Ring-Around-The-Rosie Politics

It’s stupid season and the political game has been churning at full speed. The conversation has already degraded to “Who Moved My Cheese?”

The political pundits are holding hands as they go full circle from “Obama’s stimulus outsourced jobs.” To “Mitt Romney won’t release his tax returns.” They will undoubtedly continue to go around their political circle until the election arrives. What a disservice to the American people. I have joked on Twitter and Facebook that “As long as the electorate cares more about Snooki than they do about politics, they will continue to get the watered down candidates that we are so used to seeing.” If America did care more about politics than they did about reality TV, they would realize that the two-party system may be different in rhetoric, but their actions are very similar. The social right of the Republican Party WANTS more government to facilitate “ethical behavior”. Democrats want more government to control businesses and the work force. They keep handing the ball to each other and each side does their part to expand the role of the Federal Government. It’s almost as if they are saying, “Ok, the people are sick of the fight for abortion, so lets expand medicare.” Or “We need to build defense to fight terrorists.” The common theme between the two sides is that nothing of any significance is being cut. Each side expands their own programs without cutting the oppositions. It’s a hand-off that’s been occurring since before the “New Deal”. Conservatives will never get smaller government if they never see the hypocrisy of their arguments.

So lately I’ve been recruiting Democrats instead of the Republicans to the cause of liberty. Yes, many of them are so far away from our platform that they will never be swayed by the liberty argument. They seem content with Government being involved in every facet of their lives; they see a comfort in knowing that “someone else is responsible” instead of themselves. But after listening to their rebuttals to my arguments, I’ve come to another conclusion about Democrats. They don’t have any idea as to what the Libertarian argument is. This one question has drawn a lot of blank faces on Democrats…

“If you are against big banks, why won’t you audit the entity that feeds them?”

Try it. Some will even concede the argument; others will say they don’t know enough about the Federal Reserve to have an opinion and some will choose not to answer. So Ben Bernanke comes out today and says that auditing the fed will "create a political influence". Wow. I had to listen to it twice because I couldn’t believe he would tell a blatant lie like that. Any person who believes that the Federal Reserve is a fully private institution doesn’t know how the board gets put into power and how the chairman is picked. It is highly political, and those that are chosen usually come from deep political ties. So the influence is already there. The top contributors to both Obama and Romney are large banks. In regards to monetary policy, the ring-around-the-rosie will continue (unless Ron Paul shocks the world and wins the nomination in Tampa). Stop seeing political opponents as enemies and see them for what they are, people who think differently. Fair and open debate is the only way liberty will prevail.

Here are 5 ways I believe we can stop (or at least mitigate) ring-around-the-rosie politics:

-We inspire nobody with disrespect, and resorting to disrespect defeats the argument before it is made. Call out fellow supporters for being disrespectful. We rely on sound arguments and let the opposition rely on “business as usual”.

-SOME liberty people have a superiority complex (don’t lie, you’ve seen it too) because they believe they have figured out what others haven’t and grow frustrated when the others can’t see it.

-Do not engage in the “he said” “she said”. Too many times we hear the back and forth “You outsourced jobs!” “So did you!” blah blah blah. Realize when an attack is meritless and don’t engage back. Simply correct the falsehoods being spread about you and continue to make YOUR argument for leading this country. Not why your opponent is incapable of it.

-It’s ok to admit when one of your representatives messed up. Just because you belong to a “party” doesn’t alleviate you the responsibility of holding your representative accountable. There are a lot of blind defenders out there. I heard a lot of tunes change once those people were convinced Romney was going to be the nominee.

-It’s ok to admit when you’re wrong. If you make a false claim, admit it. There is nothing wrong with saying I was wrong on this issue. Being able to be wrong about an issue gives others the ok to admit when they are wrong about an issue. But it takes courage.

In Liberty…

Jake Severance