Conservatism is Dead

Many people think with the election of Barack Obama to the presidency and the large Democrat majorities in Congress, Conservatism is dead.  Liberals and Statists have been preaching this for months now, and the mainstream media has been repeating it.  What the Liberal and the Statist don’t understand is that the roots of the conservative movement go down to the core of our national identity and heritage.  They go down to the core of what it means to be American.  Roots that deep do not die easily…

The Conservative believes in limited government, the free market, state’s rights and liberty.  He builds his beliefs through an understanding of history and on the teachings of great thinkers of the past and present.  He understands and believes in the principles our country was founded on .  He believes in the validity of the Constitution and knows it must be interpreted through the lens of original intent or it becomes meaningless.  Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to William Johnson in 1823, wrote, “On every occasion…[of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”  It is not a living document as some claim.  It is a binding contract between the American people and the government they have empowered.  The Conservative holds to these beliefs with a passion, and those who underestimate this passion, believing conservatism is dead, will be proven wrong in the very near future.

We are presently witnessing the rebirth of Conservatism in our great country.  It never really went away.  It’s light only momentarily faded.  Since the Great Depression and the New Deal, our government has been moving steadily towards socialism and tyranny.  The Conservative has fought this trend, but despite a brief victory with the election of President Reagan and the Conservative takeover of Congress in 1994, it has been mostly a losing battle.  New programs, whose purpose is to spread the wealth, keep popping up along side those that already exist and continue to grow in size and cost.  These programs hide behind the guise of helping those who are less fortunate.  They consist of taking money from those who earn it and giving it to those who don’t.  While these programs may have good intentions, they are tyranny in disguise and built on a bankrupting  philosophy.  Let us look to the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson on this subject:

• “I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

• “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

Thomas Jefferson

The Conservative knows that using government to spread the wealth does not make everyone equally wealthy or even equally middle class.  It makes everyone equaly poor.  History has shown us this.  The election of Barack Obama and his view of spreading the wealth around (and his other radicaly liberal/statist views) has sounded an alarm bell that sleeping conservatives have answered.  Evidence of this can be seen in the numerous tea parties that have taken place all over the country protesting the amount of money our government is confiscating from the people and spending it irresponsibly and unconstitutionally.  More evidence of this can be seen in the amount of people who have called their congressman in recent weeks causing the Congressional switchboard to crash. More Americans call themselves conservative than liberal and they are finally starting to make their voices heard.  Conservatism is not dead or dying.  On the contrary, it is growing.  It is fueled by patriotism and a knowledge of what makes this country great- not government, spending, and spreading the wealth, but liberty.

Related posts:

1. So You Call Yourself an American?
2. Sorry, No Health Care for You part 1
3. Ben Franklin was Right
4. Sorry, No Health Care for You part 2