◼ I had no idea there was an actual movement of thinking people who want to honor the principles of the Founders — liberty and limited government. It took me a long time to wake up. - John Stossel/Human Events
Now more Americans have woken up, say Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie, editors of Reason magazine.
“Poll after poll show you that Americans are much more fiscally conservative than their elected representatives,” says Welch. “A majority of Americans thinks that we should balance the budget. Seventy-five percent think that we should not raise the debt ceiling … Growing majorities — especially young people — are more socially tolerant. They think that we should legalize marijuana … they’re in favor of gay marriage.”
Gillespie argues that some of the change comes from people seeing how the private sector offers us more options that we like, while government fails.
“The 21st century has been a demonstration project of how Republicans and conservatives screw things up, under the Bush years, and now we have the Obama version — the liberal Democrat version of screwing everything up … you go to Amazon.com, you have a good experience and you get all sorts of interesting stuff. When you go to a government website, not so much.”
It changes minds, they argue, when people see this is a strong pattern, not just the result of isolated mistakes unique to Obamacare or another specific government project.
