Via Gizmodo, this is the list of Mike Bloomberg’s accomplishments as New York’s mayor. Remember that it’s the Left’s contention that conservatives are the people who want to take away your freedoms.

Bloomberg set himself up as the “conservative” candidate for mayor of New York and used his business background to prop up that contention. But nobody makes any serious arguments that Bloomberg is in the conservative camp or that he governed that way.

The list…

• Smoking in commercial establishments like bars and restaurants (2003)
• Smoking in public spaces (2011)
• Cigarette sales to those under 21 (2013)
• Sales of “flavored” tobacco products (2009)
• Smoking e-cigarettes in public spaces (2013) ***
• Cigarette in-store displays (2013)
• Cars in Times Square (2009)
• Cars from driving in newly created bike lanes (2007-2013)
• Cars causing congestion below 60th Street in Manhattan (2007) *
• Speeding on residential “slow zones” (2013)
• Illegal guns (2006-2013) **
• Sodium levels in processed foods (2010) **
• Trans-fats in restaurants (2006)
• Loud headphones (2013) **
• Styrofoam packaging in single-service food items (2013)
• Sodas larger than 16 ounces (2012) *
• Collection of yard waste and grass clippings during certain times of year (2003-2013)
• Organic food waste from landfills (2013) **
• Commercial music over 45 decibels (2013)
• Chain restaurant menus without calorie counts (2008)
• The posting of signs in “city-owned grassy areas” (2013)
• Non-fuel-efficient cabs (2007)
• New cabs that aren’t Nissan NV200s (2013) *
• Greenhouse gas emissions (2007)
• Government buildings that aren’t LEED-certified (2005)
• Non-hurricane-proof buildings in coastal areas (2013)
• Black roofs (2009) **
• Construction cranes over 25 years old (2013)
• No. 6 and No. 4 “heavy” heating oils (2011)
• Less than a 2-1 ratio of female and male restrooms in new public buildings (2005)
• Cell phones in schools (2006)
• Two-term limits for city elected officials (2008) *

* Overruled/appealed ban
** Suggested/voluntary ban
*** Proposed/pending ban

One of the important messaging projects the GOP and the conservative movement has got to accomplish this year is to cement in the public mind the concept that it is the progressive Left who is out to to strip you of your freedoms and legislate away your choices, while the Right will treat you as an adult and keep the government’s interference in your life to a minimum – because the Right believes that giving you the freedom to live your life as you see fit will enable and empower you to succeed in achieving that to which you aspire.

In fact, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the GOP to adopt as a slogan something like “What’s Your Dream?” or “Free To Dream” as a theme for this year’s election cycle. That’s a positive message, and it could resonate when set against the regulatory tyranny of Obamacare, the tax code, the EPA and so forth.

With Bill DeBlasio taking over in America’s most visible city, these ridiculous bans of Bloomberg’s might look like peanuts by comparison. The GOP and conservatives must capitalize on the public’s horror.

And it can’t do that if it pursues, in state legislatures, lots of regulatory requirements which have a similar feel to what Bloomberg has done in New York. It doesn’t matter that those requirements might be restricted to an attempt to get tough on crime, or to scale back on abortion or gay marriage.

In fact, what might be a decent idea is for the Right to offer the Left a deal on gay marriage. Namely, that the Right will agree to leave the issue alone and let the Left have its victory there – a victory which the Left won in the culture over the last 20 years while the Right was busy trying to preserve traditional America in Congress, state legislatures and the courts. In exchange, we should ask for a constitutional amendment that bans polygamy.

Most people know the Republican Party was founded by anti-slavery abolitionists. What is less well known is that the GOP’s other major founding tenet was opposition to polygamy. From the Republican platform of 1856…

Resolved: That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign powers over the Territories of the United States for their government; and that in the exercise of this power, it is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism — Polygamy, and Slavery.

At the time, the polygamy the Republican delegates were seeking to eliminate was that of the Mormons settling in what is now Utah. Mormons don’t particularly endorse polygamy anymore.

Somebody else does, though. Muslim polygamy is starting to become a major problem in Europe, and particularly in Great Britain. Polygamy has now become a method for gaming that country’s welfare system – with effects which could be devastating to the demographics of that country…

For example, a Pakistani man contracts a marriage in his native country, and then brings his wife to England to start a family. Because they have been married only under Islamic law, she isn’t legally registered by British authorities as his wife. Even so, they are able to claim child benefit for any children they have.

But the state handouts do not end there, for under Islamic Sharia law, polygamy is permissible. So a man can return to Pakistan, take another bride and then, in a repetition of the process, bring her to England where they also have children together — obtaining yet more money from the state. 

