Guest Blogger: Reb Bradley, Author of BORN LIBERAL RAISED RIGHT: Did the Republicans mess up the election of ’08?

We have an interesting guest today. Reb Bradley is the author of a controversial book out called Born Liberal, Raised Right: How to Rescue America from Moral Decline, One Family at a Time.

Reb has been all over the media..you might have watched him on Fox News where he explains what parents have been doing wrong and why families are falling apart.

Watch it here…

I asked Reb to be my guest here today at As the Pages Turn because I wanted to talk about a topic that was a little different from the Fox News interview. As I knew he was not only an author, but a political expert also, I asked him what he thought the Republicans did wrong this last election. I had watched CNN every single day throughout the coverage of the debates, then the official election (as I’m sure most Americans did) and I saw the Republican party fall and there was nothing – not even their savior Sarah Palin – that could bring them back up. Certainly the Wall Street crash didn’t help things and some people feel that that was one reason why more Americans chose to side with Democratic Barack Obama.

But Bradley feels as if there was another reason why people sided with Obama and it’s not what you might think. I’ll let him give his side of the coin to the question, “Where did Republicans go wrong?”

Reb says…

Some are proposing that Republicans “messed up” in the recent presidential race, and thereby lost Republican votes to Obama. Personally, I don’t think the Republican Party “messed up” anything – strategy-wise or candidate-wise. I don’t think any other Republican candidate would have had a better chance to beat Obama, or that any other strategies would have made a significant difference. I think Obama succeeded because he ran a different kind of race than had been run before. His appeal was not his track record, but his charisma.

People have grown discouraged with President Bush and the War. They were ripe for the campaign that Obama waged. “Give us a leader who knows our hearts,” the people said, “one who will make us feel secure and at peace. Give us a man of compassion who will take care of us – one who will bring about change and rescue us from fear and uncertainty. We want a man of hope who will lead us away from pain and into a new future of happiness and prosperity.” Even some professing conservatives voted for Obama because they were “inspired by his outlook” and “encouraged by his attitude.”

No, it wasn’t a Republican failure that lost the election. Barack Obama won this election, because he appealed to people’s emotions while his Republican opponent could only speak to their minds.

Unlike past Democratic candidates such as Kerry and Gore, Barack Obama won the hearts of people. That is why this race was so emotionally charged for Democrats, and why supporters of the Republican ticket were treated with far more intensity than in previous elections. Obama connected with people’s “passions” thereby evoking passionate responses in them. He became their “messiah” and any who stood against him had to be stopped.
It was passion not reason that drove this last election.

We live in an age in which the majority of people — even many professing conservatives — no longer make decisions based on reason, logic, or moral absolutes. Feelings are what drive them.
I have observed that it is younger conservatives who tend to think with their hearts rather than their heads. This is largely because of how they were raised. Reared by parents who did not train them against their “liberal natures,” these children have grown up to call themselves conservative, yet unbeknownst to them, their hearts are liberal.

In my new book, “Born Liberal, Raised Right,” I elucidate this concept of being “born liberal” in great detail, so allow me to offer here a brief explanation.

All humans are born with the same predisposition toward life. We may each be born with our unique personalities, but we have the same “bent” — by nature we are all born liberal. I propose that liberalism is, in fact, the natural condition of the human heart. For us to grow into conservatives, we must be trained against our nature. Left untrained, all children would grow up liberal in their outlook.
To be born liberal means that we are born emotional, passionate beings. We come into the world determined to survive and we vehemently express ourselves to get what we need: “Waaa!” and Momma feeds us; “Waaa!” and our diaper is changed; “Waaa!” and we are put down for a nap. As infants, our strong will can keep us comfortable and alive—the more outspoken we are, the more our needs are met. However, as we start to grow, we no longer cry for necessities—we crave pleasure, also.

At nine months old, if it’s Uncle Bert’s watch we want, we grab on and scream when he does not give it to us. Uncle Bert might laugh and marvel at our strength, but he easily pulls his watch away, sparking our anger. We are so furious that if we were seven feet tall and coordinated, Uncle Bert would be dead, and we would have his watch. The will-to-survive that kept us alive as newborns is revealed as a will-to-be-gratified the older we get.

