Author Archives: Matt Souders

Community Conservatism: How Government can Empower Civil Society

Politics, Republicans, Strategies For Advancing Liberty, Theory and Ideas

061.community-networks

Community Conservatism: How Government can Empower Civil Society
Matthew and Stephanie Souders – November, 2014

Concerns of the Civil Society

In the many post mortem analyses of the 2012 presidential election and the two surrounding “republican wave” midterms, it has become apparent that what drives the health of the Democrat Party is not Middle Class America in the way it once was, but very poor, and the very wealthy. Progressive policies have marginalized the middle class and made it difficult for people to change their financial status through over-taxation and over-regulation of small businesses, through a system of wealth transfer that mostly hurts the middle class, through microscopic interest rates that are disincentives to saving and debt management and through a bloated, inefficient social safety net whose unpaid liabilities are an enormous anchor on market confidence, and thus, GDP growth.

Both parties have an unhealthy focus on the wealthy. Democrats believe in a system of, as Mitt Romney called it, “trickle-down government”, in which our social betters determine which businesses should benefit from rent-seeking behavior and which should be regulated out of existence for our own good and court the wealthy with the promise of largesse. Republicans still believe, to some extent, in Reagan’s system of “trickle-down economics”, in which government courts the support of big businesses with an interest in deregulation and low corporate taxes. In both models, the real concerns of the middle class are completely ignored.

We’re not short on polling and research on the question of what the middle class wants from government. In order of importance, according to a host of exit polls and issues polling done by Pew Research, Gallup and Rasmussen:

• Establish an economic climate where my job actually pays (what they actually mean is: where my median income actually goes up at least as fast as inflation, preferably faster)
• Make government accountable and ensure that it’s actually working properly (while most in the middle class are not quick to blame Obama for every failure of the bureaucracy, they are nonetheless completely faithless, now, that government can work well)
• Make our education system actually work and give us good choices so that our children are prepared for the adult world
• Get the cost of healthcare contained and give me broad choices in doctors, hospitals and insurance plans that fit my needs
• Reduce or stabilize the cost of energy and make us less dependent on foreign energy markets
• Protect a basic social safety net and care for those in real need, defend against fraud and abuse of our good will
• Keep our communities safe from threats, foreign and domestic
• Keep law enforcement constructive and fair
• Respect our freedom to choose how we’ll live our lives and respect our privacy
• Be good stewards of our natural resources and the environment
• Demonstrate that you can govern (people are results oriented, but a lack of willingness to compromise on either side is an immediate turn-off to moderate middle class Americans – and a philosophy that downplays the importance of government is also a turn off, as people want to feel that their lives are backstopped by a competent, effective government)

The nice thing about the above list is that both Democrats and Republicans in the middle class come up with about the same list in about the same order (Democrats might place environmental stewardship a little higher up, and Republicans might move government accountability to the top slot in some cases, but otherwise, our priorities tend to align well across party lines). The difference between us is not what we think is important, really; it’s how we would go about addressing each issue.

Here’s the thing – voters, being human, tend to respond to the core meaning/value in your message, more than to the particular policies you support; and candidates for office (and the national party leadership, obviously) tend to frame their policy ideas in value-centric terms. The 2012 presidential election was a battle between Obama (whose convention proclaimed the message “government can work for all of us / they disagree, and that’s dangerous”) and Romney (“yes we did build that / they think they own you!”), and, as I’ve just observed above, people tend to prefer to believe that government can be a force for good (because it can be, and because it’s comforting to seek leadership). Libertarians and the Tea Party – two groups that don’t often see eye to eye – tend to instinctively believe that government is like fertilizer. It’s horribly stinky and we want as little of it around as possible, but necessary at some level. I’m here to tell you – that is not the message that middle class America wants to hear, even if there is some truth to it. If the Republican Party wishes to establish a governing agenda that wins hearts and minds back toward conservatism (including cultural conservatism), they must demonstrate that they can govern proactively and listen to the desires of the middle class, since the middle class still tends to drive the cultural conversation. What follows is a set of core values that should be embraced by the GOP if they wish to make something of their current governing majority, as well as a sampling of specific policy suggestions in line with those values.

