Republicanism

It was an ordinary night last Saturday night on February 5th, 2008.  I strapped my mp3 player to my arm and put on my headphones.  I then put on my jacket to go for my nightly walk.  I usually put on all kinds of music from Boyz II Men to Avenged Sevenfold.  I use these times to reflect on my own life and of course my passion that is conservatism.  I can’t separate the two because I believe no matter how we all vote we actually in fact live our lives in the fundamentals of the conservative principles.  As I was walking down the street it dawned on me.  What the hell is Republicanism?

How can one call themselves a Republican without being a conservative?  These principles are rooted in right and wrong.  They are rooted in logic and common sense.  Without these foundations then we are led by our emotions and our emotions take us places where we won’t want to be once that emotion changes.  I can tell you what classic liberalism means and I can tell you what FDR/LBJ liberalism means as well.  I can tell you what it meant to be an old school Democrat.  I can easily tell you what it means to be a conservative(which is very close if not the same as classic liberalism).  For the life of me I can’t tell you the principles of being a Republican.  I’ve been a Republican for so long BECAUSE of conservatism and this being the party that most identifies with those beliefs. 

It furthered my thought this morning when I heard on the Glenn Beck program a woman call in saying how ashamed she was to be a Republican.  She is ashamed because of how we are treating John McCain because he is a war hero.  She then went on to say that she’s not a conservative, but rather a republican.  This is exactly what I’m talking about.  Where is the set of principles?  You’re electing a man based on the fact he’s a war hero?  We have a couple hundred thousand war heroes RIGHT NOW overseas.  They are all wonderful people.  However, does this qualify them all to be President?  Conservatives reject him because we have a set of principles that we bounce his policy ideas off of and come to the conclusion that he isn’t fit to be our leader.  We can put away emotional jargon such as “but he’s a war hero” which means literally nothing in regards to leading the country in all areas of concern.

I also had a woman email me.  She said to me “you are not where I want our party to go” meaning she didn’t want it to go further to the right.  She listed no principles that she believes in.  Just that she didn’t want the party to go in the conservative direction(she said in my direction, but since I’m a conservative I assume that’s what she means).  As far as I’m concerned there is no party without conservatism because without the basic principles we believe in the party seems to fall left every single time either because of emotional purposes of political expediency. 

The founding Fathers were the perfect examples of conservatives.  Even when they disagreed on the foundation of our government it was always about how to protect individual freedom from unilateral power.  This explains the Bill of Rights and the three Branches of our government.  It’s the primary reason for checks and balances because they understood the nature of man and without the principles of self governance and individual freedom we will always succumb to the will of government instead of the will of the people.  This is why I’m not even sure what the principles to the left of conservatism in a supposed “right wing” party are anymore.   To abandon conservative principles is to abandon what this country was founded upon.  Conservatives are beholden to the founders.  We are beholden to a set of principles that guide nearly everyone in their life in some way or form whether they recognize it or not.  We are not beholden to a party and frankly those in that party that wish to lead will need to cater to us for our vote because they won’t see us begging to join the club.  It’s a club of politicians and some supporters that seem afraid of what others think of them.  This may sound arrogant to a lot of people, but really it’s not.  It’s just conservatives sticking to America’s principles.