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My brother is a liberal who loves Obama and is thrilled with his legacy (shutting down Alaska drilling notwithstanding, which Jeff realizes will kill Alaska’s economy). I got to listen to him extol Obama’s legacy over Christmas dessert. Fortunately, Jeff allows people to counter his arguments (he was raised by our mother, after all).

Obama is feverishly trying to set his legacy in concrete. It’s the usual Democrat “lame duck” stupidity. While I agree with pardoning convicted felons, locking up Alaska’s offshore oil depositions is just plain national suicide, and stashing billions of taxpayer dollars in federal agencies that will then act as governments unto themselves, taking away freedoms one regulation as a time is equally stupid.

Hoo-haw! He’s running roughshod over the actual rights of some people in order to give the ill-informed what they think they need. Isn’t democracy great? The problem with this scenario is that no Obama lover seems to recognize that Obama’s primary legacy is not so warm and fuzzy and the damage it causes may go on for decades after Obama has passed from the public mindset.

The forgotten Obama legacy is ISIS, the Syrian civil war, and the resulting mass migration/invasion of Europe. Bluntly stated, the whole idea to bring “democracy” to Syria was hatched by the Obama Administration and probably mostly by the Emperor himself, which some enthusiastic encouragement from Hillary. The conversation probably went something like this:

Mr. President, if you topple this dictator and install an American-friendly puppet government in his place, people will remember you as a great foreign policy president and forget all about you literally bowing to dictators early in your presidency. Assad is ripe for the picking. His people hate him and you can make up any story you want … you know the Americans who love you will believe whatever you say. And those others … they’re pro-war anyway, so their protests will sound silly and racist.

When Assad refused to concede to Obama’s “superiority” and refused to step down as Obama demanded, Obama’s ego wouldn’t let it rest. It became an ego contest between Obama, Assad and Putin not because Assad and Putin were seeking to get into a pissing context with the Commander and Chief of the largest military in the world, but because Obama’s ego is so big that his pride couldn’t take it that Assad didn’t just do what he demanded.

Liberals say “words matter” and that’s why they don’t call terrorism “terrorism”, but when all you do is tell lies, words actually don’t matter when they originate from your mouths. Liberals say calling terrorism “terrorism” gives the terrorist power. That’s ridiculous! Words do not give terrorists power. The weapons Obama gave them gives them power.

Bear with me a moment. The US has a long history of covertly arming “rebels” around the world. The Reagan administration sold weapons to Iran less than a decade after Iranians captured the US embassy and held US diplomatic staff as prisoners. They then used the proceeds of that sale to arm “rebels” in El Salvador. We know this because the US press reported on it throughout the end of the Reagan administration.

We did the same thing in Afghanistan in the 1980s and created al-Qaida in the process.

The media doesn’t mention all the blood Obama has on his hands. ISIS started as a small off-shoot of Al-Qaida that wanted to use more brutal tactics than its parent organization. ISIS could not have won the battlefield victories they have without major military weaponry from somewhere. Neither could the so-called “moderate” rebels, who are out-and-out terrorists the Obama administration  relabeled as “moderates” to justify funneling weapons to them. Terrorists blow crap up to inflict terror on a population. The “moderate” rebels blow crap up, thus inflicting terror on the Syrian people, causing them to flee their country.

When the war-weary American people demanded the US government opt out of involvement in the Syrian civil war, Obama found an al-Qaida-affiliated group to add to the chaos. Given the Kalashnikovs and other Russian-made arms found in ISIS hands, it’s likely the US is using our brand new NATO allies in Eastern Europe to arm them. Yes, Eastern Europe would rather have Putin distracted in the Middle East than breathing down their necks in Europe the way he is in Ukraine. We certainly know that American-made pickup trucks sold in the United States as used vehicles showed up in ISIS hands. This is how ISIS got the anti-tank missiles to take out Assad’s armor and anti-aircraft missiles capable of downing Assad’s aircraft. There’s obviously been continual re-supply of replacement small arms, ammunition, light artillery, food, clothing, medical supplies, and vehicles. These items weren’t picked up at garage sale. They were bought in Eastern Europe with American money, just as we armed the Iraqi puppet army after 2003. The United States thought these groups would topple Assad and then invite the US government to install an American-friendly regime through a rigged election where both candidates were groomed by US convert agencies years ago. Remember the Orlando shooter’s father?

