On Avoiding Social Issues: It’s the economy and the Culture, Stupid!

From John Sykes

The RINO GOP circular firing squad, periodically beseiged by Democrat mortar lobs, once again illustrated why the current GOP must be reformed. It’s the economy and the Culture, Stupid!

If the GOP can’t learn to circle its wagons and protect its own, if the GOP runs from and publically savages the important social issues of the day, it is dooming not only itself but possibly this culture to a relativist, statist rabbit hole.

Here’s more from  Cindy Simpson at americanthinker.com:

…Squeaky wheels (whether they still have landlines, lack caller ID, or simply enjoy spending a lot of time at home answering telephone solicitations) may get the media, pollsters', and politicians' grease, but it was thousands of quietly energized and unorganized pairs of shoes that showed up at the recent Chick-fil-A protest.  Was the show of support merely for free speech, or did it have something to do with the content of the speech itself?  On CNN, Tim Stanley noted the potential strength that the protest foreshadowed and wondered that "something more complex is taking place: Economics and culture are becoming synonymous."

Might a large swath of the population believe that those two ideas are more than "becoming synonymous" -- that culture actually lays the very foundation of the economy?  In the masterpiece Witness, Whittaker Chambers, the inspiration for many great conservative thinkers including Ronald Reagan, penned the famous quote: "Economics is not the central problem of this century. It is a relative problem that can be solved in relative ways. Faith is the central problem of this age."

The GOP party line contends that our economic house must be put in order first, leaving the social issues that make up our moral house as a secondary priority.  Some within the party wish to put the moral house in order first.  And many of the rest of us don't understand why there are separate houses to begin with -- rather rooms within the same house that can be addressed simultaneously.  Politicians like Mitch Daniels famously recommended a GOP "truce" on social issues, but to many conservatives, such a stance appeared more as a wave of surrender.  Were religious conservative views on the touchy moral issue of abortion wrapped up in the white flag and thrown under the bus along with Akin?…

Read the rest here …