A Philosophy to Govern

A) Take Responsibility and Do the Work

The media often paints a picture of our current divided government as a battle between those on the left who want to govern and those on the right who do not, and there are vocal members of the GOP caucuses in both chambers of the legislature that give the media ample sound bites in favor of this description. By now, you know their names well, so I won’t rehash them. However, as is equally obvious, to anyone paying attention to the party, the GOP does in fact desperately want to govern, and that this can actually be dangerous (in so much as they allow their desire to govern to create bigger, rather than different and more effective government). It is, ironically, the left which seems not to want to govern. Progressives in the legislature have increasing sought to take matters of law out of the hands of the legislature and give it, instead, to bureaucratic government agencies and the executive branch. They still wish to transform society using the power of an activist government, but they want to do it through channels where there can be no debate on the merits of their ideas. It is actually this progressive abdication of the personal responsibility for governing (as best expressed by Obama’s refusal to hold any of his key people responsible for the spectacular failures of the bureaucracy on his watch) that is most hurting the ability of the legislature to function. The GOP must seek in the legislation it passes to take responsibility for the outcomes of that legislation and to get enough bipartisan support that it can share that responsibility with the left.

B) Make Our Priorities Your Priorities

Both parties have a nasty habit of playing to their bases and feeling the need to take specific actions on every piece of their “base-centric” party platforms in the hope that this will get them elected again. Base turnout is important in maintaining a governing majority, but what is more important is being perceived by the electorate at large to care about the same things that they do and place your priorities where they do. Obama’s schizophrenic presidency spent “focusing like a laser” for five seconds at a time on a hundred different things was in stark contrast to his 2008 campaign, in which he did in fact focus entirely on the real concerns and fears of the electorate. And of course, we all know that the GOP has a tendency to shout SQUIRREL at the first sign of a chance to discuss social issues or international matters that simply are not at the forefront of our minds in the middle class. The authors of this piece are staunchly pro-life, but even we recognize that we need to get our fiscal house in order first before we can spend any time on such matters.

C) Focus on Service and Community

The most important development of the last decade in US politics is the move toward a distrust of a self-absorbed ruling class elite that no longer concerns itself with what is happening in our towns and to our civic organizations. One of the reasons the GOP is doing so well at the state and local level, even before their 2010 and 2014 national midterm routs, is that the representatives it’s choosing at those levels are quality candidates who are deeply tied to their local communities and remain so for long stretches after they take office. When you pit the left and its tendency to turn the country into a series of fiefdoms competing for government support against the local branches of the right, and their tendency to focus on community pillars like successful businesses, churches, and charities, the right wins far more often than they lose. At the community level, people want to come together and celebrate their home. The national GOP, however, has generally been playing the same 50% plus one game that the left plays (witness Romney’s 47% remarks). To address this problem, the national GOP should craft policies that favor community pillars over top-down community organizing, small businesses over large ones, and civic society over the government as often as feasible. And more than that, Republicans must not forget that their success comes from being tied to their communities and earning the trust of those communities – they should return home as often as they’re able, reach out to people in communities that don’t traditionally vote Republican, and stay active where the live.

