Freeman Says What Most Blacks Won't, and a Little History For You

Morgan Freeman stated in a recent interview that he finds Black History Month to be "ridiculous". When asked how we can get rid of racism, he plainly stated "stop talking about it."

As someone who can be classified as a "minority", I can agree with these sentiments. I do not need a special month dedicated to the history of my hispanic heritage (though there is one). I also find the concept ridiculous. History is history, and the history of blacks, whites, hispanics, and everyone else in America should be integrated into "American History", plain and simple.

Speaking of Black History Month, here is a little history they don't teach you...

Ever notice that S.B. Fuller is never mentioned in Black History text? Of course you didn't, because you probably don't know who Fuller is. Fuller, who lived from 1905-1988, was a notable black entrepreneur who founded Fuller Products Company, publisher of the New York Age and Pittsburgh Courier, head of the South Side Chicago NAACP (the same area Barack Obama represented in the Illinois State Senate), president of the National Negro Business League...and believed that it would be through capitalism, not government intervention and socialism, that black people would move ahead.

See, Fuller rose from being a poor child in rural Louisiana who dropped out of school in the 6th grade, and built his wealth on an investment of $25 that he turned into millions over several years. Fuller believed that capitalism, if utilized by the black community, could lead to civil rights and equality a lot faster than if the government mandated it. Fuller believed capitalism is colorblind, stating "It doesn't make any difference about the color of an individual's skin. No one cares whether a cow is black, red, yellow, or brown. They want to know how much milk it can produce." Mind you, he made this statement in the 50's, when racism and segregation were still rampant.

However, he made comments that angered the left-leaning black leaders at the time, which have blackballed Fuller from almost all Black History lessons.

For instance, in 1963, when inducted into the National Association of Manufacturers (the first black to be inducted), he stated "a lack of understanding of the capitalist system and not racial barriers are keeping blacks from making progress." He also stated that "If the Negro had the amount of initiative, courage, and imagination required, he could control the retail selling in his own community. Since he represents 10 percent of the population of America today, he would be able to employe 1,065,000 people. There are 1,788,325 retail establishments in America and yet in New York City, where there are over 1,000,000 Negroes, they do not own over 15 businesses which employ over 10 people."

Now, Fuller didn't state it there, but he did believe that discrimination did play a role as well. In U.S. News and World Report interview, he stated that "The Negroes have been free for 100 years. But, during that time, the white man has not told Negroes the truth. He has always taught the Negroes that they were at a disadvantage. He never told Negroes that they should do business for themselves, that they should clean up their own community and that they should accept community responsibility."

(side note...don't we still use that term "disadvantaged" for minority youth in inner cities? Fuller believed this is not the method in which you empower minorities)

In the same interview, Fuller also stated "Negroes are not discriminated against because of the color of their skin. They are discriminated against because they have not anything to offer that people want to buy."

Fuller also used to talk about he wanted blacks to stop begging the white man with "a handful of gimmes and a mouthful of much obliged".

Fuller's statements were meant as a wake-up call to blacks to start pooling their resources and go into business for themselves and empower themselves. However, black leaders saw this as "blaming the victim". Despite the fact that Fuller was essentially stating the same things that Booker T. Washington stated several decades before, black leaders (and leftist whites) saw Fuller's comments as being against their agenda because it was pro-free enterprise.

Thus, since Fuller's beliefs did not fall in line with "affirmative action" or any of the other agendas of those who advocated civil rights mandated by government intervention, his contributions to society and civil rights has slid down the Orwellian memory hole.

A Statement of Complete Honesty

From a comment in my most recent post, a quote from former NBA star Charles Barkley...

Poor people have been voting for Democrats for the last fifty years....and they are still poor.

Just think about it.

I Was Asked an Interesting Question Yesterday...

A good friend of mine at work, who is an as-yet undecided voter who doesn't like Obama or McCain, and would like to see the option of "undecided" on the ballot, asked me one heck of a question yesterday, and it came out of nowhere and caught me off-guard.

He asked "you could go back in time and change one American political event or decision, what would it be?"

He brought up things like Robert Kennedy's assassination, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and a few other events that you generally learn about in History class as examples. I also mulled over a few choices that I considered, such as...

- Telling Nixon's cronies not to break into the Watergate Hotel.
- Not allowing a handful of Mississippi delegates to abandon Reagan for Ford at the 1976 GOP Convention.
- Made the Presidential term limit part of the original 10 Amendments of the Bill of Rights.

However, we changed the subject, and after 10 minutes, I hit him with my real answer.

- I would have stopped America from jumping off the Gold Standard.

This answer blew him away, as I don't think he expected me to go that route, and he had to agree that this was a significant point. As he said, "we would definitely have a strong dollar and a solid, stable economy."

What do you think? What singular event would you change...if you could?

Whoa!

The Hillary collapse continues...

As they barnstorm through New Hampshire, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband are often introduced by supporters who once backed another candidate but converted to her cause.

Today, in Dover, Francine Torge, a former John Edwards supporter, said this while introducing Mrs. Clinton: “Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy. But he was assassinated. And Lyndon Baines Johnson was the one who actually” passed the civil rights legislation.

The comment, an apparent reference to Senator Barack Obama, is particularly striking given documented fears among blacks that Mr. Obama will be assassinated if elected.

Ouch...that's got to sting for the Clinton camp. However, a few hours later came this report from Major Garrett.

Clinton also said Obama and Edwards have acted like hypocrites during the race and appeared to diminish the role Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. played in the civil rights movements, saying it wasn’t hope that King inspired that made the difference but President Lyndon Johnson’s decision to fight for and sign the Civil Rights Act into law.

So MLK's leadership in the Civil Rights Movement wasn't what led to the Civil Rights Act, it was LBJ all along! All those marches, the beatdowns by riot police...it was really pointless. Blacks could've stayed at home, because LBJ was going to give it to them, anyway!

That's American History in Hillary's world.

(h/t NY Times Caucus Blog, The Bourbon Room)

Lakota Tribe Renounces Treaties With U.S., Declare Independence

The Lakota Sioux, whose tribe is ingrained within American history due to Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have announced formal independence from the United States and declared themselves a sovereign nation.

Native American rights activist Russell Means made the announcement at a Washington, D.C. church.

"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,"

Those 5 states are Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wyoming.

A delegation of Lakota leaders have been visiting the embassies of Bolivia, South Africa, Venezuela, and Chile. Who wants to bet $10 that Hugo Chavez recognizes their sovereignty immediately?

