Is Brown Too Gray?

Jeff Miller (aka The Curt Jester) is somewhat pleased, but less than thrilled, about Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts.

I knew pro-family groups had reservations about Brown, but he was clearly preferable to Coakley and was our best chance at stopping the current push for federally-funded abortion. Brown is evidently opposed to government health care, not abortion. Miller calls him a RINO.

Now I well understand the chess game involved to stop the federalized healthcare plan and the evil it entails. ... as a chess game it is like sacrificing one of your pieces. Unfortunately that sacrifice could entail the unborn on a different vote. Some have rejoiced over the Brown victory calling it 'Baby steps' - a highly ironic term if I do say so myself.

I am far more optimistic than this. I think Miller overlooks the collateral benefits to Brown's win. Breaking the Democrat chokehold on the Senate allows Republicans, including more conservative ones, back to the table they've been barred from. Also, government healthcare with abortion coverage is the battle at hand. Yes, it would be better to have a strong social and fiscal conservative, but Brown offers us the foothold we desperately needed. Conservatives can resume work on turning back the culture of death. Whether Brown helps with every battle, our team is back in the game, and that is reason to rejoice.

From what I've read, Brown's support for abortion seems more out of complacency than conviction. Like other morally lukewarm politicians, he regards Roe v. Wade as established policy and chooses not to mess with it. Miller is right to invoke G.K. Chesterton here, though I have to wonder whether Chesterton borrowed from Ambrose Bierce:

The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.

My definition of "conservative," and I think the current prevailing defintion, differs from Chesterton's. "Conservative" today carries connotative embellishments, i.e., social and moral positions, not merely fiscal and practical. But I think this is the inevitable development of conservatism. Jennifer Roback Morse asserts that libertarian policy leads to the conclusion that stable, traditional families, in being inherently more self-supporting, are the best basis for a sound economy. This in turn validates conservative Judeo-Christian worldview.

Miller will receive pro-life counsel from his conservative colleagues as well as pressure from his party's platform. But I do not wish that he merely conform to this. I agree with Miller that "we should be praying for Scott Brown that he have a truly pro-life conversion." For me, this means praying that he would follow fiscal conservatism to its logical end and find its completion in moral conservatism.

Back to the Curt Jester, one of his comments struck me as an ironic answer to how this administration is in fact living up to its promise of transparency. Democrats' reaction to Brown's election shows the transparency in their motives for nationalized healthcare:

I tweeted the other day wondering about why we are called single issue voters, yet the Democrats are willing to let the health care plan die if we are not forced to pay for abortions.

With that, I am off to the March for Life in St. Paul.