Their Education Is Not Quite Over
Yesterday the College Republican National Committee came out with a report that supposedly says that infighting turns off the 18-29 crowd, the single-mindedness of cutting taxes and reducing the size of government is not where they want to go, harping on gay marriage is just not friendly, Latinos think that Republicans don’t care, privacy concerns are overblown…
[Big sigh]
Not that I would ever argue that GOP messaging on all points doesn’t need work, after all, I wrote quite a bit on the very topic after the November election, but what the kids in college recommend in their report strictly to attract other people their age is not defense of the principles that conservatives espouse or what made this country great. It’s pandering- and any effects felt by pandering are shallow at best and make for squishy support.
I’d apologize to the younger Republicans out there, but I’ve been following national and world affairs for longer than a lot of them have been alive, and it’s just not as simple as “make the message what we want to hear”.
All of us who have been out of college for some years remember the days, when we were on the green side of, say, 25, and we knew, well, everything. We had an answer for every problem. We gleefully went into the world fresh from the classroom armed with the “knowledge” imparted by our teachers who may or may not have ever actually worked in the fields they were teaching. Long story short, we spent the next decade finding out how much we didn’t know, identifying the holes in our education and remedying that problem. Well, some of us anyway.
With that in mind, it’s a little frustrating that viewpoints from people who have never filled out a 1040A – even in a taxes workshop class – are being heeded by a media anxious to find any hole in the wall of conservative stances. The case obviously has not been made that reducing regulation and red tape IS helping small business owners succeed, as really, success is not for the the government to foster, or that wouldn’t be a charge against the GOP from the College ranks. Social issues are a problem, it seems. (Social tradition came to be due to millennia of trial and error. Who are we to call that wrong and just accept unnatural relations in sanctioned bonds? Like parts cannot make a union no matter how hard we try.) Almost every conservative position seems to come under fire in the reports. It’s as if the College Republicans are trying to invent non-conservative conservative politics to keep from being labelled “old fashioned”. For some reason, the kiddos think they are being original.
(That’s right, the young ones are a new generation, just like our parents were and their parents and their parents….)
Well, kiddos, hate to be the one to break it to you all, but before expressing your collective opinion on what the issues of the day not only should be, but how we must feel about them, ya’ll might want to talk to someone who actually has had to deal with what the government and really unscrupulous criminals have done to life America. People who’s paychecks are torn in half – half goes to Uncle Sam and the states, the worker gets to keep the rest. What it takes to buy a gun not on the black market. What it was like to fly before September 11, 2001. The heady days when identity theft was someone stealing a drivers license. Who led the civil rights movement – and who is actually oppressing the poor and minorities. Why Islam is not a religion of peace, despite protestations to the contrary. Crime levels in the border towns along the Rio Grande that could be held in check if only the border patrol was allowed to do enforce laws already on the books. How lower taxes actually increase tax revenue (and why over half of the Fortune 500 companies’ are incorporated in the state of Delaware). Why national debt is enslaving. How you all, the future of America, are going to be paying for the overspending going on now for the rest of your lives.
(Being informed is the responsibility of the individual. As adults now, it is part of your job as citizens to find out what is going on in government, who is doing it and why. No one is going to do it for you.)
The answers to the questions on issues are some of the reasons why conservatives hold the political convictions that we do. They are not arbitrary and certainly not capricious, and they need to be explained better. After all, conservatives are lovers of freedom and liberty and believe that a populace able to make informed choices in their best interests, not just the political equivelant of parents constantly saying “no,” is required for the good of the entire country. In that regard, realistically, a virtual free for all in both foreign and economic policies does no one any good.
(And once the young republicans actually have to keep a household or office budget in check, as well as maintain good relations with clients and vendors, they might get that since the messaging on all of it is just so mean.)
In the meantime, as the College Republican National Committee and their adherents are going through the growing pains and learning curves the rest of us experienced in our own lives, each at our own pace, it would be worth the time to use their concerns as a blueprint for what specific messaging needs work. If we conservatives are having a hard time convincing our own people of the rightness of our stances, how are we going to persuade anyone else?
The more things change the more they stay the same. Leftist ideas wearing a suit are still leftist ideas, and they don’t work, and that’s exactly what the MSM is reporting the College Republicans want to see. Nope. Sorry. Ain’t happening.
That does not mean that Republicans or conservatives of all ages for that matter cannot compost, recycle, eat organic, enjoy the outdoors, etc. Senator Rand Paul does all this. That’s pretty good company.
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