Letter To The Heritage Foundation

June 7, 2012

Dear Mr. Feulner:

 As a former member, I was disappointed in a survey which you emailed to me.  As with most of these “surveys”, the questions never seem to be the right ones concerning policy.  For instance, it failed to ask:

 Every state has its own.  Should the US Department of Education be abolished?

Should the US Department of Energy be abolished?

Every state has its own. Should the EPA be abolished?

Do you favor term limits?

Do you favor a flat tax? 9-9-9 or VAT?

Would you like to see Zero-based Budgeting made law for all federal agencies?

Should Republicans unite to defeat Cap & Trade legislation?

Should a commission be established to review all federal regulatory rules and laws for pertinence and effect with a view to eliminating any deemed excessive, unnecessary or unreasonably penalizing?  Should the commission include private sector members of the regulated entities?

Should Dodd-Frank be repealed?

Should Sarbanes-Oxley be repealed?

Should Obamacare be repealed in its entirety and be replaced by nothing?

Do you favor repatriating illegal aliens to their home countries?

Do you favor immediate securing of our southern border?

Should all public sector employee unions be banned?

Should the NLRB be dissolved?

Should all agencies be reviewed to identify and eliminate any and all overlapping purviews?

Should the house and senate rules be changed to prohibit “riders” to bills?

Should activist federal judges be defunded?

 The list above is a start, but not all.  Haven’t you people got any vision?  What is it?

 Another survey item polled us on the following:

“5. We have been told by some of our Members that they are discouraged by what the conservative movement has accomplished in recent years. You may feel this way yourself or you may not, depending on the issue.”

 The “conservative movement” isn’t what’s discouraging.  They’re not in power!  How can they create or roll back law?  Moderates control the Republican Party and conservatives have a distant and, in the view of those moderates in power, unsavory back seat in congress.  The Republican leadership and its almost total failure to lead are what’s discouraging.   That survey question’s structure presumes that conservatives hold sway in congress, an utterly false premise.  Of course, it’s couched as coming from some “of our Members”.  So, I expect that the purpose of that question was not to gather data.  It was rather to dispirit conservatives. This in turn leads me to believe that you are in fact working for that very Republican Establishment which needs to go away.

 Those moderates haven’t begun to feel the weight of the conservative movement.  In time to come, I believe that I will have every reason to be pleased with what the conservative movement has accomplished.  But first, power.

 Finally, the survey attempted to profile me.  If you are guided by principle and not by expedience, then my “profile” should not matter in the least.  That is, you profess to have a handle on what the United States needs and wants in terms of legislation and direction.  So, what would it matter how much money I make, how much I donate, the number of people living in my home, my age and etc.?  Is that to weight my opinion in order to tailor what you write?  Unless you are trying to scam us, it’s not a calculation!  It either fits or it doesn’t.  It makes sense and works for Americans, or not.  And as for analyzing what needs to be done?  We’ve known what needs to be done for twenty-five years or more and haven’t done it.  We know now too, it’s just that there’s a lot more than there was twenty-five years ago!  We just need some people in office with the strength and desire to do those things.  I’m hoping that I’m wrong and that you oppose the lead-nothing, win-nothing Republican Establishment as much as a growing number of Americans do.  However, this survey leads me to believe otherwise, that you may well be just another conservative lightning rod, designed to catch and diffuse conservative energy and direction.

 I didn’t complete the survey.  I choked on the “profile” questions.

Sincerely,

Jeffery S. Dover

NOTE: This wasn't included in my letter to Mr. Feulner, but their survey also included a question which basically asked if we thought that the government should focus on job creation. It’s the very notion that “government creates jobs” and their subsequent meddling in our economy which causes much of our difficulties economically! These professors don’t get it. We need to discredit and discard that notion nationally as soon as we can do it. That would represent a major boost for employment ( and obviously, the overall economy, which necessarily must rise before employment can increase!).  The government does not and cannot know how and where to "create" jobs.  Further, it must first take money from the economy it seeks to assist in order to replace it in the form of "jobs".  Their involvement in this, beyond being harmful, makes no sense on the surface.