D) Gain Back Their Trust

There is a lot of talk about a “Republican Civil War” in the press, now that they have a legislative majority. The GOP is less monolithic than the Democrats – meaning we have a healthier exchange of ideas, but also a harder time pleasing everyone and staying on message. There are four basic factions in our coalition: Libertarians, Classical Social Conservatives, Reform Conservatives, and the Tea Party. Each faction is fighting to control the narrative, and, of late, libertarians are gaining the upper hand on the tea party for the “arm twister” prize (going to the group most able to move the GOP establishment in a new direction). Mitch McConnell just endorsed Rand Paul for the 2016 nomination, for example (eyes sideways!). If this divided GOP can come to any sort of basic agreement on how best to govern for the middle class without “sacrificing” any members of its coalition, I believe all members of the coalition will eventually get what they want most. Just because, for example, a reform GOP agenda doesn’t put pro-life issues at the top of the list doesn’t mean we need to renounce social conservatives and their ideas. Just because most of the GOP disagrees with libertarians about international policy doesn’t mean we need to remain outwardly hawkish to keep the establishment happy. First, prove you can forge a coalition and stay united on some of the things we do agree on. Win back the trust of the electorate and then, when a social conservative has a message about abortion, perhaps society will be more able to hear it without cynicism. First you win the governing mandate – then you win their trust – then you win their hearts – then you win the culture.

Matt Souders
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Why Libertarians Should Vote Republican

Election '14, Point/Counterpoint, Politics, Republicans, Strategies For Advancing Liberty

vote-republican

America is a bit of a rarity in modern politics in that it is a two party system with so little penetration by independent and minority party politicians that it is difficult to attract qualified candidates to any alternatives. Of the billions spent on electioneering in the U.S., mere millions go to Libertarian, Reform, Constitution, and Green Party candidates, let alone pure independents, unless they have the explicit backing of the Democrats or Republicans. In almost every state in the union, Libertarian candidates struggle to draw enough signatures on petitions to even appear on the ballot, and even when they do, they rarely pick up more than a few percent of the vote. In the face of such a rigged system, it is hard for Libertarians not to become bitter and frustrated with the process, abstaining from the vote, voting for Libertarian candidates in protest, or even using their vote as a weapon against the GOP for keeping them from the podium. I, myself, have felt such a desire myself on occasion. Although I am closing to core republicanism than most of the contributors here, I don’t consider myself a member of the party and have a number of issues where I lean more Libertarian. But here’s the thing that should stop us from walking out on the GOP – here is the reason we need to vote Republican, at least for now.

Voting Republican is Working

If you’ve been paying any attention to the Republican Party of late, you know that much is being said about a “Republican Civil War.” The media is no doubt eager to cover our internal squabbles, waiting in the hope that the party splinters, yielding a permanent liberal plurality in command of the Capital. While the headlines may be a bit overblown, they’re not based on outright fabrications, and here’s the thing – the battle of ideas within the GOP doesn’t just come from the Tea Party (the populist flank). Libertarians are making their mark on conservatism as surely as they ever have – and their impact is much more viable, politically, than that of the Tea Party. Libertarians are winning the argument on multiple key issues.

Foreign Policy

Prior to the Reagan presidency, Republicans were not the party advancing the theory of Communist containment, nor were they particularly inclined to use American military might very proactively. Reagan successfully fused American fears about Communism’s international reach with a doctrine of expanding American concepts of liberty and free trade for the betterment of our economy, but he also ushered in an era of Republican military aggression. It became “red meat” in the Reagan years for conservative candidates to promise a strong national defense. From Reagan to Bush to Dole, Bush Jr. and McCain, the GOP grew synonymous with hawkish calls for a defense based on strong offense. Libertarians have long questioned this use of our resources, but ask yourself this – when was the last time you heard a competitive Republican fighting for a national elected post whose campaign was centered on an aggressive foreign policy? Did Romney spend more of his time than I remember talking about his plans for nation building abroad? Are this year’s GOP senate candidates proposing an all-out offensive against ISIS? George W. Bush’s ‘State of the Union’ address in 2004, heading for election season, was roughly 60% national defense and the war on terror. Romney’s campaign was roughly 90% domestic policy. If you’re attempting to advance the Libertarian goal of speaking softly but carrying a big stick in reserve – or forcing the world at large to start spending some money solving their own problems – the GOP is right there with you now, at least at the national level.

