The Rabid Conservative

America doesn’t need to be remade; it only needs to go back to the principles to doing what actually brings prosperity and security. We don’t need a new approach. We need to do what we’ve already seen work everywhere it’s genuinely tried – true social and fiscal conservatism.

For many months now, the Grand Ol’ Party has been in disarray, damaged by its inability to stand up for the convictions that brought it into power back in 1980 and again in 1994. During the Bush 41 and 43 administrations, the GOP sacrificed its principles, a little at a time.  The GOP began to grow government, instead of shrink it.  It began to become “OK” with abortion and gay marriage. It began to acquiesce to financial madness and fiscal irresponsiblity, in order to satisfy a handful of vocal objectors.

We watched in shock and horror as the Dems took back control of the House and Senate in 2006 and how they strengthened their hold in 2008. We also watched as an unqualified, socialistic empty suit took the helm as President. The Dems are poised to seal the deal now that the power hungry Arlen Specter, jumped from GOP to Democrat, thus labeling himself as he always was and that diaper-wearing dumbkopf blowhard, Stuart Smalley, aka Al Franken, took the last two chairs and ensures that our party is silenced in the operations of the Federal Government for at least a couple years.

Then the finger pointing began. We accused John McCain of not being conservative enough, so the “holier-than-thou” conservatives stayed home instead of coming out in droves against Obamania. We accused Sarah Palin of being too conservative and a painted lady, a last ditch effort to score some points

The point is, we all blew it.

We got comfortable. We let our guard down and the Dems rushed in like a flood. Now we have to sit back as liberals, homosexuals, and godless socialists have their way with our country. And for now, we do so, hoping that they don’t wreck the country too badly, don’t start throwing us Right Wing extremists (you hear that, Napolitano?) into jail for hate crimes, and taxing us into oblivion to pay off anyone in the world who wants a free abortion. We sit back now and hope we can give our children a truly Godly education and hope the State doesn’t come in and take our kids when we stand up, ready to arm ourselves in the face of oppression. And we hope that, as Obama relaxes our defenses in the face of a bitter enemy who wants revenge for everything in the world that they don’t detonate a nuclear weapon in Kansas City.

Not only did we let our guard down, we allowed our message to get watered down. We started saying instead of limiting government wherever and whenever we can, we started making concessions. We started allowing little government programs pop up. And kind of like the one little dandelion in your yard that is too much trouble to uproot, we left it alone. Then two more appeared. Then three. And suddenly, a good deal of our government budget is spent on entitlements and programs.  Pork projects sprung up all over and we didn’t do anything to stop them until there were so many that it was too late to make an effective stand.

It’s not his fault, her fault. It’s our fault. We did this to ourselves.

So how do we fix it?  We go back and look at the Reagan playbook again, update for today’s landscape, and start winning elections.

First, we all owe God and the Founders a deep, bitter apology for our sin. Many of us refused to stand up when the time came. Many of us said, “it’s not our problem, we’re too busy”. We squandered away our victories and apologized for our affluence. God blessed us and we tossed it into the trashcan as we took things for granted. We started thinking of ourselves better (and so became careless) when it came time to build upon the foundations that Reagan helped us to see.

Second, we need to pick ourselves up by reinvesting in our roots. We need to get away from this ‘move a bit to the center so we get more support’ and stand up for our principles. In 1980, Reagan’s landslide came because he held his principles and the moderates came to agree with Reagan (or disagree with Carter).

Third, we work the grassroots. We talk to our friends and neighbors about conservative principles and more importantly, we weave them into our daily lives. We live the message we preach. (sound familiar, Christians?)  We learn to communicate in the 21st century

There’s been all this clamor as of late about getting past Reagan and getting on with the business of the party. Do you want to stop mentioning the name, “Ronald Reagan”? Fine. I’m alright with that. And I’m sure Reagan would be alright with that, too, since he surely didn’t believe it was about him, but values and principle. But that doesn’t mean we forget the principles of Reagan.

So, as we put Reagan in the rear-view, let’s put the principles of conservatism in the front-view and strive for the ideologies that have always made this country great. Let’s start getting back to the principles of limited government as well as limited government involvement in people’s lives. Let’s tell the government to stay out of our health care, stay out of our private sector and leave the economy the heck alone. America doesn’t need to be remade; it only needs to go back to the principles to doing what actually brings prosperity and security. We don’t need a new approach. We need to do what we’ve already seen work everywhere it’s genuinely tried – true social and fiscal conservatism.

We can stop saying the name Reagan, just as long as we never stop doing the fundamental principles of Reagan-style conservatism.