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