JR Dieckmann
Conservatives and the future of the Republican Party
By JR Dieckmann
The United States was founded on the constitutional principles of freedom and liberty, limited government, low taxes, and personal responsibility. These things are also the foundations for conservatism. Conservative Americans believe in the same principles and values that the nation's Founding Fathers had in mind and intended when they wrote the Constitution. The Republican party was founded on those same principles.
It is what made America unique and set it apart from the European countries of the founders' roots. It is why so many people, even today, want to come to America to start a new life. Unfortunately, many of late have found only disappointment when they see how America has changed in recent decades, and is no longer the country of freedom and liberty that they had read about in their youth.
The 8 Pillars of the Republican Party
1. To Protect and Abide by the Constitution of the United States of America
2. To Maintain a Strong National Defense and Secure Our Borders
3. To Cut Taxes & Reduce the Size of Government
4. To Balance the Budget and Be Fiscally Responsible
5. To Advocate Individual Freedom, Responsibility and Privacy
6. To Advocate Free Enterprise & Private Property Rights
7. To Promote Social Issues & Traditional Values
8. To Educate Our Citizens [of their Heritage & with Parental Choice and Control]
These are the 8 principles that the Republican Party was founded on by Abraham Lincoln and his political allies. They are the things that the Republican Party should be promoting today; not issues like federal government control of healthcare and education, federal regulations on energy and abortion, compassion for criminals — including illegal aliens, unconstitutional use of public money from the federal treasury, and other compromises with the left.
The National Council for a New America is not the answer, it is part of the problem. Among the Republican "leaders" driving this organization are Eric Cantor, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and John McCain. Others involved are Georgia Gov. Haley Barbour, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. The objective of the organization is to reach out to citizens across the spectrum and listen to their ideas, in an apparent attempt to reform and expand the Republican party.
They still don't get it. It is not necessary to recreate the Republican Party. By adhering to the principles stated in the 8 pillars above, they could free the American people to pursue their dreams without restraints from the federal government. But instead, they seem to have the misguided concept that it is up to the government to provide this freedom through legislation and regulations.
In legislating a liberty for some, they take away certain liberties from others. It is our God given right to live in freedom and make our own choices, not a right granted by the federal government. Every law passed by it infringes on our natural liberties and freedoms. The original platform of the Republican Party was designed to protect those rights.
If the GOP wants to expand the party, its leaders might want to try reaching out to the conservatives who left the party and joined the Libertarian Party, the Constitution Party, and the American Independent Party. Instead of reaching left, try reaching to the right for a change. The only way the Republican party will again become a viable political party is by reasserting itself as a conservative party.
Since the Democrat Party has clearly become a Marxist/Socialist party, there may be some discontented moderate Democrat voters to be gained by Republicans reaching to the left, but there are far more voters to be gained from the right side of the spectrum. If the Republican Party doesn't return to conservative values, then the right side of the spectrum will remain split and divided between Republicans and the other alternative conservative parties for years to come, and will lose in election after election. If the Republican Party wants to win an election, then it must reunite with the conservatives that it has abandon over the years.
Creeping socialism has been taking over the country piece by piece. It is the same socialism that early Americans left Europe to escape. America will only succeed if conservatives can educate and inform the rest of the people of what conservatism stands for and come together to defeat the socialist plague that has infected our once great nation.
Conservatism is not about "the rich," it is about personal freedom, liberty, self reliance, and particularly, personal responsibility — something that we all should have learned upon growing up into adulthood. Conservatism must be seen as the ideology of these values, not the ideology of "the rich," as the left likes to portray it. It is the ideology of freedom and liberty that allows anyone to become rich, even Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and other elite members of the "party of the little guy."
By offering local expenditures and handouts of federal public money in exchange for reelection votes, politicians have been trashing our Constitution, trampling on our rights, stealing our freedom, pilfering our money, exchanging personal responsibility for government dependence, making more and more people look to government as their sugar daddy, and taking liberties and authority over states and private sector markets that were never authorized or sanctioned by the Constitution.
Ever since the 1880s, everyone serving in congress has taken this oath:
These people, with little real market experience, think it is their job to run everything from Washington as though somehow they know more about running a free market economy than the people who have been doing it all of their lives. Running a business is a gamble. If you do it well and the public likes what you offer, you will succeed. If you don't, you will fail. The best products and services will survive on public demand as long as their producers are allowed to function freely and without excessive interference from the government.