Anyway, the Lakota have withdrawn from their various treaties with the United States, some of which are over 150 years old. This is apparently legal, per article six of the Constitution.

Phyllis Young, another long-time Lakota activist, tried to soothe relations by saying "We are not trying to embarrass the United States. We are here to continue the struggle for our children and grandchildren,"

Why am I skeptical of that statement?

Bill the Revisionist

From an AP article today...

Bill Clinton says Sen. Barack Obama is a callow, highly ambitious political prodigy who is asking voters to "roll the dice" and elect him president.

He should know — that's a fair description of Clinton when he sought the presidency in 1992.

The fact that the former president is stealing a page from the same Republican playbook used against him 15 years ago underscores the threat Obama poses to the candidacy of Clinton's wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

It also illustrates Clinton's penchant for rewriting history.

Actually, that is a pretty accurate description of Clinton in 1992. But, it goes on...

As a first-time presidential candidate, Clinton cast himself as an "agent of change" in troubled times, and faced criticism from Republicans about his youth and inexperience.

Obama finds himself in the same boat, with Clinton manning the torpedoes.

Well, Clinton had been Governor of Arkansas for a decade or so by the time he started his run at the White House. However, he still was a relatively unknown political figure outside of Little Rock and Democratic pundit circles in 1991, when he started building towards his candidacy.

However, this statement from Clinton makes me laugh.

"Even when I was a governor and young and thought I was the best politician in the Democratic Party, I didn't run the first time. I could have," Clinton said on PBS's "The Charlie Rose Show," referring to the 1988 presidential campaign.

"And I had lots of Democratic governors encouraging me to. I knew in my bones I shouldn't run — that I was a good enough politician to win, but I didn't think I was ready to be president," Clinton said.

No, Bill...you might've won the nomination, but I know you would not have won the Presidency in 1988. Ronald Reagan was still popular, George H. W. Bush was the Veep and the "heir apparent", and America was going well with the Republicans in the White House. There is no chance in hell that Bill Clinton would have won in 1988. Hey Bill, it's the economy, stupid...and the economy was going along very well in 1988, which means your campaign theme would've been shot.

A Contested Convention...?

A column in the Washington Times anticipates the possible spectacle of a contested Republican Convention. This being based upon the fact that there doesn't seem to be a real frontrunner, and each of the candidates could carry large numbers of delegates into the convention.

There has not been a contested presidential nomination at a convention since 1948's Republican National Convention, when Thomas Dewey finally triumphed over "The Boy Wonder of Politics" Harold E. Stassen and Robert Taft right before the 3rd ballot due to Taft's concession.

It would be interesting to see such an event, although it may mean more fragmentation within the GOP. However, having the national convention be more than a glorified coronation would be a lesson in politics for the current generation, and it would also provide infinite amounts of topics and events for us pundits.

It would also be interesting to see Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and even Ron Paul duke it out in a convention, especially once a candidate was eliminated...it would be very interesting to see who those delegates would support.

Faith and the GOP

I read this earlier, and I saw Sic Semper Tyrannis had posted part of it, but it bears repeating.

In a column today, Peggy Noonan talks about how a candidate's faith has risen to such levels of importance to some voters.

Christian conservatives have been rising, most recently, for 30 years in national politics, since they helped elect Jimmy Carter. They care about the religious faith of their leaders, and their interest is legitimate. Faith is a shaping force. Lincoln got grilled on it. But there is a sense in Iowa now that faith has been heightened as a determining factor in how to vote, that such things as executive ability, professional history, temperament, character, political philosophy and professed stands are secondary, tertiary.

But they are not, and cannot be. They are central. Things seem to be getting out of kilter, with the emphasis shifting too far.

She also asks the question of if Reagan would survive in today's GOP climate...

I wonder if our old friend Ronald Reagan could rise in this party, this environment. Not a regular churchgoer, said he experienced God riding his horse at the ranch, divorced, relaxed about the faiths of his friends and aides, or about its absence. He was a believing Christian, but he spent his adulthood in relativist Hollywood, and had a father who belonged to what some saw, and even see, as the Catholic cult. I'm just not sure he'd be pure enough to make it in this party. I'm not sure he'd be considered good enough.

You know, this actually hits at the heart of what I've been saying for a long time. It's always a good thing when someone has strong morals and has their own religious beliefs, and it's even better when they're generally accepting of others beliefs or non-beliefs, as Reagan was. The belief that someone has to reach a certain level of Christian purity to be President is a bit much, in my honest opinion.

There are much more important things going on in this nation that require more than just a particular religious faith that falls within a narrow definition for a specific bloc of voters.

Rep. Thad McCotter - Restoring the GOP

Many of you do not know Rep. Thad McCotter (R-MI). He is currently the chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee. Basically, it is his job to steer Republican policy in necessary directions and a big part of the prioritization of policy for the House GOP.

He gave a speech last night on the House floor that I happened to catch on C-SPAN, and it was brutally honest look back at recent GOP history, and what needs to change and how to go about changing things for the better in the GOP.

I think that, on many points, McCotter is right on. I like his coining of the term "Restorative Republicans", as that is a good description of what I consider myself to be.

Here is the text of the speech, courtesy of McCotter's House website.

"Let It Bleed: Restoring the Republican Party"

Mister/Madam Speaker,

As my Republican party completes its first year in the minority since 1994, we find ourselves held in historically low regard by the sovereign American people.

To end this trend, Republicans must accurately assess our party’s past and present failings; and its future prospects of again providing Americans a meaningful choice between the major parties. This remains, after all, a party’s duty to the citizenry.

For my GOP to fulfill it, first we must bury our ideological dead.


Aftermath

Safely on this side of the cleansing mists of memory, it is chic to eulogize the late Republican majority. From the chattering class few insights emerge, for in the aftermath, only poetry is an apt epitaph:

The world is too much with us,
Late and soon;
Getting and spending we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away –
A sordid boon!

Such was the Republican bathos: a transformational majority sinned and slipped into a transactional “Cashocracy” – promises, policies, principles, all bartered, even honor. The majority now is of the ages, may it rest in peace...

And be redeemed.

Dirty Work

Once, George Santayana cautioned: “Those who do not learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them.” If our current Republican minority guilefully refutes or gutlessly refuses to admit, accept, and atone for the bitter fruits of its lapsed majority, it will continue to decline in the eyes of the American electorate. Thus, for the sake of our nation in this time of transformation, we must fully and frankly examine and understand the cardinal causes of the Republican majority’s recent demise; and, sadder but wiser, commence our Republican minority’s restoration as a transformation political movement serving the sovereign citizens of our free republic.


