By Thomas R. Cuba, Ph.D.
I almost titled this as an open letter to Republicans, but there are conservatives in other parties too (even Democrats), and what I have to say applies to all of us.
Looking back … all the way back to Abraham Lincoln … conservatives have lacked initiative. In 1860, with the election of the first Republican President, conservatives had an initiative. There was something to do. Banning slavery was a divisive initiative, but that’s not the point.
Progressives have always had an initiative. There has always been an agenda. Looking back to Woodrow Wilson and his resegregation of the military, support for eugenics, and the League of Nations, the progressive has been in the position of proposing change and the conservative has most often been in the position of resisting.
What’s missing has been the conservative counter-punch. When progressives proposed direct taxation on income, conservatives meekly said no, but failed to come forth with an alternative funding mechanism. The public perception is that progressives want to make things better and conservatives are denying the problems exist.
In order for conservatism is to survive, conservatives must learn to identify and accept problems, and then to follow through with corrective initiatives. When an opportunity arises, such as it did when revisions to the Affordable Health Care Act were being considered, conservatives failed.
President Trump took the initiative in as many ways as his administrative powers allowed. His initiatives were not those of conservatives, but those of a single conservative.
Progressives have spent the last 105 years or so building a massive oligarchical government that is on the verge of declaring its independence from the elected bodies.
The American governmental network of 2020 would be abhorrent to those people such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. In fact, the Constitution as written was structured in a manner that distributed the power of government much more so than the three branches commonly quoted in high school civics classes. In my view, accepting that observation as fact, defines the cornerstone of the conservative initiatives needed to preserve American Freedom.
The umbrella, or Mission Level Initiative, would be to decentralize government. Supporting initiatives would be tested against the outcome of there being more or less local control: more or less local freedom.
One does not even need to read the Constitution in order to see that the accumulation of power into the Federal Government, and subsequently into the hands of the Federal Bureaucrat, has resulted in massive losses of freedom.
The Pandemic of 2020, the undeclared wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, the conversion of Public Land to Federally Owned Land, the administrative changes to energy policy, the Federalization of Pre-K through post-secondary education, the Federalization of health care and retirement, and extensive federal leverage obtained by the issuance or cancellation of federal funding contingent upon state and local subservience, are all canaries in the coal mine of Freedom; a mine on the verge of collapse.
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About The Author: Thomas R. Cuba, Ph.D.
Raised a simple Missouri farm boy, Tom managed to attend a British Prep School before commencing a college career that would culminate in a Doctorate Degree in Marine Ecology. He also served as an Intelligence Officer in the U.S. Navy, and as a scoutmaster, SCUBA instructor, Wilderness Survival Instructor, and Firearms Instructor.
Tom has worked as an ecologist in both government and private practice, as well as a freelance nature photographer and computer programmer.
Now, a father and grandfather, Tom offers life lessons in the form of stories about the challenges people face and conquer as well as socio-political essays. To that end, his first lesson is always his favorite quote. “Failure is the whetstone of success.” ~ T. Leith Rettie, 1884.
You can read more from Tom on his site by clicking here
Democraps have been trying to steal American democracy from the US citizens since shortly after democracy was established by our Founding Fathers. Understand, the professional, career politicians of the ‘ruling-elite’ of both parties, are failed private-sector lawyers that are tired of chasing ambulances but, like the easy DC gig and can’t make this kind of money any other way. DNC platform – ‘Never let a crisis, even if self-inflicted, go to waste’ and media-hyped COVID19 fits perfectly.
Besides, a majority of Republicans are comfortable in the minority role with NO accountability to the conservative voters that put them in office. RINOs and ‘deep state’ individuals need to exposed and removed from RMC.
Trump is not and never was a conservative. Neither is DeSantis, who has taken away the power of school systems, localities and municipalities to deal with the pandemic in the ways they see fit. I like conservatives, but I scorn phony conservatives who are just demagogues intent on gaining personal power while undermining US democracy.