Politics - Introductory Concepts

What is Meant by the Term "Conservative?"

In modern parlance, a person who seeks to get back to the "small government" Constitutional roots upon which we were founded is called a "Constructionist." That is also what is meant by the word "Conservative." It originally referred to someone who was conservative about how much government we need.

Constructionists / Conservatives are wary of government, and want it limited to the bare essential functions like national defense; fire, and police services. Government was not meant to be a teat on which to suckle for all the other things we need. Yes, education, health care, food, jobs etc. are needs...but they are not rights that should be granted and provided by government.

Conservatives Are Not Uncompassionate

Many people think that - because we don't want to see assistance provided to the people by the government - Conservatives are uncompassionate and opposed to charity for the poor. But the fact is that we simply don't believe in government's ability to perform charity functions efficiently or corruption-free. We want to choose whom we give our assistance - rather than allow a bloated system run by beauracrats to steal our money and buy votes with it...all in the name of "compassion." That's a scam, and we are better than that. Lest you doubt that big business "movers-and-shakers" are the ones who drive charity, consider that "fat cat" big business Conservatives are who drive charitable contributing. Does that sound strange to you? Why? How much money do you suppose is given to charities by poor people? That money has to come from productive people with the means to build an orphanage or a hospital wing...and that can't be anyone but "fat cats."

To restate, Conservatives are picky about how money is used. When you seek to give to a charity, if you are halfway intelligent you will research that charity and see how efficient and corruption-free they are before you send them a check. Conservatives ask that question about government, and find them appallingly lacking...which should be no surprise to anyone. In essence, then, we decide that we do not wish to sink our heard-earned money into the government waste system. That doesn't mean we are selfish, it means we are prudent with the money we make to provide for our families and that we will also use to assist those charities we deem worthy of trust.

The Liberal Welfare State Has it's Roots in Socialism

By contrast, those who believe in "liberally" giving to the needy from the government treasure chest have to get that money from somewhere. Once you start that nonsense, you start to have a Welfare State - and you give away the power of the purse to corrupt politicians. Politicians are, themselves, the main problem. They all fall in love with the perks and the powers of their office and do their best to stay once they get there. It's human nature - for Republicans and for Democrats. The more power you give them over your life, the less freedom we all have.

Assistance and entitlements are noble, but they are a function of charity - NOT government. The only things we should expect from government are things like roads; fire and police protection; and national defense. Beyond that, the responsibility for our lives lies with ourselves. When we come up short - as most people will, on occasion - we have family and charity to turn to. When we empower government to give that assistance, we only empower a corrupt beauracratic system to plunder the money for that assistance from you and your family through taxes. They use that money to buy votes from the people they "assist" ... and it's anything but efficient and noble. How can anyone be of the opinion that the best people to entrust with our hard-earned money is a politician?! But that's exactly what a Liberal wants to do with our money. They somehow believe that the best solution for social ills lies in the mind of  a politician. They want to liberally use the highly corrupted power of the State, as did Karl Marx, to "make it all better" - rather than entrust the private sector that's made up of productive business men and women who have a track record of success.

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians. --Edward Langley

SERVICE MEANS SACRIFICE

I used to be of the mind that Republicans were more like our Founders than the Democrats are. And I used to think that more Republicans acted on principle than do Democrats. But I have come to realize that we are unlikely to see the kind of politicians and patriots we saw in the generations during, and for some time after, the American Revolution. Both parties suffer from the same beauracratic-inertia-driven mediocrity that will result anytime a society gets too complacent. Further, the politicians from both parties learn to love exercising their control over citizens.

The service and sacrifice displayed by the likes of Teddy Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and of course Washington and Lincoln, have little in common with the politicians of today. We can't even find a politician to run for office on either ticket who has a good service record in the military (with the exception of John McCain), because the type of person who is today attracted to office is not the kind who is attracted to true service.

Teddy Roosevelt resigned his perky, cushy job as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to lead the Rough Riders into combat. Can you imagine a DC-ensconced leader doing that today? Do I think that a politician has to have a combat background in order to be qualified for public office? Not necessarily, but if they had the opportunity and shirked it, then I'd say that casts a lot of doubt on their moral authority to give orders to troops who are putting their money where their mouths are. And yet, in our recent history...

Bill Clinton dodged the draft; John Kerry used his connections to do a token length of time in Vietnam so he could use it later for votes, then PUT HIMSELF IN for medals; and George W. Bush used his connections to hide out in the National Guard until it all blew over (back when the National Guard didn't get deployed). Can you imagine the Revolutionary War era leadership doing such things? They were saying (and doing) things like:

Give me liberty or give me death

and

I regret that I have but one life to give for my country

Yet our current politicians are on the national stage because our political parties can't find anyone better. It's a sign that we are on the decline that we can't do better political recruiting than this. Think about what that means in terms of the cycle enumerated in the following quote from Alexander Tyler. (No, he wasn't writing about the United States. This quote is well over one hundred years old. Tyler was writing about the fall of the Athenian Republic)

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."   

COMPLACENCY AND POLITICAL APATHY WEAKEN US

It is the complacency of the public and the resulting lackluster political climate that we have to watch out for - not one party vs. another. That's why our Founders were all about individualism and limiting our dependence upon government. We need desperately to relearn that lesson, but the challenge to that is how good we have it America. Our prosperity makes it unlikely that most people will feel inspired to act or even to stay informed - until it is too late. We have it good because of the contributions of the great people in our history, but we can lose it all through apathy about politics.

WE HAVE IT PRETTY GOOD IN AMERICA

In America, we have it pretty good. We have no Gestapo that kicks in our door in the middle of the night to take our family members to the gulags. In fact, we have little fear of our police at all. Even when police abuse does happen, we feel outrage and get on the war path to do something about it because "we have rights," by Gosh! Do you know how rare that is the world? Most countries - even civilized countries - cannot say this. And, of course, our prosperity in America is unprecedented. If all these things were not true, we would not feel that we had the luxury of knowing more about Cher's dating habits than we do about our senators. So, in one sense, our apathy on the subject of politics is a pretty good statement on our society. But again, apathy leads to...well, you can see where I'm going.

MOST PEOPLE FEEL ENTITLED TO THEIR POLITICAL OPINIONS

Whether they have any training on the subject or not - or whether they have studied on the subject or not, people have strong opinions on politics. But understanding politics is not innate. Like anything else, political wisdom cannot happen without investigation and - even more importantly - debate. After all, if one's thoughts are never challenged, it's easy to believe many half-baked ideas...and that can have serious repercussions for decades to come when you are talking about politics. I have seen - and expect to continue seeing - this in my own journey, of course.

Nothing has as much capacity to impact your life as politics. And yet few people can articulate even the most fundamental concepts, or the current state of affairs, because they give the subject so little thought.

DON'T ROCK THE VOTE (BABY) UNLESS YOU'RE INFORMED

My 'Political BaseCamp' is a topical web meant for everyone who realizes what I have written above but has no idea how to make an impact - or even how to make sense of it all in the first place. Of course, I am on that same path myself, and that's why this site is here. I like to think that if you are reading this then you are someone who - like me - wants to choose your causes wisely and vote responsibly. After all, despite the many "get the vote out" campaigns that come and go, it's scary to consider people out there voting just for the sake of voting. It's important to have an informed opinion on issues before pulling the lever (umm...okay...using the Florida-proof touch screen computers) - or you are likely to do more harm than good.