Turn off the politicians and listen to yourself

I wonder if it ever dawns on all those well-paid urban campaign consultants who come to states like Montana that no one listens to them anymore? Oh, of course. There are political junkies, left and right, who thrive on the junk food of election advertising doused in the vinegar of vitriol. But for most people, the noise of the election campaign has reached a decibel level that makes the ears so numb that messages can no longer get through. We just want to be left alone to contemplate reality. ideas and real truth.

Clearly, it’s time to turn off the politicians and listen to yourself.

Certainly. It is fair for the campaign to point out the adversary’s relevant track record. In particular, all sitting presidents have records that voters should scrutinize. Their rivals also have records. Candidates are required to identify important facts and draw compelling contrasts between themselves and their opponents. But how much is truth and how much is hyperbole, exaggeration or outright lies?

As voters, we have a responsibility to do our own research, check each candidate’s website, and make our own fact-based conclusions about qualifications and fundamental beliefs. Then get in touch with yourself. Forget about the “popular political culture” around you, think for yourself and ask in the silence of your conscience, what do I really believe?

Meanwhile, these campaigns will continue to become increasingly strident and offensive to intelligence. If we give in to the enormous political noise, we will simply hand over elections to those whose constellation of interest groups is the largest and who has the most money. For decades, this is what has led to the election of radical leftists to what I now call the Montana Extraordinary Court—by far the worst, most incompetent, and most politicized state court in the country. Trial lawyer money flooded the airwaves and mailboxes, and voters didn’t do their due diligence.

If Montanans aren’t careful, the same thing will happen this time, as the message of moderate conservative justice candidates Corey Swenson and Dan Wilson threatens to be destroyed by the liberal legal establishment and their megadollars. Other states with Supreme Court elections, beware!

Several voting issues in Montana fall into the same category: out-of-state funded noise suppressing so-called public debate. Consider CI-128, a sweeping “abortion rights” constitutional amendment that would turn Montana into a truly blood-red state. As of early October, supporters had already spent $11 million on advertising, with plans to spend another $15 million to $20 million in the future. And this in a state with about 800,000 registered voters. More than 90 percent of those dollars came from outside Montana, dwarfing enemy spending of less than $50,000—a 220-to-1 ratio.

Personally, I approach the voting booth relying very little on the canned messages of political campaigns and mentally tuning out all of the National Hype’s massive spending on social change. Instead, I listen to myself. I ask these questions about each candidate:

* Do they reflect humility and a service attitude? Or is it all about them?

* Do they understand that government has constitutional limits, but human possibilities in freedom and free markets are limitless? That the government itself does not create anything? Free people do everything, and they do it better the more the government does not interfere with them.

* Do they understand that government is not a department of happiness? This is the Minister of Justice. We create our own happiness when we remain free, not when we become dependent on the “generosity” of politicians who cannot give us anything that is not first taken from someone else. French economist Frederic Bastiat called it “legal robbery.” We call it “democracy” – hiring the government to steal.

* Do they realize that spending taxpayers’ money is a sacred matter and not a bribe to get votes for their re-election? Can they explain in simple economic terms how inflation is caused by deficit spending? How does excessive spending weaken the money supply and reduce the value of every dollar we have? That inflation is just another form of tax?

* Do they understand that rights are natural and given by God, not granted by the state? That they are sacred, inviolable and non-negotiable? That in a constitutional republic the government, in the name of the “democratic process,” has no power to compromise or usurp our God-given rights and freedoms?

* Is there freedom in their conversations? Do they really understand this? Does freedom really matter to them? Or is it just a blank line in a political pamphlet, like “God bless” at the end of a speech? No substance. Just rhetoric.

Maybe you don’t believe in these things. Perhaps you like to be directed, planned, and controlled by your government. Perhaps you would rather be pampered and fed by the government at your neighbor’s expense rather than take personal responsibility for your own life. Perhaps, but I don’t think so. Not really. And I suspect that you don’t really accept the meaning of “reproductive freedom” as the right to kill innocents, as if the “new morality” requires putting “the body” on a higher level than life itself. I think you’re tired of all this selfishness. You won’t buy it.

So, when you fill out your ballot, stop and listen to what your heart is telling you. I guess he’s still beating to the rhythm of America’s founders and proclaiming life (all living things, including the smallest among us), freedom (freedom from injustice and government control), and pursuit of happiness (personal effort and individual responsibility.)

If you can find a candidate who promotes these fundamental principles, give him your vote—and your protected trust. They exist rarely, if at all, in one party, and become increasingly rare in another, where the right things are often said on the campaign trail, but the wrong things are usually done once in power. Put personalities aside and don’t take anything for granted. Let them know that you will be keeping an eye on them and holding them accountable.

Turn off the political noise. Stop hoping that the government will give you what you didn’t earn by taking it away from someone who did. Trust yourself. Trust your neighbor. Trust your freedom. And vote accordingly.

Roger Koopman, a former Bozeman small businessman, is president of the Montana Conservative Alliance. He served four years in the Montana House of Representatives and eight years as Montana Public Service Commissioner.