Just a reminder: Free Republic is a conservative site

[Jim Robinson]

Just a reminder: Free Republic is a conservative site. We fight for conservative principles, values and causes. We defend the Constitution. We defend our borders. We defend our God-given rights. We are opposed to the liberal/socialist/Marxist agenda for America. We do not willingly give up ground to the Marxists.

It's true that the illegal immigration issue is very discouraging, and I don't know if anyone has a solution that will appeal to conservatives and yet manage to get by Democrat obstructionism, ie, a filibuster, but I don't see that as any reason to give up everything. We should not allow it to rip us apart and destroy the movement. We fight on.

We hold the majority. We continue working as hard as we possibly can to elect as many conservatives as we possibly can. We build a conservative majority that can overcome the Democrats and the RINOs. We do not willingly give up any seats to Democrats. We add seats. Preferably, conservative seats.

I would also like to remind everyone, that Free Republic does not condone racism and does not advocate violence. We exercise our first amendment rights to free speech and peaceable assembly. We do not condemn people because of their race, religion, ethnicity, skin color, etc. We do not advocate civil war, anarchy, or an overthrow of the government. We do not advocate shooting illegals or mining the borders. We do not appreciate people coming across our borders illegally, but as conservatives, we do not issue racial epithets or threaten them with violence or bodily harm.

And, yes, we are at war. And we do support our troops and their mission. We also respect our commander-in-chief and are mindful that when people disrespect him, it hurts troop morale. We do not appreciate the mainstream media's attempts to destroy America's will to fight and we do not do anything to assist the Democrats and their accomplices in the media in their treasonous mission of undermining the war effort by providing aid and comfort to the enemy.

And despite our dissatisfaction and disappointments in regards to the illegal immigration issue, we recognize that it is not the last issue on earth and there are plenty of other reasons not to allow the Marxist Democrats to retake power.

I'll list a few issues (by no means and exhaustive list) that will be adversely affected by Marxist/Democrats in power:

Islamofascism/terrorism
National Security/Defense
The United Nations (as in their control over us)
The Supreme Court
The federal judiciary
The legislative agenda
The right to life
Marriage between one man, one woman
The family
Education
Health care
Private property
Taxation
Oil/energy
The right to keep and bear arms
The right to freedom of religion
The right to self-governance
All of our God-given rights
The Constitution
The Republic
Liberty itself

Do not get so discouraged that we give it all up. It could take generations to get it back. If ever.

"Securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" is our duty.

[patriciaruth]

Agree mass deportation is never going to happen.

I do believe that a steel fence and other border security measures can slow the tide.

Levees can fail from time to time, but they do help hold back the sea and make life easier for much of the time

[Darkwolf377]

Thanks for pinging me--this piece is a breath of fresh air.

I know I am dissatisfied by certain GOP actions, but I am not about to put a gun to my head and pull the trigger while shouting "HA! THAT'll show 'em!" Which is precisely what I'd be doing if I don't support the GOP in November.

[Proud Conservative2]

"I like George Allen. He's more Reaganesque, imo."



http://www.issues2000.org/senate/George_Allen.htm

Pay special attention on how he stands on the second amendment and gun ownership. I cannot back anyone that feels the way he does on this one issue alone.

[rightwingintelligentsia]

I happen to be an " Europoster " from Belgium to be specific . . . I also happen to love the U.S.A

Glad you've thrown in your lot with us! Thanks for posting here.

[onyx]

I agree with you 100%!
Thanks for your kind words.

[NZerFromHK]

This is intentional on the part of America. As Charles Kesler points out, "In the 1760s and early 1770s American citizens and statesmen tried out different arguments in criticism of the mother country's policies on taxation and land rights. Essentially, they appealed to one part of their political tradition to criticize another, invoking a version of the "ancient constitution" (rendered consistent with Lockean natural rights) to criticize the new one of parliamentary supremacy, in effect appealing not only to Lord Coke against Locke, but to Locke against Locke. In the Declaration of Independence, the Americans appealed both to natural law and rights on the one hand, and to British constitutionalism on the other, but to the latter only insofar as it did not contradict the former. Thus the American creed emerged from within, but also against, the predominant culture. The Revolution justified itself ultimately by an appeal to human nature, not to culture, and in the name of human nature and the American people, the Revolutionaries set out to form an American Union with its own culture."

