Teaching Liberals to Hate Big Government

Over dinner last night, my friend, Pete, made one of the best arguments I've ever heard to convince Liberals that big government is a bad idea

"Government is always owned and operated by the rich and powerful. That will never change. The question is whether you want them to control a big, powerful government, or a small, weak government?"

Now, one of the biggest boogeymen to the Liberals is the rich and powerful corporation, whom they assume (correctly) to have too much power and influence on government.

We need to convince Liberals that this is the case. No matter which party is in office, they will be the tools of the rich and powerful. The only way to reduce the power of the hated rich, and corporate puppet-masters (Enron, Haliburton, etc) is to reduce the power and size of the government over which they wield so much control---because you're never going to get money and its influence out of government. You can't reduce their access to government...but you can reduce their access to POWER, by making government less powerful!

Conservatives are notoriously bad at explaining their position to Liberals. Our argument against Big Government has always emphasized government's intrusion into our personal beliefs and behaviors, its over-regulation of our businesses, its threatening of our property.

But Liberals LIKE the idea of Conservative beliefs and behaviors being intruded upon, of businesses being regulated to within an inch of their lives, and our property being confiscated and redistributed!

What the Conservative fears about Big Government is, in a lot of ways, precisely what the Liberal LIKES about Big Government. So our arguments about private-property and liberty are completely counter-productive.

But there are things that Liberals hate about government, too, reasons they view it as corrupted by money and undue influence from the rich and powerful and by corporate interests.

and encourage their view that money and corporate influence in government is responsible for a host of bad things, emphasizing those things that the Liberals are most concerned with: tax loopholes, oil dependence, alternative power research, corporate welfare and bailouts, sweetheart legislation and subsidies for certain pet industries, corporate support for illegal immigration, third world exploitation, animal welfare..etc.

And then we need to help them understand (and evidence is legion!) that it is imposible to get money and influence peddling out of politics and government; that government will always be under the control of the rich and powerful...whose interests are self-serving, self-enriching, self-aggrandizing..and rarely for the good of the country---no matter what letter is after their names.

Both Conservatives and Liberals have a horse in this race. We just need to make them see theirs!

We've been trying to convince Liberals by using arguments that appeal to Conservatives. How stupid is that?

Liberals are from Venus, Conservatives are from Mars. We need to learn their language.

The Gunslinger