These Insipid Surveys ...

The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent me a political survey today in the mail. It's just like all the others that I get, but they annoy me immensely because they are so phony. They ask a lot of stupid, insipid, sheerly biased questions as a run up to a donation block. I don't know how others react, but I'm inclined to send them back in their postage paid envelops along with some cat dung, if I had a cat.

Built into these stupid surveys is the implicit assumption that government can fix the problem and typically what they really are is an illustration of how government is the problem.

I'll just give Ballot Question 1 as an illustration, some of the others are actually worse:

1. Which issue(s) do you believe Republicans should highlight in this year's policy debates?
a) Permanent Tax Relief, b) Judicial Nominees, c) Medicare Reform, d) Homeland Security, e) Military/Defense Spending, f) Saving Social Security, g) Marriage/Values, h) Border Security, i) Energy Policy, j) Other.

Built into this is the implication that government is an appropriate tool to address these things. Note there are no actual policies suggested, nor principles evoked, just a grab bag of topical areas to talk about and presumably generate government meddling.
a) Permanent Tax Relief: Sure! Repeal the 16th amendment and shrink government to a size appropriate to its constitutionally valid functions.
b) Judicial Nominees: Pick strict constructionists and stop playing around pretending that the Constitution is whatever the court says it is. That's the problem.
c) Medicare Reform: How about the government getting out of medicine altogether? It worked better before they decided to help out and they've been messing it up ever since.
d) Homeland Security: How about a bit more focus on the real dangers and less posturing and focusing on people who are good Americans like the pro-life people, the returning veterans, and the Tea Party people. Go pick on some Muslim terrorist groups in deep cover and secure the borders so they can't get continuous replenishment.
e) Military/Defense Spending: We either should have the best military in the world or we should quit being the world's policeman and return to the Monroe doctrine. Anything in between is just nonsense.
f) Saving Social Security: You can't save a Ponzi scheme when you've subsidized killing off the generation that was supposed to pay the bills. Convert it to a real investment program and promote solid economic policies or just stop pretending and cycle it down. Returning to a sound monetary policy with real money would do a lot by eliminating inflation.
g) Marriage/Values: What values is it you want to discuss? Marriage is about the family and not about a bunch of weird perversions that should put you into treatment and not be celebrated. Shame on all of you. When you have some values come around and talk to me about them. I'd be curious what you've come up with.
h) Border Security: America is a sovereign nation and that means we should be protecting our borders and not letting people sneak in and pretend to be Americans just because the Democrats think they will vote (how do they get to vote, oh yeah, amnesty) for them. While we're at it maybe we should shut down the Chicago graveyards and improve the way votes are taken so that people who are not alive and not citizens can't vote and people who can vote can vote only once. Oh and set it up so all the votes are counted even the military who are out saving your butt.
i) Energy Policy: Get out of the energy business. Since you've gotten in you've done nothing but make energy more expensive. CO2 does not cause global warming. Carbon based fuels are the cheapest and best alternative we have. Green is mostly nonsense. If it were economic it would not need to be subsidized. All of these "government finger in the pie" programs are great for big government but don't accomplish a damned thing except make government bigger, less responsive, more intrusive, and hinder the regular economy (You know the one that does all the work) from doing its job.
j) Other: Stop sending me these stupid fund raising surveys that are phony baloney nonsense. All you're managing to do is convince me that the system is so broken it needs replacement. Oh yeah, and drop all the laws about campaign financing. They are stupid intrusions into freedom of speech and freedom to use your resources as you wish. If you want to have laws, simply require disclosure and leave it at that. We should know who's buying our politicians. Pretending they are not for sale no longer has any credibility.