The problem with this plan was that the Syrian voters fled Syria, taking their votes with them. These people are now all homeless. Europe, who ought to be really pissed off at the result of Obama’s pride, absorbed tens of thousands of refugees and more keep coming. The Obama administration has yet to admit they failed and give up this tragic course of action. They continued arming and training “rebels” over there and that kept the war going. Rather than cooperate with the nations fighting ISIS, they were training “rebels” to fight Assad, Iran, Russia, and ISIS.

You’d think Europe would wake up and smell the coffee and recognize that Obama administration is the responsible body for all of the bloodshed and refugees. I keep hearing hints of this realization on PBS, but they don’t want to come out directly and say Obama is directly responsible for the Syrian civil war dragging on for years and that only U.S.-supplied weapons made that possible.

Judging from al-Qaida (which ISIS is an off-shoot of), we can look forward to at least another two decades of attacks from ISIS. Al-Qaida began during the Afghan-Soviet War (another terrorist group we created to fight a government, too) and started operations against the West in 1993. They hit the World Trade Center with a truck bomb during Clinton administration. Europe better get used to terrorism attacks because they will continue for decades to come. The United States ought to realize we’ll soon see major attacks that will dwarf the last two mass shooting. We just haven’t seen ISIS’s version of 9-11 yet. When that comes, some of us will recognize that as President Obama’s true legacy, but I suspect that Obama lovers like my brother will blame the last or current Republican administration rather than their “hero”.

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What holds up conservativism from sweeping the nation?

When my dad, the classical liberal, used to tease my mom and call her a “conservative”, she was one of a tiny group of self-described conservatives in America. In the 1960s, the entire national “convention” could have been held in the hockey arena in Fairbanks Alaska.

Things have changed. Today, 40-45% of the nation’s voters describe themselves as “conservative”. That makes us the largest voting bloc in the nation. But as I explained in my earlier post, mostly we’re supporting the Republican Party in electing moderate progressives who then give “conservatism” a bad name by acting in pretty liberal ways. The Republicans say we should moderate our positions in order to attract people, but becoming progressives does not seem like a viable way to advance the cause of conservatism. In fact, I could argue that is what we’ve been doing since the 1990s and look where we are today.

I don’t think our principles are the problem. Poll after poll says people are largely conservative on a whole host of topics. I think it is our communication of those principles that cause us difficulty. When the Republicans got waxed in the 2012 election, it seemed as if they might self-analyze, but they’ve decided to look more like Democrats, so conservatives need to start looking a lot more like conservatives than Republicans.

If, as a conservative you’re still hanging onto the GOP, there are some things to consider about the 2012 election. The Republicans lost the minority vote, the women’s vote, and the city vote, but they also lost a large number of conservatives – and then they lost the election. Conservatives are propping up the Grand Old Party and if we withdraw our support, poof, the GOP goes the way of the Whigs. In a 3-way election, if conservatives vote as a bloc, we win. But how do we pull that off?

The American Conservative Party has a good idea. Concentrate on local elections and let the federal level go for now. Why? Because the two major parties have a stranglehold on the federal election … for now. Ballot access laws prevent third parties from getting on the ballot in most states. However, by concentrating on each state individually, third parties can get on local school boards and city councils and then into state legislatures, so that by the time they declare for the Presidency they won’t be unknown to the people in at least a plurality of states.

All politics is local anyway and much of it is non-partisan, so that candidates do not have to overcome negative party images and simply run on the issues. If we can prove to our communities that conservatism works, then we can move onto transforming our state governments and then our nation.

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I don’t know what to call myself.

For two decades I have called myself a non-partisan conservative. As Joe over on the Rio Norte Line pointed out a while ago, a conservative is someone who believes in “conserving” the current governmental system. I’m definitely not a conservative by that definition. I like the Constitution. I think the system it founded was a good one, but I don’t think our current governmental system is that system. Maybe if you could disentangle the administrative state, restore states rights and force the three main branches back into their checks-and-balances silos, but that’s not what we have right now, so I’m not a conservative if it means I defend the current system … I don’t.

I don’t know that many of the founders of the modern conservative movement would call themselves conservative by that definition. They believed in reforming the governmental system in an attempt to return it to a more constitutional size and strength. Modern “conservatives” mostly seem to be about expanding our military and advancing the Republican Party.

I believe in the Constitution, but I also agree with Joe that THE founding document of the United States of America is the Declaration of Independence, so where the Constitution has strayed from the Declaration, I cannot support it. So, I guess I’m not really a constitutionalist either.

