CONSERVATISM

WHAT IS CONSERVATISM?

A CONSERVATIVE VISION STATEMENT (as proposed by American Thinker)
"We believe in an America that lives and works together, with limited government, under God."

TEN PRINCIPLES OF CONSERVATISM (HumanEvents.com)
01. GOD: God’s Law Governs Nations as Well as Men.
02. LIFE: Life Is the First God-Given Right
03. FREEDOM: Freedom of Conscience is the Soul of Liberty
04. FAMILY: Marriage and Family Come Before the State and Deserve Its Protection
05. U.S. CONSTITUTION: The Constitution Means What It Says
06. NATIONAL SECURITY: National Defense Is Just That
07. PRIVATE PROPERTY: Private Property is the Servant of Freedom
08. LIMITED GOVERNMENT: Taxes Are Justified Only to Fund Necessary Government Spending
09. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY: Government Dependency is the Seed of Tyranny
10. TRADITION: We Should Strive to Give Our Children a Better Country

2009 RESOLUTIONS FOR AMERICA (Heritage Foundation)
01. TRANSPARENT GOVERNMENT
02. END OF TARP
03. IRAN WITHOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS
04. NO NEW TAXES
05. CHEAP ENERGY
06. STATE-DRIVEN EDUCATION
07. NO SOCIALIZED HEALTH CARE
08. FREEDOM TO WORSHIP
09. NON-ACTIVIST JUDGES
10. MISSILE DEFENSE
11. SUPPORT THE TROOPS

WHAT CONSERVATIVES WANT IN A CANDIDATE (Sean Hannity)
1) To be the party of National security:
a) Victory in Iraq
b) Fully support NSA, Patriot act, tough interrogations, keeping Gitmo open
c) A Candidate that pledges to NOT demean our military while they are fighting for their Country. eg Harry Reid: "the surge has failed", "the war is lost"
d) Candidate that promises to ensure that our veterans can live out their lives in dignity.
2) The party who pledges to oppose Appeasement:
a) The party will oppose any and all efforts to negotiate with dictators of the world in places like Iran, Syria, N.Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela without "pre-conditions."
3) The party Pledges to support Tax CUTS, and fiscal responsibility:
a) The American people are NOT under taxed, Government Spends too much
b) The Candidate who Pledges to ELIMINATE and VOTE AGAINST ALL Earmarks
c) The Candidate pledges to BALANCE the budget
4) The party Pledges to be a supporter of "Energy Independence"
a) supports Immediate drilling in Anwar and the 48 states
b) Building new refineries
c) Begin building and using Nuclear Facilities
d) expand coal mining
e) realistic steward of the environment while simultaneously working with private industry to develop the new energy technologies for the future, with the goal being that America becomes completely energy independent within the next 15 years.
5) The Candidate pledges to secure our borders completely within 12 months:
a) build all necessary fences
b) use all available technology to help and support agents at the border
c) train and hire agents as needed
6) Healthcare:
The party will look for Free-Market solutions to the problems facing the Healthcare industry, and will vigorously oppose any efforts to "nationalize healthcare".
a) The Candidate will fight for Individual health savings accounts, that includes "catastrophic insurance" for every American, so people can control their own healthcare choices.
7) Education:
a) The Candidate pledges to "save" American children from the failing educational system
b) The Candidate will fight to break the unholy alliance of the Democratic party and teachers unions, which at best has institutionalized mediocrity, and has failed children across the country
c) fight for "CHOICE" in education and let parents decided) fight for vouchers for parents
8) Social Security and Medicare:
a) The Candidate will "save" social security and medicare from bankruptcy.
b) Options will include "private retirement" funds so people can "control" their own destiny.
9) Judges
a) The Candidate vows to support ONLY judges who recognize that their job is to interpret the Constitution, and NOT legislate from the bench.
10) American Dream:
The Candidate accepts as their duty and responsibility to educate, inform, and remind people that with the blessings of Freedom comes a Great responsibility. That Government's primary goal is to preserve, protect and defend our God given gift of freedom.That Governments do not have the ability to solve all of our problems, and to take away all of our fears and concerns. We need their pledge that we will be the candidate that promotes Individual liberty, Capitalism, a strong national defense and will support policies that encourage such...It is our fundamental belief that limited Government, and Greater individual responsibility will insure the continued prosperity and success for future generations.We the people who believe in the words of Ronald Reagan, that we are "the best last hope for man on this earth," "a shining city on a hill," and that our best days are before us if our Government will simply trust the American people.


