What We Need to Say, And Say, And Say

If leftists are good at one thing it is staying on message. Since 2006 when Nancy Pelosi was raised to the dizzying heights of Speaker of the House of Representatives the left has been chanting over and over that the voters wanted the country to take a hard left turn. This month's election, however, proved that the left's hoary claim is wrong. And we need to say so, over and over.

It isn't that the leftists were wholly wrong in their claim that the country wanted to go left in the previous two national elections. Clearly the voters lost faith in the Republicans and just as clearly they wanted to give Democrats the opportunity of an iron clad majority to make some changes. It's just that the left was very wrong in just how far left the voters wanted to veer -- as this election proved.

One thing is sure. Democrats and their extremely left-wing money men -- George Soros, the Rathkes, the MoveOnners, etc. -- pushed the meme that the country wanted a quasi socialist, Euro-esque styled American government for all it was worth. They moved forward based on the assumption that the country thoroughly rejected the right and they made a mad dash for every hard left policy idea they could think of.

Leftists had the help of the Old Media, too. Nearly every newspaper in the country sustained the meme that the left was in ascendance. Books such as "The Emerging Democratic Majority" and "Permanently Blue" came out to describe the permanent leftist majority and the intelligentsia talked endlessly about it. TV hosts like CNN's James Carville made hay by saying over and over that Democrats would "rule for the next generation." For those interested in political discussion there was no way to escape the celebratory air in the media that the left had won the political argument...

Citizens who are truly devoted to restoring America's underlying Constitutional principles must first identify those ideas, learn to articulate and defend them, and then they will be able to explain why there can be no compromise on the principles essential to liberty.

For too long, national political debate has centered on some issues of the day. Such a focus is shallow and leads to compromise of principle, because the underlying constitutional principle seldom comes to the surface in any discussion.

Such discussions and debates play into the hands of the so-called "progressives," for issues come and go, and reasons for those issues come and go. Then, there are never-ending arguments about minute details within each "issue."

Debate on principles, on the other hand, require a focus on some enduring idea which formed the very foundation for the Founders' Constitution and its protections for individual liberty in all its dimensions.

The "progressives" are not good at debating on such solid ground. They require a shifting sand kind of argument, or they are lost.

Imagine the current President in a debate with a person steeped in the ideas of liberty, as understood by Jefferson, Adams, Washington, and Madison. The President would come to the debate with only the tools of Mao, Marx, Lenin and the tactics of Alinsky. Would that be a fair debate? Hardly.

Thanks to technology, there is no reason why a true "conservative" cannot immerse himself/herself in the writings of America's Founders and of the ancients whom they consulted, and be prepared for such a principles-centered debate in 2012. What a learning experience that would be for America's youth!

One can consider compromise on a mere "issue," but if the bottom-line question to be resolved violates the principle, or, in the words of John F. Kennedy, "the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God," then there can and will be no "compromise."

To compromise on that central idea of the Declaration of Independence would be to tear out the cornerstone of our Constitution and its protections.

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