The gospel of Norquist

While watching Book TV recently I found a new hero. One of the authors that had been recorded at a book signing was Grover G. Norquist. I have heard his name mentioned a number of times on C-SPAN, several conservative blogs and web sites but really had never learned anything about him. After hearing him speak about his new book "LEAVE US ALONE" I have become an admirer.

The full title of his book is "Leave Us Alone Getting the Government's Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives" which I think just about says it all.

I have felt for a long time now that we are being treated to a game of "slight of hand" by both the media and most of the politicians in this country. Do we want to tax the rich? Which way should we go about paying for government run health care system? Lets be democratic and let the people decide which government bureaucracy should determine where and how our children are educated. Please watch my right hand closely as it legislates new agencies that we have no real control over as they continue grow in both size and power. I'd rather you not notice that my left hand is picking your pocket with the tax code while gradually taking away some of your fundamental rights under the constitution.

The biggest problem with this game is that "We the people" have gone to sleep and allowed it to proceed. We no longer pay any attention to matters of local, county, state or federal government. Only a small percentage of the qualified population even takes the time to vote and of those that do an even smaller subset of that group casts their vote on the basis of who represents their objectives and values for government policy.

A classic example of this is the fact that most citizens live under the false belief that we live in a democracy. If you read the documents that the founding fathers penned you will find that we are a representative republic. There is a major difference and most of todays students and their parents I might add don't understand the difference.

This brings me back to Mr. Norquist and his book. In it he lays out a plan that forms a coalition of groups that while not agreeing on every item on the laundry list all have at least one item that is their personal "tipping point" for deciding who to vote for. He divides the world up into two such coalitions, the "taking coalition" and the "leave us alone coalition". The taking coalition relies on an every increasing stream of tax revenues to satisify their needs. When that money stream fails to grow or is reduced the coalition members turn on each other as they try to maximize their piece of the pie. On the other hand the leave us alone coalition only wants to see their objective lower taxes, guns, education, privacy or whatever their push button issues is achieved and to be left alone. This might not sound like much but it could be a powerful factor for a number of people.


While I agree with most of the theory I do see some holes in it. I will discuss those in more depth after I have completed reading the book. At this time I'm only about two thirds of the way through it. I will say however that I'm enthusiastic about the book and its concepts. If you have the time I encourage you to stop at your local library or book store and pick it up and judge for yourself.

Mr. Norquist also heads an organization called Americans For Tax Reform whose guiding principal is under no circumstances will we tolerate any additional tax increases. I have provided a link to their site and I encourage you to visit the site and look at what they have to offer in the way of ideas. I think that if my children and grand children are going to have a future some of these ideas are going to have to be implemented.