Wednesday, November 5, 2008

The Future

The knives are going to have to come out, and we must do what we failed to do back in 1992. And it is that failure that has largely brought us to where we are today.

Back then, we should have rid ourselves once and for all of the squishy, stab-you-in-the-back, big-tent, elitist, snobby, moderates and liberals that have been the disease of the Republican Party. We failed to do it, and they have now brought to the brink of ruin. Even though they succeeded in having one of their own nominated, and demanded that we all fall in line and support him, now they are all scurrying away, turning their fire on their favorites targets — not the opposition, but their own side.

Very well then. If they mean to have a war, then let the blood run.

But won't a doctrinally pure GOP be increasingly marginalized in the wider wicked world?

Conservative principles attract people, not repulse them. Modern conservativism, in its truest, most pure sense, is based on truth and reason, especially the truths about the human person and liberty. Modern conservativism, which is grounded largely in the philosophy of this Nation’s founding, is where most people in this country naturally are. Most people are drawn to true conservativism because they are naturally drawn to truth and reason.

One of the greatest errors of the modern age has been the error of big-tent Republicanism — this idea that most people are opposed to true conservativism, so we have to make the Republican Party more attractive by countering those conservatives (especially those embarassing social conservatives) with moderates and liberals. But that kind of strategy, of not having any core principles, of implicitly opposing your own ideology, and of trying to appeal to everyone, does not attract centrists or moderate Dems, it only validates their opposition to Republicans.

Me-too Republicanism, Republicanism that is nothing more than more efficient liberalism or socialism, is doomed to failure. Republican clubism, promoting and voting Republican merely because they are “our” team, regardless of what they stand for, is also doomed to failure.

I have voted Republican, and was once a member of that party, only because it was a convenient vehicle by which to advance conservative principles of governing. That is the reason for being of the party — to advance conservative principles, principles of liberty, human dignity, and limited government. Merely electing more Republicans and merely stopping Democrats is NOT the party’s reason for being. So when you have, to use David Brooks’ term, a cancer in the party, as is the moderates and liberals like Brooks, you must cut it out and radiate or else the party will die — and deservedly so if all the Republican Party stands for is Democratism by a different name.

Are we sliding into the abyss?
Are we in the midst of the act of slow national suicide?
Is there some self-inflicted disease that is continually eroding and degrading our social body?
I don’t know. Maybe we are.
If so, is it any surprise? Can a people survive when they have been killing their children for 35 years?

The one thing I do know for certain — it is folly to place your trust in man. If we look to any human institution to be our savior, we are only ensuring our demise.
We must remember that we are a pilgrim people in a strange, foreign land.
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