Gay Marriage

The national party has not come around on this issue as of yet, but even ten years ago, the thought of a gay Republican group at CPAC would have been out of the question, and the fact that, since DOMA was struck down by the Supreme Court, the GOP no longer makes mention of Gay Marriage unless pressed to do so by the media, and then only reluctantly do its candidates offer a plea for traditional marriage should tell you something. If you believe that liberty should include the liberty for gay adults to make contracts of their free choosing but that churches should not be forced to participate – the GOP is right there with you in spirit, and voices like Rand Paul are yanking it in that direction in policy.

Ending the War on Drugs

I remember, when I was growing up, that it was local and state level GOP candidates leading the charge – playing on the “security” voters (married couples with children especially) with promises of laws meant to crack down on drug use. The national GOP has never made this a top priority outside of the Reagan administration, but continues to maintain a position against legalization of marijuana at this time. But for how long will that remain the case? The core GOP voting bloc – even evangelicals – rate the war on drugs as among their lowest priorities in exit polling nowadays and the GOP is not actively pursuing any meaningful legislation on the issue. Sooner or later, libertarian voices, now by far the most passionate advocates in any direction on drugs within conservative ranks, will win out here as well. When the libertarian position on drugs reaches Paul Ryan, and he starts executing decriminalization concepts and jail population reduction plans in his latest round of budget plans, you know your ideas have reached critical mass within the GOP.

Deficit Spending and Government Downsizing

W. Bush’s ‘Compassionate Conservatism’ (because we all know that libertarians have no compassion, right? /sarc) is now rightly seen by both the Tea Party and the libertarian flanks of the GOP as one of the greatest betrayals in the party’s history. They’re flat outnumbered on this and, if they get a majority in the legislature in 2014, they will be forced to consider actual cuts to government spending and actual tax hikes or face the wrath of the electorate in 2016. Not a libertarian will be rooting for higher taxes, but enough of the middle class is willing compromise now to get the government to reduce spending that it will be incumbent on the GOP to abandon their “no tax hikes ever!” pledge and forcus on reducing taxes on small businesses while increasing taxes on the very wealthy and simplifying the tax code for all. That is if they ever want to be seen as a party that can govern. But even if they fail in that regard in the next few years, they remain a libertarian’s best hope to some day see reason.

Civil Liberties

Here again, the Tea Party and libertarians see eye to eye and have outflanked the establishment wing of the GOP. The leading voices against NSA spying, the use of drones against Americans, the suspension of due process for those accused of sexual assault, the imposition of the IRS on political speech, etc – they’re all Republican. Liberals are united in their indifference to these things, at least in Washington. The McCain wing of the GOP continues to support such actions as the Patriot Act, but they are fast decline and will soon “age out” – both in the electorate and in Washington.

I’ll close by asking, honestly, is the existing Libertarian Party – unsupported as it is, a strong enough body to affect change on its own and bring about an era of increased liberty and prosperity? And which of the major parties is most likely to seek such a noble goal? Small “l” libertarian voices, to a much greater degree than Libertarian voices, are having their say – the system is working, albeit slowly. As the elderly conservative base begins to die, a whole generation of millennial voters who are, by their nature, DEEPLY skeptical of big government AND big business, are primed to come home to conservatism if it puts on a more libertarian face. If libertarian voters of today want to see such a new era, they must keep the current Republican Party afloat and work to change it from within. There won’t be a country left worth saving if the progressives currently running the Democrat Party are ushered in by libertarian support (direct or through abstaining).

I advise libertarians to stay the course – our system is designed to change slowly – be patient and the GOP is yours to inherit.

