They sure will. A list of the government interventions that Santorum endorses includes national service, promotion of prison ministries, "individual development accounts," publicly financed trust funds for children, community-investment incentives, strengthened obscenity enforcement, covenant marriage, assorted tax breaks, economic literacy programs in "every school in America" (his italics), and more. Lots more.
Though he is a populist critic of Big Government, Santorum shows no interest in defining principled limits on political power. His first priority is to make government pro-family, not to make it small. He has no use for a constitutional (or, as far as one can tell, moral) right to privacy, which he regards as a "constitutional wrecking ball" that has become inimical to the very principle of the common good. Ditto for the notions of government neutrality and free expression. He does not support a ban on contraception, but he thinks the government has every right to impose one.
The quarrel between virtue and freedom is an ancient and profound one. Santorum's suspicion of liberal individualism has a long pedigree and is not without support in American history. Adams, after all, favored sumptuary laws that would restrict conspicuous consumption in order to promote a virtuous frugality. And Santorum is right to observe that no healthy society is made up of people who view themselves as detached and unencumbered individuals.
"But to move from that sociological truism to the proposition
that the family is the fundamental unit of political liberty," says
Galston, "goes against the grain of two centuries of American
political thought, as first articulated in the Declaration of
Independence." With It Takes a Family , Rick Santorum has
served notice. The bold new challenge to the Goldwater-Reagan
tradition in American politics comes not from the Left, but from
the Right. 
© Copyright 2005 National Journal
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time.
Robert|1.3.12 @ 7:18PM|#
Couldn't both statements be true?
In principle yes, but in practice 99% of the time an individual's interest will be the same as the interest of hir family.
thirtyandseven|1.6.12 @ 2:38PM|#
Couldn't both statements be true?
Both could perhaps be true statements, but only one can be good public (government) policy.