All of you have made some good points about youth. Patrick Mulligan, you represent those youths in every generation that are level-headed, and who refute the kind of over-generalization made here. Raymond is right that my generation, that of he 60s, was just as self-indulgent and ill-prepared to make decisions concerning the lives and wellbeing of millions; and Berncois makes the equally valid point many of my generation are making no better choices as grey-beards. Befair expects too much with his notion of “transformational voice” and Yonkel verges on worship regarding his grandkids, yet each new generation does infuse, at least, the hope they’ll do a little better.

So, the question is not whether this generation is fit to participate so much as when any generation is ready. Ideally, every citizen, regardless of age, has the same right and same entitlement to vote. Yet, we all recognize certain limitations based on maturity. We don’t put major decisions with life altering consequences in the hands of toddlers. Yet, we are exceedingly reluctant to take that same capability out of the hands of those too feebleminded by great age for fear of injustice. We should be reluctant to disenfranchise others, but does that mean it is not in some cases necessary? If we have made a mistake in giving youth too much power too soon, then we would be irresponsible leaving them in possession of it.

One problem I see with reducing the age of franchise is that none of us becomes adept at voting without some means of practicing it. It is no good holding mock elections and running for mock offices, because the feedbacks from these are pure fantasy taught by ‘wobblies’ with juvenile notions. So, the first practical application most of us get is electing some jerk we imagine is the messiah and who, invariably, lets us down. Still, a better transition ought to be possible providing ‘graduated’ voting powers, say voting first in local elections, then state, then federal. This would allow youth to vote in situations where the issues are clearer and the consequences more tangible and immediate; but also less destructive or irreversible.

On the other hand, there ought to be some connection between the business of voting representatives and the objects for which they are elected. For adults, this is pretty clear. Government creates laws constraining our independence of action. Most adults have property and wealth that are subject to confiscation by government, and ought, therefore, have some say in when, how much, and to what purpose it may be confiscated. Then there is the question of service, itself a form of property subject to confiscation. In the early 1970s, we decided it was wrong pressing 18-year olds into service and not give them the vote. However, as soon as youth had the vote, they supported the outlawing all forms of compulsory service; invalidating the very reason they’d been granted a vote. Youth, by definition, are still under some constraint by virtue of an inability to fend for themselves. Whether this constraint is imbedded in law or circumstance is moot, so long as they are substantially dependent. A similar case can be made for the adult-indigent who make a lifelong habit of meeting their needs at taxpayer expense. Should they have the same vote as those who pay the cost of government? Or should theirs be more limited? What of those of us in the middle? We pay less than the truly rich? This same logic would dictate their vote be proportional to how much they pay versus what we pay. Clearly, that misses intangibles and non-monetary assets subject to confiscation or destruction; and gives the rich an unfair competitive advantage. So, our voter qualifications may have some remaining inequities and youth may be a pain in the butt, but it may just be the best we can do with what we have.

The youngest man at the constitutional convention in 1787 was 26 years old. James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution” and the “Father of the Bill of Rights”, was a comparatively young 35 years old at the time. There were men at the very same convention much older, and with much more experience – the oldest of which was Benjamin Franklin at 81. Fortunately enough for the future of this country, the old, wise men at the convention didn’t simply blow off the young men at the convention as inexperienced rubes incapable of serious thinking.

I understand that you are speaking of means. But if we are to be fair, is intelligence distributed any differently among young people than older people? There’s certainly no evidence of such. Speaking strictly in terms means, adults of any age are equally as likely to be unintelligent. And judging simply by the anecdotal evidence, it seems to me that historically speaking, older people are just as likely to be ignorant, naive, and ill-informed as young people when it comes to political matters. FDR socialism certainly wasn’t ushered in by a frenzied mob of adolescent Neanderthals. Neither was Johnson-era new-New Deal-ism. As I mentioned before, young people do not constitute a plurality of the vote. To blame Barack Obama’s, or any other politician’s, success strictly on a frenzied following of ignorant youths is absurd. It takes an entire ignorant party to elect an ignorant candidate.

If the average American is “frightened” by the current healthcare “mess”, just think how “frightened” they’ll be when they are paying every bit as much in taxes for care that does not serve us half so well or healthy; some dying while waiting months to years for screenings we get within days.

Environmentalists shamelessly and mercilessly proclaim America prime culprit for every phony disaster from global species extinction to global-warming, DDT bird-death to SIDS, acid-rain to microwave-mutation, and ozone pollution to ozone destruction. Global-warming, if that is what you are referencing, is the biggest hoax yet to excite human folly. McCain having “good environmentalist credentials” does not exactly endear us to him and only shows how flawed he is as a conservative.

