Former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., has always yearned for a better time, a simpler time, a time when men were men and women shut the hell up and listened to their superiors. But still, it’s always kind of surprising when he comes right out and says it:
The other thing we have to do is we have to stand up and say, look, America — Conservatives believe in the stewardship of patrimony. In other words, there are things in America that are really good, that work, have worked for 200 years. And we have a guy named Barack Obama who’s trying to fundamentally rewrite everything, change our economy, change our social structure, change our economy to something new.
Yes, “patrimony,” which Merriam-Webster defines as “anything derived from one’s father or ancestors” (But you knew that from the patr- root sitting right there at the start of the word).
That is, of course, exactly what Rick Santorum desires — a return to a patriarchal system, and while we’re at it, a system that pays its due deference to Christianity and caucasians, one that forces gays back in the closet and jams the door shut forever. A world where wisdom, property, and authority is handed from fathers to sons. A world that many women and men of good conscience have fought very hard to eliminate and transcend. A world like that which exists in Saudi Arabia, with only some issues of doctrine interfering in its perfection.
In short, Santorum is a pretty mainstream Republican.
And we have a guy named Barack Obama who’s trying to fundamentally rewrite everything, change our economy, change our social structure, change our economy to something new.
If only.
And isn’t it ABOUT TIME?!
:)
I’ll put down $100 and give 2-1 odds that Sen. Santorum heard someone use the word “patrimony” once, figured it meant something along the lines of “legacy”, and has no clue as to the actual meaning of the word.
No, I think it’s actually a pro-gay-marriage thing.
You know, if you marry a woman it Matrimony, so if you marry another guy . . .
It does mean legacy or inheritance. There are many sites around the world that have been declared “Patrimony of Humanity” by the United Nations.
Re-reading the whole post and the quote, it probably would be unfair to infer that he wants a return to a patriarchal system just from his use of the word patrimony. But it is fair to infer that from his voting record, his public positions and his use of the word patrimony here. And if you replace the word patrimony with the word legacy, you’re still left with the idea that our country’s economy and social structures have been fundamentally unchanged over the last 200 years, that that’s a good thing, and that Obama will single-handedly undo that.
I never noticed the way those words are put together before. That is interesting that matrimony is marriage and patrimony is legacy or inheritance.
What’s sad is that if conservatives are really supposed to conserve what has been proven to work, to be stewards of our collective cultural and economic patrimony, then hyper-capitalism isn’t the way to go. Obama’s interference in the economy (much of which was started by Bush) is about trying to slow down and ease the process of the auto industry’s downsizing and the financial industry’s implosion. He’s trying to conserve some of the towns in the Northeast and Midwest that rely on jobs from the auto industry, instead of shrugging and figuring that massive, abrupt job losses in the middle of a recession and their effects on families and communities are nothing in which government should take an interest.
Among the many issues Mr. Santorum has, I think he’s not comfortable with a black man holding the office of President, democratically elected or not.
An interesting op-ed about why hyper-capitalism is not conservative.
We continue to see why Rick Santorum is a “FORMER” senator from Pennsylvania. That dude is one messed up person. Ah well, at least Fox news lets him on air so he feels important. Times like this makes me proud be be living in PA. We may have Spector, but Santorum makes Arlen look like a real statesman.
I’ll put down $100 and give 2-1 odds that Sen. Santorum heard someone use the word “patrimony” once, figured it meant something along the lines of “legacy”, and has no clue as to the actual meaning of the word.
I’ll take that bet. Santorum has opined that radical feminists have made women unhappy by telling them that they can have a happy life outside the home. Santorum is absolutely enthralled by the patriarchy, and I have no doubt he knows full well what patrimony’s full meaning is.
In a world where republicans have been reduced to calling Obama a socialist, fascist, communist, etc…do you really want to become their mirror image by associating santorum with saudi conservatism. surely there are ways to go before his version of traditionalism reaches such extremes. i get the logic, but its as sloppy as saying interfering in the market makes one a tyrant like che guevara.
As PG points out, there are some very unconservative things about american conservatism. in other words, our version of conservatism is greatly informed and restricted by our liberal regime. even much ballyhooed atempts to break down the wall of separation are sold as freedom of religion, speech, and association (vouchers, boy scouts, voluntary school prayer, after school bible studies, etc).
yeah, there’s always been a strand of classic conservatism in american conservative thought, and there’s also burkean realism (kissinger and now Buchanan best exemplify it), but both of them coexist within a framework of liberalism, just not as liberal as you might like it..but frankly either is obama’s (stated) position on gay marriage. But i’m not anticipating the state executing for homosexual conduct anytime soon.
Manju,
I’d change “our version of conservatism is greatly informed and restricted by our liberal regime” to “our version of conservatism is greatly informed by classical liberalism,” of which I think you have previously indicated yourself to be a fan. Burke’s bogeyman was the French Revolution, which he considered an example of Enlightenment values run amok (amok amok amok).
Burke could and did advocate for changes, but he wanted them to be small, cautious and incremental — he was a reformer, not a revolutionary. In this sense, Obama is very much a conservative type. His idea for health care is that we introduce a public option, not that we go to a single-payer system into which every citizen is automatically enrolled. He has made the government a larger stockholder in some financial institutions but recoiled from actual nationalization (for which he has been criticized by Krugman and other economists).
I consider some of Obama’s social policies to exhibit less of a conservative temperament; it’s more radical to create an entirely new institution called the “civil union” or “domestic partnership” than it is to incorporate same-sex couples into the long-standing and gradually de-gendered institution known as marriage. We have well-established case law on marriage that is no less applicable to same-sex couples than to opposite-sex ones, but these not-exactly-marriage relationship statuses are strangers to the law.
Yeah, and don’t let the door pat you or your patrimony on the ass on its way out, Santorum.
He means that worked for HIM for 200 years. It obviously hasn’t been working for for people of color for 200 years, or women for 200 years, or the LGBT community for 200 years.
Of course all those people don’t count….
Oh Rich B I am so sorry but I had to burst out laughing when I read your matrimony, patrimony logic. Godd thing I was not having my hourly soda or tea lol or else it would have ended up sprayed through my nose onto my brand new computer. And that would have made me cry :-)
But great comment – I love it!!!!!!
I just wanted to comment to say that I believe this is the best commentary I’ve seen on the issue of both gay and straight marriage ever.
As a woman who is “opposite” married for 12 years to a much older man with no children produced, I’ve often felt that couples like us help degrade the institution of marriage in this country.
And I’ve never wanted it to be any other way.