Tom Kovach
"Conservative" whiners
Will the real patriots please stand up?
By Tom Kovach
For more than twenty years, I've been an active political conservative. But, I'm starting to come around to Joseph Farah's point of view that perhaps the word "conservative" isn't quite right for me anymore. It's not that I don't want to "conserve" the counter-balancing principles of liberty and responsibility. It's that I'm tired of hearing people blow their "conservative" horn while doing nothing to conserve those principles themselves. (Perhaps a better word for my view is "Constitutionalist.")
The type of person to which I refer is one that thinks of himself as a "conservative" merely because he didn't vote for the "other guy." In other words, a rubber-stamp Republican. A person that says, "Well, look how much worse we'd be if a Democrat had been elected president," and thinks that it was his only other option. A person that thinks that President George W. Bush is a conservative — despite his open assaults upon the security of our national borders, his bypassing of the Constitutional requirement for a declaration of war, his secret maneuvers to merge three countries into one, etc, ad nauseum. That type of voter thinks that the Republican Party is the conservative party.
People like that don't really follow politics. Of course, they think they do. Many of them now write highly opinionated blogs, and try to impress others with their political "knowledge." In fact, one of those blogs is what got me fired up to write this column. The blogger said something to the effect of, "I actually like the Constitution Party. If they would ever garner enough votes to field viable candidates, then I would vote for them." Well, now, isn't that just special? I guess the blogger thinks that, if enough other people eat chocolate cake, then he will decide that it tastes good.
Will the real patriots in this country please stand up?
During my misinformed youth, I voted for Jimmy Carter. But, the sudden shift in national standing during the Reagan Revolution convinced me that I had been fooled by the Left-tilting news media. When I began reading some of the founding documents of this country for myself, I discovered that no president since Thomas Jefferson (except Theodore Roosevelt) had come as close to the true spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as one Ronald Reagan. (I love the title Ronaldus Maximus, coined by Rush Limbaugh.) I once had a brief e-mail exchange with Michael Deaver, who was Reagan's chief of staff. I told him that his book A Different Drummer had given me a deeper appreciation of Ronald Reagan the man; and, that the new insights only strengthened my admiration of Ronald Reagan the president.
The sad fact, though, is that the Republican Party of today is "the party of Reagan" in name only. Given the spirit of compromise afoot in the GOP today, given the view "my party, right or wrong" that seems to guide many of its members, my guess is that Ronald Reagan wouldn't get nominated to the county legislature in today's Republican Party. But, he would be quite welcome in the Constitution Party.
Why? Not because of political pragmatism — even though he won election, and re-election, by a wider margin than any other president in modern history. Not because of the infectious Reagan charm — although that certainly wouldn't hurt. Not only because when he said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," he really meant it — although that is a key to the real answer. The reason that Ronald Reagan — or a candidate like him — would be welcome in the Constitution Party is principle. Ronald Reagan understood that the country was built upon things much bigger than one man's personality, or his legacy. And, the fact that Ronald Reagan simply ran the country the best he could — according to his principles, without trying to build a legacy for himself — is the very reason that the Reagan legacy is so big. Correction: huge.
Patriots have principles, not polls.
Pragmatists, such as that blogger, want to wait until it looks as though victory is easily achievable. Well, if it were easy, then the word for it wouldn't sound so powerful. Until the Americans won the Revolution, it was still an act of treason — punishable by death — to speak out publicly in favor of independence from the British crown. Some people today consider it political "treason" to be a conservative, but not a Republican.
My view is that the Republican Party is beyond repair. (Although I've been a conservative since about 1982, I've never been a member of the Republican Party. During and after my military career, I was in the Conservative Party of NY State. After my move to Tennessee in 2001, I joined the Constitution Party.) And, just to prove their irreparability, here is a challenge to the Republican leadership. I'll believe that the conservative movement within the GOP can be repaired just as soon as I see a wall along the entire length of both of our national borders.
That wall is the lodestone of the next presidential election. One cannot be for border security and vote Republican. The leading proponents of border security within the Republican Party — US Representatives Tom Tancredo, Ron Paul, and Duncan Hunter — are being virtually ignored by their own party. Any one of them (or all of them) would be quite welcome in the Constitution Party. If they desire to become president (and all of them have exploratory committees at this point), then they must realize that the GOP will yank the rug out from under them (just as it did to Herbert London, the real conservative, when he ran for governor of New York in 1994) rather than let them take their principles into the White House.
Victory will not be easy. There are many obstacles to overcome. One of the most difficult will be "conservative" business leaders that quietly hire illegal aliens, and then use their ill-gotten profits to contribute to the Republican Party that has made their treason profitable. Other obstacles include fundraising, name recognition, and being ignored into spending more by the "mainstream" news media. (Back in 2000, the MSM ignored the Alan Keyes campaign to death, because they couldn't openly attack a Black conservative.)
But, if victory comes, it will be truly sweet. It will mean that principle triumphs over money, over inertia, and over hidden agendas. Every great movement started from small beginnings. In 1776, a small group of men on one end of the Concord Bridge fired "the shot heard 'round the world." The Nazi onslaught was reversed, according to Army legend, when just one Ranger stood up and shouted, "Follow me!" That move put the bulge into The Battle of the Bulge. As for me, I don't care what some pragmatic blogger says about waiting for the polling-number bandwagon. I'll stand up for the candidate that stands up for America. And, it looks like that candidate will need to come from a party other than the Big Two, because they've both sold our country down the river (specifically, the Rio Grande) for their version of political pragmatism.