Through the Past Darkly

Big Hits and Fazed Cookies

To begin, we must retrace our steps down a darkened alley of broken hopes to glean the essence of our party’s headier times, big hits and fazed cookies.

Though many of its legislative leaders may moot the point, two Presidents caused the 1994 Republican Revolution: Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

The members of 1995’s new Republican Majority were Ronald Regan’s political children. From President Reagan, Republican Congressional revolutionaries inherited a philosophy of “politics as the art of the possible.” Cogently expressed by conservative intellectuals ranging from Edmund Burke to Russell Kirk, this philosophy’s central tenets held:

1) Men and women are transcendent children of God endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights.

2) Government was instituted to defend citizens’ inalienable rights and facilitate citizens’ pursuit of the good and of true happiness.

3) Over the generations, Divine Providence has established and revealed through tradition, prescriptive rights and custom within communities how order, justice, and freedom – each essential, co-equal and mutually reinforcing – are best arranged and nurtured for humanity to pursue the good and true happiness.

4) Human happiness is endangered by every political ideology, for each is premised upon abstract ideas; each claims a superior insight into human nature not revealed through historical experience; each proffers a secular utopia unobtainable by an imperfect humanity; and, each demands an omnipotent, centralized government to forcefully impose its vision upon an “unenlightened” and unwilling population.

This is the political philosophy and resulting public policies a once impoverished youth from Dixon, Illinois, Ronald Reagan, engagingly articulated to America throughout his Presidency in the 1980s. By 1994, the American people who, having taken Reagan at Russell Kirk’s word that “conservatism is the negation of ideology” and remembering its beneficent impact upon their daily lives, yearned for its return. For self-described Congressional Republican revolutionaries, this formed fertile electoral ground (one shaped as well, it must be admitted, by a host of unheralded and immensely talented GOP redistricting attorneys). But like all revolutions, the piece required a villain.

Enter President Clinton.

Exuberant at having defeated an incumbent President George H. W. Bush, Clinton mistook a mandate against his predecessor as a mandate for his own craftily concealed liberalism. In his first two years in the oval office, this mistake led Clinton to over-reach on “kitchen table” issues, such as raising taxes and socializing medicine. Daily, the four-decade old Democratic Congressional majority abetted Clinton’s radical policies; and across the political spectrum voters seethed.

Congressional Republicans bided their time, planned their revolution, and seized their moment. Led by their spell-binding and abrasive guru from Georgia, Congressional Republicans unveiled their “Contract with America” to much popular – if not pundit – acclaim.

Though much mythologized, if it is to prove instructive for the present Republican minority, this Contract can and must be placed in its proper perspective. A musical analogy is most elucidating.

When a reporter once praised the Beatles for producing Rock’s first “concept album,” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, John Lennon curtly corrected him: “It was a concept album because we said it was.” Lennon’s point was this: yes, the Beatles had originally set out to produce a concept album; but early in their sessions the band dropped any conceits to creating a concept album and recorded whatever songs were on hand. Recognizing their failure, the Beatles tacked on a final song, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise), to engender the illusion they had, after all, created a “concept album.” Importantly, when the band later tried to produce a true “concept album” and accompanying film, Magical Mystery Tour, the lackluster result was one of the Beatles’ few failed artistic ventures.

Similarly, Congressional Republicans’ “Contract with America” was a collection of specific policy proposals and concrete grievances against the incumbent Democratic President and his legislative allies. It possessed merely an implicit philosophy (one obviously harkening back to Reagan). Even less than Sergeant Pepper, the individual tracks of which have (mostly) stood the test of time, today many of the Contract’s specific proposals sound dated. But like Sergeant Pepper, what endures about the Contract is the fact it was marketed as a revolutionary “concept” in governance. Of course, it is not. The Contract was a suitable period piece which served its purpose – the election of Congressional Republicans in sufficient numbers to attain our party’s first majority in forty years. Nevertheless the Contact’s lack of a clearly enunciated political philosophy with immutable principles sowed the seeds of the subsequent Republican Devolution.

Therefore, if the current Republican minority buys into the myth and makes the Contract the basis of a derivative “concept” agenda, the GOP will be condemned to another forty-year Magical Mystery Tour through the political wilderness.

Out of Our Heads

This is not to say the members of 1995’s new Republican majority lacked a political philosophy or immutable principles. Quite the contrary: these members were steeped in the Reagan tradition. But after an initial rush of laudable accomplishments, the members found themselves trapped by the Contract’s inherent pragmatism and particularity. Absent a philosophical anchor in the Contract, members drifted into the grind of governance, which distorted Reagan’s philosophical principles for public policy into non-binding precedents for political popularity. Exacerbating this process, the new majority’s leaders, exuberant at having defeated an incumbent Democratic Congressional majority, mistook a mandate against their predecessors as a mandate for their own finitely posited conservatism. In its first two years in control of the House, this led the majority’s leaders to erroneously conclude it could govern as a parliament, rather than as a Congress equivalent in power to the executive branch; and they over-reached on key issues, most notably in the shut down of the United States government over the issue of spending. Artfully framed by President Clinton with sufficient plausibility as an irresponsible Republican ideological attack on good government, this moment marked the beginning of the Republican majority’s end - in point of fact, from the government shutdown to the present the House GOP Conference has never had as many members as it did in 1995.

Some persist in too facilely dismissing this Republican debacle as being due to Clinton’s superior messaging of the issue from his bully pulpit. This analysis is errant. The reason Clinton succeeded is the kernel of truth he wielded on this issue: House Republican leaders had stopped governing prudently in accordance with Reagan’s political philosophy of politics being the art of the possible and, instead, started acting belligerently in an ideological manner against the public’s interest. It is no an accident this battle fundamentally affected Clinton’s thinking and spurred his reinvention from a liberal ideologue into a pragmatic problem-solver and proponent of “good government.” Unfortunately, Clinton’s publicly applauded posturing as a “centrist” incensed the Republican majority; and accelerated their efforts to differentiate themselves from an unprincipled President by being increasingly ideological, which they confuted with being principled.

As this ideological fever progressed through 1996, too late did the new majority’s members intuit the political cost to candidates considered “ideologues.” The Republicans’ majority did survive the partisan carnage of Clinton’s overwhelming 1996 re-election, but the cycle’s cumulative effect was lasting and damning. Without gawking at the gruesome minutia of each ensuing GOP ideological purge and internal coup instigated by this election, we can note it spawned the unseemly political perversion of the House Republicans’ transformational majority into a transactional “Cashocracy.”

