Alan Keyes
Conservatives: unite and transcend partisan scam
Plan to combat Obama's agenda for dictatorial socialism
By Alan Keyes
Most of the true conservatives I know are supporters of the U.S. Constitution. Most of them agree that long before he duplicitously swore to uphold, protect, and defend that Constitution, Barack Obama repeatedly disparaged and rejected it. Among these conservatives are many who would welcome Obama's resignation or removal from office. Their hearts respond favorably to politicians who have in recent weeks alluded to the fact that Obama's abuses of power constitute impeachable offenses, for which he and his collaborators should be removed from office. Others also respond favorably to movements intended to express their support for this result – like the overpass gatherings, or the effort to organize a march on Washington intended to dramatize support for impeachment.
These demonstrations of feeling are predicated on the notion that America's political "leaders" will respond whenever Americans strongly display their concern, anger, or resentment against abusive government actions and policies. After all, the Constitution these leaders profess to uphold explicitly recognizes "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
But the Constitution by no means relied on such gatherings and petitions as the main way of providing for a government that shows decent respect for the opinions of the people. In this respect, it is literally true that, in constitutional terms, the only gatherings that count are the ones that periodically take place on election days. These electoral gatherings directly or indirectly determine the composition of the bodies that will represent the people in government, including the individuals responsible for deliberating upon and implementing the nation's laws, and applying them in particular cases. To provide for a government that represents them, people must assemble at the polls to cast their votes toward a common goal. They must guard against demonstrations of feeling unconnected with that community of purpose that are likely to do no more than vent people's feelings, prematurely dissipating their energy without engendering a result in the government that reflects and will respect their views.
The existence of political parties is nowhere provided for or even acknowledged in the U.S. Constitution. They developed as means to assure that peaceable public assemblies arising from the common concerns and feelings of the people would contribute to an effective result when they assembled as voters on election days. In this regard, parties are not supposed to be ends in themselves, but political instruments used to articulate and uphold the common understanding of their constituents. Hence the construction of a platform which represents and articulates that understanding. Hence the structures that identify, select, and organize support for candidates pledged to represent that understanding after they are elected.
Given the vagaries inevitable in human affairs, people cannot reasonably expect any political platform to reflect their views in every particular. But it is reasonable and necessary to demand that, like any good tool, they be in principle suitable for the professed purposes of the people they are supposed to mobilize and represent. A hard enough stone can be a suitable hammer, even if it bears little resemblance to the handy tools we usually call by that name. But we would rightly suspect a builder who insisted on driving nails with a rotten tomato, or a chef who used a sledge hammer to slice a ripe tomato.
With political parties, as with other tools, the question is, "What purpose do they serve?" Most conservatives I know agree with the American patriots who, in the beginning, declared that the purpose of government is to secure the God-endowed unalienable rights of the people, as individuals and as a whole. Logically, this purpose assumes the existence of God and the acknowledgment of His authority. It involves recognizing that the inclinations provably instilled in us by that authority, when followed in good conscience, give rise to actions that correspond to the ultimate standard of right in human affairs. Such actions are an exercise (implementation) of right, which human governments are supposed to defend (secure), not violate.
All the rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution can be reasonably deduced and established on the basis of this straightforward logic. So can others not therein enumerated (like the rights of the natural family), which the Constitution's Ninth Amendment forbids us to deny or disparage. An assertion of government power that denies the premises essential to this logic (including the premise of God's existence and authority) is therefore not just an attack on this or that right in particular. It is an attack on the whole concept of right from which the claim to any one of them has to be derived.
On account of recent events, conservatives are now widely acknowledging that Obama and his collaborators are warring against the rights of the American people in precisely this most fundamental way. And in the wake of the GOP leadership's repeated and ever more abject surrenders to Obama's dictatorial abuses of government power, many are opening their eyes to the fact that the GOP's elitist faction leaders are not incompetently failing to achieve conservative aims. Rather, they are competently sabotaging conservative interference with Obama's agenda for dictatorial socialism, which is the elitist faction agenda those GOP leaders also intentionally serve.
Despite this now-evident fact, these GOP leaders go on encouraging Americans to believe that the Republican label represents opposition to Obama's dictatorial socialist agenda. And some well-intentioned conservatives go on being duped by them. This despite the elitist GOP establishment's openly declared war on any GOP politicians who actually stand firm in their conservative views. These confused voters insist that there's no alternative to wasting time and energy fighting to win GOP primary victories, even when it's clear that the GOP's leaders and their elitist faction financiers will seek to sabotage such primary winners by openly supporting Obama Democrats (as Bloomberg did in the recent New Jersey special election); or by trashing conservatives who are elected for keeping faith with their constituents. Thus, even if conservatives gain ground in a few primary battles, their efforts end up wasting precious resources and time, as the elitist faction's twin-party scam runs out the clock in this climactic stage of the war for the survival of America's liberty.
Conservatives must come together in pursuit of a goal that transcends the partisan scam, even as it mobilizes an active, independent conservative network dedicated to achieving a decisive victory for the restoration of America's constitutional liberty. They can form this network by mobilizing people to demand an impeachment/removal congressional majority in the 2014 election. Rather than just demonstrating their feelings, this will build and demonstrate their electoral strength, in the context of convening the only political assembly the U.S. Constitution counts on.
