True Conservatives

by Dennis Green

A true conservative agrees with George Washington that America has no business entering into “foreign entanglements” like NATO and NAFTA, let alone keeping a “standing army” of our own. How would we ever pay all those men in uniform? A problem even in Washington’s time.

True conservatives agree with Dwight Eisenhower that we must guard against a military/industrial complex, including military contractors like the Hessians and BlackWater. Moreover, you can’t have a big military without big government, and a powerful central government always gets out of control.

Real conservatives agree with Barry Goldwater that government has no business “legislating morality,” whether it’s affirmative action or restrictions on abortion, or telling us what we can eat, drink, smoke, inject or insert in suppository form.

Genuine conservatives know that John Maynard Keynes was wrong regarding just about everything, and that runaway deficit spending will lead to a total collapse of the value of the dollar. They also know that bailouts are a temporary fix and that the Fed should not function as a National Bank setting interest rates. That we should return to a gold standard. In the same time that the value of the dollar has fallen 40%, gold has risen 400%!

They know that entitlement programs like Social Security and MediCare cannot survive without major reform, including lifting the cap on incomes and wealth taxed into the system and raising the age people can qualify by at least two years. They know that MediCare can be reformed by limiting “fee for service,” unnecessary tests and by establishing nationwide standards of care.

These true conservatives met recently as the Conservative Political Action Conference, (CPAC), and in a straw poll, approved Republican Texas Representative Ron Paul their favorite by an overwhelming plurality — 31% to 22% for the nearest contender, Mitt Romney. Ron Paul is not only conservative, but LIBERTARIAN, and ran for President on the Libertarian Party ticket in 2007-08. He has also introduced legislation to audit, even eliminate the Federal Reserve, an idea which has gone from fringe to mainstream.

These real conservatives have got the half-breeds running scared, for all the faux conservatives — from the Neo-Conservatives to the Religious Right to the Neo-Colonialists — depend on keeping Washington, D.C. a powerful center of political action, special interests, lobbying, earmarks, inefficiency and corruption. But American voters are independent, and they are pissed.

Their anger ranges from the Tea Party and town hall pickets whose anger is unfocused, to the more sophisticated distrust of government by people who have studied it, know American history, the many options and choices, and who have arrived at a conservative philosophy of the more classic, foundational libertarian sort. But they all have one thing in common: they will not support the status quo, with either their votes or their taxes.

If this is what it means to be a true conservative, sign me up!

©2010 Dennis Green