BY LEE BALLARD

I don’t read the Daily Planet’s “Candid Conservative” for self-improvement.  The world he wants is not mine.  When I read the column, it’s to try and put some kind of meaning into what the Republicans are doing to us in Raleigh.

The C.C.’s a fine source because he’s on the board of directors of the John Locke Foundation, a think-tank funded by Art Pope.  Who is Art Pope?  He’s the super-wonk of conservative right-wing theory in North Carolina, our governor’s brain.  The C.C. drinks deep at the fountain of what’s happening.

Most C.C. columns are predictable reruns of last season’s shows. Occasionally there’s new light on Republican Raleigh, like in the most recent offering.  The subject was gun control, but C.C. strayed off into places I think he’d have corrected if he’d indulged in editing.

Where is that? Into the loonies. 

Here’s one quote: “Behind the guise of public safety, the mission of removing guns from private ownership is a defined platform of socialistic power brokers who apparently fear a well armed [sic] citizenry.”

(A “power broker” of course is someone who influences others, not someone who holds power himself. But let’s give him slack on that.  He’d have caught the flub if he’d edited.)

In broad overview, the quote tells us what we already know about GOP election strategy:  they misinform voters who don’t make the effort to educate themselves. 

Here the misinformation is about “removing guns from private ownership.”  Elsewhere in the column he uses “disarm the populace” and “disarming America.”  We can understand why.  There’s a lot more punch in “disarming America” than in “regulating gun ownership,” the actual Democratic policy proposal.  

Saying that “removing guns from private ownership” is a “defined platform” is a lie, and they know it’s a lie.  If you read the Democratic Party platform on guns, you’ll find statements like, “Rights to own firearms are subject to reasonable regulation.”  Regulation, not disarming.  Check it out:  http://www.ontheissues.org/celeb/democratic_party_gun_control.htm.

I believe this kind of twisted propaganda is intentional.  It’s the same kind of political cynicism we get in our mailboxes just before every election.

By contrast, the “socialistic power brokers” part is something different.  It’s insanity – somewhere between paranoia and fantasy prone personality (FPP).

Assuming C.C. intends “socialist” as equivalent to “liberal” – food stamps, universal healthcare, etc. – think about it, folks.  Liberals have led every campaign through history to EXPAND rights of the people:  women’s voting rights, civil rights, workers’ rights, on and on.  Liberals don’t take advantage of weakness; they want the people ever more empowered.

The world’s strongest democracies are countries far more liberal than America:  Scandinavian countries, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands.

And when it comes to suppression of the people’s rights, which group is famous for that, left or right?  We got our voter suppression laws in North Carolina from extreme-right Republicans.  It’s the right, not the left, who use tricks to hold power.  Liberals work to maximize democracy.

So “disarming America” is intended to deceive gullible voters.  It’s part of the GOP election strategy of Boobeyman Liberal.  It’s an old-time GOP strategy, one that even otherwise devout Christian Republicans embrace because ends justify means.   

“Socialist power broker” on the other hand, is more symptom than strategy.  It says Republicans are irrational.  They see liberals everywhere.  Their mission as a party is to counter, to reverse liberalism.  Public schools and universities are seen as liberal, so they must be cut down to size, privatized, reoriented into conservative philosophy.  They see liberals sneaking about everywhere, as in gun control, seeking advantage, grabbing more power.  Again, this ain’t liberalism, in theory, practice or history.

(It’s possible the C.C. is using “socialist” more like Rush Limbaugh’s technical definition:  “governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.”  If so, the C.C. is even farther out.  This is totalitarianism – coincidentally the topic of my next column, North Carolina totalitarianism.)

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Lee Ballard lives in Mars Hill.