Reagan and Bush 43 understood this. They both reduced taxes on business which grew the economy, and they did it with no loss of federal revenues. The lower tax rates encouraged earners to pay for, rather than hide, taxable income and enhanced market growth which created more jobs, which in turn created more income tax money for the government. And they didn't raise taxes on other revenue sources to compensate for perceived lower income tax rates, as the Obama administration is doing. Obama's policies are now causing a sharp decline in government revenue which he will undoubtedly try to correct with higher taxes on all of us.
Most Americans wouldn't mind paying their taxes at a fair rate if they knew that the money was being spent responsibly and constitutionally. Unfortunately, that is not the case. This government is neither responsible with our tax dollars, nor is it functioning in compliance with the Constitution. This government has outgrown the Constitution and seems to think that constitutional limitations no longer apply to it. The text of our Constitution might just as well be printed on the tissue in the Capitol Hill restrooms for all the good it does in the halls of Congress.
The government we see today is not the government that the founding fathers created. It is an abomination, a cancerous beast that has grown out of the ignorance and stupidity of American voters who never learned about the foundation of our country and the sacrifices our ancestors made to preserve it.
This happened not by accident, but by design of communist influences in our country since before the 2nd world war. The takeover of our schools, the legal profession, and the courts, by radical liberals have left us with a socialist mentality and very little of what the founders intended for the American experiment. The founding principles have been buried in public education, the media, and the courts, and have been replaced with tolerance for ethnic division rather than unity, equality of results, political correctness, and special consideration for "minority groups." We see the results of this now in the White House.
What is Conservatism?
Conservatism is the natural human desire for freedom from oppression and the desire for personal liberty to advance and succeed. As I was watching Rush Limbaugh give his address to CPAC, I couldn't help marveling at how easy it seems to be for him to talk on conservatism for hours at a time. Then I realized that conservatism is not something that you have to memorize or read from a teleprompter. It comes from inside.
It's a vision inside each of us that represents the natural state of man and his instinctive desire to be free. It is the natural state of human desire when unaltered by tyrants and big government. The Constitution is a conservative founding document because it attempts to insure the God given rights and freedom that are the building blocks of this great nation. Leave the people alone and let them grow to their full potential, and let them enjoy the fruits of their work, as long as an individual's freedom doesn't infringe on the rights of others.
We have the freedom in America to do or be whatever we want. If we want to be a doctor or a lawyer, we have the freedom to do that. If we want to be a teacher or a solder, we have the freedom to do that. If we want write, waste our life on drugs and alcohol, we can do that. Or we can devote our life to financial gain, we have the freedom to do that too.
If we do it honestly, we expect to keep what we earn as a reward for our work. If we do it dishonestly or illegally, then we can expect to be dealt with by the law. But if the law fails, then we will have to answer to our maker for it in the end. And that is why God is also an important part of conservatism. We may be able to cheat man, but we can never cheat God and our eternal destiny.
We were all created equal, but that doesn't mean that we must remain equal. Each one of us has the freedom to ask the question; what do I want to do with my life and what do I want to get out of it? To have the freedom do what we want with our lives is a blessing in this country, but we must also take personal responsibility for our lives and stand on our own two feet to achieve what we want. No one is going to hand it to us, least of all the government. Freedom without oppression and excessive government control is what conservatism is all about.
Conservatives love this country and our Constitution. We simply want our government to function according to the Constitution, not to the wishes and whims of every elected politician in congress. Just because Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid think some proposed law is a good idea and will expand their party of social and political perverts, doesn't make it constitutional.
It is the socialists and communists who constantly want to change the country into their own image and trash the greatness that the American people have achieved over the centuries by honoring God, our Founding Fathers, and our constitutional principles. It is the job of conservatives to fight and defeat those who would change these basic principles, and to defend the principles that made America great and prosperous.
Conservative beliefs are real and solidly embedded in those who understand our foundational values. They will not be persuaded to compromise or accept liberal concepts that they know are destructive to the country and our successful way of life. The Republican Party has lost its compass and doesn't know who it is anymore. Now it's reaching out to anyone to give it some direction.
If the Republican Party wants to be a part of the solution, instead of a part of the problem, then it must return to, and join with, the conservatives that it left behind. For only then will it reacquire its roots and again become viable on the political stage.
