Previous parts
Pt. 1 – Defining Victory
In my previous post I explain that, before you can chart a path to victory, you must define what victory is. I also talk about the importance of defining true victory not as simply winning elections, but “the application of our principles made manifest through sound policy.” Holding power simply to enrich yourself and your friends is worthless. The real victory is to use that power to advance our ideas and our principles.
This definition of victory naturally flows into the next question that needs to be answered: What exactly are the principles that we are going to advance? As Republicans we claim adherence to Conservatism, but there are so many that claim to be Conservative without practicing it that it seems to have lost all meaning. We need to come to a basic understanding of what it means to be a Conservative, and why it differs from other political ideologies.
Delegate Scott Lingamfelter recently took to Facebook to ask what it means to be a Conservative. The responses he received were about what you would expect. Less taxes, limited government, etc… Scott even mentioned Russell Kirk’s “10 Conservative Principles.” What I felt was missing, however, was a basic understanding of the Conservative ideology, and the ability to describe that ideology in a persuasive argument that falls somewhere between the refined air of Kirk, and the sound bite statements of “less taxes,” and “limited government.”
To me, the foundation of the principles of Conservatism is centered on truth, responsibility, and morality.
Webster’s defines truth as “being in accord with fact or reality.” Truth is immutable. It doesn’t change. I don’t know how anyone could attempt to build their lives around a philosophy that wasn’t based on truth. When forming a position on any issue, it has to be built on a foundation of facts and truth, so that it can actually solve the problem it is designed to address.
Responsibility speaks to an individual’s obligations to behave correctly and to be held accountable for their actions. It speaks to the obligations we have in a free society. When we voluntarily cede power to government, it is our responsibility to remain vigilant, knowledgeable, and engaged in the political process. When developing policy, it should be done in a way that allows people to take advantage of opportunities to improve themselves, not designed to create a dependency on government or others.
Morality is the ethos we use to define right from wrong. It keeps the strong from preying on the weak. It is the restraint we place on ourselves to respect others and the rule of law. In America, that moral code is founded on faith in God and the Bible. Without a strong moral code, there is nothing that will stop a society from sliding into anarchy. When deciding what to do about an issue, which side to take in an argument, we should not be concerned about doing what is popular, or what is easy. We should always be concerned with doing what is right.
Truth, responsibility, and morality define the Conservative approach to policy and government, and it sets us apart from other ideologies like Liberalism, and even Libertarianism. It is that commitment to these principles that form our support or opposition for different policy positions on things like fiscal policy, social issues, and the role of government.
The Liberal ideology views the role of government as savior. It looks to government to care for us and nurture us as a mother nurtures a child. It allows people to shirk their responsibility to provide for themselves and their family, preferring to cede that responsibility to government. In doing so, however, the Liberal loses their will for self-reliance and makes them entirely dependent on the sufferance of others.
Libertarians mainly view government as the root of all evil. They call for government to play as little role as possible in society. Their desire for freedom also extends to a freedom from common moral principles on many social issues such as abortion, drug use, gambling, or sexual identity. The Libertarian ideology comes the closest to a pure capitalist, “survival of the fittest” society. Taken to the extreme, the Libertarian position can ultimately lead to a devolution into anarchy.
The Conservative views government as neither savior nor Satan. Instead, we view government more like the referee in a football game. He is there to enforce the rules of the game. He’s always there, but he should only be noticed when someone breaks the rules. We recognize that the game needs rules, but that those rules need to be few and fair. The rules should be designed to allow the game to move forward with as little interference as possible, but to maintain order and encourage responsible play.
A conservative fiscal policy supports lower taxes and less government regulation because it has been proven to promote entrepreneurship and economic growth. It supports a balanced budget with a streamlined, efficient bureaucracy because it is the responsible position to manage the people’s money wisely. It supports tax breaks for married couples, children, and charitable giving because it is the right thing to do.
A conservative social policy is driven by a Judeo-Christian morality. It opposes abortion because it is morally wrong to willfully snuff out an innocent human life. It is the responsible thing to take care of our children, and raise them to be decent, honorable members of society, and it is a proven fact that abortion is damaging to both the physical and mental well-being of the women who undergo the procedure.
On homosexual and transgender issues, a conservative believes that an individual is free to choose to live a life that makes them happy, but refuses to enable a behavior that is based on biological confusion by supporting gay marriage or teaching that differing sexual orientations, or confusion about one’s gender, is something that is normal and should be celebrated.