I am a civil libertarian, but the Libertarian Party platform leaves me cold, so I am not a (Big L) Libertarian, though I have libertarian leanings.

I believe in natural rights, but I also believe that natural rights must be tempered with civility (more on that subject later), so I’m probably not an (little a) anarchist, though I have anarchist leanings.

I believe in voting and being involved in electoral politics, but I hate political parties and only consider third-parties as a compromise position, so I’m a non-partisan.

So what do you call a chimera like that? In the 1770s, I’d have been called a liberal, but that word has been so distorted to mean those who favor big government and associated spending and intrusion that I can’t use that. So ….

If you had to fit it on a bumper sticker, what would you call me?

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Election cycle after election cycle has produced growing tyranny. At the same time, polls show that the American people are highly (60-75%) dissatisfied with the current government and feel there is never any progress toward resolving the real issues of the country no matter which party is in control. When the Republicans were in the majority of all three branches of government, tyrannical regulations continued to grow and so did spending. When the Democrats were in the majority of all three branches of government, tyrannical regulations continued to grow and spending increased even faster than under the Republicans. Now that we have divided government, tyrannical regulations continue to grow, spending has stabilized, but the problems are mainly being kicked down the road. Solutions are addressed in one chamber to be ignored by the other and if it gets passed the Senate, the President will veto it. If he doesn’t and it becomes law, the administrative state will bury any solution that moves toward self-government deep, deep in a vault never to be seen again.

States have good ideas, but the federal government ignores the states or threatens them with draconian action if they “get out of line”. The solution when the ballot box doesn’t work is … some would say revolution, but revolutions are bloody and result in graveyards and involve completely setting aside the existing form of government. I like the government our Founders designed. I’d like to pull it out of the swamp it’s been buried in and wipe the muck off, see if it might actually work in the 21st century if given a chance. If only our Ruling Class would allow that …
Our Constitution provides the means to peacefully correct the current mess, but Congress as currently arranged is not going to pass the REINS Act (requiring a thorough Congressional review and up-down vote on all federal regulations) or constitutional amendments requiring term limits, balanced federal budgets, repeal of the 16th Amendment (personal income tax), and the17th Amendment (direct election of Senators) and restructuring (or repeal/replace) of the 14th Amendment (where it interferes with the 10th Amendment). If Congress won’t act to send amendments to the states for ratification, then the Constitution provides an alternative means to avoid armed revolution. An amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate (uh, yeah, not going to happen) or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures.

I was taught in political science classes that an Article V convention to amend the U.S. Constitution is a scary thing that never turns out well. It’s never happened in the United States, unless you count the convention that replaced the Articles of Confederation with the U.S. Constitution. That history gives us a reason to be nervous of such a gathering, but the question we need to ask ourselves is:

Should we fear that gathering more than we fear the unchecked growth of governmental tyranny?

My professors, who were almost all on the moderate left, feared a conservative uprising to create a permanent ban on all abortions, relegating women to barefoot pregnant culinary servitude, imposing a theocracy, and making Ronald Reagan President for life. Today, I’m sure they worry about conservatives doing many of the same things. But let’s be honest. Those on the right fear what a liberal uprising might do on such issues, including making Barack Obama President for life, and the very real risks to the First Amendment protections for political speech, the 2nd Amendment, the 4th Amendment and 10th Amendment. Heck, I worry about the potential effect on the entire Bill of Rights. There are those who believe that the dangers of a runaway convention are so severe that we cannot risk ruining our Constitution by even allowing such a convention to take place.

For a long time, I agreed. Now, I’m not so certain. I haven’t drank any koolaid yet, but I’m re-evaluating my position, because:

• · The federal government has grown far beyond its constitutionally imposed limitations.
• · All branches of the government have participated
• · Each exercises unprecedented control over the lives of the citizens.
• · The “administrative state” acts as a fourth, extra-constitutional branch of government that falls outside of the normal checks-and-balances of the federal structure.

The federal kraken has grown into a leviathan that we may not be able to tame without an Article V amending convention.  We have three choices – continue with growing tyranny, explode into a revolution, or take an intermediate step that may seem radical, but might avoid bloodshed.

In Federalist No. 48, James Madison wrote: “The conclusion which I am warranted in drawing from these observations is that a mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.”