Where you say: “I think conservatives on these issue have both drifted from reality as well as the American consensus. I see nothing in the history of conservatism that would not support a cautious approach to the environment …”, you are totally wrong and, if there has been a drift it has been away from both realism and conservatism. Buckley defined conservatism as “standing in the middle of the road, yelling – STOP!” Though incomplete, it says the conservative is the guy resisting the pull of lunatics to jump on the bandwagon. The ‘consensus’ on these three points (healthcare, environmentalism, and internationalism) are distinctly anti-conservative; only tangentially and disingenuously reflective of such principles as ‘life & pursuit of happiness’, husbandry, and sovereignty. The conservative supports your right to the best care available and will take your side when you’ve been cheated of it. He will even join you in partnering group rates and give generously to charities supporting those truly indigenous. But, he will not support what can only be forcible confiscation from those who labor most and best to give to those disinclined to provide for themselves. The conservative may support protecting the environment, but will not do so through crippling enterprise or punishing and taxing normal human behavior. And, the conservative will support cooperation between nations, but nothing usurping our sovereignty or personal rights. As the tendency of internationalism is the obliterating of sovereignties in favor of a single world-state, and, as that state is unlikely to sustain our peculiar freedoms, it is ridiculous thinking conservatives would support that.

“… and certainly no support for using our military to intervene in international geopolits that are no direct threat to the homeland.” is again wrong. You must be confusing us with socialists and the Libertarian Party. Liberals developed the weird notion countries ought never to fight for any reason than self-defense, only when directly attacked on our own soil, and, then, only allowing us to repel up to our borders. Anyone who has ever had to defend himself against a bully or berserker can tell you that is horse-manure and a sure formula for getting killed. Our enemies have no such scruple regarding our sovereignty, as was amply demonstrated by 9/11 and similar attacks. Those countries you regard as “no direct threat” have been and remain indirect threats providing cover, safe-passage and assets to those who would destroy us or our way of life. All have deniability, yet all have been complicit. How do you expect to prevent such attacks if we must keep both hands tied behind our backs? The only way to prevent such repeats is to dig them out of their holes, and that means using our military. This is not (or should not be) a conservative stance alone because our very survival is at stake should we fail to convince our enemies they are better off staying home. It is a little late for even that, however. Now, we are engaged, and you do not pull back in the middle of a fight or you are dead.

Every one of those things you mentioned – environmentalism, healthcare mandates, anti-interventionism (aka isolationism) does just that. But, I will focus mainly on healthcare as the most enticing to the uninitiated and most dangerous politically.

If healthcare costs have spiraled out of control, it is not least because of over-regulation and a litigation industry favored and protected by tort lawyers we generally elect to govern. Now, you suggest, we need government to insinuate itself further, guaranteeing the cost of decent care skyrockets while bad care abounds. The problem with all governmental healthcare takeovers is they pretend to deliver equal goods. They don’t and can’t. Look close the state-run healthcare systems of Britain, Canada, Sweden, &c to see what a real healthcare meltdown looks like. The more you take personal decisions out of our hands and put them into government’s, the more you put our health at risk. Under state-run systems, decisions are immediately made to cut costs by limiting access to the most costly services; substituting older, cheaper services, drugs and technologies. Staff cuts and support functions are similarly cut in an effort to keep cost flat. Without any incentive to devise new drugs, pharmaceuticals shrivel and go bust. As soon as drugs can be produced and shipped cheaper from India, Mexico, or China, the advantage goes to them. Cost cutting successively makes the next lower technology more precious, driving up cost and negating first savings. A new round of cost cutting ensues, denying still more services and life-saving technologies; until a point is reached people are set to revolt. As there is no further profit motive, available technology and knowledge stagnate, and may even degrade. Hospital repair and sanitation becomes neglected, as in Britain. Doctor’s become indifferent to patients and wait times become longer than many patients can endure. This is what both Democrats and Republicans are proposing for us to keep medical cost from going higher and to bring minimal care within everyone’s reach. It will do both, but only by eviscerating the level of care we now enjoy.

