[ALawPoker]

Ugh, maybe "all of your friends and family" aren't "normal media trusting folks" who are "uninformed" and lean favorably to "fiscal conservatism" for whom "the simplest explanation is the best here."

It's obvious that your response to me was nothing more than a thinly veiled "Wahhh simplistic dogma watch me pick an argument out of nothing." I offered my best advice to OP. Your reply to him (and your subsequent replies to me) suggest that you seem to have totally missed the target audience he was getting at.

Most fiscally conservative neocon types I talk to DO respond strongly to phrases like "the government is incompetent," "the government couldn't run a K-Mart," etc. They love that stuff. They just decide that it somehow goes out the window when and where they say it does, such as when wars on terror need to be fought. So by reminding them of their general distrust of government, it's a good way to get their thoughts on the right track without being too complicated.

If OP said he was looking for a sophisticated argument, then I would have given him either a different answer or no answer at all. I have some experience talking to my neocon friends and family, and stand by my advice here pretty strongly. OP knows his family better than any of us though, so he can take it fwiw and will obviously be using his own words anways.

Have a good Thanksgiving, Phillip.