Posted on 02/16/2010 6:51:20 AM PST by mdittmar
As much as the surprise retirement of Sen. Evan Bayh (D.-Ind.) and the bright prospects of a conservative Republican pickup of his seat dominated political talk among Washington-area conservatives on Presidents' Day (February 15th), there was another development that may prove to be equally important.
The just-unveiled Mount Vernon Statement, a document crafted and signed by 80 national conservative leaders that spells out the traditional belief in the principles of the Founding Fathers and in the concept of liberty that is spelled out in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.
A gamut of conservative leaders helped draft and then signed the statement, among them former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese, Heritage Foundation President Edwin J. Feulner and Heritage Vice President Becky Norton Dunlop, American Conservative Union President David Keene, former Assistant U.S. Labor Secretary Patrick J. Pizzella, Media Research Center President L. Brent Bozell, Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins (who is more often identified as a pro-family leader than traditional conservative).
The statement is written in bold but rather general terms. Citing how “America’s principles have been undermined and redefined in our culture, our university, and our politics,” the Mount Vernon Statement decries the federal government ignoring “the limits of the Constitution.” It then calls for “a change consistent with the American ideal,” which it defines as “a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.”
As to what that means, the statement goes on to state that the conservatism in the Declaration “asserts self-evident truths based on the laws of nature and nature’s God” and “traces authority to the consent of the governed
Now just being released to the press and the public, the Mount Vernon Statement is a call to those who have been in the conservative movement for many years and others embracing conservatism only recently -- notably those in the growing “tea party movement.” Although there will undoubtedly be interpretations of it by many for weeks to come, my own reading of it yesterday found a not-so-subtle rejection of the “big government conservatism” that so clouded conservative politics in the last decade.
When conservative Republicans in Congress and a Republican Administration were fattening government programs at a pace exceeding that of Bill Clinton, there was a problem, a disconnect between Washington Republicans and conservatives. This was evident in the legions of conservative voters who stayed home in ’06 and ’08, leading to the Republican Party’s worst years at the polls since the Watergate election of 1974.
Now the questions start: will the Mount Vernon Statement be embraced by conservative activists? Will it move those just cutting their political eyeteeth in the Tea Party movement to stay active in politics and perhaps blend and work with those who have been conservative before it was “cool?” And, of course, how will it fare in the long run to the famed “Sharon Statement,” written at the home of William Buckley’s Connecticut home a half-century ago and a document that spoke for and motivated two generations of conservatives?
Guess it's nice to have a statement,I'll just keep doing what I can at the local level.
What are the odds that this matters in the least?
Seems the Tea Party movement is attracting a lot of “leaders”;)
At least the signers are 'on record' with these principles, and others could be encouraged to join them.
With a wary eye I watch this...seems more like a bunch of people who used to have pull trying to get that mojo back on the hard work of the grassroots.
We’ll see.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
I was kinda thinking the same thing.
The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence still work fine for me. But, depending on how it's worded, this manifesto could either be useful or a complete waste of time.
I hope it doesn't turn out to be divisive between RINOs and Conservatives. That's the worst case scenario.
Thanks for the post & “leaders” comment.
Music to read the Mt. Vernon Statement by...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srgi2DkDbPU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YQNK1KfQ7Y&feature=related
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/61365
“”The nation’s top conservative leaders will gather Wednesday at Collingwood in Alexandria, Va.—a property that was once the site of George Washington’s River Farm—to sign a document organizers are calling the Mount Vernon Statement. It is designed to signal that a united and resurgent conservative movement is declaring philosophical war against the big government and moral relativism advanced by the nation’s liberal cultural, academic and political establishments.
The statement emphatically says no to the type of “change” pushed by political leaders who ignore the Constitution’s limits on government power.
“In recent decades, America’s principles have been undermined and redefined in our culture, our universities and our politics,” says an excerpt from the statement. “The self-evident truths of 1776 have been supplanted by the notion that no such truths exist. The federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant.
“Some insist that America must change, cast off the old and put on the new,” says the statement. “But where would this lead—forward or backward, up or down? Isn’t this idea of change an empty promise or even a dangerous deception?”
“The change we urgently need, a change consistent with the American ideal, is not movement away from but toward our founding principles,” it says.
The full document will be posted online at www.themountvernonstatement.com after 3 p.m. Wednesday.
The statement was drafted under the auspices of the Conservative Action Project, a coalition led by Edwin Meese, who served as a top White House adviser and then attorney general to President Ronald Reagan. Other leaders of the coalition include L. Brent Bozell III, president of the Media Research Center (the parent organization of CNSNews.com); Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner; Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist; Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, American Conservative Union President David Keene, Concerned Women for America President Wendy Wright; Coalition for a Conservative Majority Chairman Ken Blackwell; former Reagan Domestic Policy Adviser Ken Cribb; Let Freedom Ring President Colin Hanna, and Al Regnery, publisher of the American Spectator.