Beggars Banquet

Hubristically deemed by its leading denizens as a “Permanent Majority,” the GOP Cashocracy was a Beggars’ Banquet at taxpayers’ expense. The Cashocracy’s sole goal was its own perpetuation; and its Cashocrats and High Priests of Money-theism myopically chased this aim through pragmatic corporatism and political machinations.

Obviously, the Cashocracy’s cardinal vice was its conviction to survive for its own sake. Curiously, this is not the height of arrogance; it is the height of insecurity. Aware it stood for nothing but election, the Cashocracy knew anything could topple it. This fear cancerously compelled the poll-driven Cashocrats to grope for ephemeral popularity by abandoning immutable principles. Materialist to their core and devoid of empathy, the Cashocrats routinely ignored the centrality to governmental policies of transcendent human beings.

A Bigger Bang

This Cashocracy’s first cardinal facilitated its second: pragmatic corporatism. Ensconced in insular power, the GOP Leadership lived the lives of the rich and famous, despite their middling personal means, due to their new-found friends in the corporate and lobbying community. Cut off from Main Street, these GOP leaders embraced “K Street.” The desire was mutual, and the corporatists’ influence grew gradually but ineluctably. Closed within a corporatist echo chamber, the GOP majority became deadened to the tribulations and aspirations of real Americans, and came to measure the “success” of its pragmatic policies by their reception on K Street. Reams of measures spewed forth prioritizing the interests of multi-national corporations over the needs of middle class Americans.

In fairness, even without the Cashocrats’ incessant inducements, blandishments and bullying, the majority of GOP members truly did feel they were promoting the interests of their constituents. This belief was insidiously sustained by the Cashocrats grafting their pragmatic corporatism onto the philosophy of economic determinism. It was not an unforeseeable development. Akin to their conservative brethren who after the fall of the Soviet Union proclaimed the “End of History,” House Republicans convinced themselves the ideology of democratic capitalism was an unstoppable deterministic force predestined to conquer the world; and, on their part, they viewed their job as hastening its triumph and preparing Americans to cope with its consequences. Combined with the Cashocracy’s insatiable need of corporate contributions for its sustenance, this adherence to ideological democratic capitalism reveals how the Republican House majority helped President Clinton (whom they had unknowingly come to emulate and, likely loathe ever more because of it) grant the Permanent Normalization of Trade Relations to Communist China. With this enact of this legislation, the Cashocracy reached its political zenith and moral nadir, for it did not shape globalization to suit Americans’ interests; it had shaped Americans’ interests to suit globalization.

Sticky Fingers

The handsome rewards for such “courageous” legislation fueled the Cashocracy’s third vice, avarice. The process was both seductive and simple, especially in a materialistic town forsaking the qualitative measurement of virtue for the quantitative measurement of money. While this temptation is to be expected in a city where politicians “prove” their moral superiority by spending other people’s money, it was equally to be expected Republicans would collectively resist it.

They didn’t.

Earmarks, which began as a cost-saving reform to prevent federal bureaucrats from controlling and wasting taxpayers’ money in contravention of express Congressional intent, spiraled out of control once the Cashocrats and their K-Street cronies realized the process could be manipulated to direct any appropriation, however undeserving, to any client, however questionable. In turn, political contributions materialized from the recipients of these earmarks for the members on both sides of the aisle who dropped them into legislation, often times without the knowledge of or the appropriate review by their peers. The passage of policy bills, too, increasingly mirrored the earmark process, as special interest provisions were slipped into the dimmer recesses of bills in the dead of night. The outcome of this fiscal chicanery was an escalation of the K-Street contributions the Cashocracy required to attain its aim of perpetuating itself in power; and of the illegal perks required to sate the more venal tastes of some morally challenged members who are now paying their debts to society.

Black and Blue

Cumulatively, in addition to rendering it morally bankrupt, these three vices left the Cashocracy intellectually impotent. Tellingly, within this less than subtle and manifestly sinister system of earmarks and contributions, the Cashocrats’ greased the skids for their legislative “favors” by relegating the majority’s younger members to voting rather than legislating; ignoring these members’ qualitative virtues, ideals and talents; measuring these members by the quantitative standard of how much money they raised; and, thereby, condemning these members to the status of highly paid telemarketers. Having squandered this infusion of youthful energy and insight, the Cashocrats hailed the election of Republican President George W. Bush and handed him the nation’s legislative agenda.

At first, the Cashocrats’ subordination of their separate, equal branch of government to the executive branch bore dividends. But by 2006, when the failures of the Iraq War’s reconstruction policy and Hurricane Katrina’s emergency relief torpedoed Bush’s popularity, the latent danger to the Cashocrats of hitching their SUVs to the fortunes of a President was evident. Precluded from tying its vicarious popularity to Bush’s coat tails, the Cashocracy teetered beneath the gale force invective of the Democrats’ campaign mantra the Congressional Republican majority was “a culture of corruption” slothfully content to “rubber stamp” the failed policies of an unpopular President. Panic stricken, the politically tone-deaf Cashocrats urged GOP members to tout America’s “robust economy” and attack Democrats on national security issues. The innately materialist economic argument was doomed to fail, because the “robust” economy was not to be found in regions like the Northeast and Midwest. The latter argument proved unconvincing to an electorate convinced Iraq and New Orleans were GOP national security fiascos. And, finally, nothing could persuade an outraged electorate to return a Republican majority which, in the interests of perpetuating itself in power, failed to protect House pages from predatory members of Congress.

By election day the public had concluded the Republican majority cared more about corporations than Americans; and, when the tsunami hit, the Cashocracy crumbled down upon many now former GOP members, who became the last, blameless victims of its stolid cupidity.

In hindsight, the Cashocracy would best have heeded President Theodore Roosevelt’s warning:

“The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.”

Exile on Main Street

December’s Children

Straggling back to Washington for the Republican Revolution’s death vigil, the 2006 election’s surviving GOP members bid anguished goodbyes to defeated friends and struggled to make sense of it all. Dazed and confused, some members managed to grasp the reality of their newly minted minority, while some still grapple with it. Out of this former group, a distinct vision has emerged concerning how House Republicans can revitalize and redeem themselves in the estimation of their fellow Americans.

Got Live if You Want It

“Restoration Republicans” are best considered Reagan’s grandchildren. Like their Reagan-Democratic parents, Restoration Republicans were attracted to our party by the intellectual, cultural, and moral components and proven practical benefits of philosophical conservatism. Transcending talking points and political cant, these Restoration Republicans’ are devoted to restoring human soul’s centrality to public policy decisions; and focusing these policies on preserving and perpetuating the permanent things of our evanescent earthly existence which surpass all politics in importance.

