Monday, April 18, 2011
Preserving and Improving America
Conservatives are in the business of preserving and improving any and all worthwhile aspects of the American way of life as they perceive it.
This includes, among many factors:
1. A nation of laws: the Constitution, civil or positive laws, customs and rules.
2. Freedom and Liberty for all citizens, including strong property rights, and the right to own and use guns, as well as freedoms of speech, travel, association, and religion.
3. The free market system, yet with adequate active regulation that effectively prevents fraud and abuse.
4. Maintaining the full and complete sovereignty of the US, and not ceding any aspect of sovereignty whatsoever to an international body, especially not the UN.
5. Natural rights, natural laws, and natural duties.
6. Financial rectitude and budgetary common sense. We support adequate control of spending and borrowing, and orderly and effective reduction of the national debt over time.
7. Charity (that many call welfare) for the needy, the ill, and the destitute.
8. A strong defensive capability for both homeland protection and foreign wars if and when necessary. We believe in just war.
9. Preserving social institutions, customs, and traditions of the nation against the onslaught of progressive changes that would harm a majority of the people.
10. Education of all citizens that succeeds in preparing them to be good and creative citizens in our republic, but not fostering a costly Federal bureaucratic educational superstructure and unions. We need to revert to the tried and true subjects and texts, and the unbiased teachers of yesterday.
11. Moral rectitude and belief in the Golden Rule.
12. The use of science to make life better for all, and to improve our knowledge in all directions.
13. Belief in the nation, patriotism.
14. Outreach to troubled nations.
15. Being a staunch ally to those that we make common cause with by either treaty or simple agreement.
16. Unwavering, implacable enemy of those that would damage or destroy the US or our real friends.
17. The idea of being successful at all that we undertake, be it: social, political, economic, military, environmental, or religious.
18. The exceptionalism of the American experiment in governance: the Constitution of the United States of America as a nonpareil system of thought.
19. The custom of admitting immigrants by a legal process and assimilating them within a generation or so is proper. The necessity is clear for deportation of illegal immigrants and not amnesty.
20. Minimal taxation necessary for running the government, but not for redistribution of wealth per se. Fair taxation is the goal, while progressive schemes are not acceptable. The goal is to let each citizen keep as much of his earnings as possible.
21. Identification of elements that need changes over time, either by expansion or by collapse, and working carefully to institute them using both the legal procedures of the Constitution, and the legislature, and the judiciary and the administration, as the Constitution envisions it to take place.
22. Understanding that Islam is not compatible with our freedoms and liberty, that its jihadist element is an existential threat to the US and way of life, and hence Islam has no standing as a non-threatening religion under our Constitution.
23. Belief that public unions should not be allowed in government at all, and that unions whose actions imperil the citizenry, such as preventing dairy supplies from entering a city, not manning aircraft controller positions, or impeding the defense of the nation, should be completely barred from such actions. In other words, life and survival come before the demands of a union.
24. We feel that there are proper subjects that can be promoted by government seed money under careful supervision, and, eventually, partial or full withdrawal by the government from the arena. Space is an example.
25. Social problems must be addressed properly, including abortion, and same sex marriage. Perhaps a national referendum is in order to ascertain whether the majority of voters favor or disfavor these issues, with legislative action to follow in accord with the wishes of the voters.
26. It is unfortunate that we do not have a free press or a free media. The ideal of the media being a major counter-balance to ensure effective government has been largely destroyed by a virtually complete bias on their part in favor of Leftist positions and Leftist candidates. This is an extremely unhealthy situation for our republic.
April 18, 2011
Labels: Conservatism, Constitution, Fiscal Responsibility, Flat Tax, National Debt, Natural Law, Natural Rights, Will of the People
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