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Posts Tagged ‘Conservatives’
August 12th, 2013 at 11:07 am
Study: Conservatives More Adventurous than Liberals in Consumer Choices
Posted by Print

So here’s some interesting socio-political news.  A new study from one of the top business schools in the nation, Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, contradicts the popular stereotype that conservatives are comparatively stodgy and unadventurous while liberals are open-minded and inclined to try new things.

According to the study to be released today, conservatives are actually more adventurous than liberals when it comes to product selection and real-world exercise of choice.  According to Naomi Mandel, one of the study’s authors, “Usually, when you think of conservatives, you think of people who like to have control over things or who are familiar and predictable.”  Those of us who actually are conservatives, of course, tend to know better.  After all, we’re the ones devoted to “free markets, free people,” as the saying goes.  By getting government off of people’s backs and allowing them to make their own individualized choices rather than comply with more of a government-dictated, one-size-fits-all model, societies can become more prosperous and happier, as the real-world evidence repeatedly confirms.

So liberals can continue expressing fealty toward choice-limiting institutions like ObamaCare or the Post Office.  Contrary to popular myth, we conservatives reply, “Vive le difference!”

October 10th, 2011 at 6:59 pm
Paul Ryan’s Opportunity Society

On yesterday’s Meet the Press, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) demonstrated how to reframe quickly just about any debate on taxes or the economy into one that favors free markets and opportunities for everyone:

“I don’t worry about people who are already rich. I worry about getting people to become successful,” Ryan said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Removing those barriers so that people who have never seen success before can actually become successful. … This redistribution idea of pinning people against each other does not work. It’s divisive, and it hardly gives us the kind of attitude we want for businesses to take risks so we can succeed in the future.”

Conservatives need more of this kind of rhetoric from leading politicians.  Let’s hope the eventual GOP nominee lifts Ryan’s lines to give an inspirational lift to what will surely be a withering attack on the failed Obama economy.

April 14th, 2011 at 12:00 am
Gimmicky Budget Deal Causes National Review to Turn on Boehner
Posted by Print

If you’ve lost National Review — the most consistently conservative child of William F. Buckley — you’ve lost the conservative moment. Thus, House Speaker John Boehner should be insecure about NR’s new staff editorial reacting to the recently revealed gimmicks in last week’s budget deal, ominously entitled “Strike One.” Reading the content won’t assuage those fears:

There’s realism and then there’s cynicism. This deal — oversold and dependent on classic Washington budget trickery — comes too close to the latter. John Boehner has repeatedly said he’s going to reject “business as usual,” but that’s what he’s offered his caucus. It’s one thing for Tea Party Republicans to vote for a cut that falls short of what they’d get if the controlled all of Washington; it’s another thing for them, after making so much of bringing transparency and honesty to the Beltway, to vote for a deal sold partly on false pretenses.

Last week, some of us held out hope that the budget deal represented real — albeit incremental — change. The disappointment that would have resulted from a less satisfying outcome would have been bad. But the betrayal that results from feeling duped by your own leadership is far worse.