Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

How we can get there from here

Last week I wrote an article for the Grizzly Groundswell asking the question “What are we fighting for”. In that article I outlined my vision for our government, and I presented a plan for achieving that vision.

• We must educate the American people with respect to the founding principles upon which the nation we have inherited was established. This includes not only the basis of our own political philosophy, but the basis of that of our political opponents.
• We must examine the current structure of our governments – at all levels and compare them with the foundations that were laid for them and with our own ultimate goals for our government.
• We must use the power granted to us over our government wisely – the one power that we have without resorting to force of arms – our votes. We must use this power with purpose and resolve – but we must remember to use it with one goal in mind at all times – to win a victory for our principles. Not just in the individual office that we’re voting for, but even in those that we are not.
• We must think globally and act locally – to borrow a slogan from the left. The power of any man’s vote is greatest when it contends with the votes of fewer men. Your vote can make the biggest difference locally – and it makes the smallest difference nationally. Conservatives deride the “community organizer” that became President at our own peril.
• We must hold those we elect accountable – not merely for their behavior, but for their votes. If an elected official fails to represent us then we must take action, quickly and effectively.
• Remember the tenth amendment to the Constitution. In the end, it will be the key to retaking our government – but only if we learn what it means, and only if those we elect to office take its meaning to heart.

I also wrote another article that I posted here where I gave a very brief paragraph on what I believe to be the basis of a modern conservative philosophy.

Conservatism is about honoring the past, preserving our heritage and defending liberty. Real conservatism is about securing and safeguarding the rights of the individual and about living responsibly in a state of ordered liberty. True American conservatives believe in these principles and they believe in their consequences.

If you think of yourself as a conservative, I would like you to ask yourself a question. That question is this – Do the men and women that have been elected to represent me believe in the same principles that I do, do they merely give lip service to them, or do they believe in and act on other principles that I do not believe in? If after careful consideration you find that they don’t believe in and act on the same principles that you do then you must ask yourself another question – what are you going to do about it?

Fellow blogger Maggie Thornton notes that the first item on my agenda, educating the American people with respect to the founding principles of our government, will probably be the hardest item.

…Of you[r] list, I see the first as the most difficult. We have, for far too long, let Liberals write the text books. We have lost a generation to false and revised history. We have teachers who obviously haven’t noticed. Does this mean they approve of what they are teaching?…that they believe what they are teaching from those onerous textbooks? Who will speak up and get something done for the children?

To tell you the truth, I don’t base my political philosophy on anything I learned from text books in school. I was raised by my parents with basically conservative values, although my mother sits much farther to the left than either I or my father and brother do. For some time I fell in with the liberals – rebelling against my upbringing as it were. Even so, once I began to give my principles serious thought I returned to conservative roots. If we have lost a generation to false and revised history it is not our schools fault; it is our own as parents.

Don’t look to the schools to provide the necessary education to raise up conservatives. We must educate ourselves and our children. We must also educate one another. I am fairly certain that if you put fifteen conservatives in a single room and asked them to explain the basis of their conservatism – or even what conservatism means to them – you’d get fifteen very different answers. Not that that should be unexpected. None of us has the whole truth and we can all learn from one another if we’re willing to do it.

On a side note, the same could probably be said about liberals – put fifteen of them in a room together and ask them to explain their philosophy and you’ll probably get fifteen different answers too. And despite what some conservatives may say not all liberals base their philosophy on mere feelings. Some of them have given serious though to the matter – they just start from different foundational principles.

To understand the basis of modern conservatism you only need a single document – The Declaration of Independence. No matter what any of the “liberal textbooks” may have to say this document is the justification for and the explanation of the founding of our nation. Careful conversations with young people centered on the philosophy of the founders – particularly Thomas Jefferson – illustrated in this document will go a long way to teaching the basis of modern conservatism. As a young mind grows to understand these principles, you could go deeper and examine the philosophy of John Locke. Locke’s work serves as the basis of what Thomas Jefferson summarized in the Declaration of Independence.

Fellow blogger “The Lockean” who sometimes blogs under the pseudonym “The Machiavellian” has been doing a good series on Classical Liberalism (a more accurate term than conservatism, but the left has co-opted the language) and the philosophy of John Locke. See Classical Liberalism: The Bedrock Theory of Our Rights–Part One, Classical Liberalism: The Reason for Government-Part Two, and his latest post in the series Classical Liberalism: The Right to Rebel–Part Three. They’re really good reads.

Now understanding the basis of modern conservatism is well and good, and it’s a necessary first step to basing our principles upon it and taking action to take back our government. It’s obviously not enough, and if we only educate our children and one another about one point of view we’re doing them and ourselves a disservice. To truly be effective we need also to understand the basis of the liberal point of view. Just as conservatives tend to seek smaller government and to emphasize the importance of individual rights, liberals tend to seek larger government to ensure the rights of blocs of individuals and “group rights”. Understanding why this is, and the consequences of each point of view is important to determining the direction we want to go. Understanding the philosophical underpinnings of both modern conservatism and modern liberalism will help us to understand the strengths and weaknesses of them both.

I’ll write more on my plan to take back our government in a future article. For now though, I’m going to say goodnight. I start work fairly early in the morning, and I’m looking forward to it.