Democrats are neglecting a powerful issue that holds the potential to siphon substantial numbers from a key, but increasingly shaky, Republican constituency: social libertarians.
Promoting individual liberty – or, put less affirmatively, articulating Americans' traditional hostility toward government regulation of private behavior – was a once-cherished strain in conservative philosophy. Yet beginning in the 1960s and snowballing ever since, the GOP has forsaken principled conservatism in exchange for pandering to "values voters" who no doubt cherish their own rights and liberties, but show little regard for others'.
The inadvertent and highly improbable father of this no-longer "new" conservatism, Barry Goldwater, deeply regretted his contribution to the values movement. Only out of desperation did he introduce a social-morality theme into the culturally turbulent 1964 presidential race. Right-wing moralists cheered him on, and, under the tutelage of Christian Ayatollahs such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, they kept on cheering and expanding in numbers long after the senator gave up White House hopes. A horrified Goldwater saw the electoral monster he had helped create, one that threatened to undo much of the hands-off Republicanism he had represented for decades.
By the late 1980s the senator openly lamented that his party's new keepers "[stress] the politics of absolute moral right and wrong. And, of course, they are convinced of their absolute rightness.” Problem is, Goldwater added, “If either side insists on legislating morality in absolute terms, then the challenge to democratic society is too great. It’s simply unworkable.”
That a prima facie case can be made for Goldwater's observation is beyond doubt, yet the temptress of electoral opportunism – that, in my opinion, more so than their certainty of "absolute rightness" – has kept Republican pols on the straight and narrow of quite unconservative moralizing – and all of it putting at risk individual liberties.
Putting aside the obvious obscenities committed against constitutional guarantees by this Republican-led government in its tubercular "war on a tactic" – suspension of habeas corpus, indefinite imprisonment, sanctioned torture, unfettered surveillance – consider what some might regard as milder offenses against American liberties, such as the feds' encroachment into wholly un-federal matters like marriage, the right to die, even a scientist's right to research. Yet these offenses are properly viewed as milder only if one ignores that their successful intrusions into public policy greased the skids for the harsher obscenities.
And now comes another statist intrusion. Add it to the list and carve another notch: Our Big Sisters have been watching disapprovingly and now command that you can no longer plunk down a $5 cyberchip on a flush. Tsk-tsk.
"Placing bets over the Internet was effectively criminalized by the federal government [Friday], as lawmakers work[ed] to eliminate an activity enjoyed by as many as 23 million Americans who wagered an estimated $6 billion last year.
"Attached to a port-security bill signed by President Bush ... was the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which prohibits online gamblers from using credit cards, checks and electronic fund transfers to place and settle bets....
"The bill's sponsor, Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.), said he opposes all gambling, citing its 'ill effects on society,' but particularly Internet gambling, which led him to draft the legislation in the summer. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) attached Goodlatte's bill to [a] port-security measure to ensure its passage and Bush's signature."
Now, do you believe for one federalist minute that Bill Frist actually gives one holy-rolling hoot about Internet gambling? Pshaw. It's just red meat for the values crowd – that singular constituency essential to any (meaning his) Republican presidential candidacy.
As for your individual freedom to venture a fiver – or for that matter your God-given right of stupidity to bet the farm -- on an online flush? Well, your Republican nannies know better, and they're there to save you from your bad, sinful self.
This strangulation of individual liberty through the pious regulation of private behavior is a visceral, emotional issue that the greater hordes of the less self-righteous can easily wrap their brains around. They don't like it, and it lies ripe for Dems to exploit on principle.