A Conservative environmental policy supports conservation efforts and combating pollution, but opposes climate change hysteria because the scientific evidence is clearly opposed to the claims made by alarmists demanding radical changes in energy use. It is irresponsible to attempt to force people to accept these harmful changes without any evidence to support them, and it is morally wrong to claim any scientific theory is “settled,” when the very nature of science is to constantly learn and observe.
There are far too many issues to list them all here, and each conservative principle I have mentioned, or not mentioned, will inevitable have specific policies and laws that are proposed. Because of the imperfect nature of man and this world, you will never be able to develop a policy that will make everyone’s life better.
There will always be exceptions to the rule. There will always be the horrible example. Because of this, we should work to insure that any policy we propose is one that is based on the truth, not based on faulty information. It should be a responsible policy that works, one that will actually solve the problem it is trying to solve. Finally, it should be supported because it is the right thing to do.
We need to resist the urge by some to change what Conservatism stands for, to become more “Moderate,” in order to try and attract votes from Moderates and Democrats. That would be a betrayal of what Conservatism is. You don’t suddenly change what you believe to become more popular. All that does is tell people you don’t really believe in anything, and you will lose more support than you hoped to gain by your flip-flopping.
We should not be urging the members of our party to vote for bad policies simply because we want a “win.” We should not be tolerating members of our party that vote against good policy for the sake of political expediency. Our ability to steer the ship of government does not come along as often as we would like, so when we are put in charge, we need to make the most of the time we have.
I know that some of you are looking for more concrete answers, but it makes no sense to talk details before you know what the goal is and what you should be doing when you reach it. For those of you looking for those details, fear not. In the next piece, I will look at organizational challenges and changes that need to be made for the Republican Party to be effective again.
14 comments
Pretty good stuff, but very high level and philosophical. What do we do to win elections statewide again? I gave some ideas a few weeks back and of course, when i spoke of investing in transportation and education, I got a lot of guffaws.http://thebullelephant.com/8-ideas-to-grow-the-gop-in-virginia/ But as a former county supervisor, Mick knows that Republicans cannot win by being anti-government in this state when so many people’s livelihoods depend on government — i.e the military. It was my hope that “Trumpism” would redefine the Republican Party as conservativism was being defined by our opponents as xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, anti gay, etc. We must remember that voters are influenced by what the liberal media and academia say about us. But what we saw in the Virginia elections Nov. 7, folks didn’t care about Trump’s tax cuts or defense increases – they just wanted to whack him for being so outrageous and polarizing. So, we now have a divided legislature and no GOP candidate who can effectively challenge Mark Herring for governor in 2021 We don’t even have a really good candidate who can beat Tim Kaine this year. Finally, Judeo-Christian works for me — I am the Judeo part. However, there are a growing number of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and of course, Muslim voters in the Commonwealth, whose religion is not Judeo-Christian. Combined with the massive influx of Northeasterners coming here(who are probably non religious), Democrats have a solid majority of votes in Northern Virginia. So, I encourage Mick to put pen to paper again and come up with some specific solutions how to keep the conservative base happy while broadening it to suburban professional voters who, at least in the recent election, didn’t vote Republican.
I think it was Superman who stood for “Truth, Justice and the American Way” sounds pretty good to me – but, of course, the left has perverted and corrupted its meaning.
Victory? Increasingly new ways to spy on the people?
Redefining conservatism? Does it require redefinition? It has seemed to me self-evident conservatives want to preserve a past progressives wish to leave behind.
Observation: The Bull Elephant has demonstrably either coincided with or caused Virginia Republicans to lose power, to fracture and divide, with its extremists working to pull the party to a fringe right that inevitably costs the party votes at election time.
You present things in the favored way of the progressives, trying to frame conservatives as “stuck in the past” while progressives are “moving forward.” In truth, what the progressive wants to leave behind is reason, accountability, and responsibility. They demand freedom to shed responsibility and morality, and in turn attempt to limit the freedoms of any that disagree with them.
Conservatives are looking to preserver the things that made this country the dominant super power in the world. Progressives want to turn us into France. Do you want to be France? I know I sure don’t.
You are missing your mark! I actually prefer to preserve much of the long life I’ve lived, passing it along to another generation. Progress is over-rated and never evaluated fully in the light of history.
Neither party has a claim to purity of definition. I reject them both, thinking choice in each election preferable to voting in lock step.
I ask again: Is it getting better or worse for Virginia conservatives? Is TBE helping or hurting? More or less powerful?
You are free to reject both parties if you want. I would agree that neither party has lived up to the ideals they profess to support, although the Democrat party has done a better job of the Republican party in enforcing policy discipline on its members as of late..
The failure of the Republican party to live up to its professed believes is precisely why I am laying out my ideas of what it means to be a Conservative. It is my hope to lead more people to agree with my definition and to support it (which is the whole point of writing in a blog, BTW).
