Boyd D. Cathey: Why I Support Donald Trump and Not Ted Cruz

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From The Unz Review

By Boyd D. Cathey

Recently, I was asked by a friend who likes Ted Cruz, why I support Donald Trump and not the Texas senator among the Republican candidates running for president. In partial response to that question, let me set down briefly my thoughts.

I think it is important to begin with a review of some essential history, a brief exploration of the evolution of what is now called “Movement Conservatism” and its symbiotic relationship to the modern Republican Party. Understanding this background is critical to comprehending what has happened and is happening, politically and culturally, to what remains of the American republic in 2016. The transformation of the intellectual brain trust for the Republican Party has fundamentally affected and influenced the successive evolution of the positions the Republican Party has taken over the past fifty years.

Before discussing this history, I think it is necessary that we recall that the GOP Establishment, in fact, never gave up its virtual control of the party structure, despite Ronald Reagan. And since Reagan’s departure it has controlled the party apparatus completely and uninterruptedly. Even under President Reagan, as a dear friend who worked in the White House in 1981 once remarked to me: “Reagan let the Bush establishment people control appointments, and their strategy was ‘Let Reagan speak like Reagan, but we will control appointments and policy’. And basically that is what happened.”

It was my mentor and friend, the late Dr. Russell Kirk, whose volume The Conservative Mind actually initiated what became the older, scholarly “conservatism” in the 1950s. “Conservatism,” as Kirk explained it, encompassed an inherent distrust of liberal democracy, staunch opposition to egalitarianism, and an extreme reluctance to commit the United States to global “crusades” to impose American “values” on “unenlightened” countries around the world. Conservatives should celebrate local traditions, customs, and the inherited legacies of other peoples, and not attempt to destroy them. America, Kirk insisted, was not founded on a democratic, hegemonic ideology, but as an expression and continuation of European traditions and strong localist, familial and religious belief. Indeed, Kirk authored a profound biography of Senator Robert Taft, “Mr. Conservative,” who embodied those principles.

A Renewed Reagan Conservatism

By Paul G. Kengor
 

Editor’s note: This article first appeared at TheBlaze.com. 
 
A rudderless Republican Party, afraid to assert itself in the face of a rising liberal/progressive onslaught. A confident Democratic Party in the White House, undermining the nation, its economy, and its foreign policy, with timid Republicans feckless in response. A battle for the heart of the GOP and the next presidential nomination among conservative Republicans and liberal Republicans.

Sound familiar? Of course. But I’m not just talking about March 2014. I’m also talking about March 1977, when a genuine conservative Republican named Ronald Reagan surveyed the political landscape and saw something hauntingly similar. Reagan resolved to do something about it, and he laid out that vision 37 years ago, at CPAC, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. What Reagan said in that speech remains crucial for conservatives and the Republican Party today.

Ronald Reagan began speaking at CPAC in 1974, its first gathering. He addressed the faithful 13 times through his final year in the White House. But perhaps his most vigorous defense of conservative thinking came in his remarks delivered on February 6, 1977, his 66th birthday.

Radio Interview with Dr. Paul Kengor: "What Is a Reagan Conservative?"

In case you missed it, Dr. Paul Kengor, executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College, talks with WORLD News Group’s Warren Cole Smith. In this short radio interview, Kengor and Smith discuss what it really means to be a Reagan Conservative.

Click here to listen to the audio.

Dr. Kengor is the author of the newly released book, “11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative.” In the new book, Kengor paints the first comprehensive picture of Reagan’s beliefs. He identifies 11 principles, what he calls his “Reagan Eleven,” that comprised Reagan’s conservatism. To learn more, click on the book below:

"The Conservative Mind" at 60

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Russell Kirk's monumental work, The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot.  This "founding document" of the American conservative movement grows ever more important amidst the wasteland created by twentieth century liberalism, relativism and other modern heresies.  Russell Kirk points us to "permanent things" and eternal truths that offer hope and a sure way forward to restoring civil society - families, communities and the American republic.

This Heritage Foundation panel recently discussed Kirk's relation to the contemporary conservative movement.

The Mount Vernon Statement of Conservative Beliefs, Values and Principles

Many of the most influential and respected conservative grass roots leaders in the country have issued an historic statement of principles which unite and undergird constitutional conservatism in the United States. The Mount Vernon Statement of "conservative beliefs, values and principles" is available here, and all those wishing to do so, may sign it.

The Mount Vernon Statement

Constitutional Conservatism: A Statement for the 21st Century

We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding. Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government.

These principles define us as a country and inspire us as a people. They are responsible for a prosperous, just nation unlike any other in the world. They are our highest achievements, serving not only as powerful beacons to all who strive for freedom and seek self-government, but as warnings to tyrants and despots everywhere.

Each one of these founding ideas is presently under sustained attack. In recent decades, America’s principles have been undermined and redefined in our culture, our universities and our politics. The selfevident truths of 1776 have been supplanted by the notion that no such truths exist. The federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant.

