A few thoughts about the FRC, not actually being there myself:
First, the continued accumulation of prominent social-conservative leaders is impressive. As I said last week, after noting the implicit rejection of Huckabee by Gary Bauer and Tony Perkins:
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a general consensus among social conservative leaders after the Values Voter Summit next week.
Sounds almost prescient now, don't you think? While I don't have the power to see the future (or any insider knowledge from the campaign), it very much seems to be playing out that way. The list of prominent social conservative leaders who have openly endorsed Romney is growing by the day.
Second, Romney’s speech at the FRC tonight has been getting previewed a little. It’s topic? Families. I think this is a good topic for Romney. His record in Massachusetts is beyond reproach in fighting against re-definition of marriage. The topic also speaks to a broader array of issues than abortion alone does. Marriage and family not only serve as the social basis of society, but in our modern society, serves as the distinguishing economic difference between the poor and the wealthy. Thus, in a social sense, Romney can talk about values and problems like abortion that often stem from poor familial relationships (either between the two parents or between parents and children in the case of minor pregnancies). The topic of families also allows Romney to talk about the best way to lift people out of poverty; not by entitlement programs, but by increasing marriages and decreasing divorces.
Of course highlighting the topic that distinguishes the personal lives of the candidates is not a bad one either.
Third, it is also important to remember that Romney is not just the candidate of choice for social conservative leaders because of his stance on traditional values issues. Last week, the issue that turned off Bauer and Perkins from Huckabee was Huckabee’s statements about Iran. This is a far cry from abortion or gay marriage. Likewise, McCain and Thompson get downgraded because of their stance on free speech in McCain-Feingold(-Thompson?). Romney’s entire platform is what these people are endorsing. They like his stance on Iran. They like his stance on the first amendment. I wouldn’t be surprised if he also got points for his stance on immigration or economic issues.
As many of you know Jason Bonham and I sit on the Governor Romney's Faith and Values Committee and I recently took a full time job with the Lighted Candle Society, a non-profit group fighting pornography. I don't want abuse the fact that I helped to found MyManMitt... but I did want to call your attention to this serious issue and ask you to sign the following petition addressed to Oprah.
Nobel laureate Gary Becker, at his blog with U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner, has an interesting look at Israeli kibbutz, socialistic societies that started in the early twentieth century in what was then Palestine by Zionist émigrés from Europe:
Capitalism, industrialization, and the conventional family repelled these émigrés. Kibbutzniks, as they were called, replaced these fundamental aspects of modern societies with collective agriculture where all property was owned by the kibbutz, where adults were treated equally regardless of productivity, and they were rotated every few months among the various tasks that had to be performed on a farm, such as milking cows, planting crops, serving meals, and so forth.
The children were placed in Platonic-type settings, away from their parents, to be taught the ideals and norms of their society. Posner comments that these utopian societies were helpful in Israel before statehood when there was no effective central government:
Collective ownership and wage equality are ways of protecting each member of the collective from economic and other vicissitudes; "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"--the communist slogan actualized in the classic kibbutz--is then a method of social insurance.
These were especially important in protecting the recent settlers from So what’s the point of all this? Well, predictably, most of the kibbutz have failed. Becker and Posner each list several reasons for their failure:
Becker: However, from what I was told and could observe during my brief visit, there was not much harmony-jealousies abounded of those who were only a little better off…Anger was also felt toward those who were considered slackers since they clearly lived off the labor of others. Since everyone ate, worked, and socialized together, small differences were magnified, and became festering sores. Nor were the family arrangements any more satisfactory since parents missed their children, and visa versa.
Posner: There have always been communes, such as the Israeli kibbutzim, but they have usually failed, mainly because of free-rider problems. If wages are uniform, shirkers flourish; also, incentives to undergo training that would increase the value of one's output are blunted. Thus we read in the New York Times article of August 27 mentioned by Becker that "Mr. Varol was born on a kibbutz in the far north, but he left at 18. He is at peace in his new home, but bitter about the past. 'My parents worked all their lives, carrying at least 10 parasites on their backs,' he said. 'If they'd worked that hard in the city for as many years, I'd have had quite an inheritance coming to me by now.'"
So why talk about this on a blog about Mitt Romney? I think there are a few points to be taken from this
First, despite the seductive platitudes of socialism, in practice, even on a small scale, it does little but impoverish all those under its dominion. This may seem a fairly ordinary conclusion to MMM readers, who are no doubt attracted to Romney’s stout defense of capitalism. Yet in spite of the success of capitalism, free markets, and individual incentives, there is still a culture of collectivism in Washington. Thus, it is not sufficient for a President alone to embrace capitalism, but there must be a change in the federal government’s culture in order to effectuate change. For that I offer this from the South Carolina debate:
Second, family structure matters. Becker’s conclusion is this:
Basically, they ignored the evidence of history that self interest and family orientation is not the product of capitalism, but is human nature due to selection from evolutionary pressure over billions of years.
It is common to find politicians deride the importance of the family. Even some Republicans (I’m looking at you Rudy) seem to embrace the notion that family is an artificial construct, that can (or perhaps should) be disregarded as elemental to the preservation of our society. This notion is present in the ever expanding role of schools in teaching about sexuality. Some programs proposed (I’m looking at you Barack) imply that schools are the better environment in which to broach sensitive topics. Alternatively, they find little use for increased parental involvement and responsibility for their children’s education. Additionally, the nature of marriage (instrumental in the formation of a solid family structure) is under attack almost daily, as evidenced by the recent court decision in Iowa. All these ideas, as Becker concludes, are inconsistent with billions of years of natural selection. The family has been the constant structure of society. As governments have come and gone, the family has survived and provided the most important elements of human existence. Romney understands and advocates strengthening the family:
Third, Mitt Romney is the best candidate to advance those themes. In fact, I think that these two Becker conclusions, along with the main purpose of government in providing for the common defense, are Romney’s campaign pillars:
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