Conservatives at Values Voters Summit argue that social issues still matter

I completely agree with Newt and Jim DeMint.

The economic crisis is the result of a moral crisis. Anyone that wants to restore the economy and get their job back should get behind these guys and stop the immoral perversion that is the primary cause of the economic collapse.

And the sexual perversion supported by the homosexual lobby is a large factor of the moral crisis and therefore directly responsible for the global recession.

“Economics are morals and morals are economics, said many Republican politicians during the conference. As former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said, “The meltdown of Wall Street was not a money crisis, it was a moral crisis.” Sen. Jim DeMint said the same thing about fiscal policy: “One of the largest costs of the federal government is related to the values issues, to the dysfunctional society.”

Allowing same-sex marriage would further destroy the economy, which is why Tom Emmer is the best candidate for MN governor to restore the economy.

Wow. That comment needs more explanation, Tim. How did “sexual perversion” cause the housing crisis and the financial industry meltdown?

(Also, Tim, it appears you’ve been commenting under multiple names, in violation of our comment policy. Please stick to one username if you’d like your comments to keep appearing.)

@Paul Schmelzer – I would love to continue this conversation with you guys, but sometimes I get errors when summiting comments and have tried other names to get past the errors.

With regard to tying sexual perversion to the financial crisis, there are plenty of good books you could read to gain this knowledge.

Where to you think Jim and Newt got this idea from? Do you think they just made it up?

“Where to you think Jim and Newt got this idea from? Do you think they just made it up?”

In a word? Yes.

That’s a great picture of Newt. Best I’ve ever seen.

Please, Tim, name a couple of these good books.

Newt is a moral authority? This serial adulterer is probably scouting for wife #4. Huckabee? A minister who compares a child being denied insurance for a pre-existing condition to asking for car insurance after an accident.

I’m guessing the good books don’t include “the good book”.

I used to be Tim, but with the multi-name Tim posting regularly, I’ll now be “Different Tim”.

I wondered who this “Santorum” is. So I googled him. You should do the same. It explains so very much about him.

Newt Gingrich is a nutcase and Tim and Dennis are nuts too for believing anything that Newt or any other right winged nutjob says.

“Economics are morals and morals are economics, said many Republican politicians during the conference.”

What they meant by that is that in a civilized society, trust is the basis of the economy. We trust that a piece of paper with a person’s signature on it will be exchangable at the bank for cash money. Before written contracts, a man’s handshake was all that was needed to seal a deal. A man’s word was his bond. So how did you know whether or not a man could be trusted? Whether you trusted a man’s handshake or not was based on his morality, which is the standards of behavior in a civilized society.

Ross Perot, the consummate businessman, in his run for president in 1992, once said of Bill Clinton, “The man’s wife can’t trust him, why should I?” Ironically, Perot’s comments split the anti-Clinton vote and Slick Willy won the election but with only 43% of the vote.

Economics are morals and morals are economics.

Thank you for explaining the reason many Republicians are so bad at economics and are hypocrites in their personal lives.

“Economics are morals and morals are economics, said many Republican politicians during the conference.”

I’ve seen this type of verbage before on MI articles. Please consider attributing quotes to one or more individuals.

I call myself ultra-conservative (according to the mistaken but popular leftist nomenclature) but “economics are morals” is IMO a very braindead statement. I honestly don’t know exactly what was being conveyed.

Economics is the study of allocating resources; morality is a set of values that guides human behavior. Both are important and useful concepts, but not equal in any meaningful way.

Jimmy/Rudy/Raymond:

The foundation of free market economics is trust and the basis of trust is morality. It’s simple, really.

Unfortunately, the cynic in me tells me that the foundation of free market economics is the bottom line regardless of cost to humanity and the environment, that given this reality, the basis of trust sometimes has to be the big stick of an effective, functioning government. It’s simple, really.

There are as many sets of moral values as there are people, and even then, these shift within the same person depending on what is happening in that person’s life at that moment. Talk of morality is meaningless without the accompanying ethics.

So the politicians at the values voters summit are highly moral people (because they say so, whether they LIVE so or not), so they should be trusted, and it’s all good. Hand them the reins. Oh wait…we did that…and look where we are.

@Lane – Your big government ideas are a lousy replacement for self-governed morality. But your hatred of God and the things of God that stand against your rebellion against Him and your rejection of the existence of sin and your need for a savior, leave you no choice but to try and replace God with a bigger and bigger government.

The trouble is that government has never been able to replace God in any society throughout history because the characters of God do not exist within man. No matter how diligently you look for god like qualities in man – they do not exist.

Man is incapable of functioning without God or building a civil society without Him.

Therefore your big government ideas are complete foolishness and can only result is economic and civil breakdown, as we have seen in the Obama Administration.

The God of the universe does not have a shifting set of moral values that are relative to culture as you suggest, but an unchanging absolute moral values documented in scripture for the entire world to see and study.

The knowledge of Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of all economic and civil society. Building a nation on anything else is like building a house on sand.

