Clutch those pearls, baby!

And fall to the fainting couch all a-dither and a-swoon. Shorter lifesite: "Oh boo hoo, boo hoo hoooo, those libertarian conservatives are hellbound heathen baby-hating meanies! SHRIEEK! And Richard Dawkins! SHRIEEEEEK!"

"Canada's Fraser institute sees nothing controversial about its choice of Dr. Richard Dawkins, currently one the West's most notorious opponents of religious belief, as the keynote speaker at tonight's Iluminismo lecture. The Institute's slogan of "Competitive market solutions for public policy problems" has left some puzzled as to how Dawkins fits into that mandate."

Considered by many to be the country's premier conservative think tank, the Institute told LifeSiteNews.com there is nothing "controversial" about Dr. Dawkins' appearance, since the lecture is sold out."

Sold out? Hahahahaha! Well, that certainly says something good about the Fraser Institute. Something that the social "conservatives" don't like... the FI supports and encourages independent critical thought? How dare they.

"But the Fraser Institute's self-described mandate is to advocate for free market economic policies and Fraser Institute members are among Canada's best known proponents of the "new conservatism" that concerns itself only with economic, not social conservative issues. This trend of a soulless, tradition rejecting "fiscal" conservatism and social libertarianism has led to a widening split in the Canadian conservative movement."

The "new" conservatism -- how about the "real" conservatism? It's about goddamn time *real* conservatives manned up and admitted that socons are nothing but an increasingly uncomfortable millstone around their necks. Socons are a small but mouthy minority that scares the living shit out of the average Canadian voter who has no interest in policing the bedrooms of the nation, removing womens' reproductive rights and dictating what is acceptable for us all to read or watch... all for the "greater good" of course. Running your personal life -- for "the greater good"! Since when is the Nanny State a conservative concept? Since social conservatism.

That's why real conservatives may be starting to think along the same lines as former PM Kim Campbell:

"Prime Minister Stephen Harper is running a competent government but should curb his "control freak" tendencies and make clear to Canadians his government won't impose a socially conservative agenda if he wins a majority, according to former prime minister Kim Campbell." (emphasis mine)

"2. (a) A constant, worrisome burden. (b) An obstacle to success." Uh-huh.

(h/t: BCL)

One more time

Libertarian conservatives, for the last time -- let this be a warning to you:

"Sex is not a private affair. It never was and never will be. We need to talk about Sex as public policy issue."

If that doesn't send your "Individual Liberty" engines screaming into the redline territory you better apply some WD-40 because they must be rusted out and seized up.

Attention conservative libertarians

Right-wing libertarians might want to give a sober second thought to some of the people they're politically aligned with, because this is social conservatism:

Just in case that didn't sink in, I'll repeat the salient point:
"What you do between the sheets and in your bedroom, folks, is indeed the State's business."
Get that? The state. In your bedroom. I am not making this up.

It certainly grates on my libertarianism, but maybe conservative libertarians are even more different from left libertarians than I thought.

Spanking the pro-spanking lobby

Who even knew there was such a thing as a "pro-spanking lobby"? I only heard about it yesterday, directed to Dawg's Blawg by a google search about spanking that brought someone here. I turfed my post about it since it turned out to be about something serious, not teh funny, but an interesting topic nonetheless.

A "pro-spanking lobby"? Maybe you have to be a parent to be aware of such things. Or maybe I was caught by surprise because, honestly, I thought corporal punishment was more or less a thing of the past. As a non-parent I'm imminently unqualified to talk about the parenting aspect, but as a (former) kid who grew up with typical 50's-style corporal punishment (including the strap at school), I can emphatically say "it doesn't work". I thought society had finally figured this out.

But it appears that in response to recent SCC moves which would re-define spanking as child abuse, a "pro-spanking lobby" has been formed to safeguard the rights of parents to beat their kids. The "pro-spanking" link goes to none other than Focus on the Family: social conservatives, as usual the driving force behind any ignorant, regressive movement. The same neanderthals who'd enforce childbirth talk about parenthood in terms of physically-enforced "authority". Spanking works, they say, "it lets them know who's boss". (Well, by that logic, waterboarding should work even better, no?)

It's ironic that the same people who are so anxious to elevate fetuses to the status of fully-formed, living, breathing, independent "persons" argue that kids won't respond to discussion over spanking because they're not "little adults". Which they're not; but unlike fetuses, they are little persons, and deserve to be treated with respect, even when being disciplined. There is nothing more disrespectful than hitting someone.

The problem is that it's a lot more time-consuming to respectfully discipline kids than it is to just slap them around. I've seen my brother discipline his kids, and it's almost agonizing the amount of time and effort he puts into it. The result: the two greatest kids in the world, who because they have no idea what it feels like to have hands laid on them in anger, are less likely to accept such treatment in the future. And love their dad without reservation or fear. The bottom line is that they clearly haven't been hurt by lack of corporal punishment. So whatever reasons the pro-spanking lobby has for their stance, the argument that "spanking is necessary to raise good kids" isn't one of them.