More Great Grover Norquist

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/interviews/norquist.html

In addition, the age cohort that is most Democratic by party ID are people who grew up and became 21 years of age between 1932 and 1952. People of that age who came of age during the New Deal and the Great Depression are now 70 to 90 years old, and every year 2 million of them pass away. So the Democratic Party -- the Yellow Dog Democrats are passing away, and the 20- and 30- and 40-year-olds coming up are more likely to be Republican than Democrat. So they have a demographic disaster ahead of them for the next 15 years that mirrors what happened to the Republicans from '60 to '75. That was the period where the older people who were passing away were Republicans who had become 21 years old before the Great Depression, and if you were north of the Mason-Dixon Line, you were Republican.

So there are these period[s] of times when younger people look around and decide to be more Republican or more Democrat, and they hold that until they die. And so the Republican Party had this implosion in their numbers from '60 to '75, and the Democrats are in the middle of that now.

http://reason.com/9702/fe.int.norquist.shtml

He argues that there is an emerging "Leave-Us-Alone Coalition" of property owners, anti-tax activists, gun owners, home- and private-schoolers, small business owners, religious conservatives, and libertarians who want the government to stop interfering in their lives. By contrast, the constituencies of the New Deal alliance (what he calls the "Takings Coalition," because they want to transfer money and power from some people to others) of labor unions, government employees, trial lawyers, government contractors, and government grant and welfare recipients are shrinking. As government shrinks, Norquist says, the Takings Coalition implodes.

The distinction between the Leave-Us-Alone Coalition and the Takings Coalition is that we think the proper role of the state is to protect people. The abortion issue will never be solved because the disagreement is over whether there are one or two people involved. The question isn't who should be left alone--the question is, "How many people are there?" With abortion, if there's one person, then the role of the state is to protect that person and let her have an abortion. If there are two people, then both of them deserve protection.

I don't know any pro-choicers who say, "There are two distinct human beings here--kill one." And I don't know any pro-lifers who say, "No, there's only one person here and we want to compel her to have a baby." But that doesn't mean they should disagree about whether the government should steal people's property or grab their guns or about school choice.

I know lots of people who are pro-choice and are radical libertarians.

Two Great Norquist Quotes:

"We do not have two prices of bread - one for the poor and one for those who earn more. All goods and services have one price for all Americans," Norquist said. "Government should be the same. We should all pay the same price (tax) for government."

"Some politicians are elected by voters that do not pay the true cost of government," Norquist said. "We should not be surprised that voters who get subsidized government want more of it."