In 1962 and 63, my awareness of politics went overnight from “yawn” to “what the hell does congress think they are doing.  The overnight cause was a single reading in one fell swoop of Barry Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative, a fairly short book given to me by a High School buddy along with a copy of Ian Fleming’s “Dr. No.”  Both books had an influence, one a 4 year old spy novel that titillated a young man’s imagination, the other, a political statement that more than 45 years later still reverberates in the political halls.  Well, it did until the Republican party lost it’s way!

 In mid-May of this year, my friend Doug Ross published GOP 2.0, Rebooting the Republican Party with a number of priorities that need to become our “ironclad” signature:

STRENGTHEN NATIONAL DEFENSE - increase the size, capability and efficiency of our Armed Forces, bringing back our defense spending to historical levels as percentage of GDP.

GAIN ENERGY INDEPENDENCE - open up ANWR and the OCS to exploration; aggressively pursue nuclear energy and green technologies; and incent private industry to aggressively pursue clean, renewable energy sources.

SECURE THE BORDERS - build physical barriers immediately as a precursor to an overarching, sensible immigration policy. If the boat’s sinking, you plug the holes first.

DEATH TO EARMARKS - zero tolerance for earmarks.

DEATH TO CORRUPTION - zero tolerance for corruption.

ENGLISH AS NATIONAL LANGUAGE - national unity requires a national language. That language is English.

IMPLEMENT FLAT TAX OR FAIR TAX - simplify the tax system by eradicating a tax code gone mad.

REDUCE SIZE OF GOVERNMENT - provide “whistle-blower-style” awards for reducing the size of government and task the IRS (which will no longer have to worry about enforcing the tax code) with achieving the reduction goals on an annual basis

SPUR HEALTHCARE COMPETITION - Address health-care deficiencies - with competitive, free-market solutions, not Government largesse.

ADDRESS ENTITLEMENTS - engage a bipartisan consortium to create a multi-million dollar competition to incent teams from private industry and academia to create solutions for our social security and Medicare liabilities.

This should not be a platform. It should be a promise — an ironclad commitment — to voters

If you ask most voters (well, except those smitten with The Obamamessiah and maybe a lot of them too) you will find that the majority of Americans are concerned with exactly those subjects (if asked in an honest straightforward manner.) 

Unfortunately, those are not questions that will be asked, in fact, most “news” sources are more than happy to trumpet the liberal/progressive line.  And therein lies the rub.  The MSM, being profoundly liberal for the most part has no truck with conservative positions and the Republican party as currently constituted has abandoned conservatism for Democrat Lite, hewing themselves to big programs, big spending, big pork-barral projects and a refusal to stand up for conservative principles.  In fact, with a very few exceptions, the majority of Republicans have thrown off their conservative cloaks, cloaks they were elected under, and donned the regalia of typical tax and spend Democrats.

If conservatism is to become resurgent, we must start from the ground up.  Look for and find local persons willing to run on a conservative platform and willing to tell the truth to the American people.  Look for and support those that are willing to sign on to Republican Party 2.0 and accept nothing less from your elected representatives.  Send them e-mails, letters, and postcards.  Tell them that you are fed up, and you aren’t going to take it anymore. 

You have nothing to lose but your country!

Cross posted at Reclaim Conservatism

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