I was handed this article last night at a meeting and wanted to share it here.
The politics of infiltration, confrontation and punishment.
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APPLYING THE POLITICAL VISE
how friends of liberty can win
Have you ever wondered why conservatives get elected and begin moving left while liberals get elected and just move further left?
It's because of the Political Vise.
Legislative outcomes are determined by the Political Vise. You have likely seen or used a vise at some point - you put something in it and turn the lever until the thing held within gets squeezed. The more you turn the lever, the more the think in the vise is squeezed. A few more turns and pretty soon the thing, what ever it may be, becomes slowly distorted from what it originally was. A fine pipe, all pretty, cylindrical and strong, is soon flattened into an unrecognizable shape - and it is useless for its original use.
Kind of like some so called "conservative" politicians who get elected and soon become useless once the squeezing starts.
Political decisions-makers are a lot like that pipe. They, too, appear all pretty and strong when running for office. However, from the moment they are sworn in, whether Republican or Democrat, political decisions-makers are in the vise - forever getting squeezed. Only those - and they are few and far between - committed to principles can withstand the pressure. The rest collapse, much like that pipe, into something useless from his or her original purpose.
The question is, who is doing the squeezing?
Who turns the levers?
The Political Vise has three sides with three levers. The three levers are public opinion, the media and influences (lobbyists, union leaders, community leaders, activists, government officials, government bureaucrats, average citizens, etc.)
Note that the key lever is the one controlled by the Influences. They not only apply pressure to political decision-makers inside the vise, they apply pressure - and create interest and agitation - with both public opinion and the media.
These three levers, especially the Influence lever, are predominately in control of left leaning people and organization that understand how the vise works.
The reason the Liberty Movement has so much trouble is that we ignore the vise - most are not even aware it exists - and we place our political hope (ah, hope) in a party and its candidates.
This is a losing proposition. Instead of placing our hope exclusively in people and parties, we need to organize and get our hands on the levers that turn the vise. Political decision-makers make decisions based upon three things - fear, expediency or principle. To win, we have to compete for control of the levers so we can buttress our friends in the vise when they want to do the right thing. On those occasions when they are on the wrong side of an issue, we need to apply positive pressure that makes liberty principles the expedient thing to do or makes decision-makers fear the consequences of going against liberty principles.
Thus, we must build capacity on all three sides of the vise. In so doing, we can recruit and elect principle driven candidates, we can buttress our friends in the vise who want to do what is right, and we can continue to educate the persuadable middle voters that liberty based public policy is the best way to solve society's great challenges.
We must compete on this basis. If we do, liberty principles and policies will prevail more often and prosperity will follow for all, and especially for the poor and disadvantaged. |
