Interview with a Conservative

Last election cycle, an acquaintance of mine decided that he was tired of politics as usual, put his money where his mouth is, and ran for Iowa's 2nd District of the U.S. Congress. I followed him early on, and with great interest. While I didn't agree with everything he said, it seemed to me that he formed his political position through genuine thought, and he came to rational conclusions. Rob Gettemy didn't win the election, but he did provide a lot of good food for thought during his campaign. With this in mind, I asked Rob to do an interview; he graciously agreed, and during the process I came to the point where I could call him a friend. For those of us with short attention spans, I will break the interview into multiple parts.

---Interview with a Conservative, Part I---

What is your position on the death penalty? If you support the death penalty, how do you reconcile this position with your pro-life stance, considering that the crux of being pro-life is that all life is sacrosanct?
This is the toughest question I had to answer as a candidate for office. I support the death penalty, but cannot fully reconcile it with the idea of being anti-abortion. The fundamental difference though is the child is clearly innocent where as the death row inmate has been convicted of a heinous crime. I do think with advances in DNA technology, the level of proof for the death penalty should be elevated.

Studies have shown that the death penalty is more expensive than life in prison. Ostensibly, this is because of the appeals process. Do you support abolishing the death penalty from a financial perspective?
No, I would not abolish it for financial reasons. Given I am for the level of proof being elevated, I’d like to see some reform in the number and length of appeals. If we fought crime purely on a financial basis, we’d not follow through on all sorts of punishment, not just the death penalty.

As I continue on this line of questioning, I want to state for the record that I am not against the death penalty. With that said though, the death penalty has not been proven as an effective deterrent in crime; it is more expensive than life in prison; there are documented cases of miscarriages of justice; many victims or families of victims do not get the expected sense of retribution when a death sentence is carried out. What is your justification for supporting the death penalty?
I don’t need to justify supporting the death penalty…I support it because I believe that the ultimate punishment should be available for heinous crimes. I don’t believe all studies say that there is no deterrent. As I tried to indicate earlier…this is a tough call, but I still come down on the side of supporting the ultimate punishment.

Your statement that there needs to be an ultimate punishment is justification enough. It is analogous to the premise of corporal punishment for children, or the justification for war between countries. None of these stances are universally agreed upon, but you have reached your conclusion based on rational thinking. I am curious though, what crimes are heinous enough to warrant the death penalty?
Certainly capital murder would be in that category. Probably treason.

What is your position on our current drug policy?
I’m certainly not an expert on drug policy. It is not something I did a whole lot of research on as a candidate, because frankly, it was not a big issue in 2010. That said, I am not for legalization.

In that case, what’s your position on medicinal marijuana?
I don’t know enough about it. My gut feeling is that it gets abused based on some of the articles I’ve seen, but I haven’t done any real digging in this area.

Okay, but laws allowing Americans to marry immigrants are abused as well. Does the potential for abuse outweigh the potential benefits to such an extent that allowing medical marijuana isn’t even worth trying?
I didn’t say it wasn’t worth trying…I just don’t have the expertise to say it is necessary. I’m sure you can find studies that say it is and others that say it is not. As I’ve tried to say earlier, I have never done any serious research in this area as it is not high on my list of concerns.

Had you been elected, your job would have been to represent those who put you in office. What would you have done if your constituency clearly and overwhelmingly wanted something that you didn’t support?
That is likely to happen from time to time. We are a representative republic for a reason…the founders knew that a true democracy is not a practical form of government. There are times when politicians must go against the current popular opinion of their constituents. Some examples might include slavery (it violated basic tenants of our constitution), civil rights (same thing) and I’m sure there are others. However, if you simply voted the will of the people, we’d be in and out of wars. You may recall that at one point something like 70% of the population approved of the Iraq war. At other times, it was in the low 30’s. You simply cannot fight a war based on public opinion. I would say that the Democrats passing Obamacare is a clear example of what you are asking about. I do think it was a mistake to go against the will of the people in that case. It was not one of basic human or constitutional rights, nor was it war.

You mentioned on your web site that congress should spend as much time repealing laws as they do passing laws. Please provide examples of laws that should be repealed? Do you support sunset clauses in legislation to ensure that future laws remain relevant to our future society?
I don’t have a strong opinion on sunset clauses. As far as repeal, I would roll back many of the regulations, much of the tax code (70some thousand pages), the new health care law, laws that tell me what kind of toilet or light bulb I can have in my house etc. Nationwide, there were over 30,000 new laws passed last year. I suspect the majority of them do not expand liberty, but many in fact reduce liberty.

Don’t drug laws, prostitution laws and gambling laws restrict personal liberty?
Good question…I would say they do. In our society, we need to decide what level of infringement we are willing to tolerate. I believe we need to error on the side of very little tolerance on liberty infringement. I’d rather see no drugs, no casinos, no prostitution. But, perhaps I’m being too intolerant for some. I think the argument for laws prohibiting drugs is that it affects others…but, I understand that same argument could be made for alcohol. Overall, I’d error on the side of freedom.
I think one of our fundamental problems when it comes to freedoms [is that] we only fight for those freedoms that matter to us. When our politician is in charge and is restricting freedoms we don’t care about, or maybe even agree should be limited, we forget that eventually they will get to a freedom we do care about and no-one will be there to fight for us.
I realize…just like with the death penalty case, I cannot fully reconcile this answer!

Isn’t it reasonable to conclude that we (as a society) have already decided that a high level of infringement is acceptable? You say, “When our politician is in charge and is restricting freedoms we don’t care about, or maybe even agree should be limited, we forget that eventually they will get to a freedom we do care about and no-one will be there to fight for us.” Isn’t that a slippery slope argument?
Maybe I wasn’t clear. I think this is a very slippery slope (emphasis Rob’s). That is why we need to hold both politicians we agree with and those we disagree with accountable. Most people don’t do that. If it is their guy or gal, they look the other way. I was guilty of that myself for a long time…but no more!

Do you support term limits? If not, then how do you reconcile the fact that the President has term limits, but Congress does not?
I did not run on term limits, but would have likely supported it had it come up if I were in congress. That said, I do believe voters have to take responsibility to elect good representatives. As a society, we have outsourced way too much of our lives to government, yet they are less able to make good decisions than individuals are. We’ve outsourced education, most of healthcare and many other basic functions. It is time we take control of those items as individuals. Take a look at education and healthcare…we are told by government that these areas are in crisis and inflation is out of control. These are two areas where government involvement and funding has skyrocketed.

You mention God repeatedly on your web site. How do you resolve your faith with the separation of church and state?
I don’t believe my website mentioned God hardly at all. That said, my faith is important to me. I don’t believe the constitution called for Separation of Church and State at all, it said the government cannot establish a state religion. Even if you subscribe to the notion of “separation”, it is clear that your question does not understand how our founders viewed state and religion. They clearly were guided by faith in the founding of the country and make it clear in many of our founding documents and their early public proclamations.

...Tune in tomorrow for Interview with a Conservative, Part II