Madison was prescient.  Even the mighty Constitution itself has not been enough to restrain against the encroachments of a tyrannical concentration of federal government power.  Perhaps it is time the citizens rise up, through a Convention of the States and restrain the federal kraken again.

I don’t write that without trepidation. I’m a federalist, so I tend to trust the states far more than I do the federal government, but the America of the 21st century is not the America of the 18th. There are risks inherent in such a gathering. California and Texas have radically different ideas of what the country should look like. However ….

The Founders made this mechanism available in the Constitution itself to avoid another blood-soaked armed revolution. I imagine they recognized it as necessary since all of them were violating the Articles of Confederation which did not include any sort of mechanism for admendment. Imagine, learning from your mistakes? Back to the subject. Thirty-eight states must ratify any amendment. Take a look at the red-blue map and look at the states so represented. I couldn’t find 38 states that could form a radical left or right bloc. I did count 38 states that might be in favor of stuffing the federal kraken back in the cage from which it has slithered.

Remember, the US Constitution was written to encourage gridlock, to slow down the political process until broad general public consensus was reached. Nothing can come out of a constitutional convention and be ratified by so many states unless the public in general wants it. And that’s the point!

Each state’s legislature would need to weigh carefully the delegates to this convention and give them specific instructions on what they may and may not meddle with. Alaska is unlikely to send delegates who oppose the First Amendment protections on speech, the Second Amendment protections on fire arms, the protections on fair trial, privacy, or states’ rights. I think we might be surprised at how California and New Jersey feel about states’ rights once they realize that the power to infringe upon their rights is also part and parcel with the power to infringe upon the rights of others states. The body of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are probably safe from being heavily meddled with by 38 states – well, actually 75 of the 99 legislative bodies in the 50 states. Nebraska has a unicameral legislature, by the way. I’m not saying there wouldn’t be debate at the convention on the Bill of Rights. I just can’t see 75 legislative bodies agreeing to ratify substantial changes, even on the 2nd amendment and most especially on the 10th. If anything, I think they’d want to make that one clearer.

The following 17 amendments may be a different matter. They should be a different matter because many of them were ill-conceived, enacted with era-specific agendas, resulting in unintended negative consequences that may, in some instances, outweigh the positive benefits. No, I’m not saying these amendments should all be repealed. I’m saying they want examination and reform as needed and, if Congress won’t do it, then the state legislatures must.

State legislatures would need to carefully weigh how their authority would be wielded by their delegates at the convention. Choosing delegates would be instructive in itself. Following the convention, just as in 1789, the amendments would have to go to each legislature, most of whom must weigh their decisions based on the voter sentiment in their own state. Thirty eight states (75 separate legislative bodies) would need to agree to them for them to change our constitution. There would no doubt be some version of the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers floating around during the ratification process. Some states might put it to a direct vote of the people. Others would probably create ratification committees. Again, the debates triggered would go a long way toward educating the public on the Constitution and perhaps giving us ownership of it. In 1787, the whole Bill of Rights was put up as a package, but that needn’t be the process for whatever a convention came up with in, say 2015. More than likely, it would be a line-item ratification just as congressionally-generated amendments have been. Though it’s not without risk, what better example of states rights and self-government do we need in the 21st century?

The alternative is we wait for the situation to become so bad that Americans take up arms against Americans. Oh, yeah, we did that once before. Southerners started shooting at Northerners, the President declared war and, after four years of bloodshed, the “winner” forced the loser to cede states’ rights in favor of an imperial administration. The country has been on a liberty-damaging trajectory ever since.

What if we had called a constitutional convention in 1860 and resolved the slavery question through compromise and negotiation instead of bloodshed and tyrannical reconstruction? Which do we prefer?

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If conservatism wants to transform our nation from the ground up, we first have to start at the local level. Why? Because the “blue regions” think we’re nuts, so talking to them over the Internet isn’t really going to convince them of anything and the media won’t give the straight talk on our principles, so face-to-face, where they can see your eyes and your life is the best way to go. This doesn’t mean a national message will never get through, only that all politics is local and you are going to see your greatest harvest if you start there.