Who will stand with me?
© Tom Kovach
For more than twenty years, I've been an active political conservative. But, I'm starting to come around to Joseph Farah's point of view that perhaps the word "conservative" isn't quite right for me anymore. It's not that I don't want to "conserve" the counter-balancing principles of liberty and responsibility. It's that I'm tired of hearing people blow their "conservative" horn while doing nothing to conserve those principles themselves. (Perhaps a better word for my view is "Constitutionalist.")
The type of person to which I refer is one that thinks of himself as a "conservative" merely because he didn't vote for the "other guy." In other words, a rubber-stamp Republican. A person that says, "Well, look how much worse we'd be if a Democrat had been elected president," and thinks that it was his only other option. A person that thinks that President George W. Bush is a conservative — despite his open assaults upon the security of our national borders, his bypassing of the Constitutional requirement for a declaration of war, his secret maneuvers to merge three countries into one, etc, ad nauseum. That type of voter thinks that the Republican Party is the conservative party.
People like that don't really follow politics. Of course, they think they do. Many of them now write highly opinionated blogs, and try to impress others with their political "knowledge." In fact, one of those blogs is what got me fired up to write this column. The blogger said something to the effect of, "I actually like the Constitution Party. If they would ever garner enough votes to field viable candidates, then I would vote for them." Well, now, isn't that just special? I guess the blogger thinks that, if enough other people eat chocolate cake, then he will decide that it tastes good.
Will the real patriots in this country please stand up?
During my misinformed youth, I voted for Jimmy Carter. But, the sudden shift in national standing during the Reagan Revolution convinced me that I had been fooled by the Left-tilting news media. When I began reading some of the founding documents of this country for myself, I discovered that no president since Thomas Jefferson (except Theodore Roosevelt) had come as close to the true spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as one Ronald Reagan. (I love the title Ronaldus Maximus, coined by Rush Limbaugh.) I once had a brief e-mail exchange with Michael Deaver, who was Reagan's chief of staff. I told him that his book A Different Drummer had given me a deeper appreciation of Ronald Reagan the man; and, that the new insights only strengthened my admiration of Ronald Reagan the president.
The sad fact, though, is that the Republican Party of today is "the party of Reagan" in name only. Given the spirit of compromise afoot in the GOP today, given the view "my party, right or wrong" that seems to guide many of its members, my guess is that Ronald Reagan wouldn't get nominated to the county legislature in today's Republican Party. But, he would be quite welcome in the Constitution Party.
Why? Not because of political pragmatism — even though he won election, and re-election, by a wider margin than any other president in modern history. Not because of the infectious Reagan charm — although that certainly wouldn't hurt. Not only because when he said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," he really meant it — although that is a key to the real answer. The reason that Ronald Reagan — or a candidate like him — would be welcome in the Constitution Party is principle. Ronald Reagan understood that the country was built upon things much bigger than one man's personality, or his legacy. And, the fact that Ronald Reagan simply ran the country the best he could — according to his principles, without trying to build a legacy for himself — is the very reason that the Reagan legacy is so big. Correction: huge.
Patriots have principles, not polls.
Pragmatists, such as that blogger, want to wait until it looks as though victory is easily achievable. Well, if it were easy, then the word for it wouldn't sound so powerful. Until the Americans won the Revolution, it was still an act of treason — punishable by death — to speak out publicly in favor of independence from the British crown. Some people today consider it political "treason" to be a conservative, but not a Republican.
My view is that the Republican Party is beyond repair. (Although I've been a conservative since about 1982, I've never been a member of the Republican Party. During and after my military career, I was in the Conservative Party of NY State. After my move to Tennessee in 2001, I joined the Constitution Party.) And, just to prove their irreparability, here is a challenge to the Republican leadership. I'll believe that the conservative movement within the GOP can be repaired just as soon as I see a wall along the entire length of both of our national borders.
That wall is the lodestone of the next presidential election. One cannot be for border security and vote Republican. The leading proponents of border security within the Republican Party — US Representatives Tom Tancredo, Ron Paul, and Duncan Hunter — are being virtually ignored by their own party. Any one of them (or all of them) would be quite welcome in the Constitution Party. If they desire to become president (and all of them have exploratory committees at this point), then they must realize that the GOP will yank the rug out from under them (just as it did to Herbert London, the real conservative, when he ran for governor of New York in 1994) rather than let them take their principles into the White House.
Victory will not be easy. There are many obstacles to overcome. One of the most difficult will be "conservative" business leaders that quietly hire illegal aliens, and then use their ill-gotten profits to contribute to the Republican Party that has made their treason profitable. Other obstacles include fundraising, name recognition, and being ignored into spending more by the "mainstream" news media. (Back in 2000, the MSM ignored the Alan Keyes campaign to death, because they couldn't openly attack a Black conservative.)
But, if victory comes, it will be truly sweet. It will mean that principle triumphs over money, over inertia, and over hidden agendas. Every great movement started from small beginnings. In 1776, a small group of men on one end of the Concord Bridge fired "the shot heard 'round the world." The Nazi onslaught was reversed, according to Army legend, when just one Ranger stood up and shouted, "Follow me!" That move put the bulge into The Battle of the Bulge. As for me, I don't care what some pragmatic blogger says about waiting for the polling-number bandwagon. I'll stand up for the candidate that stands up for America. And, it looks like that candidate will need to come from a party other than the Big Two, because they've both sold our country down the river (specifically, the Rio Grande) for their version of political pragmatism.
Who will stand with me?
© Tom Kovach
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