Breaking With The Past

by digby

Peter Berkowitz has written an op-ed in the WSJ that lays out a bold new direction for the Republican Party. He calls it “Constitutional Conservatism” which he defines as being devoted to the preservation of constitutional principles. What good news.

He lays out this bold new agenda in some detail:

– An economic program, health-care reform, energy policy and protection for the environment grounded in market-based solutions.

– A foreign policy that recognizes America’s vital national security interest in advancing liberty abroad but realistically calibrates undertakings to the nation’s limited knowledge and restricted resources.

– A commitment to homeland security that is as passionate about security as it is about law, and which is prepared to responsibly fashion the inevitable, painful trade-offs.

– A focus on reducing the number of abortions and increasing the number of adoptions.

– Efforts to keep the question of same-sex marriage out of the federal courts and subject to consideration by each state’s democratic process.

– Measures to combat illegal immigration that are emphatically pro-border security and pro-immigrant.

– A case for school choice as an option that enhances individual freedom while giving low-income, inner-city parents opportunities to place their children in classrooms where they can obtain a decent education.

– A demand that public universities abolish speech codes and vigorously protect liberty of thought and discussion on campus.

– The appointment of judges who understand that their function is to interpret the Constitution and not make policy, and, therefore, where the Constitution is most vague, recognize the strongest obligation to defer to the results of the democratic process.

Whoa Nellie, bar the door. I don’t think they can take all that change in one fell swoop do you? Talk about bold new thinking!

I especially enjoy the idea that “constitutional conservatism” means “a commitment to homeland security that is as passionate about security as it is about law, and which is prepared to responsibly fashion the inevitable, painful trade-offs.”

You have to love them. They just can’t help themselves.

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