Here in Alaska, there’s a tale to tell about this. In 1990, a local motel owner found her property taxes going up yet again and in frustration she called the local talk radio station. Bill Wally, the Fairbanks business owner who hosted the week-day show Problem Corner, listened to Donna Gilbert and thought there had to be something to do to fix what many of us saw as tax Armageddon. Our mil-rate was going through the roof, our Borough and City government employees were making incredible wages and there didn’t seem to be any end in sight. Off the air, Donna encouraged Bill to run for mayor, which at the time was a ceremonial position. The city was run by a city manager and the borough (our county) was also. Bill decided to run as mayor and use his position as a bully pulpit. The town’s people submitted an initiative that changed the major into a strong mayor position and shortly thereafter another initiative passed that put a tax cap in place, forcing the city to stay within budgetary limits and only raise taxation levels by a vote of the people. Not too long later, the borough also got a strong mayor and a tax cap, also by citizen initiative.

The battle that followed was not an easy one. The city chose not to plow the streets for a winter in order to get us to vote down the tax cap, but every two years the voters reinstate both caps and we’ve held the line on spending and government growth. The city gave up coercion as a tool and now actually has a savings account and the streets get plowed.

Slowly, but surely, that conservative ideal has permeated Fairbanks politics. For a long time, we sent Republicans to Juneau where they immediately became progressives, but recently we’ve sent conservative Republicans to Juneau. The GOP in Fairbanks is strongly conservative and it is having an effect on the state level GOP, though one the party is wholeheartedly resisting complete with political dirty tricks. As a non-partisan, I find the in-fighting annoyingly stupid and it tempts/prompts me to vote non-partisan, but I also see it as a sign that there is a debate happening in the Alaska GOP that might lead to some substantive changes – eventually.

During the last few years, the Alaska Senate was evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, but a handful of Republicans caucused with the Democrats and voted as a bloc – tying up legislation that Interior communities needed – natural gas trucking, a gas pipeline, etc. Interior voters helped to force a sea change this last fall and now the Senate is solidly Republican, but not just Republican – conservative Republican. They’re the ones who have fought for nullification of federal laws, more freedom with fire arms, and a reduction in regulations.

Alaska is a small population state with a well-educated, politically involved population, so changes here are perhaps easier than in other states, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. By targeting local offices where candidates often do not even need to declare a party, conservatives can teach their fellow citizens about our principles without scaring the unlearned with that word “conservative”. Our principles make incredible sense if they are not approached with presuppositions and local politics is the best place to prove that they work in the real world.

That done, it is much easier to conquer state and national elections because success at the local level brings supporters to our cause.

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What holds up conservativism from sweeping the nation?

When my dad, the classical liberal, used to tease my mom and call her a “conservative”, she was one of a tiny group of self-described conservatives in America. In the 1960s, the entire national “convention” could have been held in the hockey arena in Fairbanks Alaska. Things have changed. Today, 40-45% of the nation’s voters describe themselves as “conservative”. That makes us the largest voting bloc in the nation. But as I explained in my earlier post, mostly we’re supporting the Republican Party in electing moderate progressives who then give “conservatism” a bad name by acting in pretty liberal ways. The Republicans say we conservatives should moderate our positions in order to attract people to the Republican Party, but becoming progressives does not seem like a viable way to advance the cause of conservatism. In fact, I could argue that is what we’ve been doing since the 1990s and look where we are today.

I don’t think our principles are the problem. If they were, our numbers of voluntary association would not be increasing and they are. I think it is the Republican communication of those principles that cause us difficulty. When the Republicans got waxed in the 2012 election, it seemed as if they might self-analyze, but they’ve decided to look more like Democrats, so conservatives need to start looking a lot more like conservatives than Republicans.

If, as a conservative you’re still hanging onto the GOP, there are some things to consider about the 2012 election. The Republicans lost the minority vote, the women’s vote, and the city vote, but they also lost a large number of conservatives – and then they lost the election. If you were following the polls prior to the decision to nominate Mitt Romney, the GOP had a substantial lead over President Obama. That gradually disappeared in the runup to the general election. If you went out on conservative websites, you saw supposedly conservative commentators trying to convince conservative voters that Mitt Romney was palatable to them. But the final election results and polling following show that conservatives stayed home on election night. And the GOP lost the election.

So what does that tell us?

Conservatives are propping up the Grand Old Party and if we withdraw our support, puff, the GOP goes the way of the Whigs. In a 3-way election, if conservatives vote as a bloc, we win. But how do we pull that off?