Are things getting better for Conservatives in Virginia? When have they been particularly good? The Republican leadership in the General Assembly is not Conservative. Conservative leadership would not have gone along with a deal to put tolls on I-66 inside the beltway. Conservative leadership would not continually kill pro-life legislation in committee. Conservative leadership would not be pushing three months of paid medical leave.
Is TBE helping our hurting? Helping or hurting what? Is your goal simply to win elections for candidates that will continue to ignore Conservative principles and attack real Conservatives as too extreme? Do you think TBE is the reason Democrats showed up to vote in record numbers for a Governor’s race? I think you give us too much credit.
As I pointed out in my piece, I am not interested in simply advocating for a party that wins power and doesn’t do anything with it or worse, patently refuses to follow through on their campaign promises. I am interested in pursuing real change based on the truth. That may not win me many friends among the tribalists, or the “moderate your message to attract the masses” crowd, but that’s to be expected. Most people don’t like to deal with the truth, because it never fully lines up behind one side or the other.
The quickest way I know how to do achieve the results I want is to inspire change in the Republican party, which is the one I am most closely aligned with. There is no hope left for the Democrats, and it is entirely too difficult to try and start a third party, so advocating reform in the Republican party is the way to go. You can come along for the ride, or continue to walk the beat of your own drum. It’s entirely your choice.
Mick —
A great start… but I was hoping for a bit more substance here. The distinction between a conservative and a libertarian (and a nationalist at this rate) is nearly critical… as is the definition of a moderate (what precisely are we moderating?) or a centrist.
Once upon a time, liberalism and centrism and libertarianism and conservatism in America were all the same thing: we were defending a classical liberal world order based on the natural law liberties centered in the U.S. Constitution — and it was that order we were attempting to conserve.
The liberals of today aren’t liberals at all — they are socialists (or social democrats) who borrow a great deal more from the French Revolution than the American one.
All that having been said (and I enjoyed Lingamfelter’s op-ed on this question a great deal, if for no other reason than — in my opinion — he got closer to the real question at hand), I am not sure we have gotten past the “Part 2” here… nor should we skip this to focus on goals and *then* determine what our values are. That is what has caused the slide over the last 25 years… victory at any cost, principles above values, and the most horrible things done to fellow Republicans in the name of so-called principles (read Kierkegaard’s “The Present Age” if you want to get to the core of this — exceptional read and a short one at that).
This is a good start though. Will more than likely chime in over at TRS… but I do think (1) this is an absolutely critical conversation to be having and (2) deserves a great deal more attention than you, I, or the right honorable gentleman from Prince William have given it thus far. We really do need to figure out what we’re about before we figure out where we are going or what we intend.
My US$0.02 FWIW.
One of the reasons it took so long to write part 2 of this series is because of the enormity of the issue. One could write a book on the topic and still not cover everything. As I said above, I am aiming for a level of discourse that is below Kiekegaard, but far above the reflexive, “limited government” response of the TV sound byte. In an attempt to define what I believe is Conservatism, I had to struggle with a desire to overload the reader with information versus a need to not write something so long no one would bother to read it.
I do intend to circle back to this topic after this series is done. It is vitally important that we come to a better understanding of what it means to be a Conservative. For the time being I think that if people will start evaluating different policy positions based on truth (is the policy based on actual facts? will it solve the problem it claims to solve?), responsibility (does the policy empower people to make good decisions, or does it create dependencies on government?) and morality (is this policy the right thing to do, or is it just the popular thing to do?), then we are off to a very good start.
What are you doing here? Failed to drive out the nativists from the GOP didn’t you? Looks to me like the nativists propelled Trump to victory. Then you and that schmuck buddy of yours (the Labor Union Lawyer!!) called Jeanine Martin a racists not so long ago for suggesting that immigration laws be enforced…. Where’s Bearing Drift now?
A few issues with your essay–it is not morally wrong to claim that global warming is settled, it is intellectually wrong. No it isn’t settled. It is not science to say that global warming is caused by carbon–that is not settled and why or how the earth is warming is too complicated to push it off on carbon fuels. The earth warmed and cooled over billions of years. Global warming is part of the liberal religion. And that religion includes identity politics, feminism, socialism, globalism. They have increasingly become scary totalitarian. Cause they are on the right side of history!! They are idiots who are manipulated by gushy emotionalism.
Being a conservative or better yet a red pill conservative also means you use your damn brain. That means for example that you don’t support idiotic so called Conservatives like W Bush when they march off the US to trillion dollars wars to achieve nothing. We toppled Saddam and now Iraq is in Iran’s sphere of influence… not to mention setting off another war in Syria.. yes Obama but that was set in motion by the disaster the US left in Iraq… and how many more after that? Make America safe from a war in the Mid East? Seems like we get some sort of terrorist incident every month now in the US.
