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Conservatives lose their principles when they achieve national power

May 20th 2006

Republicans need to lose their majorities in Congress and in the state legislatures where they hold them. This is not because the Democrats are better. They are not. Rather they deserve such a fate because they have defied every principle they claimed as they built public support that carried them to their current powerful political status.

Government is more intrusive than it has ever been and on a more personal level. The federal government has absorbed more of the power from state and local governments than could have been tried under Democrat regimes. Annual federal deficits for the past five years have almost doubled those of the last Democrat-controlled congress.

George W. Bush built popular support by criticizing President Clinton's intrusive foreign policy decisions. Now he has taken a mission of regime change to, “...support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.” For this cause his Republican allies in congress have given him almost unanimous support.   Comment on this article at our Forum

Perhaps the most egregious offense of the Republican regime is its penchant of blaming all its bad decisions on liberals and a cadre of infamous Democrats (Teddy Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, et al.). Worse yet Republican office holders don't make such statements, but do it through their water boys in the media; they being, among others, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz and Fox News.

The conservative revolution within the GOP is dead. Maybe never to return. Once Republicans became popular and discovered the the power that comes with majority status, principles were no longer important, but holding power moved to the top of the priority list. With the temptations of power and fame that come with the Washington culture, it might be best for conservatives to repudiate any activity or support for either national parties or their candidates. Instead conservatives might consider focusing on parochial social engagements devoted to strengthening the character of individuals, the stability of families, and self-sufficiency in communities.

The principles that conservatives publicly promote, such as personal moral restraint and responsibility, the value of work, and the importance of private property to economic and social independence, are actually impediments to the acquisition and of national power or influence over the global economy. On the other hand, those principles are protected when they are applied in personal relationships and used to secure face-to-face business transactions. Subsequently the efforts that conservatives have made to pursue national agendas and international power have actually worked to kill the principles they have fought so hard to popularize.

Provincialism and federalism, then, are the governing forms upon which conservatives should direct their focus. Whether or not Dennis Hastert or Nancy Pelosi becomes Speaker of the House this January is of little consequence to conservative ideology. What is important to conservatives, though, is whether or not the city council will protect someone using their home and property to provide for their family from developers who promise to fill the public coffers with increased tax revenues by overdeveloping the same property.

Can conservatives find candidates for governor that have the charisma and rhetorical talents to lead their states to defy federal court orders that exceed the legal limits of the judiciary? Do their state legislatures have the courage to impeach a governor who sides with a federal court to negate properly written laws that fall under the sovereign authority of the legislature? Or to recall senators who support bills that initiate federal mandates on state regulation?

Do we as individuals have the integrity to be good customers to local merchants or honest business people with our local residents? Are we as employers more interested in the development and welfare of our employees than we are of the extra buck we can make from keeping their wages low? Can we honor the vows we made to our spouses and sacrifice enough to raise our children in a home rather than a way station?

And do we, as conservatives, have the moxy to tell the national Republican Party—and their stinking propagandistic water carriers in the right wing of the mainstream media—to take a long flying leap for lying to us for l2 years while they ran up deficits, overextended our foreign obligations, ignored the uncontrolled flood of immigrants pouring over our border and participated in programs that destroyed the currency and undercut the value of our labor?

If we don't have the convictions to give them an electoral slap in the face this year, it might not come to us again in our lifetimes.

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