More than 80 prominent conservatives from around the country are expected at Collingwood for Wednesday’s signing ceremony. Among them will be people prominent for their efforts on behalf of the conservative cause in economics, social and cultural issues and national security.
The statement intentionally harkens back to the Sharon Statement of 1960, which was signed at the home of William F. Buckley Jr. in Sharon, Conn. That statement of conservative principles helped launch an era of conservative activism that first led to Sen. Barry Goldwater winning the Republican presidential nomination in 1964 and then to Ronald Reagan being elected president in 1980.
“The whole purpose of it is to give an updated version of what are the principles that draw conservatives together,” said Meese, who came with Reagan from California to the White House in January 1981. “And so it was felt both that it was appropriate to draw attention to the Sharon Statement but also to update that in terms of generally how conservatives think today, which is basically the same principles restated in what you might call modern language.”
“At this important time, we need a restatement of constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution,” says another excerpt of the statement released by the organizers.
After President Barack Obama’s election along with a Democratic majority Congress in 2008, some commentators argued that conservatism had perhaps permanently lost its hold on the American electorate and the American mind. Over the past year, however, the fiscally conservative Tea Party movement has risen up from the grass roots, and Republican candidates have won convincing victories in statewide elections in Virginia, New Jersey and even Massachusetts.
Meese told CNSNews.com that if the Republican Party wants to continue this winning trend it must heed conservative principles. “The Republican Party has been successfully when it subscribes to conservative principles,” said Meese. “You go back to 1980, go back to 1994, those were the guiding principles that provided for Republican successes.”
While a number of conservative commentators and organizations will be publishing policy prescriptions this year that they believe can help lead to conservative victories in 2010, the Mount Vernon Statement will not be a campaign document that focuses on individual issues or one election cycle. Rather, it will focus on broad principles, said Media Research President Brent Bozell.
“It’s a document that we hope is going to serve as a compass for the movement so that when we have a debate such as, for example, on socialized health care, there should not be a degree to which government participates in national health care but whether government has the authority, the right to interfere in this issue,” Bozell told CNSNews.com. “If it doesn’t have the specifically enumerated right and responsibility spelled out in the Constitution, then the federal government should not be involved period.”
“Rather than worrying about the size of the deficit and the debt, why don’t we start asking questions about the size of the government itself,” Bozell said. “We need to have that conversation again. Why do we have a Department of Education? Whatever happened to federalism? You’re not going to have that debate until you’re grounded in first principles again.”
When the Sharon Statement was signed, conservatives had only National Review and Human Events to publicize it, said Bozell. But now conservative Web sites, talk radio shows, and social media will make it possible to quickly spread the word to millions about the Mount Vernon Statement.
“Look at the opportunities today,” said Bozell. “When the statement is released, I will be able to send it instantly to 540,000 members of the Media Research Center, grassroots members. The Heritage Foundation has more than 600,000 members. They will be able to send to their membership who will receive it in a matter of minutes.”””
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
True. Very true. Your whole post.
This manifesto thing could be quite informative as to whether we will be fighting the well-organized but damaged marxists or we will be fighting the RINO GOP that remaisn clueless, feckless and afraid.
How many of these signers do you recognize and support?
That train has already left the station. The RINOs don't give a crap about conservatives and we are tired of big government Republicans.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
This manifesto has the potential to help or hurt. Frankly I'm more worried than excited about it. We'll see tomorrow.
America is Conservative,and now we are engaged.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
I’m concerned, too, but I do think that a statement of principles could be useful. It would be very helpful as a teaching tool. We can’t wait forever for new conservatives to get up to speed, and a good statement of principles could give them a little bit of a head start. The quotes from Bozell make me a little more hopeful than I was before about the content of the Mount Vernon Statement actually meaning something, but Richard Viguerie, on the other hand, called it “embarrassing” and “pablum.” http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/15/right-wing-manifesto-makes-bid-to-reunify//print/
Also, a statement of principle could help to make sure that conservatives actually have a better sense of what conservatism is. Some of the Big Government-types just seem to be oblivious, and it would be helpful to be able to point to a document like this and tell them, “Well, a lot of conservatives disagree with you on that.”
I agree. It would need to be specific enough that it would actually provide some sort of instruction with respect to actual issues. If it would turn out to be so vague that conservatives could not generally agree on what violates it and what doesn’t, then it will not be worth much. Hopefully, there will be some real substance to it.
A lot of the names have not been released, yet (as far as I know), but Brent Bozell and Ed Feulner are important contributors who I would support. David McIntosh (former Congressman from Indiana) is conservative, though I do not know how well-recognized his name would be with the general public. (Not very, I assume.)
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