October 28, 2013
Most of the true conservatives I know are supporters of the U.S. Constitution. Most of them agree that long before he duplicitously swore to uphold, protect, and defend that Constitution, Barack Obama repeatedly disparaged and rejected it. Among these conservatives are many who would welcome Obama's resignation or removal from office. Their hearts respond favorably to politicians who have in recent weeks alluded to the fact that Obama's abuses of power constitute impeachable offenses, for which he and his collaborators should be removed from office. Others also respond favorably to movements intended to express their support for this result – like the overpass gatherings, or the effort to organize a march on Washington intended to dramatize support for impeachment.
These demonstrations of feeling are predicated on the notion that America's political "leaders" will respond whenever Americans strongly display their concern, anger, or resentment against abusive government actions and policies. After all, the Constitution these leaders profess to uphold explicitly recognizes "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
But the Constitution by no means relied on such gatherings and petitions as the main way of providing for a government that shows decent respect for the opinions of the people. In this respect, it is literally true that, in constitutional terms, the only gatherings that count are the ones that periodically take place on election days. These electoral gatherings directly or indirectly determine the composition of the bodies that will represent the people in government, including the individuals responsible for deliberating upon and implementing the nation's laws, and applying them in particular cases. To provide for a government that represents them, people must assemble at the polls to cast their votes toward a common goal. They must guard against demonstrations of feeling unconnected with that community of purpose that are likely to do no more than vent people's feelings, prematurely dissipating their energy without engendering a result in the government that reflects and will respect their views.
The existence of political parties is nowhere provided for or even acknowledged in the U.S. Constitution. They developed as means to assure that peaceable public assemblies arising from the common concerns and feelings of the people would contribute to an effective result when they assembled as voters on election days. In this regard, parties are not supposed to be ends in themselves, but political instruments used to articulate and uphold the common understanding of their constituents. Hence the construction of a platform which represents and articulates that understanding. Hence the structures that identify, select, and organize support for candidates pledged to represent that understanding after they are elected.
Given the vagaries inevitable in human affairs, people cannot reasonably expect any political platform to reflect their views in every particular. But it is reasonable and necessary to demand that, like any good tool, they be in principle suitable for the professed purposes of the people they are supposed to mobilize and represent. A hard enough stone can be a suitable hammer, even if it bears little resemblance to the handy tools we usually call by that name. But we would rightly suspect a builder who insisted on driving nails with a rotten tomato, or a chef who used a sledge hammer to slice a ripe tomato.
With political parties, as with other tools, the question is, "What purpose do they serve?" Most conservatives I know agree with the American patriots who, in the beginning, declared that the purpose of government is to secure the God-endowed unalienable rights of the people, as individuals and as a whole. Logically, this purpose assumes the existence of God and the acknowledgment of His authority. It involves recognizing that the inclinations provably instilled in us by that authority, when followed in good conscience, give rise to actions that correspond to the ultimate standard of right in human affairs. Such actions are an exercise (implementation) of right, which human governments are supposed to defend (secure), not violate.
All the rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution can be reasonably deduced and established on the basis of this straightforward logic. So can others not therein enumerated (like the rights of the natural family), which the Constitution's Ninth Amendment forbids us to deny or disparage. An assertion of government power that denies the premises essential to this logic (including the premise of God's existence and authority) is therefore not just an attack on this or that right in particular. It is an attack on the whole concept of right from which the claim to any one of them has to be derived.
On account of recent events, conservatives are now widely acknowledging that Obama and his collaborators are warring against the rights of the American people in precisely this most fundamental way. And in the wake of the GOP leadership's repeated and ever more abject surrenders to Obama's dictatorial abuses of government power, many are opening their eyes to the fact that the GOP's elitist faction leaders are not incompetently failing to achieve conservative aims. Rather, they are competently sabotaging conservative interference with Obama's agenda for dictatorial socialism, which is the elitist faction agenda those GOP leaders also intentionally serve.
Despite this now-evident fact, these GOP leaders go on encouraging Americans to believe that the Republican label represents opposition to Obama's dictatorial socialist agenda. And some well-intentioned conservatives go on being duped by them. This despite the elitist GOP establishment's openly declared war on any GOP politicians who actually stand firm in their conservative views. These confused voters insist that there's no alternative to wasting time and energy fighting to win GOP primary victories, even when it's clear that the GOP's leaders and their elitist faction financiers will seek to sabotage such primary winners by openly supporting Obama Democrats (as Bloomberg did in the recent New Jersey special election); or by trashing conservatives who are elected for keeping faith with their constituents. Thus, even if conservatives gain ground in a few primary battles, their efforts end up wasting precious resources and time, as the elitist faction's twin-party scam runs out the clock in this climactic stage of the war for the survival of America's liberty.
Conservatives must come together in pursuit of a goal that transcends the partisan scam, even as it mobilizes an active, independent conservative network dedicated to achieving a decisive victory for the restoration of America's constitutional liberty. They can form this network by mobilizing people to demand an impeachment/removal congressional majority in the 2014 election. Rather than just demonstrating their feelings, this will build and demonstrate their electoral strength, in the context of convening the only political assembly the U.S. Constitution counts on.
To see more articles by Dr. Keyes, visit his blog at LoyalToLiberty.com and his commentary at WND.com and BarbWire.com.
© Alan KeyesThe views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
