Posted on 11/07/2010 6:06:57 AM PST by marktwain
An interesting read, thanks.
Thanks, I enjoyed that.
Great post
Thanks
Enjoyable reading, thanks. His point:
“The question is: How do you say these things to voters of ordinary intelligence in a way that they care about? The answer may be: You can’t.”
To me this is the key. I am not sure it is “intelligence” that is blocking the message, but maybe more life experiences. I can imagine that people with little capital to invest in the system all too often find it easier to look to government for help. I wish I had a better grasp of economics to understand why the ‘cycle of poverty’ is so hard to break. Is it a natural resource issue, an education issue, or a cultural issue?
I think it is mostly a cultural issue. I recall a study done in Washington, DC, where the children did very poorly in school because they believed that doing well in school was “acting white”.
It was not always this way. The “victim status” that has been pushed by the left can very seductive. It relieves you of all responsibility for your actions.
Ayup! I worked in Vocational Rehab for a few years. You can train even severely limited folks to do something productive. Attitude is the key. The social supports system generates dependents. It is hard to ‘un-learn’ that.
Thanks for posting. I was an election judge in Maryland last Tuesday. I would find it interesting in the threads on suspected voter fraud to hear from the judges that worked in those particular states how their systems actually work.
There is alot of misinformed speculation because there are different systems in different states.
Maryland uses the computer touchscreens with memory cards, and provisional ballots for “problem voters”.
Meant to say Baltimore County. Don’t know about Maryland as a whole.
Yes, that makes sense. It seems they never outgrow that teenage stage in life where it is everyone’s fault but yours. They seem to be trapped in adolescence.
I don’t have a lot of experience with inner city culture because I grew up in a small town with virtually no blacks. But then I worked for a few years in Houston where I got some experience. I had to go to a doctor there and just picked a name out of the yellow pages. When I showed up at the office it turned out to be a black doctor and I was the only white person there! I found it very interesting and enjoyed all the astonished stares from everyone in the waiting room. It was interesting to me to be on the other side of the racial divide for a change and I learned a lot from it. Overall, I never had any problems with blacks in Houston and generally found them to be warm hearted people.
My thoughts too...
...and an excellent argument against making early voting by mail too easy.
Absentee ballot with a reason is OK, but just mailing it in sort of degrades the voting process.
Yes, it's the key. But the problem isn't that something blocks the message. It's that there is no message.
Republicans, capitalists, free-marketers, whatever you want to call them, campaign as if everyone already understood the economic virtues of their position. They never actually explain it. But it's obvious that everyone doesn't. In fact most people don't. Since the economy is the number one issue, always, if people really understood economic principles no Democratic statist could ever win.
Republicans need to change tactics. We spend millions upon millions of dollars every election running empty campaign ads, trying to push emotional buttons to get votes. That money would be far better spent actually educating voters to see things the way they are, which would naturally result in more Republican voters.
I suggest that we take a lot of that money and use it instead to educate. Produce some shows and put them on the air. All the time, not just in election years. Don't try to manipulate, educate. Teach people why socialism fails. Teach them why capitalism is better for everyone. Teach them what is consistent with freedeom and what isn't. Do that and you'll get more votes when elections come around because people will understand. It won't be just a game about who can manipulate the most voters.
“It’s that there is no message.”
I think it is much worse than that. There is a strong anti capitalist, anti meritocracy, anti freedom, pro collectivist message that is drummed into a great number of children every day. That message is not countered very effectively.
Certainly. It isn’t going to change if we just sit around waiting for it either. That’s what I’m saying. We need to make it happen by engaging in it. Insert knowledge into the popular culture. Stop thinking the mission of the party is just to manipulate voters at election time and take on the mission of educating and influencing the culture all the time. The payoff will better in the end.
What a fascinating article! Is this Chicago-style writing? It flows beautifully. I couldn’t stop reading.
Not only that, but he kind of expresses the way a lot of us feel.
Good comments!
“Republicans, capitalists, free-marketers, whatever you want to call them, campaign as if everyone already understood the economic virtues of their position. They never actually explain it. But it’s obvious that everyone doesn’t. In fact most people don’t. Since the economy is the number one issue, always, if people really understood economic principles no Democratic statist could ever win.
Republicans need to change tactics. We spend millions upon millions of dollars every election running empty campaign ads, trying to push emotional buttons to get votes. That money would be far better spent actually educating voters to see things the way they are, which would naturally result in more Republican voters.
I suggest that we take a lot of that money and use it instead to educate. Produce some shows and put them on the air. All the time, not just in election years. Don’t try to manipulate, educate. Teach people why socialism fails. Teach them why capitalism is better for everyone. Teach them what is consistent with freedeom and what isn’t. Do that and you’ll get more votes when elections come around because people will understand. It won’t be just a game about who can manipulate the most voters.”
This is very importantly true and needs to be promulgated everywhere all the time. That’s why I’m reprinting it here.
Conservatives haven’t been marketing Conservatism, while Progressivism is marketed every day by the media.
“We need to make it happen by engaging in it. Insert knowledge into the popular culture. Stop thinking the mission of the party is just to manipulate voters at election time and take on the mission of educating and influencing the culture all the time. The payoff will better in the end.”
If you mean talking things like free market Conservatism to my friends and relatives who are Email contacts, I have.
They don’t answer m. I think one of them changed her Email address and hasn’t told me.
Thanks, I found your points valuable too. One thing you made me think about was the exposure to capitalism people actually receive in the work force. By that I mean if they have ever experienced working for a well run corporation that honestly rewards their employees for excellence, then that really serves as the best education. From my own experience of working for some of the largest corporations in the world as well as for the government, I can tell you that the large corporations are successful because they recognize and reward hard work. The government rewards political ass kissers and unions reward zombies.
“The government rewards political ass kissers and unions reward zombies.”
There are a lot of hard workers in the Government as well, even if the incentives are all backwards. If you wish to see a meritocracy, consider the military branches. I have never met a Colonel who wasn’t pretty sharp, and I have been very impressed with all the Generals that I have met. Political correctness, careerism, and affirmative action have all degraded the meritocracy in the military a bit, but it is mostly still there.
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