Matt Souders
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A Few “Good” Men (With 2014 Endorsements)

Democrats, Election '14, Libertarians, Politics, Republicans, Strategies For Advancing Liberty

2014

Editor’s Note: The views of this piece should not be construed as the views of the other contributors of The Liberty Papers or of the blog itself. TLP as a blog does not endorse any candidates or political parties. –Kevin

I don’t intend to make this a lengthy piece of sophistry. We are coming up on a crucial midterm election (well – as crucial as a battle can be between a group of incompetent buffoons who can’t settle on an ideology and a group of intentionally evil people who wish to end the American experiment and have hijacked a party which, at one time, was an important voice for the disadvantaged). You are going to hear people make a bunch of different arguments as to what strategy you should use when you vote. In fact, many of those arguments are about to be deployed in an upcoming point/counterpoint series this very blog will run on the question of how a libertarian should vote to advance the core values of the movement) – here are some of the classics that you hear every election cycle these days:

1) Vote for the person whose platform most closely matches your beliefs!

After watching politicians advance platforms that are often plagiarized from party leadership or put together by a campaign think tank and not the figurehead actually running for office, and then once elected, running from their platforms as fast as their legs will carry them, I’ve decided that voting on a platform is nonsense. Candidates will say anything to get elected – it’s human nature. And if you are prone to believing what they say on the stump, you’ll be a slave to sloganeering forever.

2) Vote for the “least bad” option!

Here’s a classic that is commonly used by libertarians and frustrated conservatives who’ve seen the GOP flee from the Constitution when it was expedient to do so. The argument goes: if you’re a liberal but dislike the direction of the democrat party, or a conservative but angry at the GOP or the Libertarian party for perceived sleights, you should vote for the candidate who will hurt you less. Liberals should vote democrat even if they dislike the blue position on abortion, say, and conservatives should vote GOP even if they think the Patriot Act was one of the worst bits of hackery that their party has ever mustered and wish to punish them for it, because the alternative is way, way worse. I call bollocks on this one too. Not that it’s completely untrue, but such behavior also perpetuates those same bad habits in your party of choice in the future. Libertarians and Constitutionalists have been told for the last 20 years that, even if you dislike the GOP on major issues or think they’re badly run, you have to keep voting GOP or the other guys will win…but when we keep voting GOP, they take it as a sign that what they’re doing works and they keep doing it – look who keeps running for the White House!

3) Vote for the people who are least connected to the Beltway!

There’s a strain of populism in play in both parties these days that’s driven by the very correct observation by middle class Americans that DC has ZERO interest in solving our problems or representing our wishes – that Capital Hill is dominated by a system of crony capitalism, crony government, and horse trading that has nothing to do with anything but maintaining privileges and influence for a select few. But rarely are purely-populist movements motivated by data and efficacy – they tend to be very emotional things; more governed by anger and retribution than by merit. Enter Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party. The thing is…in their zeal to select candidates that are not insiders, both parties have been picking horrendously unqualified candidates. I would strongly advise against voting simply to punish incumbents and reward people with no history in politics. The results don’t tend to be very good for anyone.

4) Vote for the guy who is least corrupt!

Not gonna say much about this, but it is common in electioneering to hear all about scandals and rumors of scandals. My (admittedly still limited) experience tells me that 90% of the smoke is not fire, and that corruption charges are usually based on wishful thinking, more than hard evidence. If there is good evidence, fine, factor that into your thinking, but you may also want to keep in mind that corruption isn’t always worse than incompetence, and that it frequently attaches itself to whoever is in charge, no matter how good their intentions were when they started.

5) If you don’t know much about the stakes, vote anyway!

Please don’t. I’m not saying I don’t want voter participation to be high, but if all you’re going on is The Daily Show or snippets in Yahoo! News or the political party next to a candidate’s name, stay home please. Or only vote for the things about which you have some knowledge (you can leave election slots blank on most ballots!).

6) Vote this way or DOOM!

And of course…if I’m to believe every campaign email I get, if I choose differently than the way they want me to choose, all hell will break loose instantly. Elections do have consequences, but I think we’re doomed already. Vote with your head, not your fear.

