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restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations
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The Myth of Republican Conservatism
In a recent essay entitled “Thank You, Tony Blair,” Cal Thomas defended the Bush-Blair axis of hubris with these words:
Saddam must be found and tried for crimes against humanity. Iraq must be rebuilt into a thriving democracy. To settle for less will invite more terrorism and more states seeking weapons to massively destroy, or at least blackmail, the United States and Britain.
Blair’s conclusion [during his July 17 address to Congress] sounded like an old-fashioned Fourth of July peroration: “Tell the world why you’re proud of America. Tell them when ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ starts, Americans get to their feet. Tell them why Americans, one and all, stand upright and respectful. Not because some state official told them to, but because whatever race, color, class or creed they are, being American means being free. That’s why they’re proud.”
“Free” did you say?
Today Americans are bound by the shackles of government interference as never before, and our taskmasters are not just Democrats but Republicans. What we must understand is that socialism and her handmaidens, atheism and secularism, are being promoted by the Republican Party just as much as they were ever flaunted by the Democrats. Gone forever are the days of the clear-eyed, free-market conservatism of Ronald Reagan, who actually sought to limit government, to lower taxes, to promote biblical values, and to create a climate of self-reliance and self-restraint.
The differences between America’s two major parties are purely cosmetic. As 2000 Constitution Party presidential candidate Howard Phillips said, the choice voters face is no longer a choice between the greater of two evils. Both parties are evil, he said. But, he added, “[The Republican Party] is the greater of the two evils, because it flies a false flag.”
I couldn’t agree more.
How can Americans reconcile the difference between Candidate Bush who claimed to espouse traditional American values and President Bush who gave adoption rights to homosexual couples in D.C. and who appointed numerous open homosexuals to high office within his administration?
What should Americans think of a president who campaigned on a promise to avoid nation building and then launched invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and is about to send troops into Liberia?
And what happened to Candidate Bush’s promises to practice a “humble” foreign policy? They are now scattered about like the debris of a messy divorce, while the U.S. brazenly flexes its military muscle throughout the world (“Bring ’em on!”).
And now the nation is learning something else about Bush that proves something is seriously amiss. It isn’t just the “L” word but a much deeper issue his supporters have been trying to evade for years: the question of character. There is a dangerous “reality gap” between what Bush actually thinks and what he palms off on the nation. Even after the fourth or fifth attempt to pass the buck, the administration still clings to its innocence about the Mis-State-Ment-of-the Union speech.
Little wonder the Democrats are saying that Bush has done more for the fortunes of their party than anyone could ever have dreamed possible.
At the root of Bush’s troubles is not his arrogant management style—which is worrisome enough—but the fact that he does not represent the outlook of traditional American conservatism. Bush has touched the hot button of every ilk of conservative, from free market purists, to social issue conservatives, to right-to-lifers, to anti-tax crusaders.
The Bush administration confirms everything men like Howard Phillips and Chuck Baldwin have been saying for years, which is that the pro-family and pro-freedom movement’s fixation on the White House was a mistake. To think that simply electing George W. Bush to the White House would somehow solve our country’s problems was the height of folly.
The lesson should be obvious. If we conservatives want to control our homes, our children, and our most cherished freedoms, we must throw out once and for all the myth of Republican “conservatism” and demand leaders with personal honor and integrity.
This is one of the reasons we are beginning to hear new voices from Middle America telling us that there is right and wrong, that there is hope to restore the Constitution, and that the values this nation was founded upon are still worth fighting for.
The message to Bush is plain: You are in for an awakening. Through your backing of unconstitutional measures and godless judicial decisions you have rejected God and His role in our national life, and you have lost our support!
And to the American people the message is just as plain. Today the tide is turning. However dark the days may seem, voices of hope and renewal are rising even now. All across this great land of ours the chimes of freedom are ringing louder and clearer.
The most thrilling chapter in the history of America lies ahead.
July 28, 2003
David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.