Yes! While that’s not what we are, that’s how it came across, mostly thanks to foot-in-the-mouth, easily parodied, clueless Romney.
One of the problems is that we have a massively dumbed down electorate, so we can’t assume that saying things like “states’ rights,” 1st or 2nd Amendment protections, or individual liberty mean a darn thing to them. So we have to begin from the ground up to get out a good, powerful message and get people excited about it. And we can’t start the week before the elections. We need to start now.
We need to sell the concept of capitalism and what that really means for freedom and the exercise therof.
Not just politicians, but we ourselves need to have practiced responses and not get drawn into typical traps. For example, I was asked what I thought about Colorado voting for marijuana. The expectation was that I would set about being against it. Instead, I said that is how things are supposed to work, States decide and work as small experiments on such things. The response was,”well, yes, kind of, but it can get tricky knowing how to handle it when Federal laws conflict.” There it was, my opportunity to explain that it is not tricky, that it says it right there, that States get to decide. “They” hate it, but it brings them a step in this direction I think.
Yeah, tell that to all those newly minted illegal aliens already here and also the ones who are going to pour over the open border when amnesty happens.
Liberty to most of them will be free stuff.