Some insist that America must change, cast off the old and put on the new. But where would this lead — forward or backward, up or down? Isn’t this idea of change an empty promise or even a dangerous deception?

The change we urgently need, a change consistent with the American ideal, is not movement away from but toward our founding principles. At this important time, we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

The conservatism of the Declaration asserts self-evident truths based on the laws of nature and nature’s God. It defends life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It traces authority to the consent of the governed. It recognizes man’s self-interest but also his capacity for virtue.

The conservatism of the Constitution limits government’s powers but ensures that government performs its proper job effectively. It refines popular will through the filter of representation. It provides checks and balances through the several branches of government and a federal republic.

A Constitutional conservatism unites all conservatives through the natural fusion provided by American principles. It reminds economic conservatives that morality is essential to limited government, social conservatives that unlimited government is a threat to moral self-government, and national security conservatives that energetic but responsible government is the key to America’s safety and leadership role in the world.

A Constitutional conservatism based on first principles provides the framework for a consistent and meaningful policy agenda.

• It applies the principle of limited government based on the
  rule of law to every proposal.
• It honors the central place of individual liberty in American
  politics and life.
• It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and
  economic reforms grounded in market solutions.
• It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom
  and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that end.
• It informs conservatism’s firm defense of family, neighborhood,
  community, and faith.

If we are to succeed in the critical political and policy battles ahead, we must be certain of our purpose.

We must begin by retaking and resolutely defending the high ground of America’s founding principles.

February 17, 2010

Edwin Meese, former U.S. Attorney General under President Reagan

Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America

Edwin Feulner, Jr., president of the Heritage Foundation

Lee Edwards, Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the Heritage Foundation, was present at the Sharon Statement signing.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council

Becky Norton Dunlop, president of the Council for National Policy

Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center

Alfred Regnery, publisher of the American Spectator

David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union

David McIntosh, co-founder of the Federalist Society

T. Kenneth Cribb, former domestic policy adviser to President Reagan

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform

William Wilson, President, Americans for Limited Government

Elaine Donnelly, Center for Military Readiness

Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com

Kenneth Blackwell, Coalition for a Conservative Majority

Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring

Kathryn J. Lopez, National Review

BREAKING: Scozzafava Suspends NY 23 Campaign

From Politico

Republican Dede Scozzafava has suspended her bid in next Tuesday’s NY 23 special election, a huge development that dramatically shakes up the race. She did not endorse either of her two opponents -- Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman or Democrat Bill Owens.

The decision to suspend her campaign is a boost for Hoffman, who already had the support of 50 percent of GOP voters, according to a newly-released Siena poll, and is now well-positioned to win over the 25 percent of Republicans who had been sticking with Scozzafava.

Scozzafava has “probably made her last campaign appearance between now and Election Day,” spokesman Matt Burns told POLITICO. “She’s releasing her support to the two other candidates."

"I had a discussion with her last night, and we made the decision after I spoke with her. We talked about it, what this came down to was spending. It came down to the ability to defend herself from the get-go. And that’s the reality. She was unable to define herself where the people didn’t know her."

POLITICO has the full story on Scozzafava's surprise decision here.

Scozzafava's statement:

Dear Friends and Supporters:

Throughout the course of my campaign for Congress, I have made the people of the 23rd District and the issues that affect them the focal point of my campaign. As a life long resident of this District, I care deeply and passionately about its people and our way of life. Whether as a candidate for Congress, a State Assemblywoman or a small town Mayor, I have always sought to act with the best interest of our District and its residents in mind—and today I again seek to act for the good of our community.

The opportunity to run as the Republican and Independence Party candidate to represent the 23rd District has been and remains one of the greatest honors of my life. During the past several months, as I’ve traveled the district, meeting and talking with voters about the issues that matter most to them, I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of support I’ve received as I sought to serve as their voice in Washington. However, as Winston Churchill once said, Democracy can be a fickle employer, and the road to public office is not always a smooth one.

In recent days, polls have indicated that my chances of winning this election are not as strong as we would like them to be. The reality that I’ve come to accept is that in today’s political arena, you must be able to back up your message with money—and as I’ve been outspent on both sides, I’ve been unable to effectively address many of the charges that have been made about my record. But as I’ve said from the start of this campaign, this election is not about me, it’s about the people of this District. And, as always, today I will do what I believe serves their interests best.

It is increasingly clear that pressure is mounting on many of my supporters to shift their support. Consequently, I hereby release those individuals who have endorsed and supported my campaign to transfer their support as they see fit to do so. I am and have always been a proud Republican. It is my hope that with my actions today, my Party will emerge stronger and our District and our nation can take an important step towards restoring the enduring strength and economic prosperity that has defined us for generations.

On Election Day my name will appear on the ballot, but victory is unlikely. To those who support me – and to those who choose not to – I offer my sincerest thanks.

SCHLAFLY: Fumbling Jobs Issue Will Lose Reagan Democrats

From The Washington Times
Commentary By Phyllis Schlafly

Conservatives bounced back strong after the elections of Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and we'll do likewise again in 2010. The Gallup Poll just reported that self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals in all 50 states, and the trend is up. President Obama is aiding our task of reinvigorating conservatives.

