Posted by
Preston Stone on Saturday, April 11, 2009 7:31:57 PM
Clearly, more and more people have a looser and looser grasp on political, economic and social realities. Liberalism is easy because it is at the bottom of an intellectual roll downhill. Coservatism is right because it accurately reflects the human condition in reality, but that makes it an intellectual exercize. Where progressives have ad hominum tirades, conservaitves have history and economics on their side. Where progressives have nihilistic jokesters on cable, conservatives have some of the best minds alive today. Liberalism is feeling, conservatism is thinking.
The problem we have is a "sloth gap." It is easy to be a liberal, it takes more effort to be a conservative. But this doesn't make our task impossible - in fact, it is our opportunity to reeducate our nation. If our population better understands history and economics, it will be better for each individuals, and it will be better for us as a whole.
Here are some things the conservative movement needs to do.
Develop Educational Tools
He who educates the young runs the future. It should be fairly easy to create good and usable curriculum aimed at the growing homeschool community. And, I would wager, the vast majority of these homes would gobble up the opportunity to purchase and use historically and economically accurate curriculum. But where the work is desperately needed is in the public school realm. Though the teachers' unions have strangleholds in many places, the work should be done to find where conservatives can find footholds in our public schools and begin providing materials to educate our young.
As I see it, at least two areas need the most work: history and economics. One of the reasons Obama and progressives seem to have their way with people is that they simply do not understand how business, taxes, fiscal and monetary policy work. Add to that the fact that most people under 40 cannot put the Civil War in the right century, and you have a sure-fire recipie for disaster.
Public Education and PR Blitz
This prong of the attack needs to operate on three presuppositions: Americans are ignorant, Americans are stupid, and Americans make their decisions based on what they see on TV.
Americans simply are ignorant of simple facts about history and how public policy works and need to be educated.
I know it is popular for politians and pundits to say "I believe in the intelligence of the American people," but is it time to put that canard to the side. Let them say it out-loud, but let the conservative activists operate on the opposite belief. Americans have lost their ability to think logically, and thus, need to have their thinking done for them until they learn how to do it again.
And then media matters. No more old-timey campaigns aimed at the average depression-era farmer. The slicker and sharper the new media campaigns are, the better our success will be.
This is far from a comprehensive list, but it should serve to stirr some thoughts, and hopefully, movement in the right direction.