Finally… you need to stop writing. You have a job and if they read your sentences as anti gay… it could mean your job. The liberals play hard.
If intellectually you know that global warming is not settled science, yet you push that argument anyway to gain support for your position then you are knowingly propagating a lie, which is morally wrong.
It was the inaction of Democrat Presidents like Clinton, who ignored acts of aggression, that led to 9/11. It was the retreat of Barack Obama that led to the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rise of Isis.
After 9/11, under Bush there was never another successful attack on American soil. Under Bush we established a Democracy in Iraq that could have been used as a beacon to reshape the Middle East, which is why the terrorists and the radical Islamists were so determined to destroy it. A free, Democratic, prosperous Iraq could lead to the toppling of dictatorial regimes all over the region, ending the power of the Mullahs and the radical Imams and drying up their supply of suicide bombers.
The problem was that people in America, with their short attention spans, didn’t have the stomach for a prolonged, generational struggle. They saw a conflict that, in 10 years, produced fewer casualties than almost any single battle in the Civil War, and decided they wanted to change the channel. In came Obama who beat a hasty retreat from the Middle East, taking our power and influence with it.
Vladimir Putin and his allies in Iran moved right into the power vacuum we created. They are working to remake the Middle East into new client states under his influence as part of a new cold war and to control the energy supplies of Western Europe. It is in Putin’s best interests to create chaos and confusion in these countries so that he can ride in shirtless on his white stallion to be the hero that saves the day.
A conservative knows that you can’t disengage from the Middle East and expect they will just leave us alone. The terrorists view that as a sign of weakness and it will simply cause them to become more aggressive, as they did under Clinton and Obama. You also cannot abandon the region and allow it to come under the sphere of influence of the Russians and the Iranians, unless you want to pay $20 a gallon for gas and have a unified Caliphate under the direction of the Mullahs of Iran, pointed at the west and ready to be used as the tip of the spear by Vladimir Putin.
The US has all the energy supplies we need now. That argument doesn’t wash anymore. How long did you want to be in the mid East? Israel has existed for what 60 years and is it closer to secure?
There was never another successful attack on American soil…. What happened a few weeks ago in NY where a jihadist ran over people?
The US ignored acts of aggression that led to 9/11? You do know that the guys who carried out that were from Saudi Arabia, Arab Emerites mostly?
What you need is a functioning immigration system, not a policy to send tens of thousands of troops at the cost of 1 trillion dollars to countries that are not going to be civilized as they are places where tribal warfare rules.
“The US has all the energy supplies we need now.”
I wish. Unfortunately we don’t, and neither does Western Europe. The reason Putin wants control of the Middle East is to control the flow of oil and especially natural gas to Western Europe. If countries like Spain, Germany, France, et al, are entirely dependent on Russia to keep the lights on, he can pry them out of our sphere of influence and into his, further working to isolate the US on the world stage.
“How long did you want to be in the mid East?”
Let’s see, the Korean war was in the 50s, and we still have bases in South Korea. World War II was in the 40’s, and we still have bases in Germany and Japan. Did you think we can just kick over the ant hill and walk away? What part of “generational struggle” don’t you understand?
“There was never another successful attack on American soil…. What happened a few weeks ago in NY where a jihadist ran over people?”
UNDER BUSH there was never another successful attack on American soil. Under Obama we retreated with our tail between our legs. The terrorists smelled weakness and a lack of resolve again, so they began to attack us again. It also didn’t help that Snowden ran off to China and then Russia with millions of classified documents, telling all the bad guys how we were monitoring their communications, giving them the chance to change their practices.
“The US ignored acts of aggression that led to 9/11? You do know that the guys who carried out that were from Saudi Arabia, Arab Emerites mostly?”
Yes, the US ignored acts of aggression, like:
The 1993 attempted bombing of the World Trade Center
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing
The 1998 twin bombings of our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_United_States_embassy_bombings
The 2000 bombing of the USS Cole
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing
All three incidents occurred under Bill Clinton, and in all three cases the US did nothing to respond or retaliate. It doesn’t matter what country the terrorists come from. Those Saudis you speak of were fighting in Afghanistan against the Russians in the 80s.
A functioning immigration system would be great, but you can’t just close the gates and hide inside “Fortress America.” When you abandon the area you just cede control to the Iranians and the Russians. You make them stronger and us weaker. We are the world’s super power, and we have to act like it, or someone else will.