Because such Islamic multiple-marriages are not recognised in Britain, the women are regarded by the welfare system as single mothers — and are therefore entitled to the full range of lone-parent payments.

As a result, several ‘families’, fathered by the same Pakistani man, can all claim benefits as they are provided for by the welfare state, which treats them as if they are not related. 

Figures are hard to obtain, but it’s thought there may be around 1,000 polygamous families living in the UK, costing taxpayers millions of pounds every year. A friend of mine, who investigated the issue for a BBC Panorama programme, told me of one street in a Yorkshire town where all the residents are Pakistani women with children living on social security. There is not one man living in the street. 

Where are the men? Perhaps with another family somewhere else.
Who knows. It is certainly difficult to discuss, because this phenomenon of serial marriage and exploitation of the benefits system is taboo — with few people in Britain seeming to want to face the disturbing truth.

Indeed, any mention of this issue is seen in politically-correct quarters as a much greater crime than the wanton abuse of the welfare system and of taxpayers’ money. 

Polygamy is, of course, illegal in Great Britain. But since the Brits relented and allowed the formation of Muslim Sharia councils, it’s now possible for Muslims to go through those councils to practice plural marriage while the wives play at being single mothers to the British government in order to go on the dole.

The effect being that productive British citizens adhering to that nation’s dominant culture are now subsidizing, at an increasing rate, the demographic increase of an alien culture of inferior quality. They’re losing their country to Third World religious tyranny and they’re powerless to put a stop to it.

The primary non-religious objection to gay marriage is that there is a slippery slope leading from gay marriage to polygamy. Once you depart from the traditional Western definition of marriage as requiring one man and one woman, there really isn’t any way to draw the line at two people of the same sex. If we all agree that a man and a woman is an acceptable, if not preferred , marital combination, and if we’re going to say it’s OK for two men or two women to get married, then what is the convincing argument against a man and two women?

The Left scoffs at that question, but never seems to explain why it’s a problem.

Along comes the Utah polygamy case. No sooner did  a federal judge in that state bring in gay marriage, but along comes  the “Sister Wives” case to blow up Utah’s anti-bigamy law…

A federal judge in Utah has struck down part of that state’s law banning polygamy, after a lawsuit was brought by the stars of the television reality series “Sister Wives.”

The ruling late Friday by U.S. District Court Judge Clark Waddoups threw out the law’s section prohibiting “cohabitation,” saying it violates constitutional guarantees of due process and religious freedom.

But the judge said he would keep in place the ban on bigamy “in the literal sense — the fraudulent or otherwise impermissible possession of two purportedly valid marriage licenses for the purpose of entering into more than one purportedly legal marriage.”

It’s a royal mess at the moment.

And because there is a slippery slope playing out in front of our very eyes, and because one can make a good case that we’ve allowed the Left to strip away a fundamental underpinning to the organization of our society with no fallback position which has to make a majority of the population uncomfortable even though it’s no longer socially acceptable – because of the losses in the culture over the last few decades – to stand up for traditional society if to do that might make others feel bad, you can’t just give up on gay marriage and hope polygamy isn’t next.

The bargaining position is to accept gay marriage, which you’ve already lost on because you did a poor job of fighting in the culture, but demand that the Left join you in stopping judges from taking us down the slippery slope because the arguments aren’t good by supporting a constitutional amendment banning polygamy.

How that ban would be enforced is a good question, but since it’s already illegal pretty much everywhere that isn’t a debate necessary to have.

The Left should happily accept that deal. Nobody on the Left is actively pursuing the acceptance of polygamy as a major social issue. There is no widespread support for polygamy in the American political mainstream. Demanding something be codified in the constitution that is (1) already the law and custom of our society, (2) a bulwark against the demographic threat posed by a Third World alien culture highly unfriendly to a lot of the constituency groups the Left represents, (3) helps to resolve a major concern arising out of gay marriage and (4) puts the Left in position of having to defend things they can’t win elections defending is a formula for a fairly easy political win.

And since there is no significant political movement in favor of polygamy, the Right is at far less risk of being tarred as opposing freedom by making this deal. After all, you just agreed to allow gay marriage!

It’s political maneuvering like this, with a long view and the taking of positions a wide majority of Americans are in favor of, while assailing the Left for the unreasonable overreaches represented by Obamacare and Bloomberg’s list above of which they’re guilty, which can allow the Right to recapture the philosophical advantage. Couple that with a renewed emphasis on fighting the battles on social issues in the culture, upstream from politics, and you can build a governing majority which forces the Left to drop many of their worst ideas.

One senses this might be the direction the Republican Party is moving in. Faster, please.