The enduring ideals of Restoration Republicans are succinctly enumerated by Russell Kirk in his book, The Politics of Prudence:

1) The conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order.

2) The conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity.

3) Conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription – that is, of things established by immemorial usage.

4) Conservatives are guided by the principle of prudence.

5) Conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety.

6) Conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability.

7) Conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked.

8) Conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism.

9) The Conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passion.

10) The thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society.

Given how the Cashocracy repeatedly violated these principles during its descent into oblivion, and how the Democrats’ 2006 consequent rallying cry was “change,” this tenth ideal merits deeper contemplation. For to understand it fully is to fully understand why Restoration Republicans, who are convinced we live amidst a crucible of liberty, proclaim our minority must emulate and implement the philosophical conservatism of Ronald Reagan and the fiery integrity of Theodore Roosevelt in the cause of empowering Americans and strengthening their eternal institutions of faith, family, community and country. Again, Kirk:

“Therefore the intelligent conservative endeavors to reconcile the claims of Permanence and the claims of Progression. He [or she] thinks that the liberal and the radical, blind to the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage bequeathed to us, in an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious Terrestrial Paradise. The conservative, in short, favors reasoned and temperate progress; he [or she] is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old.

“Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body. A body that has ceases to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.”

Love You Live

Kirk’s words compelled Restoration Republicans to empathetically assess our nation’s age and circumstances; and ponder the direction and scope of the changes our American community requires.

In making these determinations, Restoration Republicans draw parallels between and inspiration from America’s “Greatest Generation.”

Our Greatest Generation faced and surmounted a quartet of generational challenges born of industrialization:

1) Economic, social, and political upheavals;

2) A second world war against abject evil;

3) The rise of the Soviet “super-state” as a strategic threat and rival model of governance; and

4) The civil rights movement’s moral struggle to equally ensure the God given and constitutionally recognized rights of all Americans.

Today, our generation of Americans must confront and transcend a quartet of generational challenges born of globalization:

1) Economic, social and political upheavals;

2) A third world war against abject evil;

3) The rise of the communist Chinese “super-state” as a strategic threat and rival model of governance; and

4) Moral relativism’s erosion of our nation’s foundational, self-evident truths.

The critical difference between the challenges conquered by the Greatest Generation and the challenges crises confronting our generation of Americans is this: they faced their crises consecutively; we face our crises simultaneously.

In response to these generational challenges to our free republic, Restoration Republicans have drawn upon the roots of their philosophical conservatism to affirm the truth America does not exist to emulate others, America exists to inspire the world; and to advance the policy paradigm of American Excellence, which rests upon a foundation of liberty, and the four cornerstones of sovereignty, security, prosperity and verities.

Individually and collectively, American Excellence’s foundation and four cornerstones are reinforced by these policy principles:

1) Our liberty is granted not by the pen of a government bureaucrat, but is authored by the hand of almighty God.

2) Our sovereignty rests not in our soil, but in our souls.

3) Our security is guaranteed not by the thin hopes of appeasement, but by the moral and physical courage of our troops defending us in hours of maximum danger;

4) Our prosperity is produced not by the tax hikes and spending sprees of politicians, but by the innovation and perspiration of free people engaged in free enterprise.

5) Our cherished truths and communal virtues are preserved and observed not by a coerced political correctness, but by our reverent citizenry’s voluntary celebration of the culture of life.

Restoration Republicans conclude, therefore, we must be Champions of American Freedom in challenging new millennium to keep our America a community of destiny inspired and guided by the virtuous genius of our free people; and forever blessed by the unfathomable grace of God.

Metamorphosis

It will not be easy, given the root public policy question of our times. In the Age of Industrialization, President Theodore Roosevelt empathized with Americans’ feelings of powerlessness in the face of the economic, social and political forces radically altering or terminating their traditional, typically agrarian, lives. Writing years later in his book A Humane Economy, the economist Wilhelm Ropke examined the impacts upon human beings by these forces, which he collectively termed “mass society”:

“(T)he disintegration of the social structure (generates) a profound upheaval in the outward conditions of each individual’s life, thought, and work. Independence is smothered; men are uprooted and taken out of the close-woven social texture in which they were secure; true communities are broken up in favor of more universal but impersonal collectivities in which the individual is no longer a person in this own right; the inward, spontaneous social fabric is loosened in favor of mechanical, soulless organization, with its outward compulsion; all individuality is reduced to one plane of uniform normality; the area of individual action, decision, and responsibility shrinks in favor of collective planning and decision; the whole of life becomes uniform and standard mass life, ever more subject to party politics, ‘nationalization,’ and ‘socialization.’”

In that epoch, the root public policy question was how to protect Americans’ traditional rights to order, justice, and freedom from being usurped by corporate or governmental centralization. Aware of this quandary, T.R. responded by taming an emerging capitalist oligarchy which considered itself above the laws and, thereby, soothing the economic, social, and political anxieties of urban industrial workers which threatened the stability of our free republic. Over time, from T.R.’s seminal efforts arose the industrial-welfare state which, in a tenuous detente, divided solutions to Americans’ economic and social upheavals between and within both centralized corporations and government.

No Security

In this Age of Globalization, however, while Americans are vexed by their seeming inability to influence the potent economic, social and political forces radically reshaping their lives, American corporations are busy decentralizing into “virtual corporations” reliant upon the outsourcing of jobs to other nations to obtain lower labor costs and evade cumbersome domestic laws and regulations. Such “rootless capital” being sent around the world in a keystroke to more “competitive markets” has cost Americans their livelihoods; reduced their wages and employer provided benefits; diminished their unions’ memberships; eclipsed their optimism regarding our economy’s continued vitality; and, in cases of extreme economic distress and angst, destroyed their marriages and dreams for their children.

The failure to realize the seismic ramifications to normal Americans of this tectonic economic shift was a primary cause of the Cashocracy’s collapse. As rising corporate profits and Wall Street bull markets became increasingly divorced from working Americans’ prosperity, the Cashocrats clung ever more tightly to their corporate benefactors without grasping Americans had concluded what is “good for GM” is no longer necessarily good for them.

The advent of virtual corporations and transient international capital has ended the old industrial-welfare state model of governance, wherein solutions to Americans’ economic and social anxieties were the shared burdens of centralized corporations and government. The stark choice is now between increasing the centralized power of the federal government or decentralization power into the hands of individuals, families and communities.

