Posted on 03/30/2004 5:24:20 AM PST by Theodore R.
Conservatism is not enough
Posted: March 30, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Some people assume I am a conservative.
I've said it before and I'll say it, again: I am not a conservative.
I don't like the label "conservative." I reject the label. With all due respect to my "conservative" friends, I find the description detestable, extremely unflattering, simplistic and an insult.
Let me tell you why.
First of all, I am a journalist. I have spent my entire adult life in the quest for truth. Unlike many of my colleagues in the press, I have avoided political parties, organizations and associations that could compromise my integrity.
Secondly, conservatives, by definition, seek to conserve something from the past – institutions, cultural mores, values, political beliefs, traditions. In other words, they are constantly on defense – busy holding on to turf rather than taking new ground.
From my experience, few conservatives have the stomach for fighting – the kind of fighting it takes to restore real freedom to America.
It's not a time for timidity or compromise. It's not a time for defensiveness and conciliation. It's time to take the offensive in this struggle.
I'm not a "conservative" because I see precious little left in this world worth conserving. Conservatives, from my experience, do not make good freedom fighters. They seem to think a victory is holding back attacks on liberty or minimizing them. They are forever on the defensive – trying to conserve or preserve an apple that is rotten to the core.
What is the rotten apple? You can see it in the government schools that dumb down American kids. You can see it in the universities that pervert the concepts of knowledge and wisdom. You can see it in the federalization and militarization of law enforcement. You can see it in the proliferation of non-constitutional government. You can see it in the real "trickle-down economics" of confiscatory taxes. You can see it in the unaccountable authorities which give us global treaties. You can see it in the relentless attacks on marriage and the family. You can see it in euthanasia, population control and the phony "right" to abortion on demand. You can see it in the surrender of our national security.
Conservatives, it seems to me, only forestall the inevitable slide into tyranny. I don't want to forestall it. I want to prevent it. I want to reverse that slide. I want to restore the dream that was America.
Professor Friedrich von Hayek, author of "The Road to Serfdom," is a hero to many conservatives. Yet, he, too, rejected the label – not only for him, but for his mentor, professor Ludwig von Mises, as well.
"I cannot help smiling when I hear professor Mises described as a conservative," he wrote. "Indeed, in this country and at this time, his views may appeal to people of conservative minds. But when he began advocating them, there was no conservative group which he could support. There couldn't have been anything more revolutionary, more radical, than his appeal for reliance on freedom. To me, professor Mises is and remains, above all, a great radical, an intelligent and rational radical but, nonetheless, a radical on the right lines."
I agree. That's what I want to be.
Was George Washington a conservative? No. He was a revolutionary. He is known throughout the world – or was when people appreciated such concepts – as the "father of freedom."
Today, those who stand for freedom, justice, the rule of law, self-government and the moral principles of the Bible are not part of "the establishment." We're the rebels. By the world's standards, we're the renegades.
The founding fathers knew that even the best designed government wouldn't work if the people were not righteous, moral and God-fearing – if they didn't love liberty and cherish it.
To practice self-government again, we must have a people capable of self-government.
It takes courage to stand in the gap, to man the barricades, to say "enough is enough" – and mean it. It takes more than a "conservative" vision to lead the way back to freedom.
I think he misses the point. The reason the apple is rotten is because of the liberalization of ways that have been proven, through millennia of human experimentation, to stabalize a culture.
That said, the culture is rotten, and the liberals that made it that way are now the conservatives, while the conservatives that lost it are now the liberals that want to return to the old one. 
Mr. Farah, let me now "test" your resolve in the principle you declare above with the following examples:
Amendment V, "...nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation."
Does this not mean that the following federal laws and regulations are unconstitutional:
minimum wage laws
overtime laws
American with Disabilities Act
Patriot Act, requiring banks to hire employees solely to monitor financial transactions
FBI requiring ISP's to put wiretapping equipment on their servers
air pollution and safety equipment mandates on auto's
anti-evicting rules and regulations on property owners which prevent property owners from promptly removing tennants from their property who have not paid the rent
anti-discrimination laws on private property owners that require them to hire and or retain employees for reasons of age, gender, race, religion, etc.
requiring gun makers to add "safety" devices to their products
Amendment IX, "The enumeration in the Constitution of certains rights shall not be contrued to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
FDA prohibiting free people from ingesting the chemical of their choice, in the quantity of their choice to relieve pain, contain cancer, or having fun.
DEA prohibiting free people from ingesting the chemical of their choice for fun.
Dept of Transportation bureaucrats barnstorming the state legislatures with threats of losing federal highway money if unconstitutional seat belt and drunk driving laws are not enacted by the states, when clearly the decision to wear a seat belt or consume alcohol while driving an automobile is a retained right.
Amendment IV, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The unconstitutional shake down and search at airports by "federalized" employees and well as unconstitutional search by federal park service employees at national monuments such as the Arch in St. Louis.
Amendment II, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
Preventing private property owners, airlines, from inviting their customers to exert their constitutional right to "bear arms" on their aircrafts, to share in the protection of their private property from hijackers.
Exerting our rights to "reverse" these denied and disparaged rights is what I characterize as truly "revolutionary."
Do you?
I think he takes the word too literally. This strikes me as similiar to carping about the word "peanut" because they are legumes and not nuts.
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