I’m Conservative and I’m Pro Immigration

By Michael Laffey

            I will put my Conservative credentials up against just about anyone.  The first President I voted for was Ronald Reagan.  I was a founder of the Conservative Student Union on my College Campus.  As a lawyer I have given countless pro-bono hours to conservative legal causes and worked on the campaigns of some of the most conservative politicians this state has seen.  As a result I tend to get a little testy when somebody tells me I am not conservative enough because I am pro- immigration and support immigration reform. The truth of the matter is that pro- immigration is the conservative stance.  Whether a position is conservative or not depends not on what Rush Limbaugh says but on whether it adheres to bedrock conservative principles.

            For instance, we believe in a government of limited powers enumerated in the Constitution.  Nowhere does the constitution explicitly give Congress the right to regulate immigration.  You can find the power to regulate immigration only if you infer it from other enumerated powers in the Constitution such as the Naturalization clause or the Commerce clause.  Of course we have all seen what happens when liberals “infer” powers from the Constitution.

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Star Ledger Editor Tom Moran Calls Conservatives Racist

The Star Ledger’s Tom Moran is back to his old tricks of using the race card while attempting to advance his political agenda.

In early 2010, shortly after Governor Chris Christie took office, Moran tried to derail the Christie administration by teaming up with Assembly Speaker Shelia Oliver to call Christie and his team “…white men, most of them political neophytes…” who never rode a bus and couldn’t understand how their deeply their economic policies were impacting “working poor families.” 

Moran did that before he realized that Christie is a “force of nature who could probably make a dog sing if he put his mind to it.”

In a column posted on Tuesday that defends the President’s constitutional pronouncements about the Supreme Court’s right to overturn ObamaCare Moran employed Jeanane Garofalo’s tactic of accusing Obama’s critics of being racist.

Because Moran is smarter and prettier, his accusation is sublter than Garofalo’s crude remarks, yet it is no less offensive:

Obama went on to make an important point: That if the court overrules the health care law, it will be practicing judicial activism. Conservatives have been complaining about judicial activism since the Supreme Court struck down Jim Crow segregation laws in the South, and the heat rose considerably after Roe v. Wade.

Maybe fellow Star Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine can explain the difference between judicial activistism and constructionism to Moran.

Activistism is when a Court finds, invents or redefines a constitutional provision in order to make new law that is consistent with its political or ideological preference.  That is what the U.S. Supreme Court did in Roe v Wade and what the NJ Supreme Court did in the Abbott decisions.

Constructionism is what a court does when it decides that the legislative or executive branches exceeded the power granted to them in the Constitution, like mandating people buy something they don’t want.

Moran, like Obama, probably knows the difference.  Also like Obama, he probably just doesn’t think the Constitution is that important.  That’s OK for Moran who hasn’t sworn to protect and defend the Constitution.  It’s not OK for the President who has sworn that oath.

The race card worked well for liberals in 2008.  The invoked it successfully to mute Obama’s poltical opponents in the Democratic primary and during the general election.  They appealed to ‘white guilt” to get Obama elected.  It was a disgusting and effective strategy.

But the race card is played out. It didn’t work in the politicization of the Trayvon Martin tragedy.  It didn’t work when Garofalo played it.  It didn’t work in 2010.

Moran should stop playing the race card.  Conservative opposition to ObamaCare has nothing to do with the Jim Crow laws, just as Governor Christie’s economic policies have nothing to do with how many of his cabinet members and staffers have ever ridden a bus.

Moran’s job is the inform, educate and persuade.   He should leave the obfuscation to politicians, activists and B-rate entertainers looking for their next gig.

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Political Conservatism and Religious Conservatism

By Art Gallagher

A couple of weeks back, in between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, presidential contender Rick Santorum was subject to claims that he wanted to outlaw birth control.

During an interview with FoxNews’s Brett Baier, Santorum explained that as a Catholic he believed that birth control is wrong, but that he would not support his religious belief regarding birth control becoming law.  With regard to birth control, Santorum is able to be both a political conservative and a religious conservative.  The position is politically conservative, consistent with the U.S. Constitution, religious freedom and personal liberty.  His choice to strictly follow the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church regarding sex and procreation is religiously conservative.

Political conservatism and religious conservatism are not the same thing. 

Actually, neither of them are “things.”  They are abstractions.  Philosophical constructs. Values.  They are not things.

Political conservatism and religious conservatism are not the same distinction.  Santorum demonstrated in his interview with Baier that, in the matter of birth control, he is both politically conservative and religiously conservative.

In a follow up Baier asked about marriage.  Regarding marriage, Santorum’s religious conservatism trumps his political conservatism, it seems to me.  The former Pennsylvania senator is able to think, to distinguish, between his political conservatism and religious conservatism, with regard to birth control, but homosexuality is too much of a sin for Santorum to distinguish between his religious convictions and the law of the land.

Why that is doesn’t really make sense to me. 

The Catholic Church teaches that practicing birth control is a mortal sin.  If a faithful heterosexual married couple bumps uglies with a barrier, physical or surgical, or with the use of a chemical, that prevents conception, they are going to hell if they die before they get to confession.  If they bump the uglies in the wrong holes, like homosexuals do, and die before confessing, off to Lucifer they go for eternity.   That’s OK with the politically conservative Santorum and many, many others.

If a faithful same sex couple bumps uglies in the wrong holes and die before going to confession, they are also going to hell, according to Catholic teaching.  But while their queer souls are here on earth, in the United States of America, Santorum and many other religious conservatives want them to have different political rights and responsibilities than the heterosexual couple.

I don’t get how that is politically conservative.   Why is same sex marriage different than birth control in the minds of Santorum and so many “conservatives?”

Can someone explain that to me?

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