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On Social Issues

 

I have a very strong opinion about social issues, and my feelings are best summed up this way:

Obama is killing our economy by growing government.

While others want to talk about the false narrative of banning birth control, the most fundamental aspect of the birth control issue is this:

Obama is overwhelming my children's future with monumental debt.

To some, social issues are really important. To me, they are divisive and they detract from the most unifying aspect of this election:

Obama is ruining our private business sector and eroding jobs.

Republicans can allow themselves to be distracted by stupid non-arguments, and thereby allow Obama a second term, or they can focus on the single issue that will them the election:

Obama is championing a centralized government that is washing away our economy.

Some people want to talk about saving unborn babies. I want to talk about saving the already born babies from mountains of debt. The former won't win elections. The latter will win elections, and saving our children from the burden of big government spending is the greatest social issue of our time.

 


by Brett Rogers, 2/16/2012 3:03:24 PM
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Comments

In my observation of the sociopolitical scene over the past many years, I've found that the number of people on the GOP side raising social issues (that they actually think the government should act upon) as central to campaigns is far fewer than the number of reporters banging the drums to FUD people into what social change would occur should any wise, respectable, liberal embodiment-of-all-that-is-good be so evil as to vote for them, and then demanding that GOP candidates respond to those fears.

I know a number of otherwise intelligent people who were (I'll be generous) manipulated into considering the unregulated availability of abortion to be of paramount importance, beyond all such mundane matters as fiscal suicide, an overpriced educational system designed to produce unthinking people, collapsing fiscal and social bubbles, eroding civil liberties, the systematic demonization of capitalist principles, and the rampant circumvention of Constitutional constraints. They almost define themselves by this fact. A threat to abortion is no longer a threat to women, but a threat to their own self-image.

It was easy to whip them into a frenzy of fear and get them to vote for Obama last time. It's a tried and true technique. Get the Republicans to respond to reporters' fear-mongering, and then inflate every statement, suggestion, hint, or evasion. Works every time to some degree or another, more-so in close races. But, they are particularly effective when people feel some discomfort or shame for a past action, and need to suppress that shame by rationalizing it, celebrating it, and then continuing it.

The people who regret voting for Obama the first time need some way to evade the guilt for the (easily foreseeable) consequences. Abortion gives them that out. The reporters facilitate it. Another vote for Obama is not just a vote for the rights of women, not just a crutch to prop up your fragile self-image, but an opportunity to feel good about the fact that you, the voter, actually helped damage or destroy your own country.

The problem is not that abortion is a major plank in every GOP campaign. The problem is that GOP candidates can't figure out how to effectively derail this tactic. Often this just requires one simple thing that the GOP can't figure out how to do.

Just. Shut. Up.

When your opponents choose the battlefield and demand that you use specific tactics that play to their strengths, complying is just a creative way of committing suicide.

 

 

Posted by Jonathan, 2/17/2012 1:38:31 AM


Good points all... it seems to me that what the public lacks is a healthy skepticism.

My mother, for example, is a life-long Democrat who voted Republican in the 2008 election for the first time in her life. She plans to do so again in 2012, but she can to me after the ABC debate where Stephanapolous beat up on birth control for the first segment of the debate, and she asked, "Are Republicans trying to ban birth control?"

My response: "Mom, you remember how the media lied about Hillary and protected Obama?" She nodded. "Why in the world would you believe anything from the media?"

She nodded knowingly, and then said, "I thought I'd ask and I knew you would know."

"Mom, you need to take everything you hear in the next 10 months as bullshit until it's proven true. Obama's going to lie, the media will lie, and all that matters is that they're coming after Kerm's pension and your retirement if Obama gets elected. They've already talked of taking control of your 401K. Don't suckered in."

 

 

Posted by Brett Rogers (http://www.beatcanvas.com), 2/17/2012 8:44:47 AM


Concealing these lies is critical to Obama. The media is no longer enough, which is why he's forming his "Truth Teams". Pravda on the Potomac for the next year. Taiwan elections are sane by comparison (even with the third party VP candidate talking about the electronic attacks by the intelligence department.)

 

 

Posted by Jonathan, 2/17/2012 8:58:46 AM


http://classicalvalues.com/2012/02/dispatches-from-different-wars/

From Instapundit today, an example of my point from a pissed off woman who says that "[o]ver the last few days it’s been impossible for me to log on to the Face Book without being assaulted by postings on the “Republicans War On Women” from my female Face Book Friends most of whom are educated and many of whom work in a profession that, at least in broad theory, requires them to have the capacity for original or individual thought." A good read.

 

 

Posted by Jonathan, 2/19/2012 8:25:48 PM



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