Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Conservative Voting Block Shrinking?

UPDATE BELOW
A true conservative, businessman, mentor and friend---who's also one of the finest fly fisherman/tiers around---sends a rather dismal e-mail commenting on why he believes conservative principles will increasingly be a tough sell in this country amidst changing demographics:

"Maintaining a Conservative majority in the U.S. is going to be a tough job even without a candidate like Obama:

"You start out with a large group of voters that are living off entitlements and other governmental gifts---which is growing every year--so they are not with you as conservatives anymore in any election.

"Generally a large bloc of government employees are not in your camp. They're already on the side of growing bureaucracy.

"Now you have to try to build a base from those people who simply wish to be left alone to make their own way and add those whose instincts suggest that the government rarely is the best place to go to have problems solved.

"Unfortunately some cataclysmic event scares them into abandoning their instincts and to listening to the change/hope baloney offered by a candidate like Obama.

"When we get a rejection of a conservative approach to governing and a leftist majority takes power, the country slides toward socialism and it's nearly impossible to bring it back to center. We probably will have to live with new leftist programs and only hope we can stop more new ones down the road. Repealing them just doesn't happen.

"Long run, leftist governments preside over declining societies and countries. The basic philosopy is to redistribute a stagnent amount of wealth rather than encouraging vibrant growth and wealth creation by regulating as little as possible and leaving as much wealth in private hands for capital accumulation to finance more growth and job creation. "

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Thanks, Paul. I think you're right but hope you're wrong about this. I do say that by education and information that we may be able to turn this around before it's too late. But many people don't want their minds change and don't care about a vibrant economy.

I'm also deeply concerned if not downright depressed about our country's slippery slide towards more, but not better government presence in every aspect of our lives----except of course in the life of a pregnant mother and an unborn child.

The saddest part of all to me is that the next generation---our children and grandchildren---who are excitedly rushing off to vote for an Obama, are the ones who will shoulder the unbearable burdens of this as times wears on. They will live vastly different and impoverished lives as the ponzi scheme of Social Security, Medicare etc. implodes like the credit crisis.

Unfortunately, we've lived in such sanguine economic times since WWII, that it's hard for many of them and us to imagine the kind of economic winter we're facing. It's hard envisioning 20 degree weather in 95 degree heat. Our children can't imagine what's coming. Wish I were in the ignorance is bliss category. But you, and I, aren't. That makes it doubly hard to watch.

UPDATE: Above writer e-mails back:

Jane, Your editing made my message coherent and readable. We make a good team.

Yes, The real effect of this damage is down the road. Our kids and grandkids will not have the opportunities to live their dreams that we've had. So much their lives will be controlled by law and regulation whose only real purpose is hamstring the doers and make a larger and larger part of the country dependent on government handouts.

I probably am a person left behind by the changes in the country and wish for a time whose views realistically will never again be widely accepted.Some things have changed that needed to change as the country got bigger and its role as the leading world power was realized. Still I think we've gone far beyond where we had to go to adjust to our new circumstances.

It's very difficult to preserve and advance our convictions when opposed by the educational system and the mass media. The relativism they've championed and successfully promoted makes winning over the younger folk tough. For example, this is the greatest country in the world but putting forth that statement invites derision at universities.

People instinctively are conservative but they are sucked in by promises of easy solutions to their difficulties. They know the postal service is a high cost poorly run operation but consider turning health care over to the state because politicians tell them that government will make health care more affordable and available which is rarely true.

You and I will somehow cure our depression and must continue our struggle. It's worth the punishment.

God bless.

10 comments:

  1. A judge in OH is saying that a homeless person can vote by idenitfying which bench he sleeps on for his voter registration. I think the world has turned into a great big loony bin. But...it shows the lengths thatlefty judges will go to help Obama get votes.

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  2. The LA Times has a video tape of Obama, Rashid Khalidi, former
    spokesman for the PLO, and Bill Ayers at a party severak years ago.

    Apparently the LA Times printed the story but some kind of deal was cut with Obama campaign that the tape would not be released. The McCain campaign has sent a
    letter demanding the release of the tape. If we could get this on the air, it would really put a huge hole in Obama's balloon.

    Obama, Rashid Khalidi, and Wm Ayers all live in the same neighborhood and Obama's kids go to the Lab School with both the Khalidi and Ayers children. Seems strange that someone who proposes to have nothing in common with these guys gathers with them socially and has his kids in school with them although I am sure the Lab School draws all the affluent liberals.

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  3. Thomas Sowell has quote from his column. He really gets these conservative economic realities:

    Chief Justice John Marshall said it all in one sentence: "The power to tax is the power to destroy."

    It is not the money that is taxed away that is destroyed. What is destroyed is the wealth that does not get produced in the first place, because high taxes make its production not worthwhile.

    Those who are receptive to Senator Barack Obama's plan to increase taxes on "the rich" seem not to understand that the issue is the nation's loss of wealth. Today, wealth can leave the country when heavy taxes threaten it-- instantly, in an age of electronic financial transfers-- and create jobs and economic growth overseas, instead of at home.

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  4. What part of this don't people see? Or is there so much wealth envy in this country that people would rather punish wealth and job creation and live in poverty than see it and themselves flourish?

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  5. I see slightly different numbers, but the percentage of people who do not pay income tax is 40-44% and rising. Soon in fact, and now in practice, we will be in the situation where the majority of voters will not be taxpayers. The phrase "bread and circuses" comes to mind. Or perhaps "Atlas Shrugged."

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  6. What about this? If you don't pay taxes, you don't get to vote.

    Let's call it Representation through taxation.Shall we have a new Boston Tea Party soon?

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  7. What's really sad is that leftist voters do not realiz that all taxes, including import duties, are ultimately paid by consumers.

    When leftists increase taxes on investment returns, investors simply demand higher returns by bidding down the price of stocks. In order to pay the higher returns - the higher cost of capital - firms must raise prices.

    When leftists attempt to protect domestic union jobs by raising import duties, competition is reduced and efficiency is guaranteed to decline. Declining efficiency means higher costs, and thus higher prices.

    As someone pointed out already, when leftists tax heavily the rewards business owners earn for taking huge risks, it becomes much more expensive to coax them into taking those risks. That expense is definitely passed on to consumers.

    We shouldn't call "share the wealth" taxation a form of class warfare. It's really just a form of stupidity.

    John Dewey
    1978 Escapee from Leftist Stiupidity

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  8. ....yes,JD, passed onto the consumer and often the capital and jobs go outside the country....of course Obama wants to regulate that too and so people will just stop producing and go fishing....

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  9. Jet Beagle - fine points.

    Also when the small business person is heavily taxed that is less money he has to reinvest into his company to make it more competitive and less money to spend hiring new employees who in turn will be shelling out taxes, buying goods and contributing to our economy. Yes, I could have put a period in that sentence, but I am conserving them and I am loath to reread my own yappage.

    Another thing - the more folks dependent on welfare (tax return after not paying taxes) the more people who will be wanting to hold on to the free money making it harder and harder to toss the bums out.

    I could go on, but even a mirror gazer like me gets tired of my own sweet melody.

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