Steel Wheels

In their urgency to replace their lost or slashed corporate benefits, Americans will be sorely tempted to further centralize federal government to do it. But expanding the authority and compulsory powers of the federal government will be injurious to the American people. Big government doesn’t stop chaos; big government is chaos. By usurping the rightful powers of individuals beneath its bureaucracy’s steel wheels, highly centralized government alienates individuals and atomizes communities. Once more, Ropke speaks to the heart of the matter:

“The temptation of centrism has been great at all times, as regards both theory and political action. It is the temptation of mechanical perfection and of uniformity at the expense of freedom. Perhaps Montesquieu was right when he said that it is the small minds, above all, which succumb to this temptation. Once the mania of uniformity and centralization spreads and once the centrists begin to lay down the law of the land, then we are in the presence of one of the most serious danger signals warning us of the impending loss of freedom, humanity, and the health of society.”

Only liberty unleashes Americans to establish the true roots of a holistic American order – the voluntary and virtuous individual, familial, and communal associations which invigorate and instruct a free people conquering challenges. In contrast, centralized and, thus, inherently unaccountable government suffocates liberty, order and justice by smothering and severing citizens’ voluntary bonds within mediating, non-governmental institutions; and, thereby, stifles our free people’s individual and collective solutions to challenges. In consequence, the temptation for more centralized government must be fought to prevent turning sovereign Americans from the masters of their destiny into the serfs of governmental dependency.

Hot Rocks

Fully versed in this verity, Restoration Republicans have made their decision – power to the people. Thus, in this Age of Globalization, Restoration Republicans vow to:

1) Empower the sovereign American people to protect and promote their God-given and constitutionally recognized and protected rights.

2) Promote the decentralization of federal governmental powers to the American people or to their most appropriate and closest unit of government.

3) Defend Americans’ enduring moral order of faith, family, community and country from all enemies.

4) Foster a dynamic market economy of entrepreneurial opportunity for all Americans.

5) Honor and nurture a “humanity of scale” in Americans’ relations and endeavors.

Further, while these Restoration Republicans will be releasing a more detailed program in the future, the above will form the basis of their concrete policy proposals.

Get Your Ya-Ya’s Out

Mister/Madam Speaker,

My constituents are honest, hard-working, and intelligent people who are bearing the brunt of the generational challenges facing our nation. They have lost manufacturing and every manner of jobs due to globalization and, especially, the predatory trade practices of communist China. Throughout these economically anxious times, they spend sleepless nights wondering if they will be able to afford to keep their jobs; their houses; their health care; their hopes for their children. In the War for Freedom, they have buried, mourned, and honored their loved ones lost in the battle against our nation and all of civilization’s barbaric enemies. And, every day, they struggle to make sense of an increasingly perverse culture disdainful of and destructive to faith, truths, virtue and beauty, if the existence of these permanent things is even admitted.

True, they differ on specific solutions to their pressing issues. But they do agree Washington isn’t serving their concerns. They agree this storied representative institution is increasingly detached from the daily realities of their lives. And they remind me that when we enter this House – Their House – we enter as guests, who must honor the leap of faith they took in letting us in and allowing us to serve them.

With my constituents, I utterly agree. While it is not my purpose here to discuss the majority party, let me be clear as to my own: House Republicans have no business practicing business as usual. My constituents, our country, and this Congress deserve better.

And we will provide it!

Our Republican minority has members who know America isn’t an economy, America is a country.

Our Republican minority has members who know the only thing worth measuring in money is greed.

Our Republican minority has members with the heart to put individuals ahead of abstractions; people ahead of politics; souls ahead of systems.

Our Republican minority has members who have seen sorrow seep down a widow’s cheek and joy shine from a child’s eyes.

Yes, our Republican minority has members who know our deeds on behalf of our sovereign constituents must accord with Wordsworth’s poetic prayer:

“And then a wish: my best and favorite aspiration mounts with yearning toward some higher song of philosophic truth which cherishes our daily lives.”

It is these Republicans whose service in this Congress will redeem our party by honoring the sacred trust of the majestic American people who, in their virtuous genius, will transcend these transformational times and strengthen our exceptional nation’s revolutionary experiment in human freedom.

With these Republicans, I hereby throw in my lot and pledge my best efforts on behalf of my constituents and our country.

May God continue to grace, guard, guide and bless our community of destiny, the United States of America.

Blast From The Past

CNN has a page with several political ads from the past. The ads currently in the archives are...

From 1952...Eisenhower's "Man From Abilene" and "Eisenhower Answers America", as well as Adlai Stevenson's "Music Man" ad.

From 1960...Kennedy's "Unoriginal Nixon" ad, where Eisenhower could not come up with one original idea from then-VP Richard Nixon.

From 1964...Lyndon Johnson's "Daisy" ad, where he scared America away from Barry Goldwater.

From 1968...Hubert H. Humphrey's "Laughing at Agnew" ad...a forgotten classic.

From 1984...Ronald Reagan's "Bear In The Woods" and "Morning in America" ads, the epitome of positive campaigning and playing to one's strengths.

From 1988...George H. W. Bush's "Can We Trust Dukakis?" ads, as well as Michael Dukakis' "Quayle: Just a Heartbeat Away" ad. This campaign had a lot of negative ads on both sides. Note: I had also mistakenly attributed the "Willie Horton" ad to Bush's campaign, but it turns out that it was an independent PAC that put that out. Thanks to Brian Kirwin for the correction on American history.

Go peer back into political history!

Is Ron Paul Pulling a Barry Goldwater?

Is the GOP getting "Goldwatered" all over again?

Allow me to explain.

In 1964, our nation was in a different place. We were still in the midst of a Cold War. However, we were also in a period of an expanding government supported by Republicans and Democrats both. We were coming off of a boom period of the 50's, and were still riding a good wave of growth. Also, in 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson rode a wave of popularity, big promises, and the emotion people felt by the assasination of John F. Kennedy.

Opposing Johnson in the 1964 Presidential election was Senator Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was considered to be extreme, crazy, and "too far-right" for the nation. Goldwater was a proponent of smaller government, fiscal conservatism, and strong national defense. While most of the nation either laughed or scratched their heads at Goldwater's proposed policies and stances on issues, Goldwater had a rabid base of support that believed in what he was standing for.

Goldwater lost in the largest electoral landslide in history.

However, after Johnson's mediocre "Great Society" and escalation of Vietnam, to Nixon's Watergate issues, to the sluggishness of Gerald Ford's presidency, and the malaise and listlessness of Jimmy Carter's tenure...Goldwater's policies and stances became front-and-center in the form of a man who believed in them and improved upon them.....Ronald Reagan.

