Book_Review_Norquist_Leave_Us

Book Review

Leave Us Alone:

Getting the Government's Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives

By Grover Norquist

Review by Steve Fritsch (July 2008)

Grover Norquist says that this is the book “he didn’t want to write.” But for anyone who sits on the center-right of politics should be glad that he did. Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government’s Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives, will be—or at least should be—the guidebook for the next decade on how to win center-right majorities from the local government level all the way to the state and federal levels. Along with Newt Gingrich’s 2008 release, Real Change, Norquist’s Leave Us Alone offers detailed and pragmatic solutions that can help America overcome its current challenges and allow future generations of Americans to live in an even greater country than the one we currently inhabit.

In Leave Us Alone, Norquist, president of the anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform—a group he founded at the request of Ronald Reagan in 1985—contrasts the two major coalitions existing in the United States today: the Leave Us Alone Coalition (center-right) and the Takings Coalition (center-left). Norquist believes that it is more important for people to understand these two coalitions than the two major parties, for these two groups will largely determine if America becomes more socialistic like Europe or move toward greater freedom and individual liberty.

When reading Leave Us Alone, there are a couple important things to realize once you start the book. One is that despite the occasional rhetoric that we all hear from time to time that both the Republican and Democratic Parties are essentially the same, Norquist refutes this by saying there is a big difference: a “several trillions of dollars” worth of difference. The other point is that the modern Republican Party, despite its occasional electoral defeats and handful of lackluster leaders in elected office, is the party and movement of Ronald Reagan. And it has been this movement, starting with the Reagan presidency in 1981, that has produced the takeover of Congress in 1994 and presidential election victories in 1980, 1984, 1992, 2000, and 2004. Obviously, the party has seen its share of ups-and-downs, most recently in 2006, and for the most part, the last two decades have been a relatively balanced type of tug-of-war between the Democrats and the Republicans. Yet Norquist states this is an “evenly balanced stalemate” that will not continue very much longer.

One of the two main reasons Norquist gives us as to why this stalemate won’t last much longer is that government spending will drastically increase in the coming years due to the aging Baby Boomer population and the vast amount of entitlements they were promised. The other is that even with no major legislative reforms by the Democrats, simple inertia, whether it is “through inaction or good motives driving bad policy,” will lead us to being like France or Sweden. Now, some people on the center-left may think, “Well, France and Sweden aren’t such bad places.” Indeed, this is true. After all, these places aren’t Somalia or Burma. But it is very important that the U.S. remain the world’s freest country, possess the world’s strongest military and maintain a robust capitalistic economy. And the simple reason for this is that America needs to continuously lead—preferably by example—to assist other nations of the world to throw off their oppressors and become free themselves. And we all know that France and Sweden can’t defeat Islamic fascism or confront a hostile power like Russia or China. Most importantly, however, we Americans here at home still have some oppressors to throw off ourselves, like the IRS, organized crime (um, I mean, labor) and activist judges, and thankfully Mr. Norquist gives us a primer on how to do that with his book. So for those of you on the center-right who want to keep the American Dream alive, this book is a great place to start.

In regards to exactly who the two coalitions are, Norquist says that the Leave Us Alone Coalition includes taxpayers, small businessmen and –women, Second Amendment supporters, homeschoolers, homeowners, and communities of faith. These are people who simply, as the label suggests, want government and special interest groups to leave them alone. These are people who still believe that it is a “free country” and as such, are free citizens who will do as they please when it comes to their own lives. On the opposite side is the Takings Coalition, which includes trial lawyers, labor-union leaders, government employee unions, recipients of government grants, those on welfare, those whose job it is to keep people on welfare, hospitals and health-care professionals, big city political machines, universities, and “coercive utopians.” The Takings Coalition believes in taking from one group and giving to another, and this is their exact philosophy on how they vote: to take from others.

The first part of the book deals exclusively on these two coalitions and Norquist examines each component in detail. The second part of the book deals with the trends in American society that either favors the Leave Us Alone Coalition or the Takings Coalition. Among these trends includes the growth of the investor class, the decline of labor unions, the migration of Americans from highly taxed states to low tax states, the success of gun rights and the subsequent reduction of crime, the growing number of homeschooled kids, prison reform—including attempts by the left to allow former felons to be able to vote again—the strength of communities of faith, and new media outperforming old media. In the third part of the book, Norquist deals with the battlegrounds that these trends will influence, including the relationship between business and government, race and politics, the three branches of the federal government, and the individual states. Finally, in the fourth part of the book, Norquist tackles his area of expertise: taxes.

Luckily for the center-right, Norquist believes that the Leave Us Alone coalition will triumph in the “long unending struggle to define America.” But as he points out, there will be “bad election years, disappointing candidates, bad breaks, and undeserved luck.” Furthermore, there will be wars and recessions, and nothing is inevitable that we will end up as that shining city on a hill. Norquist explains this struggle when he states:

The political struggles of the next fifty years will take place on a chess-board or battlefield—choose your visual—that is created by the current and future realities in America’s divisions by race and religion, by the power of the media and the business community, and by the Rule Book, the U.S. Constitution, which sets the powers of and limitations on the U.S. House of Representatives, the Senate, the presidency, and the fifty states.

Additionally, in the final chapter of the book, Norquist points out the “five great reforms” that the Leave Us Alone Coalition, through its elected representatives, must pass in order to secure freedom and liberty. These five reforms are: make all pensions individually owned and portable; make health insurance individually owned and control costs through competition; give parents real choice in education; competitive sourcing, meaning that “every single government service administered by federal, state, or local government that can be provided by the private sector should be contracted out”; and transparency, which would make easily available on the world wide Web every piece of government legislation and show where every signal tax dollar is going to.

In a time where we may end up seeing a President Barack Obama, and most likely a Democrat-controlled Congress backing him, it is crucial that the Leave Us Alone Coalition come together this year and defeat Obama and the Takings Coalition he represents. Sure, the Leave Us Alone Coalition contains many different factions, and some of them have difficulties agreeing all the time. However, it is better to set aside small differences for the time being and make sure that it is our coalition—one dedicated to individual liberty and economic independence—that is running the country, instead of being forced together after an Obama victory where our challenges to fight off the Takings Coalition will be that much greater.

Therefore, I hope that all conservatives and center-right individuals will read Grover Norquist’s Leave Us Alone to fully understand what is at stake this election year and in the years ahead. America’s greatness and exceptionalism will be under attack, and it is only a unified right that will be able to save it.