From: AdmrlLocke@aol.com Sent: Sunday, July 19, 1998 10:31 PM Subject: GrammNet: My Column on James Dobson GrammNet Issue 7/19/98 Dear Friend, Here's my column on James Dobson's threat to bolt the GOP. It's hot off the presses, having appeared in today's issue (Sunday, 7/19/98) of the Quad City Times. Can you imagine Phil Gramm saying, "Bob Dole blocked the Contract With America, so now I'm going to bolt the GOP?" Sincerely, David B. Levenstam, CPA, MT, MA GrammNet back issues at http://www.geocities.com/Capitolhill/3390/ To subscribe to GrammNet, email me at AdmrlLocke@aol.com, with a message to the effect that you'd like to subscribe. ----------------------------------- Dobson Will Nuke Self If He Nukes GOP By David B. Levenstam, CPA, MT, MA James Dobson, conservative Christian radio psychologist, says he'll leave the GOP if Republicans don't pass his agenda. "If I go," he threatened, "I will do everything I can to take as many people with me as possible." So Dobson might nuke the GOP. I approve of Dobson's possession of a sense of right and wrong, something which liberals and the dominant culture seem increasingly to lack. I also approve of his private efforts to help people straighten out their lives. His efforts represent the sort of thing George Bush meant when he spoke of "a thousand points of light." Yet Dobson seems to possess an almost complete naivety about politics, as well as a lack of understanding of what government is for. I'm not sure he understands that government, and especially the federal government, was created to protect our rights to life, liberty and property. His proposals--defunding the NEA and Planned Parenthood, and requiring parental permission for children to have abortions--are quite reasonable. But if he got those proposals passed he might be back with proposals crossing the line between being reasonable and imposing his version of Christianity via state power. Then again, he might not. I completely understand his frustration with congressional Republicans. After Bob Dole sold them out over the "government shutdown" most of them became timid and spineless. Sometimes I too, in moments of anger or despair, think about bolting the party. I get tired of the GOP campaigning on "we're not as bad as the Democrats." Yet they really aren't as bad as the Democrats. If not for the GOP, we'd likely have totally socialized medicine, total gun confiscation, completely socialized campaign spending, etc. If Dobson bolts the party, what will he gain--a clear conscience from not "getting his hands dirty" by supporting people who can get elected because they appeal to voters who don't entirely agree with him? Dobson should have trouble sleeping at night if he helps the Democrats get elected. As a Christian he should recognize the doctrine of the innate depravity of man, and know that even his allies will never be perfect. The irony is that social conservatives are as influential in the GOP as they've ever been, yet Dobson seems ready to throw away great influence just because it's not total influence. Social conservatives have enough trouble gaining acceptance in our culture as it is. If he brings down the GOP, social conservatives will be ostracized even by those who currently are their allies. The nastier and more petulant Dobson and his followers get, the more they will isolate themselves from everyone else--and likely, the more bitter and vengeful they will in turn become. It's what happened to radio host Father Coughlin in the 1930s. If Dobson nukes the GOP to punish it for being imperfect, he will become the Democrats' greatest ally on a much greater scale than Clinton, by overreaching on gun control and socialist health care, became the GOP's greatest ally. By helping liberal Democrats seize Congress and keep the White House, Dobson will ensure he'll be reviled by every faction and group on the right from gun folks to supply-siders to nationalists. When the Democrats resume Medicaid funding of abortions and quadruple the money going to the NEA and Planned Parenthood, the National Right to Life Committee and Christian Coalition will join the rest of the right in condemning Dobson. If Dobson nukes the GOP, he will destroy himself. Disgruntled social conservatives will regard him with increasing cynicism and his audience will shrink. The good works he does will crumble. Dobson appears to be guilty of hubris--the pride before the fall. In his hubris he seem oblivious to the fact that when using nukes, if you're very close to your target, you get vaporized too. Incidentally, if Dobson nukes the GOP, his associate Gary Bauer can kiss good-bye any chance of getting the GOP nomination for president. Religious leaders who jump into politics tend to lose their credibility, even with some of their own audience, as happened to Jerry Falwell. They fade and are forgotten. Even the most politically ignorant of today's youth know about Ronald Reagan. But who knows about Falwell? Reagan, whom Falwell helped elect, has Alzheimer's yet continues to shape our political debates; Falwell is alive and well but has vanished into obscurity. The GOP is a century and a half old. It has survived war, depression, drought, civil unrest, fascism, communism, and even the use of real nukes. If Dobson nukes the GOP, it will suffer, but survive. Dobson will suffer--and evaporate into an obscurity more complete than that ever suffered by Falwell.