Here’s more evidence that the GOP is coming apart at the seems, as Dick Armey blasts social conservatives for embracing big government to adcance their agenda:
There was a day when social conservatives were united with economic conservatives in the belief that small, limited government was not only good for our economy and the prosperity of American families, but essential to protect traditional family values. We all fought for a limited federal government — a government that had the decency to respect the American people by staying out of their lives. Small government meant that all Christians could practice their faith as they saw fit. Big government violates those rights by meddling in our lives, misusing our hard-earned money, and dictating cultural norms to us. We were and are rightly outraged when government imposes wrong-headed values through its monopoly of schools, government-funded “art,” and taxpayer funded “family planning.”
As a united conservative movement, we win when we defend traditional values against big government pretensions to impose its brand of “morality” on the American people. We lose when we attempt to use government power to impose our values on others.
Armey then provides a brilliant summary of the Terry Schiavo fiasco:
Nowhere was it more wrong, with more disastrous policy ends, than in the Terri Schiavo intervention. While her case was heartbreaking, our Founders created a government built on checks and balances, not a nation run by an arbitrary and imperial Congress. Congress cannot simply override our entire state and federal legal system to intervene in one person’s situation. It was truly a chilling act.
I don’t agree with Dick Armey on many things, but I totally agree that we need to keep the government out of our private lives. Democrats and liberals can learn a thing or two from this column as well. Democrats need to consider reducing the reach and influence of government, especially now that many on the right are eager to use government to legislate their interpretations of morality on the rest of us. I’d like to see libertarian Democrats argue for less interference in our private lives.
