We Blew It A look back in remorse on the conservative opportunity that was squandered.
by P.J. O'Rourke
Tangential excerpt:
It's not hard to move a voting bloc. And it should be especially easy to move voters to the right. Sensible adults are conservative in most aspects of their private lives. If this weren't so, imagine driving on I-95: The majority of drivers are drunk, stoned, making out, or watching TV, while the rest are trying to calculate the size of their carbon footprints on the backs of Whole Foods receipts while negotiating lane changes.
People are even more conservative if they have children. Nobody with kids is a liberal, except maybe one pothead in Marin County. Everybody wants his or her children to respect freedom, exercise responsibility, be honest, get educated, have opportunities, and own a bunch of guns. (The last is optional and includes, but is not limited to, me, my friends in New Hampshire, and Sarah Palin.)
And 99% of all parents ("parents" being defined as heterosexual couples who are still keeping their marital vows -- the percentage might be somewhat lower among other demographic groups identified as "parents") want their children to:
• not steal
• not kill
• wait till they get married
• not get an STD
• not get pregnant out of wedlock
• not get an abortion
• not be homosexual
• not be a prostitute
• not be a drug addict
• not be a gambling addict
• not be dependent on government welfare
This is a huge voting bloc.
The easy way to win their votes is to explain to them why abolishing government programs makes it less likely that their children will become any of these things.
We can even win many of the votes of those parents who actually want their children to become these things, by explaining to them that we do not want to lock their children up in a federal prison cell with a psychopath if they do any of these things.
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