My recommendation? It’s hard to find a good man who would want to be a politician. It’s even harder to find a good man who is a good candidate and a skilled campaigner who wants the job. If you enter every election insisting that the candidate be the perfect fit, you’re going to hate every cycle. I recommend that you look for a few “good enough” men – men who are motivated by data, by history and by what works. Vote utilitarian – choose the candidate whose ideas have the best chance of actually being implemented and working; or at the very least, choose the people who you think will be most likely to quickly pick up a clue bat and hit themselves with it once they’re in office and have access to all of the information. Barack Obama was never that guy. Mitt Romney might not have been a true Constitutional conservative, but he was definitely a utilitarian, driven by a desire to solve problems. Better to select a man you dislike but respect for his acumen than a man you like but know is incompetent. The same scale can help you distill the current Senate and Gubernatorial races in some cases. I’ll throw out a few endorsements now, to clarify my meaning.

COL SEN / GOV: Both Beauprez and Gardner strike me as people who are less ideologically driven and more driven by common sense and evidence. You might disagree and I’m open to hearing counter-arguments, but both seem like “good enough” men as far as I’m concerned.

WI GOV: I’ve heard some bad things about Scott Walker from Wisconsin locals who are involved in conservative politics, but, corruption or no corruption, I believe Walker gets results and is focused on those results.

OK SEN: Alright – this race isn’t competitive, but I’ve actually exchanged multiple communications with Sen. Inhofe (I’m the guy that writes his congressmen and senators regularly if there’s something that needs to be said…I would encourage all of you to do this at least some of the time), and he never answers with a form letter unless it’s a basic request or issue statement you sent him. The man is seen as the Antichrist by the environmental left, but, whatever his faults might be, I believe him to be genuinely connected to his constituents.

NH SEN: My wife and I had a rather gnarly argument once over his last bid for the senate in Massachusetts. She’s a classical democrat from Boston (who is waking up a bit to the nastier, progressive side of the party that is taking over these days), and in the battle between Full-of Bull and Scott Brown – a man who can hardly be called a far-right conservative and would more accurately be termed a pragmatist – she voted for Chief PantsOnFire. Yeah – I took that personally, because my wife is full of common sense on just about everything, and you can’t possibly choose the radical with a history of deception and the total lack of relevant experience over a solid, pragmatic moderate based on rational thinking. The same applies now that he’s running against Jeanne Shaheen, who, while less offensive than Elizabeth Warren, is most certainly not coming across as motivated by an honest assessment of the facts on many key issues. Watch some of Shaheen’s debate performances and think about the things she says.

So that’s how I tend to process elections, and it’s how I would urge more of the readers here to respond as well.

My 0.02 – would love to hear yours!

Matt Souders

How Do You Measure The ‘American Dream?’

Class Mobility, Cronyism, Economics, Education, Fiscal Policy, Taxation

The question of class mobility has come to define the “American Dream” in political discourse. And, although this post will take a bit of a contrarian position, it is absolutely inarguable that there is a problem with economic immobility today that is having a very depressing impact on the way we communicate to solve problems and on our freedoms in general. But this is not how you go about making that point.

There are many accepted indicators of whether a person has “done everything right” but the most important such indicators have traditionally included college advancement (graduation and especially graduate degrees), marriage, and home ownership.

The original graphic is a classic example of a complex topic simplified into uselessness. When I look at the graph, I see that, in fact, college grads who started poor move up to the middle classes and stay there at much higher rates than rich kids who drop out of high school (yay!)…but somehow the Post comes away with the misleading headline: Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong.

Really? This only looks at the shear proportions who “graduate college” vs. “drop out of high school” – that can hardly be seen as “doing everything right” vs. “getting everything wrong”. What did the college grads major in? There is ample research supporting the conclusion that most college majors these days are bad long term investments. What did the rich kids who didn’t finish HS go on to do? Were they drop-outs because they had alternative plans? Did they pick up a trade?

And more to the point – how many of those poor kids had good parenting examples at home upon which to build the foundations of healthy marriages?

Slate takes on many of my same talking points here. They mention other confounding factors, and note the misleading nature of the Post’s article title. Props to them!

