In politics, there are few more annoying things than campaign promises that go unfulfilled. Politicians get away with it because it usually takes several years before anyone figures it out. The feedback loop is too long.
Occasionally, we see politicians create empty promises right before our eyes. This is due to the fact that certain promises cannot be fulfilled by their very nature. Sometimes there is no problem to be fixed; sometimes the solution is worse than the problem. The politicians that make these promises know this. Their efforts are nothing more than pure marketing for voters wearing blinders.
When it comes to the blinders that voters wear, most of the blinders are simply blinders of inexperience. Someone once said that experience makes fools of us all. For sure, experience makes people change their minds.
Hillary Clinton was an ardent Republican at one time and spent her college years raising money for Barry Goldwater. Winston Churchill said, "Anyone who is a Republican before the age of 30 has no heart. Anyone who isn't a Republican after the age of 30 has no brain." (Evidently, Hillary has no heart or brain.)
Churchill's point was that the experiences of life naturally make people conservative because they begin to see the big picture. They see that welfare prolongs poverty. They see that pork is the appetizer (and sometimes the entree) of every Congressional dinner. They see that taxing the rich is a lie because there aren't enough rich people to support the politicians in the style to which they would like to become accustomed.
We let a great many of these inexperienced citizens vote. In fact, we encourage them to vote even though we know most of them will make the wrong decision. Fortunately for the GOP, most of them don't actually get around to voting.
During the Super Tuesday media coverage, I watched several reporters interview college students in various election states. Most of the reporting focused on the Young Democrats club and how its members felt about the Democratic candidates.
Trying his best to sound older than twenty, a twenty-year-old solemnly opined to the reporter that Barack Obama was finally the candidate "his group could trust". He said that Obama speaks to "our issues" and understands the "problems that we face".
It was hard for me to keep a straight face. Issues? The hardest issue facing most twenty-year-olds is how to increase their Xbox score. The only possible political question facing college students is how the government will handle loans and scholarships.
When I was in college, the kids that handled their own finances didn't have time to be in political clubs. They worked several jobs and did what they had to to get by. Political clubs, frats, and hobbies were for the kids that had mom and dad footing the bill.
It isn't likely that the "issues" these Young Democrats are talking about are related to finances. And therein lies the question - what do they say are their issues? The answer is: they don't.
When asked by the reporter that very question, the twenty-year-old talked about social networking and how the candidates were finally reaching out to them. (By the way, when he said "social networking", he wasn't referring to some sort of community of welfare activists. He was referring to how Obama scatters flair on Facebook and Myspace.)
News flash to college students: The candidates aren't really addressing your issues. It's not because they don't want to, they'd say anything to get your votes, it's because you don't have any actual issues.
You don't work a real job or pay a large tax burden. You don't worry about health care. You aren't buying a house, founding a family, or raising kids. There are no "problems that you face" compared to your friends and family members out there in the cold, cruel real world.
Most adults say this perspective is unfair. After all, we spend so much time and money encouraging kids to vote, isn't it a good thing that they come together and work on "issues" and get passionate about politics?
No, it isn't. It's a bad thing.
If college kids are making up "issues" that they can't even intelligently define just to have an excuse to be passionate about politics, the wrong people will end up getting elected. They'll also learn early in life that political style is more important than political substance.
To the young, Obama is anti-establishment, and that's all that matters. Young voters have been picking the young guy for as long as they've been allowed to vote. They do it for the same reason old voters pick the old guy.
Most of politics depends on trust. If your guy talks about the best values but can't be trusted to keep them and fight for them, what good is he? It takes an experienced voter to pick the most trustworthy candidate.
Many times, the incumbent seems less trustworthy than the new guy only because no one knows what the new guy will do. Old voters understand that, and so to them novelty is irrelevant; they look at track record. Young voters have no perspective on trustworthiness; they have the time and tenaciousness to pick a bad candidate over and over again.
