Rick Santorum as National Muse
The New York Times Magazine yesterday (hey, I'm still catching up) did an extended profile of Pennsylvania's conservative junior senator, Rick Santorum. The profile is sympathetic; I certainly don't like his politics and I approve of naming disgusting forms of fecal matter after him, but a lot of his worldview sounds downright acceptable. Not better than a Democratic alternative, but it turns out I don't disagree with him on everything. Let's start light:
Lately he has been talking about issues of poverty, and the initiatives he put forward in March, bundled in the Senate Republican Poverty Alleviation Agenda (tax breaks to increase giving to faith-based and community charities; a ''level playing field'' for faith-based groups; programs to promote fatherhood, strengthen families and mentor children of inmates), were consistent with his conservative values.
I suspect this may be the future of American politics. I am not enthused by all of Santorum's specifics, but he deserves some credit for trying. In general, he's on the right track, and putting pressure in the Senate to do something about, say, mentoring children of inmates could do some real good. I think of poverty as the great crisis in America: if all these millions of people with no hope of upward mobility were living middle-class lives, what would it mean for our country, in terms of productivity and innovation? What would it mean for those people, in terms of their happiness? Fortunately, it seems like helping those in the world's worst situations has become one of the hot new topics in politics: besides Santorum, we've got my hero John Edwards launching a new Center on Poverty at the UNC law school, and Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas is helping social conservatives finally put two and two together and put some real weight behind ending mass slaughter in places like Darfur. Granted, Brownback seems most intent on helping Christians, and Santorum has a feverish bent on faith-based initiatives, but the motivation to help people seems sincere, and hopefully the increasing visibility of these politicians (all three are 2008 presidential candidates, barring the unforeseen) will increase the visibility of these issues too. But it doesn't take long for me to lose pace with the guy:
His line of reasoning usually goes like this: The founding fathers were men of faith. They believed in a nation based on traditional, religiously derived values, the same ''moral absolutes'' that he finds in his faith, and to diverge from them is to undermine the health of American society.
Interesting theory. Are you familiar with Deism? It's a religious philosophy that emphasizes natural events and reasoning to draw conclusions about God, as opposed to relying on scripture and revelations. Imagine if a politician today actually tried to make that their religious worldview: they would get nuked by the social conservatives. According to Wikipedia's list of deists, that would render George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine unelectable.
So I think Santorum's trying to emphasize a pretty weak link between himself and the founders. More importantly, though, my reading of history doesn't jive with Santorum's at all. When I see references to God in 18th and 19th century politics, it seems to me that politicians use them to explain their philosophies, not to dictate anyone else's. There's a huge difference. The second half of Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address is pretty much entirely about God, but take a look at what he says:
Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.
So what's he saying here? To me, he's using a prevailing belief, that we're all children of the same God, as an example of the similarities between the North and South. Note that he's not dictating any sort of policy (unless you count "judge not" here), and he actually says otherwise. If the Almighty has his own purposes, it's not for us on earth to know what those are. Kind of hurts the gay marriage case, doesn't it?
(Speaking of Lincoln and faith: John Edwards once opened a Senate prayer breakfast by telling a story of President Lincoln at a similar gathering. One of his generals suggested that Lincoln pray that God was on their side. Lincoln said, "well, I can't do that, but I will pray that we're on God's side." Again, I don't see how this necessitates back-alley abortions.)
So Rick Santorum raises some thoughtful issues. He also raises some less thoughtful issues:
When I asked him if he viewed gay marriage as a threat to his own marriage, he answered quickly. ''Yes, absolutely,'' he said. ''It threatens my marriage. It threatens all marriages. It threatens the traditional values of this country.''
To me, that quote disqualifies Rick Santorum from high public office. There are two people responsible for Rick Santorum's marriage: Rick Santorum and his wife. If anything on earth should threaten their marriage, the responsibility lies with those two people and the bond that was too weak to withstand outside forces. Any other perspective is both irresponsible and unfair to the rest of the world.
The author of the piece, Michael Sokolove, does his part to find the roots of Santorum's beliefs. Here's where he hits the nail on the head:
Through his 20's and early 30's ... Santorum ... briefly lobbied for the World Wrestling Federation.
That's the real reason for this post, especially since Rick Santorum seems to go after boogeymen with more hypocrisy than Kane and Undertaker:
In 1999, the family received a malpractice award after Karen Santorum sued a chiropractor in Virginia. She testified that she sought treatment for back pain after childbirth in 1996 and suffered a ruptured disk from an improperly administered spinal manipulation. Santorum has been a vocal critic of large malpractice awards and has backed measures to limit damages. Karen Santorum asked for $500,000 and was awarded $350,000 by a jury. A judge finally reduced the award to $175,000, of which Santorum said they received about $75,000 after their lawyer took his share. ''I'm not against all lawsuits,'' Santorum said. ''I think they're appropriate where the case warrants it, and this one did. It was not frivolous.''
What an unbelievable coincidence! OK, last quote and we're out:
Santorum's view is that government programs to help people in need are almost destined to fail, and that a social worker, a substance-abuse counselor or a nurse receiving a paycheck from a faith-based group, rather than from government, will be more caring and more likely to get results. This seems like a stereotype -- a government-employed social worker may, after all, have the same training as the one working for a charity and the same urgent calling to help others -- but Santorum nonetheless sees the secular world as intrinsically cold and unfeeling. Filled with experts.
Again, I'm tempted to like the guy from some parts of the article I'm omitting, but it's opinions like this that just drive me away. I would submit, without proof, that people generally go into government for the same reason they go into politics or church organizations. Anyone want to guess what that is? To imply that government is unfeeling as a rule insults a lot of hard-working people and contradicts human nature. You think a faith-based employee 30 years into the job will be just as effective as on day one? Of course not. But government screwing up is horrible waste; using government money to get the same thing out of proselytizing religious organizations is a godsend.
And dismissing experts as a concept is hilarious too. Santorum says they're "narrow experts," which I guess means they're not as well-versed in life as he is. Thank God we can get condescending jerks out of our government in favor of guys like Rick Santorum, who simply know better than you how you should live your life.
In conclusion, I'd recommend taking in the full tour of Santorum's life as presented, but I do wish the author had written on Santorum's campaign victories. Put another way, he may be a decent guy with some decent ideas, but all told, how the hell did he get elected?