by Tad Lumpkin Hey conservatives, are you there?
No I don’t mean you Republicans…I mean those of you who are lovers of liberty! I mean those of you who defend the Constitution, not just when it protects them but when it protects someone they don’t like. I know you’re out there. You may be a Libertarian or an independent, you may not be affiliated with any party at all.
Ok you might be a Republican too, but I know you’re there.
Well listen up!
I am not exactly sure at what moment the theft of the word “conservative” actually occurred, but I know it has happened. Through the rapid expansion of the size and role of government over the last 100 years the progressives not only infiltrated the Democrats but they infiltrated the Republicans too. They took over words like “liberal” and “conservative.” In fact, if you go back far enough “liberal” used to mean “conservative” until they stole that word. Then all the people who loved freedom found a new home as conservatives, and the progressives came to steal that too.
You see, that is what they do. Progressives are wolves in whatever clothes they need to wear to fool everyone about what their actual agenda is. The reason they do this is because their real agenda is so antithetical to the mission statement of America that most Americans would marginalize the people who espouse these ideas if they knew who they were. Unfortunately, America’s awareness has been dulled by years of addiction to the graft of big government.
If we are not only to survive but thrive as a nation we must separate the progressives who hate freedom from the conservatives that love it. Only then will we know who’s who.
How do we do that? Well conservatives love the Constitution, so let’s start there.
The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech–not just the speech you like but the speech you don’t, as well. Ripping from the headlines, let’s look at the WikiLeaks saga. You may not like what Julian Assange is saying, but those who want to peg him as a terrorist who should be hunted down and jailed or even executed, as some have yelled, is no lover of freedom or the Constitution.
This guy is no terrorist; he is an activist. The only difference between him and a less controversial activist is that he threatens to expose the dirty laundry of many elements of power around the world–including our own government. Now, the people who are breaking the law to give him this information may be criminals… OR maybe they are just whistleblowers who, because they work for the government, are held to a different standard. Either way, WikiLeaks has broken no law of the United States.
The Fourth Amendment gives us protection from warrantless search or seizures. Again, how many people are yelling that they are conservatives and yet are telling you its okay if the government reads all your emails, listens to your phone calls, tracks your financial transactions, searches your private property? And government can do this without a warrant because we are at “war with terror”. They tell you if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear. The thing you need to fear is them!
I fear that while protesting my needless full body scan and groping by the TSA, I will end up on the governments “no no” list where I will be distracted by an IRS audit as the Department of Homeland Security puts a GPS tracker on my car parked in my garage. These actions do not keep you safe, but they will keep you in line. Giving up your liberty for security is a false logic that is used over and over to medicate people into a coma of silence. To quote Ben Franklin “He who gives up his liberty for security deserves neither.”
The imposters call for free markets and small government, but they interfere at every turn. They support an out of control Federal Reserve system that undermines the entire idea of a free marketplace by having monopolistic control over the US monetary supply. The Fed can print unlimited amounts of money which they pass out to whatever the “preferred” special interests of the day are in total secrecy. These imposters expand bloated government programs like Genghis Kahn expanded the Mongolian Empire. Wasn’t it a “so called” conservative that gave us a multi billion dollar expansion in Medicare just a few years ago? Aren’t true conservatives for no debt and low taxes?
The reason we have big debts is because we have big government. It’s all too big! There isn’t an element of it that isn’t too big. If someone looks you in the face and tells you they are going to balance the budget and shrink the debt and it doesn’t include a wholesale, across the board cut-back in the size of government in every last area, they are no conservative. In addition, there’s not one single excuse to vote for ANY net tax increase, not for a conservative anyway. A progressive, they always need more, but not a conservative.
The point of listing out some of these things is to remind you of what the word “conservative” is supposed to embody. If people say or do things that don’t uphold a strict interpretation of the Constitution and the message of individual liberty, they are not a conservative, but rather an imposter. In the reverse, if they don’t uphold these conservative values then they don’t uphold the Constitution, and they don’t love liberty.
This is America, and people are allowed to have different opinions about what they think is best and freely espouse those opinions, but give me an honest socialist any day over a dishonest progressive. I’ll disagree with the socialist but give them respect; the progressive deserves no respect.
We must hold people accountable for doing what they say. That doesn’t mean you’re perfect or that you can’t ever change your mind, but it does mean you honor your words with your actions! You do what you say, and you say what you do. If politicians, leaders, and pundits don’t uphold the above I can’t tell you exactly what they are, but I can tell you they are no conservative.
Big Government
