By Caomhin
If you listened exclusively to the mainstream media, you’d think advocates of limited government; low taxes, strong national defense, and personal responsibility are on their death beds. Nothing could be further from the truth. True conservatives and right leaning libertarians are far from experiencing some sort of mental break down that renders them completely incapable of managing the political reality.
The reality, of which I speak, of course, is that the nation has elected an extremely left-wing candidate as President. I keep going back in mind that when we heard Sen. Obama speak during the campaign much of it sounded oddly familiar. In fact, I’m sure that when you look at the numerous speeches that Sen. Obama gave in front of his trusty teleprompter and reviewed them with the 2000 election cycle, you will see very strong parallels to President Bush on the stump. Such examples include tax cuts for the middle class, a humble foreign policy, a need for more personal responsibility, etc. Sen. Obama’s team apparently crafted his campaign from many conservative stump speeches, which of course, had been extremely effective in the past because we were, and in fact still are, a center-right nation.
I could spend a great deal of time espousing on Sen. Obama’s voting record, but I’m going to assume at this point in our life cycle, essentially our infancy, that most of our readers are keenly away of Sen. Obama’s leftist agenda. While my intention here is not to bash Obama, I will give you a concrete example of exactly how far to the left he is going to govern. Obama is already gearing up to give a large sum of money to the auto making industry, at least half of which is going to go to his supporters in the UAW, while seeking to add a “reformer” who can oversee “changes” in the auto industry in order to “protect the taxpayer’s investment.”
So, let’s put the puzzle together. Obama receives an endorsement and funds from the UAW, and then in turn is ready to pour at least $25 billion into their coffers while simultaneously bailing out the manufacturers who mismanaged themselves into the position they now find themselves in order to fix the problem, with tax dollars purchasing a large share of ownership into the auto makers with a government appointed official in charge of their operations. Anyone want to try to explain how that isn’t socialism? Keep in mind he’s not even in office yet.
So with many people asking where does conservatism and the limited government movement go from here, let me provide some insight and suggestions. First of all, and let me blunt, we are going nowhere but up from here. You see, the yearning for freedom from interference from the government, the entrepreneurial spirit, and the desire for liberty will never, ever be extinguished. The failures of the past two election cycles have more to do with the failure to be advocates and upholders of the cause than with anything else.
We’ve had many great orators who’ve flamed out under pressure, and to be honest, we’re better off without them. That probably sounds harsh but it’s true. We don’t need people in office anywhere representing the movement who can’t stick to their convictions. We need to be more active in the primaries and not just give someone a free pass to the general election if they’re not truly standing up for the causes. We will correct that. That being said, we need statesmen who will compromise at times are able to work in a bi-partisan manner, but at the very core of the situation if you’re not standing up for the tax payers, the free market, and the rights of the people granted to us by our Creator and recognized by our Constitution, then you can be sure we’ll get the message out. Just because you have R next to your name doesn’t mean we’re just going to sit back and give you a free ride.
We need to expand the message into the heaviest “blue” areas in the nation. It is unfathomable to me that we are not brining our message and advocating our cause in the inner cities and surrounding suburbs. Some of these areas have high levels of unemployment, poverty, broken educational systems, and high crime rates, how is it that we are not able to communicate our ideas effectively? How is it that we cannot espouse the virtues of the free market to drive economic revival, to push for an overhaul of broken educational systems with school vouchers, to allow people to take home more money to make their payments, heat their homes, and buy groceries by reducing their tax withholding? We know the problems have been created by a heavy handed, callous government, and yet, where is the effort to help people empower themselves in these areas?
Philosophically, we are a coalition party. A grouping of individuals who have vastly different beliefs on many subjects. We’re not like the Democrats nor should we ever be. We are the party who has members who vary on nearly every political issue. We do not blackball our members for stating their honest opinions. You need to look no further than to see how civil Republicans treated Chuck Hagel or Colin Powell for their support of Sen. Obama in contrast to how the Democrats have treated Sen. Lieberman, once their Vice Presidential candidate, since even before his primary race in 2004, because despite his extreme loyalty to the Democrats on every issue but one (the Iraq War) was branded a traitor by his party and met with total vitriol by the hard left that now runs their show. You may be thinking I’m being hypocritical by saying this given that I have previously stated that we will no longer give a free pass to anyone who is not at the core dedicated to our cause, but mind you, we’re talking about the core values of limited government, lower taxes, etc. There will be disagreements in other areas and rightfully so, especially on contentious issues. Expanded discourse and dialogue has always been in the best interest of our Republic.
One last thing that I will mention and I strongly believe is that while right now we are essentially a regional format, we will be expanding. We will be taking an active and expanding role going forward. We shouldn’t just let races go unopposed. The more advocates we have out on the stump the better. We may not win every race, but we need to get out there and start to effectively articulating our beliefs and standing by them. We will lead by example. We will win when we start to abide by our beliefs, expand the areas that our message reaches, and allow people to decide for themselves which party has the better ideas; which party respects each voter as an individual capable of making their own decision, living their own lives, with control of their own destiny, free from coercion by others or by government and valuing their individuality and not simply looking at voters as statistics as sadly seems to be the status quo in recent American politics.
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