Posted on 09/24/2004 12:33:11 PM PDT by NCSteve
My definition of a "true" conservative is pretty simple:
A political conservative is someone who believes that the least government is the best government. A political conservative believes the only valid function of the US Federal government is to provide for the common defense and to regulate interstate trade. A political conservative believes that anything more than this leads to tyranny and must be resisted at all costs.
A political conservative also believes that the sovereignty of the US is sacrosanct because it was purchased with the blood of her children. A political conservative believes that treaties and trade agreements that violate that sovereignty are anathema and those who support them are treasonous.
A social conservative believes that the US was founded on traditional Judeo-Christian values. A social conservative believes that personal responsibility is second only to fealty to God in importance as a personality trait. A social conservative believes that the traditional family is the most important social construct and is fundamental to the survival of our society.
A fiscal conservative believes that you have first rights to the fruits of your own labor. A fiscal conservative believes that just as we all must live within our means, so must the government. A fiscal conservative believes that it is immoral for the government to confiscate the wealth of its citizens in order to redistribute it, no matter what the reason.
A "true" conservative is a political, a social, and a fiscal conservative. Simple as that.
Well, I guess I was addressing his first statement:
"A political conservative is someone who believes that the least government is the best government."
And I will add to that:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
I believe a conservative should respect the founders' intent and design for limited government. The government as established by the founders derives its power from the people and its purpose is to defend our God-given unalienable rights. This is not only from foreign invaders, it means defending our rights from all enemies foreign and domestic.
I believe the earlier citizen believed he could control government by the Constitution. The Constitution is now something that politicans just wave from their suit pocket.
The earlier concept of citizen control of government has been replaced by special interest cash. Today whoever controls the politican, controls the government and controls the latest definition of Conservatism. Conservatism today has morphed into 1930's socialism. It has been re-baptized neo-conservatism.
Can you cite an example? I honestly cannot think of a case where social and political conservatism would be at odds?
Some social conservatives might support blue laws.
A political conservative would not.
Some social conservatives might support a federal law against the gays marrying.
A political conservative would not.
And so on.
How is it incorrect? The Founders enumerated and transferred to the federal government an explicit, limited set of powers. The existence of any particular state laws did not constitute an implicit grant and transfer of power.
Disestablishmentarian Sceptic works for me. ;^)
What you said in that post conflicts with this from the initial vanity.
"A political conservative is someone who believes that the least government is the best government. "
And that is how the social conservative agenda and the political conservative agenda can conflict.
A political conservative would not.
OK, I buy that for starters as a conflict. I would have said virtually all social conservatives would vehemently believe in preserving the existing definition of marriage, and some political conservatives would not.
Just about the same, but the difference would be those who lean more politically than socially conservative would support preserving the existing definition of marriage, but not necessarily by federal law.
To: NCSteveA true conservative is a libertarian, even if they refuse to admit it.
Your description sounds more like a libertarian.
# 2 by killjoy
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Here's a couple of examples to consider:
1. The meaning of the Phrase "to regulate trade" must be sought in the general use of it, in other words in the objects to which the power was generally understood to be applicable, when the Phrase was inserted in the Constn.
2. The power has been understood and used by all commercial & manufacturing Nations as embracing the object of encouraging manufactures. It is believed that not a single exception can be named.
-James Madison to Joseph C. Cabell 18 Sept. 1828
3d. To "regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the States, and with the Indian tribes." To erect a bank, and to regulate commerce, are very different acts. He who erects a bank creates a subject of commerce in its bills; so does he who makes a bushel of wheat, or digs a dollar out of the mines; yet neither of these persons regulates commerce thereby. To make a thing which may be bought and sold is not to prescribe regulations for buying and selling. Besides, if this was an exercise of the power of regulating commerce, it would be void, as extending as much to the internal commerce of every State, as to its external. For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State (that is to say of the commerce between citizen and citizen), which remains exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes.
-Thomas Jefferson, on establishing a national bank.
If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.
-From George Washington's farewell address.
Now consider the multitude of federal programs and agencies (including the DEA) that exist on the authority of the Commerce Clause, as defined by FDR and the New Deal and in direct conflict with these statements, many of which are supported by "social conservatives".
Yes, I read de Tocqueville.
I just happen to believe the conservative and religious values I have no need of government support, nor is it government's place to support them.
Some political conservatives might not, but no political conservative would support changing it by decree of the federal government.
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