Conservative creep.

I entered full communion with the Catholic church at the Easter Vigil in 1993, when I was a freshman in college.  I'd longed to do so through most of high school and didn't feel I could till I'd moved away from home.   (That's another story.)

A couple of years after that, I had a second conversion in which I was forced to realize that I could not be simultaneously a believing Catholic and a supporter of legal abortion.  (Why it took me so long is another story again.  Hint:  There were some serious problems in that particular RCIA program.)  

My first vote was cast for Clinton, and my sympathies lay with Democrats in general, and I was in particular strongly anti-capital-punishment (still am).  So I went through a certain period of gritted-teeth mourning about that.  What do you mean there aren't ANY Democrats on this ticket who aren't really strong supporters of abortion?  Does this really mean I shouldn't vote for any of them?  Even the Soil and Water Commissioner?

  I argued with myself about it for a long time, and I read the arguments of Catholics who honestly argued that there were proportionate reasons to vote for candidates despite their support for legal abortion, and I read the arguments of Catholics who honestly argued that the standards for what's "proportionate" have to be very high indeed, and I struggled with it, and ultimately I became convinced that practically nothing else in the current political climate is proportionately serious.   I remain sympathetic to people who have not become so convinced, and I acknowledge that greater or more urgent evils could arise, but I'm certain of my own position now.  Not really happy about it, but certain.

That was a while ago.    For my whole life, of course,  the power of people to decide how to regulate abortion, how to protect the baby and how to protect the mother, in their cities, counties, and states has been controlled at the national level by the outcomes of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.  There's less variety in approaches than there might have been.  

And things tend to line up a certain way.  It need not be so, but:  Opponents of nationalized abortion policy as it exists, a.k.a. supporters of expanding the variety of approaches to the problem of protecting both the baby and the mother, are usually opponents of abortion as well, and are usually Republicans.  Supporters of nationalized abortion policy, a.k.a. supporters of continuing the restriction on finding alternative ways to extend legal protectections to mothers and to children, are usually supporters of abortion or at least of the legal right to abortion, and are usually Democrats.  

I don't really thoroughly understand why this is.  Why isn't it a little bit more mixed up?  Why isn't there a large and vocal bloc of (for example) abortion rights supporters who are also supporters of the right of the people in a state to use legislation to craft an abortion policy that seems right to them?  Why are so few Democrats who oppose abortion?  I don't get that.  I guess part of it has to do with game theory, how people choose to make alliances in different situations.   Right now the situation is controlled by RvW and DvB, everywhere in the country, and in that situation people who might otherwise be ideological opponents are lined up on the same side (e.g., libertarians who don't want ANY national abortion policy and social conservatives who would like to see a national ban can both agree to oppose RvW.)   But this doesn't explain to me why the anti-abortion candidate in a race is predictably the Republican and the pro-legal-abortion candidate in a race is predictably the Democrat.  It does not have to be this way, and yet it is.

So.  Where am I going with this?

I find myself voting for a lot of Republicans, and I have been for a while.  When I first started, it was hard to do and I didn't much like it.  But it has gotten easier.  For one thing, as time has gone on (and especially after I had children -- I know not everyone has that reaction, but many do, and I'm one) I've felt less conflicted and more confident about my decision to give so much weight to abortion policy when making up my mind about candidates.  

But another reason it's gotten easier?  Over the years I've started paying more attention to the content of the arguments of the people I've been voting for, and really trying to hear them out.  And a lot of it has made more sense to me than I expected it to, way back when.  Perhaps it's just unconscious human nature:  I've chosen to constrain my votes in a certain way, and I'd like to feel better about my vote, and letting myself feel convinced by them makes me feel less grumpy, because I can be happy about my vote in a more, oh, I don't know, unalloyed way.  And maybe it's just because I'm still not all that comfortable admitting that I've become a "single-issue voter."  Yeah, some of that baggage is still with me.

Anyway, my point?  If the Democrats had been a little bit more ideologically diverse, they might have kept me.  As it is, the longer I spend voting Republican because I feel I ought to, the more I seem to be drawn towards conservative and/or libertarian policies that are unrelated or only marginally related to life issues, and the more I seem to be repelled by many progressive policies.  

From the inside, I can report that it certainly seems that the shift in my thinking is the result of being rationally convinced by many of these arguments.   And I still hold a number of positions that are generally associated with liberals rather than conservatives (for instance, I still don't like capital punishment), and I still wind up being pissed off at people I vote for from time to time because they violate other principles I hold dear (hello, expanded domestic surveillance?  excuses for torture?) so it's not like it's been a universal move to the right.  Plus, sometimes the left-right continuum has seemed to spin around beneath me:  I'm practically a free-speech absolutist, and efforts to control speech all seem to be coming from the left these days, what's up with that?  

But I do think it is fair to acknowledge the possibility that my political positions are at least partly due to a subconscious desire for less cognitive dissonance.  

Of course, if it's true for me it's probably true for a lot of people.

Comments

[Christy P]

The political spectrum is actually a mobius strip. It wraps around in back in an often overlooked area of agreement. On many issues I find that people who identify as very conservative agree with people who agree with those who identify as very liberal. Just not on all issues. Abortion itself is probably not one of those areas of agreement, but avoiding unwanted pregnancies might be (perhaps with different strategies for getting there). Here's to the notion of harnessing the power of the wraparound to build unexpected coalitions!

[Barbara C.]

Well, unfortunately the only issue the Democratic Party will make a definite united stand on is being Pro-Choice. If you are a Pro-Life Democrat it is almost impossible to move beyond the local level, the party will not allow it. I suspect that it is kind of the same thing for Pro-Choice Republicans.

I really wish that the Electoral College would be abolished because it makes it impossible for Third Party candidates to go very far or build up momentum at all, and our two main parties both suck. It's just a matter of determining just which one you think sucks less.

[Paul]

Game Theory - I like how you talk, and I think you are probably right. Nothing is going to change in this impasse until the pro-life movement or some outside event changes Game in some way. Right now, the pro-life movement is pulling on the end of the rope and making the knot tighter.

I totally relate to your post. I started out solidly in the liberal democrat column. Fortunately I have enough of a brain, and am too stubborn to drink the cool aide. I call myself eclectic.

But you are right, I've got more sympathy for small government and free market arguments due to debating with conservatives. I've pretty much lined up in the moderate pro-gun, pro-concealed carry column.

If it wasn't for the obtuseness of conservatives on energy, conservation, environmental regulation, and particularly transportation I might flip over. SUV drivers with Bush stickers running me down while I am biking really turn me off.

@GNW_Paul

[bearing]

Paul, I'm completely with you on the environmental/transportation thing. It really frustrates me when conservatives appear to oppose environmental or energy-conservation initiatives purely because of who's sponsoring them.

That isn't to say that every proposed environmental regulation or piece of spending designed to reduce energy use is a good use of taxpayer dollars -- many of them have lots of potential for "bite back" (e.g. appearing to do good but actually making things worse) -- still, environmental initiatives deserve to be taken on their merits like anything else.