College kids shouldn't be concerned with which candidate speaks "to their issues" because they shouldn't be allowed to vote in the first place. The founding fathers never expected 18 year olds to vote, and that was at a time when most 18 year olds were serious, hard working, motivated members of society - many of whom were already married with children.
In fact, the founders never considered a specific age relevant at all; only people with skin in the game voted. If you didn't own land, you didn't vote. Today that would be equal to something like:
Being the newest, flashiest candidate in the race is about the last thing that qualifies a person for making solid political decisions. History has demonstrated almost the exact opposite time and time again.
Sir Winston Churchill would have won no beauty contests and was famous for his acerbic tongue; but he is routinely voted the greatest Englishman who ever lived. Many young people don't believe he ever existed, which proves that young people don't know enough to vote.
Ronald Reagan was old enough to be the great-grandfather of most college students of his day, with wrinkles to match; yet he's right up there. A quick glance in your wallet reveals that George Washington was no match for Tom Cruise, and Abe Lincoln - perhaps the best president we've ever had - is generally considered the least attractive physically.
The most handsome president (by the standards of the day) was Warren G. Harding, whose administration failed so miserably that he himself said "I am not fit for this office and never should have been here."
People running for elective office don't worry about why people vote for them; they'll take whatever votes they can get. Obama has more than a few political ads on television targeting young people. His Internet ads speak only to young people.
We should expect no less. Since they are allowed to vote, Obama knows that those are free points he can add to his total, and so he tells them that he's all about "their issues" whatever that means. At least he can't be accused of breaking promises that have no meaning.
One wonders if, just possibly, the Founding Fathers knew what they were doing when they neglected to extend the franchise to 18-year-olds.
If you are a part of the militia you can vote.
If you can be legally tired as an adult you can vote.
College students have *some* responsibilities that you're missing.
1) Our drug laws. The war on drugs is not working, we're enriching drug cartels to the point that drug lords in Mexico and Columbia have more money and more firepower than the governments. Fighting drug growers costs us hundreds of millions and makes farmers mad at us. What do we do about it? Should all these drugs be legalized?
2) The welfare system. We're creating a dependent underclass where kids grow up with NO idea how to form a family. We now know that a welfare check is a LOUSY substitute for a father, but feminist ideology says that women should be free to have as many babies as they want without having to depend on a man. Long term, multiplying the number of people who take out rather than putting in leads to disaster.
3) Entitlements. Money we give people just because they exist accounts for most of our budget. Welfare, Social Security, Medicare, it all adds up. When there's more government expenditure than the economy can support, we go down as Scragged has said before.
My generation has created a number of unsustainable messes. These messes will be cleaned up, either by social collapse or by voters realizing we're on a path to disaster and fixing the situation. I sincerely hope that our collage generation will have the wisdom to clean things up before it's too late, but historical precedents are not cause for optimism.
The point is that whichever candidate is elected will be affect me until I'm 26. So don't write me off and tell me I don't deserve to vote.
Sounds to me that if Von Hayek is truly sincere about the point he is making, then the best thing would be just to go back to a system where our leaders are chosen by the political elite. Of course, this will never happen, nor should it. A democratic election does not guarantee the best possible outcome. People make bad choices. However, I'd rather face a bad outcome brought about by poor choices than a good one by no choice at all.
True, Americans need to become more engaged and better informed. Presidential elections are importand, but they only happen once every four years. State and local elections, city countil and school board meetings are just as important, if not more so, as they are more likely to have a direct impact on voters.
Colleges and universities have the potential to turn out informed and engaged voters in high numbers. Many of today's political leaders were college students during the turbulent 1960's. Right or wrong, the importance of their decisions cannot be underscored.
Politicians like Barack Obama and Howard Dean are building the future of the Democratic Party. Sure, college students like Obama because he's young and hip. They also like him because he not only tells them their voice is important, he treats them like they matter. And they do. Van Hayek, today's youth will not only have to fix your generation's mistakes. They get to pick your nursing home.
Which, I think, has lead to many of our current problems. They thought they could change the world by making it more socialist. They have.
But not for the better.