IN THE GRIP OF A “THEOCRACY”?

Pace Glenn Reynolds, I don’t think and have never said that we’re in the grips of a “theocracy.” We live in a constitutional democracy. Iranians live in a theocracy, and I am aware of the difference. But one element of our politics – one that happens to have a veto on Republican social policy – does hold that religion should dictate politics, and that opposition to a certain politics is tantamount to anti-religious bigotry. They’re very candid about that, as we saw last Sunday. As Bill Donahue put it: “The people on the secularist left say we think you’re a threat. You know what? They are right.” Very senior Republicans echo the line that there is a filibuster against “people of faith.” This isn’t just about gays, although we’ve felt the sting of the movement more acutely than most. It’s about science, stem cell research, the teaching of evolution, free access to medical prescriptions, the legality of living wills, abortion rights, censorship of cable and network television, and so on. The Schiavo case woke a lot of people up. I was already an insomniac on these issues. Maybe I’d be more effective a blogger if I pretended that none of this was troubling, or avoided the gay issue and focused on others. But I’m genuinely troubled by all of it, and by what is happening to the conservative tradition. I’d like to think that a qualified doctor like Bill Frist could say on television that tears cannot transmit HIV. But he could not – because the sectarian base he needs to run for president would not allow it. I’m sorry but that’s nuts. I’m glad Glenn is now calling attention to all of it.

THE BRITISH ELECTION: Only a quarter of British voters now trust Tony Blair. He’s responding by all but ditching the idea of joining the euro – once one of his key objectives. A brutal campaign impugning his integrity by the Tories appears to be gaining traction, and the prime minister looks rattled. To make matters worse, someone in the government leaked confidential legal advice from 2003 telling the prime minister that the war in Iraq might not be legal. Blair had declared in public that the advice had said otherwise. If these polls are accurate, he’ll still win. But low turnout could create some surprises. I wish the Tories were presenting a real alternative. But they have failed, like the Republicans, to persuade people that less government actually means more freedom and better essential services. I also fear that the battering of Blair means a future Brown government will keep increasing spending and so hamper Britain’s post-Thatcher renaissance. I’d happily vote Tory this time on those grounds alone. Of course, no one on the Labour left in Britain is proposing the kind of government spending that Bush Republicans are engaged in. In that sense, Bush is far to the fiscal left of anyone in current British politics. What an irony. We used to think that even British Tories were more liberal than America’s Democrats. But Bush’s and DeLay’s massive spending and borrowing makes Blair look like a born-again Thatcherite.