Liberals cannot win a majority in this country.

[MakingSense]

155. We all wish that was true

but at least from my experience talkig to people after asking polling questions, which often starts a conversation about the nature of the questions, this simply is not the case.

What is happening here is that you are cherry picking situations, all be it not intentionally I am sure. For example you mention the assualt weapon ban, which frankly had nothing to do with assual weapons anyway. Lets cover that one though, the moment you get into the details of the ban, people start to realize it was really a ban on weapons that look scary and not on actual assualt weapons which are covered under other laws alread. At that poing the support for it drops through the floor. Now on the idea of limiting access to actual assualt weapons, yes you get a majority pretty quickly on that one. Here's the kicker though, when you specific if it should be a federal or state issue then assuming you are pushing for the federal ban you loose your majority.

The real issue though is gun control in general which when asked for clarification the answer comes down to the majority like what is in place at the moment with background checks and not allowing access to felons but are not keen on going much further. The 50/50 point that tends to favor our side is conceal carry which the majority are not really comfortable with. However, when you switch the issue from conceal carry to open carry then the majority flips sides.


As for SS, the reality is that the under 30 crowd is convinced they will never see a dime. The 40-50 crowd is hopeful but aren't counting on it. The 50-60 is praying that it is left alone and keeps getting punted every election so they can get what they paid into. The problem you have with defining what the majority wants is that the first two groups are entirely comfortable with any sort of replacement system regardless who manages it. They seem to assume they are screwed either way, they just don't want to be screwed any worse and the seemingly universal desires on the issue from those groups is that the majority would like an opt out option and/or for some portion of their contribution to be managed in individual accounts that are not accessable by the government. The later being most common among people who actual understood before the conversation started how government borrowing from SS via bonds works.

Now on regulation for Wall Street, you are right the majority is all for an increase in regulation. The problem is that they are not all in favor of regulations that adhere to progressive ideals. They want to regulations that increase transparancy so that the consumer knows what they are getting into and the criminals can be held accountable. They don't want regulations that limit consumer choices, which we all know to be neccessary to keep the banks under control.

The devil is in the details. When you get into the details, a single underlying theme emerges. That is that the majoirty want the government out of their business as individuals both in economic and social issues. However, that tends to come with the caveot that they the things they view themselves as entitled to based on previous promises or contributions.

It is all a very libertarian perspective that the people in general seem to have even those who have never heard of a libertarian, and we see this every day on this board when we read posters complain about how things have changed since the election of Reagan. Progressives did a good job of pulling the people out of that mentality with the help of FDR but since then have slipped and allowed that cultures original "rugged individualism" idea to reemerge. We only have ourselves to blame for this because it is our duty to be out there convincing the people that in todays day and age of interconnectiveness there is a better way.