Five myths about conservative voters - Frank Luntz - Granite Grok

Five myths about conservative voters – Frank Luntz

Frank Luntz is often on Fox News – given this Republican Primary season, he was on a lot doing his focus groups during the televised debates where the members of the groups were able to interactively “spin their dials” to indicate various levels of “like / dislike” with what the candidates were saying – it was interesting to see the differences of what “turned the switch on” between Republicans and Democrats.

Well, he has a quick read article in the Washington Post on what Democrats might believe about Conservatives – and would be wrong according to this pollster:

Five myths about conservative voters

1. Conservatives care most about the size of government.
2. Conservatives want to deport all illegal immigrants.
3. They worship Wall Street.
4. Conservatives want to slash Social Security and Medicare.
5. Conservatives don’t care about inequality.

Go read his explanations on each of those myths.  My take?

Government today is expected to do way to much – and in most of what it tries to do, it fails the “excellence” test.  My belief is that a limited government, much decreased in size (especially at the Federal level), would have a better, a far better, chance of being best in breed if the number of services were limited.  Take those services that Society would have a hard time in doing (national defense is the best example of such a good public good) and have Government do them – but have the accountability to ensure they work and work well.   If you disagree, reread this.

Deportation?  I believe in one of the quintessential pillars of American Exceptionalism – The Rule of Law.  If you do not follow our laws in coming to this country, you are not a “migrant”, you are not an “undocumented worker”, you are not a “worker without papers”, but you are an illegal alien.  It is the right and duty of the national government to enforce its immigration laws – something that both Bush and Obama have been lax at (at best) and encouraging it (by dint of lack of enforcement) at worst.  That said, we have seen that while criminal illegal aliens should be deported after doing their jail time, many who came simply for a job (vs. becoming an American) have self-deported as they saw the jobs disappear and access to “the dole” curtailed.  I agree – 12 million deportations are not needed.

No, not Wall Street, for sure.  Rather, I want my economic liberty and freedom back.  I want government out of the way instead of acting like a wet blanket with all kinds of regulations.  While I work for a mid-sized firm, I do not worship at the alter of Big Biz – especially when Big Biz acts in conjunction with Big Govt to create and enhance Crony Capitalism (as seemingly Obama has done with his Dem donor buds with respect to Govt being the “VC of choice” for the “green economy” (whose greenness is only that it has eaten a lot of green with little to show for it but bankrupt firms).

#4 – Here’s an idea: how about making it optional?  How about letting ME decide whether I wish to participate – or not?  Right now, this is the typical Liberal program – we must FORCE everyone to participate in order to “give freedom to those in their Golden Years”.  Consider this a platitude free zone – those are facts in evidence and it matters not what “intentions” or “Generational promises” or “the Social Compact” – it’s not a promise and it’s not a compact as these are voluntary.  SS and Medicare are simply laws written in such a way that there is no choice.  And when a suit was brought to allow a group of seniors to get out of Medicare, the ruling was that if you give up voluntarily withdraw form that program, we will force you out of SS.

All that said, all we have to do is look at the Public Pension systems, especially in blue states, and look at what demographics are doing to the blue social model / welfare state in Europe to see where our collective futures are – there just isn’t enough money sloshing around (or created) to handle the $100 Trillion plus unfunded mandate that stands for both programs.  Both are going to have to be restructured and REAL SOON NOW in order for there to be anything available for anyone (including me and I am within 6 years of an early retirement onto SS).  Two workers are going to support my retirement?  No, that’s not fair.  If people want to stay in it – fine.  If people want to get out – that should be fine as well.  But like all ill-conceived Liberal programs that are cast into immutable form upon birth, the refusal of politicians to have it change with the times will ultimately destroy it.

Life is unequal and unfair to begin with, all Liberal protestations aside.  And, all Liberal attempts to undue that fundamental property of Life as well.  Life has never been fair and never will.  The only way to make life completely equal is to live under a tyrannical and oppressive governance that does not reward excellence unless it is in the form of cronyism (re: look at present and past Dictatorship / Communist / socialist / monarchist / strong man regimes where Statist is held in the highest esteem and the individual is but a mere cog).  There, life is what others allow for you and not what you get to choose for yourself.  This is where Liberals, who believe in their heart of hearts that NO one can figure out modern life so Government must choose for the citizenry (and I dryly note that Government, under the Progressive Administrative State, would be staffed by individuals who, by definition, are making decisions for others in which alone they would be incompetent to make for themselves).

The Founders had it right – starting with the premise that God gives us Rights that should never be touched, they simply believed in those Rights and in the Rule of Law in which all are equal before that Law. Government CANNOT create equality where none exists – we all are different, with different talents, different motivations, different interests, and different work ethics.  It should be considered to be a crisis of Liberty to force a single mode upon all – it cannot fit.  It should be considered to be an affront to take from those who have worked hard to succeed simply to give it to another deemed more worthy.  That is not equality nor is it creating equality – it is, instead, sending a message “don’t try – we’ll take your success from you”  on one hand as well as “don’t bother to try – we’ll take care of you”.

And as we amply see today, this codicil can be added: “and we’ll demonize those that we take it from to take care of you”.  That is not equality – that is tyranny by Alinsky’s Rules.  And we all know who his best disciple is.

Update: Although this (quoting from F.A Hayek) from Powerline is really about Obama Political Appointee EPA Region VI Administrator Al Armendariz (who, in a video that went viral (working on a post)  explained his regulatory practice was “crucify a few companies to break the will of others” ), it fits here as well:

It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that the greatest danger to liberty today comes from the men who are most needed and most powerful in modern government, namely, the efficient expert administrators exclusively concerned with what they regard as the public good.  Though theorists may still talk about the democratic control of these activities, all who have direct experience in this matter agree that (as one recent English writer put it) “if the Minister’s control . . . has become a myth, the control of Parliament is and has always been the merest fairy-tale.”  It is inevitable that this sort of administration of the welfare of the people should become a self-willed and uncontrollable apparatus before which the individual is helpless, and which becomes increasingly invested with all the mystique of sovereign authority–the Hoheitsverwaltung or Herrschaftsstaat of the German tradition that used to be so unfamiliar to Anglo-Saxons that the strange term “hegemonic” had to be coined to render its meaning.

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