Considering your medical dollars protect both your health and your ability to earn a decent living, the so-called high price of modern healthcare, even dialing in the added cost of regulation and litigation, is really a bargain. Instead of whining about how costly it is, consider the loss it would represent if you did not have available to you things like wonder drugs, high-technology, and a medical knowledgebase unheard of in your father’s day. Modern medicine is costly, mainly, because take-two-aspirin-and-call-me-in-the-morning is a whole lot cheaper than chemotherapy, MRI’s, and neurosurgery. But, which do you think is going to keep you alive and supporting your family should you develop a brain tumor the size of a fig? Don’t want to pay the price of modern healthcare – fine, you are just as free to choose the level of care your grandparents received, and at a substantially lower (adjusted for inflation) price. Just, please, don’t expect others to foot the bill for what is your right to buy the best (or worst) care available – no more, no less. Your grandparents paid no premiums, had no employee benefits, and no Medicaid/Medicare. When they got sick, they paid out of pocket, borrowed, or muddled through using home remedies. If they got really sick, they died. That is all any of us are really entitled to by right of birth. Everything else, we create; not government. So, if you wish to sell us on socialized medicine, you are going to have to sell us first on the monumentally stupid notion we are better off putting government in charge of our health decisions with no way to back out. Think not? Look at Britain. Look at our public education system, how dysfunctional that is since government took it over, and how hard it is opting out.

I am wary of the ‘centrist’ label and wonder on what basis you consider yourself one. ‘Centrist’ is one of those terms that can mean many things and nothing. Some self-styled centrist are socialists who think, because they condemn the riotous, take-no-prisoners misbehavior of that ideology, can be excused despite supporting the same values and conclusions. Others think themselves centrists because they support some Republican measures and some Democrat; never admitting both are left of center. Still others, and more justifiably, are centrist because they are ignorant where they stand in the political spectrum and disinterested; but are better labeled apathetic. Finally, there are those ‘centrists’ who think conservatively, but cannot overcome the liberal programming they’ve been fed all their lives, are brainwashed into equating ‘conservative’ with ‘fascist’, and half-heartedly support conservative positions when safe to do so. It is very tricky remaining a centrist on the political playground. Sooner or later, we all have to decide we are liberal or conservative, and make a stand accordingly.

The Rasmussen poll represents a tiny sample (15,000 or 0.005% of the population) re-sampled monthly. The sampling methodology is minimally described at: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/about_us/methodology. This type of poll is more useful for identifying shifts than overall composition; so all this tells me is there’s been no major shift since 2006. If anything, Democrat numbers slipped a bit late-2007, but have since regained most of that (see http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/party_affiliation/party_affiliation/summary_of_party_affiliation). However, the shift leftward is now slowing appreciably and may signal the beginning of a rightward swing. The Rasmussen report you gave us tells us nothing about why these shifts occur, but I can offer a simpler answer: the politically ambivalent are fickle and easily stampeded. They generally return to an equilibrium state that is a little more liberal than conservative. Those are people who shift allegiance the way you or I might change clothes and can be viewed as a Brownian cloud chasing itself. The typical unaligned voter has the libertarian’s regard of power, is wary of both parties, and often casts his vote in a futile attempt at keeping both weak and off-balance. The unchecked growth we’ve seen in government proves that does not work beyond a certain point; though it has, and still can, slow usurpation if well organized and with respect to specific, limited objects (e.g., the Contract with America).

As to influencing these shifts, I totally disagree. Chasing Democrats by mending our international fences and statist patronizing like health and environment are surefire formulas for losing. If all we do is compete with Democrats in their game, we end up liberal-lite; with nothing to distinguish between us and them. The independent voter and youth are, then, more apt to say the heck with us and swing leftward as having the more concrete agenda. If we don’t want people buying the liberal nonsense of free-rides, we need to offer something better – not less of the same trite nonsense. That means selling people on the idea excessive government is a trap, not a safety-net. The difficulty is telling people they don’t need a free-ride when, in fact, the ride is anything but free. This has less appeal than government as ‘mommy’, such that only those old enough to understand the fraud, those once bitten or unusually perceptive, will understand the need to vote more conservatively than a simple balanced 2-party polarity suggests. This is not an easy sell, and you won’t do it by vindicatin people in the belief they need help or we that need world-approval to make the world a better, safer place. We do it by telling the rest of the world they can either follow our lead or shift for themselves, not by asking their leave. This takes confidence, boldness, and the knowledge what we do is in the right. It does not require we join the liberal shame-&-blame choir. I believe the American people, especially its youth, are looking for someone to inspire them to feel pride the way Reagan did. You don’t win by playing catch up and you don’t advance conservatism by sacrificing its principles. You win by asserting them.

The behaviour of youth is always bound to raise the collective eyebrows of their elders.

Give them a break and God bless em.

Besides, the behaviour of my day consisted of smoking pot and listening to Led Zepellin, not exactly the Lords work.