© JR Dieckmann
May 19, 2009
The United States was founded on the constitutional principles of freedom and liberty, limited government, low taxes, and personal responsibility. These things are also the foundations for conservatism. Conservative Americans believe in the same principles and values that the nation's Founding Fathers had in mind and intended when they wrote the Constitution. The Republican party was founded on those same principles.
It is what made America unique and set it apart from the European countries of the founders' roots. It is why so many people, even today, want to come to America to start a new life. Unfortunately, many of late have found only disappointment when they see how America has changed in recent decades, and is no longer the country of freedom and liberty that they had read about in their youth.
The 8 Pillars of the Republican Party
1. To Protect and Abide by the Constitution of the United States of America
2. To Maintain a Strong National Defense and Secure Our Borders
3. To Cut Taxes & Reduce the Size of Government
4. To Balance the Budget and Be Fiscally Responsible
5. To Advocate Individual Freedom, Responsibility and Privacy
6. To Advocate Free Enterprise & Private Property Rights
7. To Promote Social Issues & Traditional Values
8. To Educate Our Citizens [of their Heritage & with Parental Choice and Control]
These are the 8 principles that the Republican Party was founded on by Abraham Lincoln and his political allies. They are the things that the Republican Party should be promoting today; not issues like federal government control of healthcare and education, federal regulations on energy and abortion, compassion for criminals — including illegal aliens, unconstitutional use of public money from the federal treasury, and other compromises with the left.
The National Council for a New America is not the answer, it is part of the problem. Among the Republican "leaders" driving this organization are Eric Cantor, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and John McCain. Others involved are Georgia Gov. Haley Barbour, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. The objective of the organization is to reach out to citizens across the spectrum and listen to their ideas, in an apparent attempt to reform and expand the Republican party.
-
"However, this is not a Republican-only forum. While we will be guided by our principles of freedom and security, we will seek to include more than just our ideas. This forum will include a wide open policy debate that every American can feel free to participate in. We do this not just to offer an alternative point of view or to be disagreeable. Instead, we want to ask the American people what their hopes and dreams are."
They still don't get it. It is not necessary to recreate the Republican Party. By adhering to the principles stated in the 8 pillars above, they could free the American people to pursue their dreams without restraints from the federal government. But instead, they seem to have the misguided concept that it is up to the government to provide this freedom through legislation and regulations.
In legislating a liberty for some, they take away certain liberties from others. It is our God given right to live in freedom and make our own choices, not a right granted by the federal government. Every law passed by it infringes on our natural liberties and freedoms. The original platform of the Republican Party was designed to protect those rights.
If the GOP wants to expand the party, its leaders might want to try reaching out to the conservatives who left the party and joined the Libertarian Party, the Constitution Party, and the American Independent Party. Instead of reaching left, try reaching to the right for a change. The only way the Republican party will again become a viable political party is by reasserting itself as a conservative party.
Since the Democrat Party has clearly become a Marxist/Socialist party, there may be some discontented moderate Democrat voters to be gained by Republicans reaching to the left, but there are far more voters to be gained from the right side of the spectrum. If the Republican Party doesn't return to conservative values, then the right side of the spectrum will remain split and divided between Republicans and the other alternative conservative parties for years to come, and will lose in election after election. If the Republican Party wants to win an election, then it must reunite with the conservatives that it has abandon over the years.
Creeping socialism has been taking over the country piece by piece. It is the same socialism that early Americans left Europe to escape. America will only succeed if conservatives can educate and inform the rest of the people of what conservatism stands for and come together to defeat the socialist plague that has infected our once great nation.
Conservatism is not about "the rich," it is about personal freedom, liberty, self reliance, and particularly, personal responsibility — something that we all should have learned upon growing up into adulthood. Conservatism must be seen as the ideology of these values, not the ideology of "the rich," as the left likes to portray it. It is the ideology of freedom and liberty that allows anyone to become rich, even Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and other elite members of the "party of the little guy."
By offering local expenditures and handouts of federal public money in exchange for reelection votes, politicians have been trashing our Constitution, trampling on our rights, stealing our freedom, pilfering our money, exchanging personal responsibility for government dependence, making more and more people look to government as their sugar daddy, and taking liberties and authority over states and private sector markets that were never authorized or sanctioned by the Constitution.
Ever since the 1880s, everyone serving in congress has taken this oath:
-
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
These people, with little real market experience, think it is their job to run everything from Washington as though somehow they know more about running a free market economy than the people who have been doing it all of their lives. Running a business is a gamble. If you do it well and the public likes what you offer, you will succeed. If you don't, you will fail. The best products and services will survive on public demand as long as their producers are allowed to function freely and without excessive interference from the government.