Tim:

1. Effective, functioning government and “bigger and bigger government” are two different things.

2. What part of atheism do you not understand? If I hated god, that would mean I believe such a thing exists – which I don’t.

3. Given that you recently cyberbullied a 16-year-old gay man, you are in no position to discuss “self-governed morality.” Again, talk of morality is meaningless without accompanying ethics.

4. Bah.

@Dennis: Free markets deal with liars and cheaters very effectively. Those that violate their contracts, or take other’s property, pay a heavy price. It’s the regulated economies that protect and reward cheaters and idiots.

I agree that everyone benefits when more citizens are honest and hardworking. But free markets are the best at handling the others.

Conservatives are funny. Business is somehow associated with morals (a huge belly laugh). Free Market has no concern with ANYTHING other than profit. Businessmen will claim (when off camera) that they only have an ethical responsibility to stockholders. How is that the basis of civilization?

The conservatives want to “not let them” remove social issue from the agenda–but it is the Democrats that promote social programs and seem in the least concerned with social issues. Republicans seem more concerned with keeping the money and power in the hands of the few? I guess that is one kind of social program. But, it has repeatedly failed in the past.

Funny, too, is how they love to speak of family (meaning religious) issues as “social” but socialism is a dirty word. Why do you conservatives just admit that you don’t care about people other than yourselves or your kind and your dumb myths? Instead of dealing rationally with our huge problems, you misdirect attention with “moral” issues that stem from bigotry and religious fundamentalism.

Free markets deal with liars and cheaters very effectively.
Really? You mean like Rick Scott? What a heavy price to pay – a $10 million golden parachute to walk away from his lying and cheating – and become a Republican candidate for governor.
Why are you against regulation? Even Christians have regulations (10 commandments). Maybe if we did away with those 10 regulations and allowed free behavior we would see more moral behavior?

>>>> Really? You mean like Rick Scott?

Scott’s primary customer was the government. Not much of a free market there.

>>>> Even Christians have regulations (10 commandments).

Amazing isn’t it? God only gave ten regulations! AND they are obeyed on the honor system; no jailtime or fines are imposed.

Regulations, with their sanctions, are just fancy forms of violence against the citizens. Gangsters aren’t eliminated, most just work in the public sector now; so victims have no real recourse.

I would consider eternity in hell as pretty stiff jail time.

Regulations = violence on citizens
so
Commandments = violence on mankind?

>>>> I would consider eternity in hell as pretty stiff jail time.

But all the sinner needs to do is ask for forgiveness.

I don’t favor a country without laws. Laws are needed to protect individual property rights. E.g. the smoking ban is a regulation; it doesn’t protect anyone’s property rights, it infringes on them.

My lungs are my property.

So is your ass which you don’t need to drag into a restraunt or bar. The establishment’s OWNER should have the choice of whether or not patrons can smoke. THAT would protect property rights.

Sanitary and food regulations do not protect property rights either, but absent these, it would be much harder to get wary potential customers – smoking or not – in the door.

Additionally, no worker should have to jeopardize his health just to earn a living. And no, I won’t accept that argument that he can just find a job in a non-smoking place.

>>>> would be much harder to get wary potential customers – smoking or not – in the door

If I order a cheeseburger but end up with a cow pie in a bun, I’ve probably been defrauded. The vendor would likely replace it, refund it, or in extreme cases face legal action. In any case patrons demand good food and will quickly scatter when the chicken looks like beef and smells like fish.

>>>> I won’t accept that argument

You’ve negated your own argument.

Face legal action on what grounds especially if only those laws that protect property rights exist?

J/R/R, you know darn well that no business has the right to unhealthy, unsafe working conditions for its workers – hence that argument that s/he can just find work elsewhere is a copout.

If my burger comes saturated in arsenic, someone is guilty of a crime and liable for civil damages. When one orders a burger there is an implied contract that what is delivered is not poisonous. So, any reasonable person would expect there to be no arsenic. But any reasonable person would also expect there to be cholesterol in the beef and it might make one get fat.

>>>> no business has the right to unhealthy, unsafe working conditions for its workers

Nonsense. Try working on an oil rig. Or spraying crops. Or mining. Or soldiering. Persons adverse to these risky professions don’t work in them. (Never mind that second hand smoking risks are dubious at best.)

“Implied contracts” imply the existence of a legal framework including written regulations that serve as objective standards given that people’s opinions on what ought to be all too often are all over the map including No Common Sense Land.

As for those risky professions, that legal framework provides those workers with recourse should the employer/government not do all that they can to minimize risks to safety and health as well as to provide fair compensation should that injury or death occur. Again, written regulations serve as objective standards given employers’/government officials’ opinions are often influenced by the bottom line or political agenda.

In addition to health consequences, smoking also has heavy financial costs to everyone. There is a plethora of articles on the WWW describing those costs; just google and read some of those articles.

Never mind that J/R/R’s sanity is dubious at best.