PrintMay 20, 2009
Who Are You Calling a Lemming?
I have tried all types of stress reduction techniques since the daily barrage of Obama photo-ops began. Nothing works. There is no escaping the media worship.
Must I now endure lectures about the end of the Republican Party and how we can stop it from happening? (Or why we can't.) The last straw hit the pile with the Sunday edition of the Dallas Morning News. Columnist Steve Blow decided to join the fray with a condescending column addressed primarily to Conservatives in the Republican Party. As support for his prescribed medicine, he mentions the cover of that icon of unbiased media, Time magazine, showing the elephant as an endangered species. Then there was a fundraising letter he received from the elephant party "without a single positive proposal, just a lot of caterwauling about Obama?" Caterwauling? Poor Obama.
And then there was this. "Republicans seem more intent on suicide than rebirth. Rush Limbaugh and his ilk are leading their lemmings off a cliff." That got the blood pressure up. Lemmings? Rebirth? Memo to Blow: Conservatives are not lemmings. On the contrary. We are people with strong belief systems established through study of history, economics and most importantly, personal experience. Our most profound belief is in individual freedom -- no herd mentality or blind loyalty here. As for rebirth, no thanks. We were born in 1789 with the Constitution and reborn in 1791 with the Bill of Rights.
A lot of commentators of Rush's ilk were once liberals. Life experiences brought them around. When we listen to Rush and his ilk, we do it because we like hearing voices of reason and we like the truth, an increasingly rare commodity and almost impossible to find in mainstream media outlets. We also hear a lot of reasoned debates with the real lemmings. Neither Rush, Medved, Hannity, Levin, Hewett, Prager, etc... see their listeners as lemmings nor themselves heading for a cliff. Another newsflash-- we often disagree with them. Here's an idea for Blow. Pick a subject. Call one of the ilks and test your knowledge against theirs on the air. I dare you.
Or try this. Get away from that little circle around your desk and try starting a new business. See how many government agencies block your path, how many rules you have to follow, and how many taxes you have to pay to keep the doors open. Read a little of the history of capitalism and socialism and all types of collectivism. See which has worked in the past and which has failed. Heck, just read the full-page article your paper devoted to extolling the virtues of Karl Marx and Marxism last Sunday. See any similarities to our current administration? Better yet, do you see anything in Obama policies that conflicts with Marxism? If you don't see a mirror image of Obama's America, then you are not paying attention. Still think it's caterwauling? Talk about lemmings headed for a cliff.
The problem with Socialists and Statists by any other name is that they believe that self-interest is somehow evil and that government is needed to counteract the natural human tendency to look out for oneself. Problem is, nobody mentions that bureaucrats and politicians also have self-interests. Their self-interests are about keeping their taxpayer-funded jobs and accumulating power -- power that corrupts. Free enterprise self-interest, however, leads to innovation, productivity, prosperity and real jobs-not jobs funded by taxpayer dollars.
Yes, unfettered capitalism sometimes also leads to greed and power, but left alone, free markets find a way to punish greed through competition and something we used to call failure. Now we call it bailout and rescue and too-big-to-fail. Corruption used to be punished by something we called courts and jails. There are more than enough laws and regulations on the books to keep capitalists in line when they become corrupt. Unfortunately, we have lemmings enforcing them.
Blow quotes the Dallas County GOP chairman. "You win big races by bringing more voters into the fold, not by chasing them away with purity tests." Wow. What a pearl of wisdom. Did Blow have to prompt him with that brilliance or did he come up with it on his own? What purity tests? And where did media get the idea that Conservatives are kicking people out of the big tent? Everyone is welcome.
Some are calling Republicans The Party of No. I think we should stop defending against that talking point and embrace it. Get a banner and adopt it as a slogan. The Party of No more bailouts, no more wild spending, no more tax increases, no more government interference with free enterprise. Those are, by the way, the primary causes of the current financial crisis. Betcha Blow doesn't know that.
Republicans lose and Democrats laugh when the elephant party forsakes conservative principles to engage in some type of perverse self-flagellation in order to comply with advice primarily given by the other side. Exactly how does one win over voters who believe in big government? Pander? Lie? Go along? We win when we stick to principles and stay away from the type of tactics that lost us two elections. We win by showing voters what has always worked and will work again if we can just get the lemmings out of the way.
By the way, I like to call it a Big Stronghold -- not a Big Tent. Ever put your finger on a tent? It leaks. Tent poles sag on soggy ground; rain and snow can make the roof sag and collapse. Let the liberals have the Big Tent. I think I see a leak. Run for the cliff, lemmings. The nanny state is calling.
The Big Stronghold built rock solid in 1789, and supported with walls and extra supports 1791, is not leaking. Believe in yourself and your own abilities more than the state's? Come on in. Anyone is welcome; just don't try to tear it down.
Jim H. Ainsworth-former CPA, CFP, CLU, Registered Investment Advisor, Licensed Securities Principal, was twice named one of the most influential accountants in America by Accounting Today magazine. The author of eight books and hundreds of articles, he learned how the economy works from financial and tax interviews with thousands of clients over almost three decades. He has also ridden horseback across Texas. He welcomes comments at jimainsworth.com.