The American Conservative Party has a good idea. I may be irritated with their insistence that you have to pay to research their ideas, but I give kudos where they’re due. Theyr’e concentrating on local elections and letting the federal level go for now. Why? Because the two major parties have a stranglehold on the federal election … for now. Ballot access laws prevent third parties from getting on the ballot in most states. However, by concentrating on each state individually, third parties can get on local school boards and city councils and then into state legislatures, so that by the time they declare for the Presidency they won’t be unknown to the people in at least a plurality of states. I wonder what color a third party might get on the election map. I like green.

All politics is local anyway and if we can prove to our communities that conservatism works, then we can move onto transforming our state governments and then our nation.

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I was leery of the Conservative Party when it first got started in 2008. For one thing, it seemed a bit cheeky to call themselves the American Conservative Party before conservatives had a chance to decide if they had earned that title. And, frankly, there was no time for them to build any sort of consensus by the November 2008 election. I gave them a cursory glance in 2012, but felt that the issues Obama presented were too important to allow him to win while I voted on principle. So, now, assured that there are three years to consider a new direction for the country, I am ready to say I like their platform.

As a Christian who also believes in civil liberties, I like their stand on religious freedom, which is that they don’t have much to say about it other than that it is a right and therefore protected. I like that they aren’t going for the presidency in 2016 and plan to focus on city councils and school boards in 2014 and maybe Congressional races in 2016. All politics is local and this sounds like a true grass-roots movement. When, if, they’ve established a track record at the local and state levels in enough states, they can become a true national party. That is far more sensible than wasting time, energy and money getting certified for a presidential election at this point.

On the other hand, the ACP seems a bit uncomfortable with allowing non-partisans like myself access to some of their state sites. They want money first. That could explain why my fellow Alaskans don’t appear to have formed a state site yet. Most of us are unwilling to buy a pig in a poke.

So, it looks like, at this moment, I am going to remain a non-partisan … for now. If they have a booth at the Alaska State Fair in Fairbanks, I’ll stop and talk with them. If not, well, they’re missing an opportunity here and not just with me, because as I said, most Alaskans are high-information voters.

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So I’m working my way through conservative political parties in an attempt to find one that meets me most of the way. I’m told by all sorts of people – this being Alaska – really all sorts – that I’ve just got to check out the Libertarian Party because Ron Paul used to be a Libertarian and it’s just so Alaskan.

The Libertarian Party isn’t really a conservative party. It’s a fiscally conservative party that advocates for leaving the other guy alone. On the surface, I like that idea, but I’ve got some reservations. When I scratched beneath the surface of the Republican Party I did not find a party committed to republicanism as I understand it – and I understand it in a Jeffersonian way … more or less. When I scratched beneath the surface of the Constitution Party, I found a few places where they aren’t all that constitutional. So, I have reservations about the deeper structures of the Libertarian Party. I’m a small l libertarian.

I agree that government exists to protect the rights of every individual and should not be engaged in choosing groups of individuals for special protection.

First, I have some good friends who were strong members of the Libertarian Party for over 20 years who withdrew several years ago because of the LP stance on the legalization of drugs and abortion. As a Christian who believes that murder is murder even if the victim is pre-born, I don’t think I can vote for people who say it doesn’t matter. I don’t find the constitutional argument for privacy holding any water in this instance. Our founders never would have agreed that murder was okay so long as it was private. The taking of human life is murder. Maybe I wouldn’t be comfortable with women and doctors who perform abortions being prosecuted as aggressively as people doing driveby shootings, but I still hold with the moral concept that abortion is murder and that the Constitution doesn’t give us a special right to commit murder under special circumstances. “All men are created equal” except if “they’re a black person living below a certain geographical line and then they’re not.” That was a special right granted white southerners by the Supreme Court and it was still wrong.

I agree that the military is way larger than it needs to be and that the United States should not attempt to act as global police officer, but when researching the LP, I also believe we must maintain our ability to wage war on foreign soil and not just react after the fact to aggression that comes against us. I believe that stance will leave us at the mercy of our enemies, fighting on Main Street USA instead of “over there”.  I don’t think that makes me a progressive, but it may make me a realist.

I strongly disagree with allowing an open-borders immigration policy on the grounds that the United States has a right and obligation to its people to protect them not only from military foreign invasion, but also from cultural foreign invasion. The United States of America will not remain the United States of America if we allow ourselves to be overrun by citizens of other countries who have no interest in assimilating to our culture. While we should strive always to be welcoming to those who wish to immigrate to our country, we should remember and they should be reminded that it is OUR country. If they want to join us, they should do it in an orderly and legal fashion. Even legal immigration needs to be measured to allow for assimilation of new immigrants without overwhelming the existing culture. Immigrants should add to our culture, not transform it.

