The first thing to say is that the premise of this thread, which runs through a lot of atlas analysis, is rather mad. So called social issues are not discrete from economic ones and even the ones that are more or less accepted as part of the canon have little in common logically. There's no contradiction between being against abortion and being for increased immigration or against gay marriage but in favour of the death penalty. The same goes for economic issues. I sometimes think that the reason is it taken so seriously is due to atlas's (very largely a humanities site, putting political 'science' in it's appropriate sphere) bizzare science envy, whereby anything with a number attached (even better, a number with decimals!) is unimpeachably correct.
And this, I think, is a problem, because it leads to even very intelligent posters coming out with silly comments and thus ruins serious debate:
Moving 'right' on social issues sort of suggests you've decided it's 'your way or the high way' with respect to whole groups of people. That's really disturbing.
Does it? Does it really?
What about wanting to keep sunday trading hours? Sure that's my way or the high way for one group of people (shopworkers who want extra shifts, shoppers who want more shopping) but it's the exact opposite of it for another (shopworkers who want to have a rest day, their families, those who would be pressured to work if it were a normal day).
What about being against assisted suicide? Sure that's my way or the high way for one group of people (those suffering dreadful illnesses) but it's the exact opposite, or so the argument goes, for another (those who would feel pressured into killing themselves because they think they're a burden)
What about wanting to build more prisons? Sure that's my way or the high way for one group of people (prisoners, their families), but it's the exact opposite for another (the victims, their families).
And so on, and so on.
You don't have to agree with the right on this issues (I don't on most of them) to think that saying it's just motivated by cheap authoritarianism and hatred of out groups is a slur. Sometimes, maybe, but not always. Perhaps on certain issues, like the ones you mentioned, gay marriage and immigration, it's even a majority. But even there it's never always. In fact, as I've suggested you could use the same slur against the left and it would be just as much of a half-truth. Questions of liberty are invariably questions of balancing one groups freedoms against anothers, for both left and right, and I don't think it serves any purpose to pretend that there is, or at least is most of the time, a gaping chasm between the two camps in terms of motivations.
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