Is Ron Paul doing the same thing within the Republican Party? Is he planting the seeds for an ideological shift that will lead to an event similar to the Reagan Revolution?

Think about it. Paul has a rabid base of support, a growing amount of interest in his ideals, and a somewhat-radical change of direction and policy. Is Paul planting the seeds for a more-libertarian GOP that will become a popular mainstream philosophy? Will it take another term or two of big-government politics for people to accept a change in direction and philosophy like what Paul is promoting.

The other question is...if not Paul himself, who would play Reagan to Paul's Goldwater?

This whole scenario is interesting, if nothing else, and could foreshadow a shift in American political thought and direction.

Have Symbols of America Been Reduced to This?

They're turning G.I. Joe from a "Real American Hero" to a UN Peacekeeping Officer for next year's live-action adaptation of G.I. Joe.

You've GOT to be freaking kidding me. They name claim that G.I. Joe stands for "Global Integrated Joint Operation Entity". WTF is THAT supposed to mean? It definitely does not mean "Real American Hero".

Lest we forget, the whole G.I. Joe character, story, phenomenon...it's all based upon a real-life U.S. Marine from World War II, Sgt. Mitchell Paige. Paige was a recipient of the Medal of Honor...he single-handedly held off a Japanese assault on the hill his platoon was defending after every other man in his platoon was killed.

It's Mitchell Paige's face that is the face of the G.I. Joe action figure. His only request when he allowed them to use his face was that G.I. Joe ALWAYS remain a United States Marine. Now they want to paint him as some kind of United Nations lackey!?!?!?

When I was a kid, I had a G.I. Joe lunchbox...and they definitely were not wearing UN colors.

Oh, that means that he cannot shoot at the Cobra Commander unless Cobra shoots at him first. Hasbro is attempting to backtrack and say "oh, that's not what we're really trying to do with G.I. Joe". However, I highly doubt that.

Here's a transcript from Glenn Beck's satire and discussion of this.

First they make Captain America look weak and then kill him off, now G.I. Joe has to answer to someone other than America...how much longer can we sit back and watch these characters, which were once icons of patriotism and American pride for generations of children, be turned into symbols of weakness and subservience to international bureaucratic organizations that have been miserable failures and whose existence has a tendency to usurp the sovereignty of our nation?

Many of you, mostly liberals, will think I'm making too big of a deal of this. However, this definitely symbolizes something bigger than just the change in a storyline for a fictional character. It's a change in the attitude towards how our country is portrayed to children.

(h/t Podium contributor Paul Cave for passing this along to me)

"The Speech" - 1964

This speech is widely regarded as the origins of the Reagan Revolution. Listen, learn, reflect, and enjoy.

This link is courtesy of "Cliff-" at AR-15 Forums.

Weekly Podium - "No Mo' Rove"

(Cross-posted at The New Dominion)

On August 31st, one of the most prevalent and controversial figures of the past 7 years will leave the White House and the side of President Bush.

There you have it, the understatement of the year.

Karl Rove has been many things while working for the Bush Administration. He's been a political genius, a master of backroom politics, controversial, confrontational, and highly influential.

His influence in getting George W. Bush elected in 2000 was notable; his work on Bush's reelection in 2004 was near-historic. Despite doubts and struggles in Iraq, and a rabid anti-conservative sentiment amongst liberals, he managed to guide Bush to an indisputable victory over John Kerry despite having greater obstacles standing in Bush's path to victory.

His influence has earned him nicknames like "Boy Genius" (for his fair-haired, round-faced appearance), "Evil Genius" (mostly by Democrats), and other "genius"-related titles. Love him or hate him, you can't deny that the man was smart when it came to pulling strings and making power moves.

The question that remains, though, is if Rove has had any kind of a long-term positive impact on the national GOP, or will his efforts prove to be detrimental to the future of the Republican Party.

Rove did do our whole nation a big favor, in my personal opinion, by keeping us from a minimum of 4 years under John Kerry. I know that many Republicans (and a few Democrats who didn't care for Kerry) that would agree with that sentiment. Rove also knew how to motivate certain sectors of the GOP to gain support when needed, especially the hawkish conservatives for war issues and evangelicals on social issues.

In a recent interview with Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal, Rove stated that he believes that President Bush (and himself, of course) have done a lot to keep the GOP alive nationally, and that a positive legacy for the Republican Party will endure from this presidency.

To an extent, Rove is right. A focus on preventing terrorism within our borders and within the borders of our allies has become of higher importance and will be so for a long time. It was the 2004 Bush reelection that allowed for the nomination of conservative judges John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, which is a lifetime position.

However, Rove has been a big part of some of the Republican Party's biggest disappointments and embarrassing fiascoes.

He was a big part of the Valerie Plame debacle (although, let's be honest, Richard Armitage was the man that should have been targeted first, foremost, and above all...and he wasn't). His name is popping up as part of the Alberto Gonzales witch hunt. It has been noted that one of those who were poorly advising President Bush on Iraq was Rove himself. Rove was a proponent of the Amnesty Bill, and was part of the Harriet Miers quagmire.

In his Wall Street Journal interview, Rove opines that his greatest error was not acting quickly to replace scandal-tainted Republicans in Congress, and that was a key factor in the GOP's loss of congressional power in 2006. This admission does highlight a great error of Rove's (and other GOP leaders) that could have long-lasting effects on the party.

However, in that same interview, Rove makes an observation that puts the 2006 election results into a true perspective about how leftward the nation really leans. He points out that the 15 House seats that swung control to the Democrats were decided by a combined 85,000 votes, as well as the close defeat in Montana (let's not forget the Virginia loss, which was very close, too).

Many people state that Karl Rove's campaign tactics were simply a tweaked version of what Democrats have been doing for years, and that Rove brought these tactics to the GOP. To a certain degree, I am inclined to agree...but I believe the GOP, as a whole, will eventually reject these tactics.

Rumor mills have been abound with talk that Rove may join the campaign of one of the GOP frontrunners, but Rove has dismissed these rumors. At least one campaign, Fred Thompson's, has also dismissed these statements as rumors and nothing more.

How history judges George W. Bush will have an obvious effect on how history judges Karl Rove. If Bush, long after his term is up, is seen in a more positive light in the memories of America, Rove will most likely be championed for the GOP victories from 2000 to 2004. However, should this presidency be frowned upon when America reflects, Rove's involvement in the many negative aspects of the Bush presidency will overshadow his accomplishments.

