Years ago when I was a teenager, my brother would find a time when my other brothers and/or I were listening to the radio and strike up a conversation. Then every now and again when we weren’t looking he would ever so slightly turn the volume up, so that after about 20 minutes we would be yelling at each other, never even realizing the volume had gotten so high. He was through incrementalism, able to change our environment without us even realizing it was happening. Does it sound familiar?
Often, the true conservative is admonished by those [moderates] who claim it is a little absurd to object to minor changes in public policy, such as seat belt legislation, those seen in gun laws, or even in environmental mandates. These are either “necessary issues,” as some claim, or perhaps even those “which can’t hurt to pass, as it doesn’t take anything away.” So, because it isn’t TOO important, the conservative is sectioned off and separated from the herd to fall to the wolves. But the conservative has always been right.
Consider seat belt laws. In 1979 1985, under the Blanchard administration, insurance lobbyists acting in their own best interest, wrote legislation to be passed which applied a penalty if someone was pulled over and not wearing a seat-belt. At that time, the brother I mentioned, wrote a letter to the editor in the Lansing State Journal. He argued how this new seat belt law, while hardly an oppressive measure by most standards, was a step forward in the gradual relieving us of our rights. He had, as a teenager, a greater understanding of the growth of government through incrementalism than most of the legislature who was supposedly voting on our behalf. He got it, understood it, and objected.
When the original law was passed, police could not pull someone over for the suspicion of or even witnessing someone not wearing the safety device. Over the years, it has progressed bit by bit, to that place where police can not only use the excuse of a possible seat belt violation to pull over and detain an individual, but then to further put it in our face with commercial after commercial during your favorite Detroit sporting event, stating that they CAN and WILL violate your 4th amendment protections, and there ain’t nothing you can do about it.. beep beep beep..
This type of “slow cooking” (referring to the oft used “frog in boiling water” theory) lends itself to many “public safety” issues, and is by design intended to maintain a low level of threat by conditioning us to accept the “insignificant inconveniences” or not so sudden “change” which would most certainly ring alarm bells in our mostly complacent skulls of mush. Conservatives will take note, and too often will be chastised as extreme on the issue.
Environmental activism operates much in this way. Of course who in their right mind would argue against measures which protect us from “pollution!” Mandates which were gradually increased on emissions outputs, and fuel economy have all but been accepted as normal by our automakers, who have glee fully capitulated while ignoring the holes in their pockets, which has led up to today’s issues. Power providers have accepted the outputs conditions, and happily passed the costs of new technology as slowly as possible to the consumer to avoid retribution, yet finally had to do something… and fast.
In fact Its no coincidence that with the coming mandates on renewable for our power supply in Michigan, the major players have set themselves up for survival by quite literally putting themselves under more stringent regulation. They know what it will cost to provide electricity on the basis of what the politicians have promised they will do. They have provided a level of protection for themselves from the torch bearing mobs who when finally given the bill will seek out the green monster which has started to terrorize them. No Michigan… there can be no competition for our future energy needs.
There is so much more that our government takes from us in this manner. It is all coming together now however, and someone turned the volume knob up that last little bit. We have started to realize we are yelling at the top of our lungs, but our government is not hearing us. Our brothers are not hearing us. WE are not hearing us. The only way to save our hearing, our freedoms, future, might be listen to today’s conservative, and perhaps to unplug the radio.
