POSTREL ON SULLY ON SANTORUM
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James Joyner | Thursday, April 24, 2003 |
Virginia Postrel weighs in on the Santorum-Sullivan flap and makes the argument I was composing in my head, although better than at least the rough draft of my version. So just go and read hers, saving me the trouble. A precis:
What I don’t get is why sophisticated pundits imagine that Rick Santorum might think that the Constitution protects sexual privacy or that the government should stay out of people’s sex lives.Santorum is, first of all, from Pennsylvania, a highly traditional state with an aging population whose don’t-make-waves politics is protective of the status quo and not the least suspicious of government power. I wouldn’t expect a Pennsylvania politician to push for new sanctions to regulate sexual behavior, but neither would I expect one to push to get current laws overturned. *** Andrew Sullivan is being disingenuous when he writes, “Has Santorum heard of limited government? It was once a conservative idea, you know, Senator.”
As Andrew well knows, limited government is a liberal idea. It only seems conservative in the Anglo-American context because we’ve had several hundred years of liberal tradition. But there are older, pre-liberal conservative traditions, including a rather prominent one to which Rich Santorum outspokenly adheres–a tradition that honors hierarchy, solidarity, and “natural law” and sees liberal individualism as a source of decay.
Go read the rest.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia.
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