Wrong Hill

Do you want to know that it doesn't hurt me?
Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?
--Kate Bush

Both Republican Party reps and media pundits are busy jabbering about what is 'wrong' with the GOP and how to fix it. One claim is that the GOP is not 'inclusive' enough. Exit polls from Tuesday suggest, for example, that Latinos voted for Obama almost 3:1. The proposed solution is to relax positions on entitlements and immigration in order to capture more of the demographic.

In other words, the GOP needs to offer privilege in order to buy votes.

This is classic big government thinking about how to fix a political party already dominated by big government types. The fundamental problem with the GOP is that it has generally supported the same statist solutions favored by the Democratic Party, perhaps only to a slightly smaller degree. With respect to beliefs about scope of government and sovereignty of the individual, the ideologies of the Republican and Democratic Parties are more alike than different.

As more people find that they obtain resources from others using the strong arm of government, why would voters prefer 'statist-light' candidates when they can elect full strength statists? Moving closer to the full strength statism merely solidifies the nearly One Party design.

Offering something different to voters would mean moving toward the low government scope/high individual sovereignty area of the political landscape.

As much as such a migration agrees with my sensibilities, it seems unlikely to produce much in the current environment. As long as government can take resources from some for the benefit of others, then politicians can dangle their confiscatory power as bait for votes.

When people can vote entitlements their way, they will do so.