Redstate

By TheSophist Posted in 2008 — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

In this primary season, as we seek to nominate one man to represent the Republican Party (and hopefully the conservative viewpoint) in the national election for President... I thought it useful to take a look back at some words that resonate deeply even today.

I have taken liberties with the passage below, and made modifications where I thought useful to have these words speak for our times:

Our people are in a time of discontent. Our vital energy supplies are threatened by possibly the most dangerous regime in human history. Our traditional allies in Western Europe are experiencing political and economic instability bordering on chaos, even as they slip towards an unthinking dhimmitude.

We seem to be increasingly alone in a world grown more hostile, but we let our vigilance shrink to pre-9/11 levels. And we are conscious that in Tehran the crash build-up of nuclear arms continues. The latest National Intelligence Estimate, combined with the lack of action by the U.N. and our European allies, guarantees the Iranians nuclear weapon capability in the heart of the most unstable and dangerous region in the world. Yet, too many congressmen demand that we do nothing more than symbolic gestures to stop Iran.

I realize that millions of Americans are sick of hearing about the Middle East, and perhaps it is politically unwise to talk of our obligation to Afghanistan and Iraq. But we pledged to support the Iraqi people who are resisting the aggression of the Jihadis who are violating every convention of decency and humanity and are fully aided by their Iranian and Saudi allies.

Can we live with ourselves if we, as a nation, betray our friends and ignore our pledged word? And, if we do, who would ever trust us again? To consider committing such an act so contrary to our deepest ideals is symptomatic of the erosion of standards and values. And this adds to our discontent.

We did not seek world leadership; it was thrust upon us. It has been our destiny almost from the first moment this land was settled. If we fail to keep our rendezvous with destiny or, as John Winthrop said in 1630, “Deal falsely with our God,” we shall be made “a story and byword throughout the world.”

Americans are hungry to feel once again a sense of mission and greatness.

I don't know about you, but I am impatient with those Republicans who after the last election rushed into print saying, “We must broaden the base of our party” — when what they meant was to fuzz up and blur even more the differences between ourselves and our opponents.

It was a feeling that there was not a sufficient difference now between the parties that kept a majority of the voters away from the polls. When have we ever advocated a closed-door policy? Who has ever been barred from participating?

Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?

Let us show that we stand for fiscal integrity and sound money and above all for an end to deficit spending, with ultimate retirement of the national debt.

Let us also include a permanent limit on the percentage of the people's earnings government can take without their consent.

Let our banner proclaim a genuine tax reform that will begin by simplifying the income tax so that workers can compute their obligation without having to employ legal help.

And let it provide indexing — adjusting the brackets to the cost of living — so that an increase in salary merely to keep pace with inflation does not move the taxpayer into the AMT. Failure to provide this means an increase in government’s share and would make the worker worse off than he was before he got the raise.

Let our banner proclaim our belief in a free market as the greatest provider for the people.

Let us also call for an end to the nit-picking, the harassment and over-regulation of business and industry which restricts expansion and our ability to compete in world markets.

Let us explore ways to ward off socialism, not by increasing government’s coercive power, but by increasing participation by the people in the ownership of our industrial machine.

Our banner must recognize the responsibility of government to protect the law-abiding, holding those who commit misdeeds personally accountable.

And we must make it plain to international adventurers and death-embracing jihadis that our love of peace stops short of “peace at any price.”

We will maintain whatever level of strength is necessary to preserve our free way of life.

A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.

I do not believe I have proposed anything that is contrary to what has been considered Republican principle. It is at the same time the very basis of conservatism. It is time to reassert that principle and raise it to full view. And if there are those who cannot subscribe to these principles, then let them go their way.

The original is here. If you haven't read it in a long time, I urge you to take another look.

Then ask which of the current candidates can be said to have raised "a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors"?

As for me, it is Fred Thompson. But I respect your own choice in the matter as long as it is intellectually honest. As long as we all remember that it is the principles, some of which are articulated above, that matter, not the man who is seeking the office, I believe that we cannot go wrong.

-TS

(Cross-posted to The Sophistry)