Rick Santorum and Social Issues in the 2012 Election

Kyle Peterson's write-up of last night's GOP presidential primary debate in Greenville, SC included this summary of Rick Santorum's remarks and positions.

“I always say freedom is not the freedom from, it’s the freedom for,” Santorum said. “It’s freedom to do what you ought to do. It’s freedom to do what you’re called to do, which is a freedom — within the Western civilization — to serve God, to take care of your neighbor, to provide for your family, to live a good and just and virtuous life. That’s what freedom really is.”

I also noticed his remarks about Gov. Mtch Daniels's call for a truce on social issues until the nation is on better economic and fiscal footing:: "Anyone who thinks there should be a social truce doesn't understand what America is all about."

Santorum's remarks represent an unsavory orientation toward government power and a losing message for the GOP in the 2012 elections.

First of all, if you stack up a bunch of laws to criminalize marijuana or pornography, ban same-sex marriages and abortions or otherwise use the coercive power of government to enforce a particular moral vision of society, no one is "free" to do what they "ought to do." We are constrained to be a certain way and to do certain things. That is not freedom in any reasonable sense of the word.

Second, this kind of thinking is philosophically indistinguishable from that of President Obama and most of the rest of the Democratic Party. It boils down to a belief that people should not be free to choose, that we are too stupid or immoral to decide what's best for ourselves, and that we need government to step in to save us. Democrats and Santorumites may have different priorities about how to use government and what particular choices they want the government to make on our behalf, but there is no principled difference between government commanding us to buy health insurance in order to promote universal health care and government proscribing contraception, abortion, or consensual homosexual sex. Either you are for a limited government exercising a finite set of enumerated powers or not, and it is clear to me on which side Santorum falls.

Third, using the police power of the state to coerce people into acting in accordance with the principles of a particular moral tradition renders the voluntary choice to adhere to tradition meaningless. In pre-revolutionary Iran, a woman's choice to wear a hijab was a symbol of faith and a marker of dedication to a particular version of Islam amidst a sea of alternatives. After the Islamic revolution, all women were forced to wear a hijab, and what was once a clear and powerful signal of personal commitment became valueless. Traditionalism, temperance, chastity, modesty, and even faith itself have no value if they are enforced at gunpoint.

Finally, though least importantly, Santorum's message of values first everything else second is a big loser for the Republican Party. It was a big loser for him in his last U.S. Senate campaign in Pennsylvania. Bob Casey beat him 59% to 41% in 2006. Two-term incumbent senators aren't usually thrashed by 18%, especially in a moderate swing state like Pennsylvania. Bear in mind also, that election was five years ago---pre-Great Recession, pre-TARP, pre-Stimulus, pre-Bailout, pre-Health Care Reform. Everything that has changed in American politics in the intervening period suggests that a candidate needs to have a credible program to support economic growth, job creation, and reductions in public debt first and anything else second. Santorum's focus on social issues is fully out of step with most voters' priorities. People are worried about jobs, the economy, the debt, the deficit, taxes, and to a much lesser extent about civil liberties, terrorism, and the war in Afghanistan. As Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi (hardly a bastion of social liberalism) put it, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, and the main thing is economic growth and job creation for our people."

Sadly, and eerily, Santorum seems perfectly willing to scuttle the Republican Party's 2012 election prospects and, with it, the nation's economic and fiscal future, for the sake of his vision of political purity:

"If you look at ’06, I didn’t flinch,” Santorum said. “You stand up for what you believe in, and sometimes you lose."

Santorum is perfectly free to martyr his own political career for whatever purpose he wants. I only hope his tone deaf, big government, anti-choice message doesn't end up hurting the prospects of a serious Republican contender for the presidency.