But they make the unfortunate logical leap that there is something inherently wrong with a system where not all poor college grads do well later in life, or that the forces leading to their remaining in poverty are things we can fix.

An excerpt:

The real issue, as O’Brien points out, is that rich kids enjoy lots of advantages that keep them from falling to the very bottom of income distribution, and sometimes those advantages keep them at the very top. They might be able to go to work for family businesses, for instance, or family friends. Researchers like Brookings’ Richard Reeves call that collection of advantages “the glass floor.” Educated poor kids are in the exact opposite position. Many attend second- or third-rate (and possibly for-profit) colleges that churn out less-than-useful degrees. And instead of a floor propping them up, their families and friends can act like an anchor pulling them down. A classic example: a college-educated woman who goes home and marries a boyfriend who never made it past high school and has trouble holding down a job.

Emphasis mine. Notice the not-so-subtle insinuation that colleges that operate for profit are bad for the poor, and that the less-useful degrees are not to be found in the halls of elite, expensive colleges, only those second rate low-end state schools or the aforementioned dirty capitalist institutions. Of course, even top end colleges (including the ivy leagues) are now offering degrees in a wide array of financially useless liberal arts curricula. Also notice the suggestion that the problem isn’t with the failure of people raised in poverty to establish and keep stable families, but that those families are holding them back. They’re getting it exactly backwards. Every credible study on the persistence of poverty finds that single parents and people who suffer divorce are the most likely to get stuck in poverty.

So let’s summarize the position of Slate’s team (and likely that of the Washington Post):

1) Economic mobility continues to be problematic at best for the poorest Americans, even with hard work.
2) Graduating from college is a mark of hard work.
3) Hard work should be rewarded with a high rate of success.
4) If we could separate the poor from the things that hold them back (especially their struggling families and their alternative education sources), they would thrive.

If the writers at Slate would like to address the problem of hard-working, driven poor people being less able to move up the economic ladder than (perhaps) would be ideal, I suggest that they stop grinding political axes and start looking at the hard data. The data all indicates that the leading indicator for economic immobility is single parenthood, and that children of single parents are more likely to also be single parents themselves later in life. Get to the root of the problem and you find that this is not something that government can forcefully correct – and frankly, I’d be terrified if they tried.

Matt Souders
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The U.K. Becomes A Nanny State….Literally

Dumbasses and Authoritarians, The Nanny State

The United States may not have sunk this far down the rabbit hole of socialism, but the UK has. The UK has become a nanny state, literally in the case of one program.

Labour Party Loons Foist State-run Childcare on UK at 66k Pounds a Head

A childcare subsidy aimed at persuading mothers of young children to return to work has cost taxpayers an astonishing £66,000 for every woman who has taken a job, a study revealed yesterday.
It said the price of extra free nursery places for three-year-olds under the part-time pre-school places scheme will be £800 million this year.
But the scheme has resulted in only 12,000 women moving into work, and the majority of them are in part-time jobs working fewer than 30 hours a week.

So many questions come to mind when I see an article like this:

What – are women in this program just pawning off their kids on the state so they can sit around doing nothing?? If only 12,000 women have gone back to work, why are enough kids in the program that it should cost this much?

Do you suppose a full-time professional Au Pair in the UK costs that much?

Do you suppose it’s in the State’s best interest to replace parenthood responsibilities with Big Brother’s Permanent Day Care?

Do the moms going back to work even earn that much on average?

How do you suppose this cost figure was obtained? Are they paying state childcare “experts” a king’s ransom?

Do they gold-plate the state’s diaper supply?

But I’ll settle for one question to rule them all: What were they THINKING?

The great axiom of politics is this: if you want more of something, subsidize it. Evidently, the UK wants more single, working parents, more broken homes, more ‘parents’ who care more for their own social lives than their children, and more children for which it is responsible. How far are we from child-rearing factories and an end to the concept of ‘mother’ or ‘father’ as in “Brave New World’?

My head hurts – I need to lie down now.

Matt Souders
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