Reagan and Bush 43 understood this. They both reduced taxes on business which grew the economy, and they did it with no loss of federal revenues. The lower tax rates encouraged earners to pay for, rather than hide, taxable income and enhanced market growth which created more jobs, which in turn created more income tax money for the government. And they didn't raise taxes on other revenue sources to compensate for perceived lower income tax rates, as the Obama administration is doing. Obama's policies are now causing a sharp decline in government revenue which he will undoubtedly try to correct with higher taxes on all of us.
Most Americans wouldn't mind paying their taxes at a fair rate if they knew that the money was being spent responsibly and constitutionally. Unfortunately, that is not the case. This government is neither responsible with our tax dollars, nor is it functioning in compliance with the Constitution. This government has outgrown the Constitution and seems to think that constitutional limitations no longer apply to it. The text of our Constitution might just as well be printed on the tissue in the Capitol Hill restrooms for all the good it does in the halls of Congress.
The government we see today is not the government that the founding fathers created. It is an abomination, a cancerous beast that has grown out of the ignorance and stupidity of American voters who never learned about the foundation of our country and the sacrifices our ancestors made to preserve it.
This happened not by accident, but by design of communist influences in our country since before the 2nd world war. The takeover of our schools, the legal profession, and the courts, by radical liberals have left us with a socialist mentality and very little of what the founders intended for the American experiment. The founding principles have been buried in public education, the media, and the courts, and have been replaced with tolerance for ethnic division rather than unity, equality of results, political correctness, and special consideration for "minority groups." We see the results of this now in the White House.
What is Conservatism?
Conservatism is the natural human desire for freedom from oppression and the desire for personal liberty to advance and succeed. As I was watching Rush Limbaugh give his address to CPAC, I couldn't help marveling at how easy it seems to be for him to talk on conservatism for hours at a time. Then I realized that conservatism is not something that you have to memorize or read from a teleprompter. It comes from inside.
It's a vision inside each of us that represents the natural state of man and his instinctive desire to be free. It is the natural state of human desire when unaltered by tyrants and big government. The Constitution is a conservative founding document because it attempts to insure the God given rights and freedom that are the building blocks of this great nation. Leave the people alone and let them grow to their full potential, and let them enjoy the fruits of their work, as long as an individual's freedom doesn't infringe on the rights of others.
We have the freedom in America to do or be whatever we want. If we want to be a doctor or a lawyer, we have the freedom to do that. If we want to be a teacher or a solder, we have the freedom to do that. If we want write, waste our life on drugs and alcohol, we can do that. Or we can devote our life to financial gain, we have the freedom to do that too.
If we do it honestly, we expect to keep what we earn as a reward for our work. If we do it dishonestly or illegally, then we can expect to be dealt with by the law. But if the law fails, then we will have to answer to our maker for it in the end. And that is why God is also an important part of conservatism. We may be able to cheat man, but we can never cheat God and our eternal destiny.
We were all created equal, but that doesn't mean that we must remain equal. Each one of us has the freedom to ask the question; what do I want to do with my life and what do I want to get out of it? To have the freedom do what we want with our lives is a blessing in this country, but we must also take personal responsibility for our lives and stand on our own two feet to achieve what we want. No one is going to hand it to us, least of all the government. Freedom without oppression and excessive government control is what conservatism is all about.
Conservatives love this country and our Constitution. We simply want our government to function according to the Constitution, not to the wishes and whims of every elected politician in congress. Just because Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid think some proposed law is a good idea and will expand their party of social and political perverts, doesn't make it constitutional.
It is the socialists and communists who constantly want to change the country into their own image and trash the greatness that the American people have achieved over the centuries by honoring God, our Founding Fathers, and our constitutional principles. It is the job of conservatives to fight and defeat those who would change these basic principles, and to defend the principles that made America great and prosperous.
Conservative beliefs are real and solidly embedded in those who understand our foundational values. They will not be persuaded to compromise or accept liberal concepts that they know are destructive to the country and our successful way of life. The Republican Party has lost its compass and doesn't know who it is anymore. Now it's reaching out to anyone to give it some direction.
If the Republican Party wants to be a part of the solution, instead of a part of the problem, then it must return to, and join with, the conservatives that it left behind. For only then will it reacquire its roots and again become viable on the political stage.
© JR Dieckmann
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