November 10, 2008
The election is over, and Barack Obama is the new President of the United States of America. A Real Clear Politics average of national polls showed Obama ahead of McCain by nearly seven percentage points before the election, which Obama proved by winning both the Electoral College and the popular vote. Hence, the Democrats have control of both the White House and Congress for the next four years.
In this Democrat sweep, conservative Republicans get the blame.
Counterfeit Conservatism Caused Collapse
The fact of the matter is that President Bush and the Republicans who dominated Congress during most of his administration governed as anything but conservatives. Except during election season, it was difficult to find any trace of conservative principles among incumbents within the Republican Party. During their tenure, Republican governance was characterized by out-of-control spending, record-setting earmarks, affirmative action programs for corporate wrongdoers, corrupt relations with special interests, and sexual scandal. While they often described themselves as "conservatives," their walk was very different from their talk.
The names voters associate with Republicans do not evoke visions of commitment to traditional conservative values: Jack Abramoff, Mark Foley, Larry Craig, Tom Delay, Ted Stevens, Alberto Gonzalez, Boeing, Halliburton. Neither do the programs: No Child Left Behind, The Bridge to Nowhere, Amnesty for Illegals. During the period of Republican hegemony, no real ground was gained on reforming entitlements, no major effort was made to curb abortion (or even abortion funding), and the national debt as a percentage of gross domestic product rose to a 50-year high!
Few Republicans in leadership in government during the past decade have been authentic conservatives. At best, they have been counterfeit conservatives, which no doubt accounts for why Republicans lost so many seats in 2006 and why they appear ready to lose more seats and the Presidency this November.
In the aftermath of the election, the Republican Party undoubtedly has the time to engage in serious introspection. Hopefully, its leaders will come to understand that conservatism is not just a "label" or even a "movement." It is a way of life.
Principles of True Conservatism
Because of the divergence between the words and deeds of those who have called themselves conservatives, there is a lack of clarity of what it really means to be a "conservative." Conservatives are sometimes confused with libertarians. But true conservatives are not autonomous individuals seeking absolute freedom. The siren call of extreme libertarianism is no less destructive than the liberal dream of the nanny state. Conservatives understand that every person is a part of a family and a community; they understand that each generation is just one link in the long chain of human history; and they understand that each person and each generation has duties to those who went before, those who are living today, and those who will come after us. A sense of duty and history governs the lives and thoughts of conservatives.
Life
Conservatives understand that the right to life is the foundation of all other rights. They believe that unless government first protects the right to life, all other rights become meaningless. Rights are reserved for the living. They mean nothing to a corpse.
Conservatives also believe that one's rights come from the Creator, not from the government. They believe that Government's role is to protect the rights that God has endowed to humankind. They do not believe that human rights or human dignity depend on one's age, size, or location (inside or outside the womb or even in a petri dish). Consequently, conservatives support policies that protect the lives of all innocent human beings from conception to natural death.
