FLHHC? What the heck is Baker babbling about now, right?
Well, my friends, that’s an acronym. It stands for:
Facts,
Logic,
History,
Human nature, and the
Constitution.
Those are the five things non-conservatives – of any party – have to be able to ignore in order to advance their arguments.
In my experience, any argument on any political topic that observes those five precepts will end up, by definition, being truly “conservative” in nature. In contrast, any argument advanced by leftists to support their position on a topic will by necessity have to ignore at least one, and generally several (if not all), of those elements.
Try it out for yourself. Have some fun with it. I think you’ll find it’s a very accurate litmus test, and once you do you can use it when you’re debating your not-so-conservative friends to hopefully show them the error of their ways.
Remember: FLHHC.
©Brian Baker 2017
The View from the Island 
I call myself a Crispian. The rest comes with it. 🙂
LOL!
Damned right!
FLHHC… handy!
Thanks, Ron.
AND easy to remember.
So true, so true.
Simple and true. How many heads exploded in California when this got posted in the local paper?
Unfortunately, the local paper didn’t publish this one.
I wonder why….
LOL
Another great column, Brian, even if it doesn’t end up in the Signal. It never ceases to amaze me how much some people completely ignore FLHHC! Keep up the good fight, Brian!
Thanks, Hopeful.
And “hopefully” a memorable acronym.
While I agree that one can apply your FLHHC filter to ensure that one’s position in an argument is a conservative one, you give leftists too much credit if you expect them to be factual, logical, and tell the truth.
We should be able to agree on points of the Constitution and on facts recorded in history – maybe even on the facts of an issue, but to expect logical thought from a leftist is a stretch.
On the human nature issue, I think that they must have already accepted the “means to an end” practice in order to be a lefty and therefore would lie willingly to win an argument.
Um… huh?
I think you totally misunderstood what I wrote. It was exactly my point that any argument a leftist makes is bound to ignore AT LEAST one of those aspects, if not more. So obviously, I don’t “expect them to be factual, logical, and tell the truth.” Quite the contrary.
That’s perfect advice for those who like to think of themselves as conservatives, Brian.
It is disconcerting to me that so frequently I hear people embrace notions and policies that don’t meet the FLHHC litmus test while they still proudly describe themselves as conservatives. This applies, in particular, to the Constitution which was written with the understanding that facts, logic and history can and will be played with and human nature can and will be ignored, thus there are certain rights which must be fiercely protected from such schemes if we are to keep our promises of liberty.
Just recently we are seeing a great example in the debate over the proposed replacement of Obamacare. If you listen to Paul Ryan’s fast talking you might be persuaded by the facts and logic he espouses, but this plan doesn’t comport to the Constitution to any greater extent than Obmacare did, and certainly its subsidies and its failure to restore a real free market system do not take human nature into account. Those who characterize it as a “conservative plan” are dreaming.
Thanks, CW. I came up with this litmus test about a year ago, and my daughter kept nagging me to write it up, basically so she — and by extension others — could remember it. That’s when I came up with the acronym, which is easier to remember.
Your Ryan example is a perfect illustration, and why I mentioned “both parties” in the piece. Ryan’s plan, and Ryan himself, are not in any way actually “conservative”.