A grasp of liberal as well as conservative outlooks requires that we understand the self-centered drive of human nature. From birth we are all driven by passion—we want what we want, when we want it, and we refuse things we do not want. Hence, as young children we beg or scream for ice cream, and turn our noses up at Brussels sprouts. By nature we hate having to wait and demand immediate gratification—we throw fits when we do not get our way. From our first year of life we want to gratify ourselves, and loathe the idea of reaping consequences for our actions. It is our parents’ job to train us to have self-control—to teach us that we can find contentment and security in life without fulfilling all our passions. They must work diligently to teach us that we do not need to be ruled by our “will-to-be-gratified.”

What do you suppose might happen if a child’s “will-to-be-gratified” continued unimpeded into adulthood? That is, if it is human nature to be self-oriented and obsessed with pleasure, what might happen to a child who is not taught self-restraint during the early formative years. What might happen if he is allowed a voice in all parental decisions that affect him, and indulged with that for which he cries, pouts, and sulks? How might a child turn out whose parents do not teach him to wait patiently for what he wants, or who is never forced to suffer through the common hardships of childhood, such as picking up his toys or eating whatever food his parents choose for him? Might not such a child grow up with an over-exalted sense of his own importance; and, consequently, a grand sense of entitlement, little gratefulness, and minimal ability to delay gratification?

A society whose children are not raised to have self-control will be out-of-control. Theft escalates in any culture in which the children are not trained to say NO to their covetous hearts and respect other people’s property; murder increases in any community in which children have not learned from their parents to respect others’ right to life; out-of-wedlock pregnancies and incidents of sexual assault increase in any land in which children are not trained to say NO to their passions. It is interesting to note that since people began taking Dr. Spock’s advice to soften up on their parenting, the rate of violent crime in the U.S. has risen more than 300%.

Think about it — what might happen to a child permitted to escape the consequences of his actions, whose parents clean up his messes and pay for the windows he breaks? He will grow up with “entitlement” thinking, believing that it is the government’s duty to protect the immoral from the consequences of their actions, which means clean needles for drug abusers, welfare for the lazy, and condoms for the promiscuous. And if many of his friends are raised the same way, might they not share a consensus that pursuit of personal pleasure without consequence is their supreme right?
Children start off life with a will-to-be-gratified, and if it is not brought into check when they are young they will arrive at adulthood with the same self-focused, passion-driven worldview they had as toddlers. This outlook on life will affect their relationships with their families, their employers, and their communities. It will also determine their approach to politics and government.

I would like to offer what will be a radical thought for many—at the very core of liberalism is passion. A liberal perspective, at the deepest level, is rooted in the heart—not the mind. The liberal mindset stems from emotions and feelings, which might include compassion for the needy, but more universally expresses itself in the desire for gratification, along with a refusal to suffer the consequences of those desires.

So, do you understand how people were drawn into throwing their support behind a man, even though he stood against so many of their traditional morals? America, many conservatives included, is becoming a nation of liberal-hearted people. Obama bypassed their minds and seduced their hearts.

I realize that many will object to my assessment of their heart motives, but just as a physician diagnoses a chronic disease from observing physical symptoms, as a counselor I look at moral and behavioral symptoms to diagnose a soul. The diagnosis is not that difficult to make.

What is disconcerting about Obama is that he spent his childhood feeding his liberal nature, and then learned to justify his passion-based worldview under the tutelage of Marxist and socialistic thinkers. In January we will not only have a president whose reason is overruled by emotions, but whose philosophy of government is more leftist than any president in our nation’s history.

What makes matters worse is that the heart bonds he has developed with the American people may cause them to tolerate more governmental oppression and controls than they ever dreamed possible.

America, buckle up — we are in for the ride of our lives. However, we cannot set our sites on trying to “survive” and hold our ground the next four years — we need to take ground! For our nation to return to its roots and restore its former greatness, the changes must start with conservatives. It is my hope that “Born Liberal, Raised Right” will clarify for them the path they need to walk.

What’s your opinion? Do you believe Reb is right or way off base? Leave your comments!