Right-thinking, Comrade!

From The Weekly Standard, 2/18/2008:

"Even if culture warriors' political agenda were achievable, that agenda might prove counterproductive. Cultures are powerful and mysterious things; the idea that laws and politicians can direct their paths is, to say the least, lacking in empirical support. In the years immediately before Roe, abortion was a crime, and the number of abortions soared. Since that decision, abortion has been a constitutional right--yet, since 1980, the abortion rate has fallen by more than one third. The lesson is one conservatives should find easy to understand: Like modern economies, modern cultures resist centralized control. If pro-life evangelicals--of whom I'm one--wish to persuade our fellow citizens to protect unborn life, we must persuade them, not prosecute the ones who disagree."

At the risk of sending the Weekly Standard readership I believe it largely does not deserve, I recommend you read the entire piece, so close is it to actually getting something correct. I find the reference to "centralized control" particularly refreshing, as it unwittingly nails the true dream of Republicans and so-called conservatives these days: establishment of central control over our culture, the economy, the world under the banner of so-called Republican conservatism, our new one true "secular religion". Right thinking indeed, comrade!