So, while there are parts of the LP platform that I agree with, I cannot agree with enough of it to feel comfortable with it.

Onward in my search.

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http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/january_2013/44_are_fiscally_conservative

Conservatives are the largest voting bloc in the United States. According to a January 2012 Gallup poll, 40% of Americans described their views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% of liberal. Forty-four percent of likely voters said they were fiscally conservative in a January 2013 Rasmussen poll. So why aren’t we sweeping conservatives into office year after year, presidential election after presidential election? Politics … party politics – dictates that conservatives who vote with the Republican Party are forced to settle for moderate and progressive Republicans and endure the heartburn over broken promises after supporting an impostor.

It would be untrue for me to say there aren’t good, conservative Republicans holding office. There are some who serve diligently and deserve our profound thanks and support. However, despite their good intentions and hard work, they are powerless against parliamentarian tactics, establishment rule and cronyism. Conservatives have learned to accept that every Republican claims to be conservative during campaign season. The problem with our complacency is they eventually reveal their true colors as progressives and then real conservatives suffer and the conservative movement as a whole loses support. Party politics assures Republicans are voted into office instead of conservatives.

Starting in 2008, conservatives stayed home on Election Day, refusing to support a losing proposition. It was a smallish movement then that probably did not get Barack Obama into the White House, but in 2012 it decided the election of Barack Obama to a second term. Just enough conservatives hang in to keep the Republicans competitive, not knowing they could change the course of our country if we would act in unison.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/11/08/the_case_of_the_missing_white_voters_116106-2.html

Without our support, the Republican Party would vanish overnight, and America would have a legitimate “conservative movement.” Unfortunately, too many conservatives believe that they have no voice without the Republican Party, so we compromise. Why put one’s self in such a dilemma and partake in such a soul-wrenching affair just to say later that the lesser of the two progressive Republicans is better than a progressive Democrat?

Why not pick up and move camp under a single, solitary conservative party?

I know … they never win … unless people vote for them as happened in 1860 and almost happened in 1992. Conservatives are 40-45% of the electorate. Bill Clinton won the 1992 election with only 38% of the vote. Third parties can make a difference and a true conservative party that spoke to the principles of our voting bloc could easily win a three-way election … which would send a strong message to the liberals and moderates that conservatives really do exist and we really do think our principles are what the country needs.

The real problem for me is … how do you pick one?

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Yes, I know there are people who think Chris Christie is wrong for planning a special election on Lautenberg’s vacated seat, but I don’t happen to be one of them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/chris-christie-special-election_n_3384968.html

The United States of America was founded on the principle of citizen self-government. We get to vote for our political representatives. Presumably, the people of New Jersey voted for Senator Lautenberg. Chris Christie could appoint someone to take his spot. If you’re a Republican and you want a Republican in that seat, you’re pissed off that Christie is not going to give you what you want

Let’s examine that!

New Jersey is a deep, deep blue state, but it elected Chris Christie — a moderate Republican with some conservative policies — as its governor. The voters also elected Lautenberg, who appears to have been pretty liberal. However, you can’t assume they voted for him five times because they loved his politics. Most people from the East Coast that I know vote on name recognition and the best ad or political rally slogan. I’m not saying there aren’t people on the East Coast who vote on issues and the content of character, but I haven’t met many and my husband’s entire family comes from the East Coast.

So, a special election provides the opportunity for the people of New Jersey to consider a brand-new slate of candidates and the issues they bring to the campaign. It is an opportunity for them to vote for a liberal, an independent, a moderate, or a conservative. They seem to be, by and large, happy with Christie, so it may be that the people of New Jersey will pick a Senator who will be more conservative than Christie might have chosen.

And, if they don’t — that’s their choice. Those of us who live in other states need to recognize that New Jerseyites have a right to be represented by people who they feel will serve their interests rather than those we think will serve ours.

And, folks, you really do need to get over the idea that the GOP represents conservatives. As evidenced by Christie’s chummy behavior with President Obama, the GOP represents the GOP and its political power. Christie may well think Obama can help him get reelected. So, maybe you’d rather the people of New Jersey — who are not coming up for reelection — make this decision.

Who knows? They might pick a third-party conservative candidate who owes nothing to anyone for his election except to the voters themselves.