Tattva's Journal: The Conservative - Star Wars Connection?

Reading the bethanie post's link to the commencement speech by Neal Boortz a theory popped into my head that I have not heard before.

Neal implies that part of being conservative is hating and mistrusting the government. He asserts that most people graduate college liberal and many become conservative by age 30. I know that many liberals, myself included, feel a great deal of mistrust and anger towards the government due to the actions of the current administration.

In "The Empire Strikes Back," Darth Vader tries to draw out the rage and anger of Luke in order to convert him to the dark side. That always seemed a little counterintuitive to me: I get angry at you therefore I join you? I guess the belief is that by letting your actions be governed by anger and fear, you have joined the dark side reguardless to whom you (initially) think you owe your allegience.

This brings me to my theory: perhaps by making government so awful, evil, and self-serving during their time in office, conservatives hope to generate anger towards the government that inevitably leads to shedding of the liberal ideals of the younger generations, thus creating a new generation of conservatives.

Counterintuitive, yes. But I find the idea deliciously twisted.

You're giving politicians too much credit ...

[mr_death]

... for thinking. The average pol, or the CEO of a publicly traded company, can't see past the next election or the next quarter's results. Just look at how the politicians view social security -- every decade or so they apply a band-aid and say "we fixed it", even though it is going to blow up around the year 2020. That buys the pol some good press and some points with the AARP crowd, and pushes the problem to a future pol, who will continue the same charade.

Making government so awful that the next gen