The Burning Issue Trap

[syrakusos]

In How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World, Harry Browne identified thirteen traps that people allow to prevent them from being free. The "Identity Traps" are the incorrect identification or the misidentification of a fact of reality. That includes mistaking the identity of someone's personality, including your own.

"The Burning Issue Trap is the belief that there are compelling social issues that require your participation. ... During recent years they have included such things as pollution, civil rights, overpopulation, drugs, conservation, communism, consumerism, women's liberation, poverty, organized crime, law and order, disappearnance of animal species, the sexual revolution, governmental solvency, pornography, educational problems, mental illness, privacy, high taxes, the Vietnam War, campus riots, the military-industrial complex, police brutality, and disarmament. Perhaps a dozen more I've overlooked, plus a few more that have become issues since I wrote this.

[...]

"Look back over the past twenty-five years. Can you think of a single social issue of the magnitude and popularity of those just listed that has been successfully resolved?"

Edited December 19, 2008 by Michael E. Marotta

[syrakusos]

These are just some of the large, old national organizations that have long existed nominally to address those burning issues.

Conservatice Political Action Caucus

"CPAC has consistently over the years championed those ideas that have made America great: limited government, free enterprise, low taxes and a strong national defense." – Vice President Dick Cheney

CPAC 2009 Cosponsors

The American Conservative Union

Accuracy in Media

Advocacy Ink

Alliance Defense Fund

American Civil Rights Union

American Federation of Senior Citizens

American Service Council, Inc.

American for Tax Reform

Americans for Limited Government

Americas Majority

Black Republican PAC

BMW Direct, Inc.

Campaign for Liberty

Capital Research Center

Catholic Family Caucus

Center for Individual Freedom

Citizens in Charge Foundation

Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute

College Republican National Committee

Competitive Enterprise Institute

Concerned Women for America

Congress of Racial Equality

Congressional Effect Management

Council for America

David All Group, LLC

David Horowitz Freedom Center

Eagle Forum

Eberle Associates, Inc.

FairTax

Family Research Council

Freedom Alliance

FreedomFest

FreedomWorks

Hasan Family Foundation

House Conservatives Fund

HowObamaGotElected.com

HSP Direct LLC

Human Events

Intercollegiate Studies Institute

Intermarkets, Inc.

Islamic Free Market Institute Foundation

Jim Worthing Productions

John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs

Judicial Watch

Legacy List Marketing

Let Freedom Ring

Libertarian Party

Liberty University School of Law

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research

Media Research Center

National Rifle Association

National Right to Work

National Taxpayers Union

New York State Conservative Party

PM Direct Marketing

Politics Magazine

Radio America

RegularFolksUnited.com

Strategic Campaign Group

Students for Life of America

Susan B. Anthony List/Team Sarah

The Heritage Foundation

The Leadership Institute

The Republican Majority

Townhall.com

Tradition, Family, Property

Vernon K. Krieble Foundation

Young America's Foundation

Young Americans for Freedom

Edited December 19, 2008 by Michael E. Marotta

[Brant Gaede]

It's not a matter of resolving anything. You deal with problems as best you can. Those which you address, if you can, are those you are interested in. Dealing with problems big and small is the perpetual state of human existence. Living is a struggle, even for "the lilies of the field." Some good some people do can benefit others centuries later. You benefit yourself regardless knowing what it is you are doing and why.

--Brant

[Reidy]

Several of these issues have resolved themselves.

- Communism (as a threat to the non-communist countries) collapsed;

- The Vietnam War ended;

- Overpopulation was discredited and forgotten, as global warming will be within 5 years;

- Campus riots went out of fashion (a few years before Browne wrote this, in fact);

- Women's liberation (as they called it) sided with Clinton against Paula Jones and was never heard from again.

Most of the issues Browne mentions hadn't been around for 25 years when he wrote.

[Chris Grieb]

Reidy; Great post! I wish I had said it.

[Brant Gaede]

Several of these issues have resolved themselves.

- Communism (as a threat to the non-communist countries) collapsed;

- The Vietnam War ended;

- Overpopulation was discredited and forgotten, as global warming will be within 5 years;

- Campus riots went out of fashion (a few years before Browne wrote this, in fact);

- Women's liberation (as they called it) sided with Clinton against Paula Jones and was never heard from again.

Most of the issues Browne mentions hadn't been around for 25 years when he wrote.

I really like the last one; I hadn't thought of this. My earliest contact with a woman's liber was in 1974 and her hatred of men was palpable. I called her "honey" in response to her shit and she shut up but hated too. The last one appeared on my front door in New Jersey searching for support for the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. I pointed out very politely that there were only human rights speaking calmly and rationally. She could answer none of my arguments or that one and turned to go. "Be careful of the step," I cautioned her. After someone like Ayn Rand, woman's lib was a stupid, sick joke. Was Paula Jones the intern Clinton did the cigar thing with or was that Monica? All those assholes want is power. They leverage themselves up with whatever they can grab a hold of. whether woman's lib or environmentalism. The tragic thing is all the well meaning,innocent people they enlist into their ranks or the legitimate things they take over. There are true environmental concerns, for instance, or women's issues. Etc.

--Brant