EDITORIAL
Statistics show that young voters make up only a small percentage of the overall vote totals but they are an important part of the picture nonetheless. Why? Because winning their loyalty has been, historically, the way to keep them in the fold until they get old enough to feel like voting.
Democrats won the youth voters in the 1960's and kept most of them. Ron Paul began his revolution on college campuses where "Google Ron Paul" was a brilliant strategy aimed at capturing the loyalty of what has become the core activists and young elected officials coming out of the TEA party who are now in their 30's.
What did both of these movements among young people have in common? Freedom from the government.
In the 1960's it was all about ending the war, free love, pot smoking and a general desire to have no rules. The Ron Paul movement tracked very similar to these things.
But now with daily news of an even bigger Big Brother spying on the text messages, cell phone conversations and emails of American citizens on a staggering scale, the idea of government intrusion into private lives has taken on a far more menacing visage, and in most of these areas that intrusion is touching young people where they meet, socialize and communicate.
It would be a very good idea for the GOP, including mainstream republicans, to ride that bull and not get thrown. If there is any one area where the GOP can take the lead and get on board with the angst of the next generation of likely voters, it would be a dedicated effort to end government snooping.
Obama can't pull it off and neither can Hillary. Their fingerprints are all over this mess.
Of course the Bush administration started the ball rolling after 9-11 with the Patriot Act, and as many of us predicted, it has been perverted from its original intent (to catch terrorists BEFORE they acted) into a runaway vehicle indiscriminately mowing down civil liberties all across the nation.
Rand Paul is on the forefront and this might be his best single message at this time. Others in the TEA party are on top of this issue but as usual the mainstream GOP is a little late to the game.
If the GOP wants to regain its status as the party of smaller government, more individual responsibility and the defender of liberty, then now is the time to grab this issue and claim it.
The NSA problem spells disaster for the democrats in the long run. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country, and all good republicans to stand up for liberty.
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