Sowell and Parker

Thomas Sowell has a piece today on the op-ed page of the Orange County Register in which he argues that some people or groups believe that rules apply to others, not to them. He gives several examples but the most pertinent seems to be the gay demonstrators -- gay mobs according to Sowell -- who block intersections and freeway off ramps, enter churches and temples to disrupt services, injure and threaten non-gays and boycott stores and restaurants. "While demanding tolerance from others, gay activists apparently feel no need to show any themselves," Sowell says.

Sowell says people and groups think they have a right not only to compete but to win. Everybody thinks their cause is just, he says, and therefore they believe that rules don't apply to them. The result is anarchy, he says. The question is: How long will the majority tolerate this? "When the majority of the people become like sheep, who will tolerate intolerance rather than make a fuss, then there is no limit to how far any group will go."

Kathleen Parker has a piece in today's Washington Post in which she argues that the Republican Party is lost because it depends too much on Christians for its base. The evangelical right wing "of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh." The party intelligentsia agrees with her, she says, though they will not admit to it publicly.

"The choir has become absurdly off-key, and many Republicans know it." "... the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle. " "It isn't that culture doesn't matter. It does. But preaching to the choir produces no converts. And shifting demographics suggest that the Republican Party -- and conservatism with it -- eventually will die out unless religion is returned to the privacy of one's heart where it belongs."

So, Christians can be Christian but they ought to keep quite about it. They're an embarrassment, apparently. So many people don't believe in marriage and so many that do aren't white that they feel alienated.

"Anyone watching the two conventions last summer can't have missed the stark differences: One party was brimming with energy, youth and diversity; the other felt like an annual Depends sales meeting." Except for "Miss Alaska," according to Parker, and she's "part of the problem."

"Either the Republican Party needs a new base -- or the nation may need a new party," Parker says. Who would make up that base? Gays? Trial lawyers? Environmentalists? Feminists? Parker doesn't say.