be more grand strategy than lark. NATO is on the brink of a regional war. The Euro is on the brink of the long-predicted Grexit. The European Union is about to see a Brexit. The “pivot to Asia” is under threat due to domestic resistance to free trade back home.
Virginia has a role to play in this as well.
There are a handful of potential wealth centers around the world. Believe it or not, the future of Virginia’s economic wealth engine will not be Northern Virginia, but Hampton Roads — and more specifically our deep water port at Norfolk.
Norfolk is the only deep water port on the eastern seaboard that can take the post-Panamax tankers. New York is currently blasting their way into receiving these new tankers, and the Port of Baltimore is the only other port that can take the Panamax tankers themselves. That’s it — only two ports, folks.
There are other advantages to the Port of Virginia that make us one of potentially 14 centers for wealth, finance, manufacturing and services. As we move away from sequestration and an economy largely bankrolled by the federal government, the next 20 years in Virginia will be focused like a laser as to whether or not Richmond is willing to take advantage of our superior place on the world map.
Nationally — social issues having come off the debate podium and put back on the kitchen table — the focus is entirely on job creation, reducing red tape, creating the financial sluices that marry investment to ideas, and refocusing our education system away from the 19th century model towards a vibrant 21st century one utterly focused on workforce development and post-secondary education, as Jeffersonian an idea as ever.
Moreover, America’s national prestige has unquestionably declined over the last decade, and our experiment with “diplomacy by drone” has failed utterly. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) has the right argument when it comes to the use of force, but more to the point is that the backbone of American power is not to be found in drones, but in the power of the American Navy to patrol the seas and maintain the Pax Americana. Let’s be serious here — would a 15 carrier fleet be an entirely unwelcome development for Newport News Shipbuilding?
The rising cost of healthcare and the horrendous decision in King v. Burwell has a solution in 2016: repeal the old law, replace it with a free market solution (HSAs + HDIPs), pass it through Congress and have it signed by a POTUS that gives a damn. Simple as that.
But the growing threat of an American economy, workforce, and infrastructure system woefully underprepared to meet the challenges and opportunities of a 21st century economy should fundamentally preoccupy the thoughts of policy makers and elected officials alike. Smart activists who get it can come along too.
Creating economic opportunities and lifting working families out of poverty are issues Republicans can win on in the arena where the battle is best fought. The temporary breather on marriage and Obamacare is probably needed, if for no other reason than the cultural sands have clearly shifted, and no law will shore up what we in our laziness (yes, laziness) have given away.
Let the regeneration of the American economy begin in earnest, and let’s dedicate ourselves to the task and make the case for free market solutions that bolsters free enterprise and builds a free society. The regeneration of culture is a 50-year fight that will be won not in the political arena, but in our pews and at our kitchen tables.