http://www.claremont.org/writings/crb/fall2005/kesler.html

Similarly, Harry Jaffa pointed out in his article (offline) "Equality as a Conservative Principle" more than 30 years ago, the soul of American conservatism (and thus Americanism) is:

---

"Certainly, if American Conservatism has any core of consistency and purpose, it is derived from the American Founding. The uncertainty as to the meaning of American Conservatism is, as we shall see, an uncertainty as to the meaning of the American Founding. But this uncertainty does not arise from any doubt as to the status of the Revolution. So far as I know, there has never been any Benedict Arnold Society of American Patriotism. Nor do American Conservatives meet, either openly or secretly, to toast "the King (or Queen) across the water." The status of feudalism and monarchy are for American Conservatives exactly what they are for American Liberals or Radicals. Perhaps the best description of the Ancien Regime from the American point of view is still that of Mark Twain in "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court".

American Conservatism is then rooted in a Founding which is, in turn, rooted in revolution. Moreover, the American Revolution represented the most radical break with tradition - with the tradition of Europe's feudal past - that the world had seen. It is true that the American revolutionaries saw some precedent for their actions in the Whig Revolution of 1689. But that revolution at least maintained the fiction of a continued and continuous legality. The British Constitution that resulted from the earlier revolution may have had some republican elements. But the American constitutions - state and federal - that resulted from the later revolution had no monarchical or aristocratic elements. They were not merely radically republican, but were radically republican in a democratic sense. The sovereignty of the people has never been challenged within the American regime, by Conservatives any more than by Liberals or Radicals. The regime of the Founders was wholly devoted to what they understood as civil and religious liberty and was in that sense a liberal regime. But the Founders understood themselves to be revolutionaries, and to celebrate the American Founding is therefore to celebrate revolution. However mild or moderate the American Revolution may now appear, as compared with subsequent revolutions in France, Russia, China, Cuba, or elsewhere, it nonetheless embodied the greatest attempt at innovation that human history had recorded. It remains the most radical attempt to establish a regime of liberty that the world has yet seen."

---

In other words, America is founded on some distinctly classical liberal ideas. Thus it is in fact much closer to the European notion of classical liberalism (as Hayek pointed out). Modern day ideological soulmates of American conservatism is more like Germany's Free Democratic Party. In fact, from the Americans' point of view, Anglo conservatism is more like a watered down concept of European paternalist conservatism as represented by Metternich of Austria or Otto von Bismarck's Prussian conservatism.

What you expressed in your post is what we would call historicism - meaning that we collectively is a product of our historical circumstances. Society evolve or regress, but it is impossible to establish a unified principle. I understand it is accepted as obvious and common sense in our countries or indeed almost everywhere in the West. But importantly, not in the United States.

Evangelical Christianity's influence on political discourse is more muddled. As I pointed in some other posts that pinged you, there is such a thing as "evangelical Christians leaning left". Poeple like Ron Sider, Jim Wallis or Tony Campolo would be almost like your own personal ideological flip side on each and every issue you support or oppose. You support market forces? They support socialism. You support fighting against Islamic terrorism? They are pacifist. You support gay marriage? They are against it. But it is another matter, and the likes of Acton Insuitute point out socialism does not fit with Christian morality.

[patriciaruth]

maybe they just open their eyes and note Bushonians reward enemies of the R party?

Aw, common. You should know that most people don't have open eyes, so you can't take the leap that "open eyes" explains this.

[Radix]

"Neither will happen. Get used to it. We have to deal with reality."

Probably won't happen, but that is because of a lack of will, not means.

I guess it is OK because in the end we all end up dead.

Who really cares about posterity anyhow?

[tongue-tied]

Thanks for the reminder. As you know, it is tough to be "extremist anti immigration" here in central CA. The nation's grocery basket begins being filled here, and while they don't work the fields, many of my neighbors speak broken English.

But I'd still like to think we can make headway on the invasion, without killing our local agribusiness.