Towards the end of Rove's interview with Paul Gigot, he makes a statement that is very true, if not contradictory to some of the Bush Administration's management of the nation. Rove states that, in regards to 2008, "I don't want to be Pollyanish about it, but if we keep our nerve and represent big things, we'll win."

That is a statement that I've been trying to make for a while now, and I find it somewhat amusing that, as he walks out the doors of the White House, Rove believes the same thing...even though one would agree that the Bush presidency has been a bit more focused on the "small things" than most Republicans and conservatives would have preferred.

In reference to Rove's statement that he first floated the idea of resigning from his post a year ago, Michelle Malkin quipped, "Imagine how much better off the White House and the Republican Party might be now if he had, in fact, left a year ago."

Given the lack of success over the past year from Rove's tactics, I can't say that I disagree with Malkin's statement...and history might also agree with that, as well. One thing we cannot deny is that Karl Rove has had a lot of influence on our nation, what is debatable is how much of that influence was positive, and how much is negative.

1 Year Ago Today...Jim Webb Caught a Break

The liberal bloggers are having a field day with today being the 1 year anniversary of "Macacagate". George Allen's use of a word that nobody, not even Allen, could really come up with a consensus as to what it means is what led to Allen's downfall in last year's elections.

Seriously, since nobody could come up with a real, definitive answer to what "Macaca" means, many people jumped on the "racial slur" bandwagon, even though there has been evidence to the contrary.

Nonetheless, it was a stupid move by Allen, and his mishandling of the ensuing media frenzy propped up a Jim Webb victory...because, if you had been following the polls up until that point, Allen had a solid 10-15 point lead in most polls and was holding pretty steady.

However, holding up Webb's victory as a sign of a Blue Virginia is a perfect example of propaganda for the Democrats...because really, Jim Webb did not win the election last year, George Allen simply lost it. Any revisions to the history of the 2006 U.S. Senate campaign in Virginia would be a serious abortion of justice to the facts.

Still...chalk the gross mis-handling of the "Macaca" incident to George Allen and his campaign.

Weekly Podium: "Putting the 'Right' Into Focus"

(Cross-posted at The New Dominion)

Conservatives and Republicans...whether you are one and the same or not, both the ideology and the party are suffering through some hard times in the public eye. However, maybe if the Republicans got back to the priorities that won them the favor of the American public in the first place, things wouldn't continue the way they are.

Many pundits will point to Iraq or Bush's general unpopularity as the anchor that weighs down the GOP. However, I believe that the push of topics like gay marriage and abortion to the forefront of the GOP agenda is what is the true anchor to the party's ship.

Now, before many of you social conservatives get riled up and start firing off angry e-mails and comments, allow me to explain why.

During the first two Republican presidential debates, there were a lot of references to Ronald Reagan, and how his legacy should be used as an inspiration for conservatives and the Republican Party of the future. This is true...Reagan's legacy should be an inspiration for the future. However, I believe there is a gross misrepresentation as to what that legacy is.

Leaders of the so-called "Religious Right" has espoused the viewpoint that they "got Reagan elected" in the first place. They have lumped Reagan in with many of the religious conservatives of the past 25 years, with strong viewpoints against homosexuality and abortion. Watching these presidential debates, it was notable that many of those who are more closely aligned with the Religious Right's stances on these social issues also attempted to paint themselves as being in-line with Reagan's political stances and philosophies.

However, this would be a fallacy.

If one were to look back at Reagan's presidency, one would see that Reagan never made gay marriage or abortion part of his agenda. While Reagan had a moral objection to gay marriage and abortion, he never actively pursued any legislation to limit or abolish these practices. Reagan knew what was right in his own mind, and what was right for the American public, and pursuing constitutional amendments against gay marriage is not something I believe Ronald Reagan would have ever championed.

Reagan knew that there were certain issues of mass importance, and other issues that would have a lesser imapct. He prioritized these issues, and the Republican Party of today should do the same.

Roe v. Wade made abortion legal, and it would take another court case such as this to overturn such a ruling. While pursuing the abolition of certain practices, such as partial-birth abortions (which even a number of those in favor of abortion feel to be an inhumane procedure), is a noteworthy cause...legislation to completely outlaw abortion is not something that the current American public is going to be in favor of.

To attempt to widen the scope of government influence over social issues like abortion and gay marriage is increasing the size of government, period. Pardon me if I'm wrong, but I thought that increases of government's power and control over the people was part of the liberal agenda.

Let's look at what is most important for our nation as a whole. A strong economy to keep unemployment low (as it has been) and strong national defense (both military and covert intelligence) to further protect our soil from both terrorists and other rogue threats. These are important to our nation's future, and are really things that conservatives have traditionally done a good job with managing.

I feel I speak for many conservatives when I say that I don't particularly care if gays get married or not. It does not affect me, nor does it have an effect on the majority of the population. There are plenty of gay couples that make excellent parents, as well. Dick Cheney's daughter and her partner are a perfect example of that.

While we can look to religion for inspiration and guidance for our morals, we must remember that we must learn that there is a separation of religion from government. It is this same separation that makes us different from the Islamic-based governments of the Middle Eastern nations that despise our freedoms.

We must keep our borders secure and our immigration process easier to navigate for those who wish to take the legal and rightful path to enjoy the fruits of freedom that come with residence within our borders. You saw the vocal opposition to the Bush-backed immigration reform bill, you know that conservative voters favor immigration enforcement and reform, not amnesty and loophole-filled legislation.

Until recently, the migration of conservatives from the Republican Party has been a problem for the GOP. The proverbial bleeding has stopped a bit, from what recent polls have stated, but the Republicans need to realize something. Conservatives feel like the GOP has abandoned them. In fact, as a conservative myself, I feel that the Republican Party needs to realize that certain issues are only catering to certain groups of conservatives.

However, if you want the support of the majority of conservatives, instead of certain vocal groups, the GOP must get back to the core issues that it has long stood for. Strong national defense, limited government, and economic prosperity. These are the core issues of the conservative base, and have traditionally been the core issues of the Republican Party as well.

It's the principles that the party's icon, Ronald Reagan, stood for. If we're to look back at the Reagan legacy to look forward into the future, then we must first realize what that legacy truly was. Bantering about wedge issues is not, nor has it ever been, the legacy of Reagan's presidency.

That legacy was about creating a "big tent", where evangelicals and secular citizens could join together and move America forward. It was about spreading peace through strength, economic prosperity, forward thinking, and allowing Americans to live their lives and chase their dreams without paying a tax for it. This is the legacy the Republican Party needs to attempt to learn from.