WHO CONSERVATIVES ARE (Rush Limbaugh, 2009)
We love people
When we look out over the United States of America, when we are anywhere, when we see a group of people, such as this or anywhere, we see Americans. We see human beings. We don't see groups. We don't see victims. We don't see people we want to exploit. What we see -- what we see is potential. We do not look out across the country and see the average American, the person that makes this country work. We do not see that person with contempt. We don't think that person doesn't have what it takes. We believe that person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path like onerous taxes, regulations and too much government.

We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be.
We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. Liberty, Freedom. And the pursuit of happiness. Those of you watching at home may wonder why this is being applauded. We conservatives think all three are under assault...

We don't want to tell anybody how to live.
That's up to you. If you want to make the best of yourself, feel free. If you want to ruin your life, we'll try to stop it, but it's a waste. We look over the country as it is today, we see so much waste, human potential that's been destroyed by 50 years of a welfare state. By a failed war on poverty.

We love the people of this country.
And we want this to be the greatest country it can be, but we do understand, as people created and endowed by our creator, we're all individuals. We resist the effort to group us. We resist the effort to make us feel that we're all the same, that we're no different than anybody else. We're all different. There are no two things or people in this world who are created in a way that they end up with equal outcomes. That's up to them. They are created equal, given the chance.

We don't hate anybody.
We don't -- I mean, the racism in this country, if you ask me, I know many people in this audience -- let me deal with this head on. You know what the cliche is, a conservative: racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen of America, if you were paying attention, I know you were, the racism in our culture was exclusively and fully on display in the Democrat primary last year.... more of Rush's speech


WHY CONSERVATIVES ADMIRE RONALD REAGAN? (Heritage Foundation)
"Ronald Reagan definitely knew all about breaking the status quo. He deregulated oil to lower the cost of gasoline and unshackle the free market. He cut taxes, enabling Americans to apply their hard work in their jobs and at home and then see the results of their efforts. He called attention to the failures of a public education system that had very little to show for all the dollars spent on it. Perhaps most importantly, Reagan showed the world that communism, terrorism and totalitarianism were intolerable and that America must not be held hostage to enemies at home or abroad."

*REAGAN'S CONSERVATISM (Rush Limbaugh)
"Reagan's main idea was the main idea of the American founding—the idea of individual liberty—and the policies that he supported, both internationally and domestically, grew from that. America was founded on the idea that our individual freedoms derive from God, not from government, and that government should protect those freedoms and never violate them. Reagan argued, and history has shown, that America does best when it is true to its original idea. It does best when its people are left free to work in their individual self-interest—not meant in the sense of being selfish, but in the sense that they are left free to work to improve their own lives and the lives of their families, and for the good of their communities and of the nation at large. The biggest problem with the argument that conservatives should get beyond Reagan, then, is that the idea of individual liberty will never go out of style as long as America exists. To argue that the Reagan era is over is to argue that the era of freedom is over. And to argue that conservatives should abandon Reagan's principles is to argue that they should stop being conservatives.

There is no such thing, at least in America, as "big-government conservatism." A government that abides by the Constitution and protects our God-given freedoms is by definition limited. Rather than carving out blocs of voters by surrendering their principles, conservatives need to continue to tell the American people as a whole that the ideas of individual liberty and limited government are right and that the policies that come from those ideas work best to produce prosperity. Conservatives don't need to reinvent themselves. They need the courage to be once again who they were."

* REAGAN: A TIME FOR CHOOSING (aka "The Speech", Reagan, 1964)
* REAGAN: GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM (Reagan, 1978)


TRADITION'S IMPORTANCE
* The Constitution from a Conservative Perspective
* Faith and the American Founding: Illustrating Religion's Influence
* The Mythical "Wall of Separation": How a Misused Metaphor Changed Church–State Law, Policy, and Discourse
* How to Read the Constitution: Self-Government and the Jurisprudence of Originalism.


DID YOU KNOW?
* RACIST PAST OF DEMOCRATS
* CHURCH & STATE SEPARATION IS A MYTH
* CONSERVATIVES OPPOSED BUSH


CONSERVATIVE LINKS
* Rush Limbaugh
* Michelle Malkin
* Sean Hannity
* Mark Levin
* Ann Coulter
* Free Republic