[NZerFromHK]

Ping! I wrote post 906 in response to Oztrich Boy's posts about nature of American conservatism.

[patriciaruth]

Are you talking about the "absolute" right to own a gun part of the evaluation of Allen.

Do you think Henkley should be able to own a gun when he is released on furlough?

How about the Son of Sam?

Should a 7 year old be allowed to purchase an M-16?

That said, I really want to know if Allen is soft on the second ammendment as that is a very important freedom to me.

[TigersEye]

Thanks for pointing that out. George Allen is now permanently off my list of acceptable candidates.

[patriciaruth]

Pong! I just read your post and loved it.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

The Republican Party and an observably growing presence here on FR is looking at the Religious Right as problem or an obstacle.

That is very true. I'm an atheist and I don't even like it. I have been a Republican activist most of my life - - I secretly wiped a booger on a Democrat senator's office chair in D.C. as a little boy!

The RINOs and liberaltarians, if allowed to be in the driver's seat of the party with a presidential nominee, will ultimately capitulate to the cultural Marxism of the Left and destroy the party from within.

[Oztrich Boy]

In the Neolithic Age
1895
Rudyard Kipling

---

IN THE Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wage
For food and fame and woolly horses’ pelt;
I was singer to my clan in that dim, red Dawn of Man,
And I sang of all we fought and feared and felt.
Yea, I sang as now I sing, when the Prehistoric spring
Made the piled Biscayan ice-pack split and shove;
And the troll and gnome and dwerg, and the Gods of Cliff and Berg
Were about me and beneath me and above.

But a rival, of Solutré, told the tribe my style was outré—
’Neath a tomahawk of diorite he fell.
And I left my views on Art, barbed and tanged, below the heart
Of a mammothistic etcher at Grenelle.

Then I stripped them, scalp from skull, and my hunting dogs fed full,
And their teeth I threaded neatly on a thong;
And I wiped my mouth and said, “It is well that they are dead,
For I know my work is right and theirs was wrong.”

But my Totem saw the shame; from his ridgepole shrine he came,
And he told me in a vision of the night:—
“There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right!”

. . . . .
Then the silence closed upon me till They put new clothing on me
Of whiter, weaker flesh and bone more frail;
And I stepped beneath Time’s finger, once again a tribal singer
And a minor poet certified by Traill.

Still they skirmish to and fro, men my messmates on the snow,
When we headed off the aurochs turn for turn;
When the rich Allobrogenses never kept amanuenses,
And our only plots were piled in lakes at Berne.

Still a cultured Christian age sees us scuffle, squeak, and rage,
Still we pinch and slap and jabber, scratch and dirk;
Still we let our business slide—as we dropped the half-dressed hide—
To show a fellow-savage how to work.

Still the world is wondrous large,—seven seas from marge to marge,—
And it holds a vast of various kinds of man;
And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu,
And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.

Here’s my wisdom for your use, as I learned it when the moose
And the reindeer roared where Paris roars to-night:—
There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And—every—single—one—of—them—is—right!

[Proud Conservative2]

you seem to convienently ignore this part:

Limit availability of guns by whatever means are effective.

He'd NEVER get my vote!!

[Alexander Rubin]

Word.

[patriciaruth]

Limit availability of guns by whatever means are effective.

I find that hard to believe.

Could you document that further?

[patriciaruth]

There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, And—every—single—one—of—them—is—right!

Fun poem, but do you really believe this?

Think about it.

Is there no "tribal lay" that could possibly lead to hardship or death for the tribe?

[BigSkyFreeper]

One of the reasons I support No Child Left Behind, despite the Kennedy bloating of funding necessary to get it passed after we lost control of the Senate, is because if teachers have to spend time teaching to the test they have less time to expound on their Marxism and anti-American and anti-religious beliefs.

One of the reasons I support NCLB is that it puts failing schools on notice. Any school (regardless of size or geographical location) shown to be failing will lose it's funding if it fails to improve it's teaching environment after a determined time period set in the NCLB Act.

If Joe Student wants to learn how to be a good little Marxist, he should learn on his own time, and not my dime.

Lastly. It's not fair to the taxpayers of a school district to continue to dole out money to a failing school in the school district.