"It profits me but little that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

The Regular Guy Is An Extremist

As a lawyer in a big firm, I have a lot of friends who are liberal Democrats.    Inevitably we will discuss politics.   I like to defuse the tendency of liberals to think conservatives are evil crazy extremists by just announcing in a parodic way that I am, in fact, a "radical right-wing extremist."   My natural nice-guyness and reasonableness then shows how silly those kinds of caricatures of the right are.  

Anyway, one of the things I'd like to see the Republicans in Congress do is just go full-on parody of the term "extremist" or "radical" that the MSM and the Dems like to pin on them.   Just own it, flaunt it, trumpet it proudly.   And then say very simply obvious things that nearly everyone can agree on and connect them to our supposed "radicalism."   Like:

 "We're proposing an extremist solution... balancing the federal budget."

"We believe in the radical idea that individuals, families, communities, states and nations need to live within their means, and not borrow money from their children and grand-children."

"We extremist Republicans believe in the radical proposition that two parent families are good for raising children."

"We crazy radical extremist Republicans believe that history demonstrates the need for a strong American military."

"We crazy, radical extremist Republicans believe that Catholics and other pro-Life Christians should not be taxed or otherwise required to pay for abortions."

"We crazy, radical, extremist right-wing Republicans believe that big government bureaucracies are inefficient and wasteful."
Things like that.

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