A speech Ronald Reagan gave in 1975 to the Conservative Political Action Conference contains a message worth repeating:

"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 ...," he said.

"Our people look for a cause to believe in ... 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 explore ways to ward off socialism. ... A political party ... must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency," Mr. Reagan said.

Here is our banner of bold colors:

1. Restore fiscal responsibility. Conservatives must call a halt to Mr. Obama's reckless borrowing and spending. This means defeating the wildly extravagant health care bill and the cap-and-trade bill, which should be called cap-and-tax.

2. Stand tall for American sovereignty. This means rejecting all United Nations treaties including the U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the U.N. Treaty on Women. They all invade our sovereignty by creating committees of hostile foreign bureaucrats to monitor our compliance.

Standing for American sovereignty also means repudiating all devious ways of erasing our borders by deceitful code words such as "economic integration," "labor mobility," "North American Union," or "Free Trade Area of the Americas."

3. Make foreign and military policies serve the national security of the United States. George Washington's advice to be "at all times ready for war" means, at long last, deploying an anti-missile defense that can protect our people from attack by rogue nations. As Margaret Thatcher reminded us, Mr. Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot.

4. We must recapture the three important voting blocs that abandoned conservative candidates in 2008: Reagan Democrats, unmarried women, and young people.

We lost the Reagan Democrats by fumbling the jobs issue. Millions of well-paying blue-collar jobs have gone overseas where workers are paid only 30 cents an hour. We must make clear that conservatives stand for maintaining middle-class jobs that support a family. We must rewrite the unfair trade agreements that allow foreign countries to pretend to reduce their barriers against our products but substitute an equivalent border tax called the VAT (Value Added Tax) that discriminates against U.S. products. Conservatives must reject the trade agreements that allow foreign countries to subsidize their exports by rebating their domestic taxes, while U.S. companies pay very high corporate taxes.

We lost 70 percent of unmarried women because the Democrats are the party of generous handouts to unmarried mothers. Conservatives must stand up for marriage as the basic institution of society and must not allow the liberals to undermine marriage by using taxpayer-financed incentives in the multibillion-dollar welfare, child-support, and domestic-violence agencies to promote divorce, fatherless children, and the matriarchy sought by the feminists. Mothers should look to husbands for financial support, not depend on Big Brother Government to be the provider. The liberals will always be the party of bigger taxpayer handouts.

We lost the majority of young people largely because of what they are taught in the public schools, which 89 percent of kids attend. We must demand that public schools teach respect for patriotism, the Constitution, moral standards, Western civilization instead of multiculturalism (all cultures are equal), diversity (all behaviors are OK), and "social justice" (the false notion that students are victims of an unjust, oppressive and racist America, which makes them ripe targets for community organizers to mobilize them to vote for socialist candidates). The National Association of Scholars defines "social justice" as "the advocacy of more egalitarian access to income through state-sponsored redistribution." That is academic verbiage for Mr. Obama's pledge to "spread the wealth around," which sums up his current policies.

If conservatives deal with these challenges, they can be the Comeback Kids in 2010.

Phyllis Schlafly is a founder of the modern conservative movement in the United States and has been a national leader on a panoply of national and foreign-policy issues.

Christian Conservatism Just Getting Started

From OneNewsNow
By Star Parker

There are some today who suggest that Christian conservatism as a political force is over.

Those who make this claim point to the fact that liberal Democrats now control the White House and both houses of Congress; that the number of Americans self identifying as Democrats compared to Republicans has increased; that the direction of public opinion, particularly among young people, on social issues is liberal; and that the Republican Party itself has been divided over the conservative agenda.

But those who write off Christian conservatism as a political force have underestimated the driving compulsion behind traditional faith and American freedom. Just looking at who is in power does not reveal the depth of division in the country today and for the reasons that the nation is so deeply divided, may I suggest that Christian conservatism will not only survive but will thrive.

Read the rest of this entry >>

Conservative Leader Paul Weyrich Dies

In the passing of Paul Weyrich, Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation, the conservative movement has lost one of its greatest leaders and probably its best political strategist. I had the opportunity to meet and work with him from time to time over the past three decades, and one was always struck by his commanding presence, clarity of vision, and his deep Christian faith that was the foundation and unity to all that he accomplished. In his last message published on his website and dated today, Weyrich reminds us that when times are perilous and dark, a Christian can see stars. May he rest in peace.

The Next Conservatism, A Serious Agenda for the Future

By Paul M. Weyrich

December 18, 2008

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It is the worst of times because millions of Americans are unemployed this Christmas. It is the worst of years because we have mortgaged the future of our children and grandchildren for decades to come. It is the worst of years because many good friends have left us. It is the best of times because we still live in the greatest nation on earth. It is the best of years because we have the freedom to speak our minds. It is the best of years because we can organize as we see fit to support the political candidates of our choice.

It is the worst of years because we have to witness the troglodytes from Hell kill innocent people in Mumbai, formerly Bombay. It is the best of years because we have a peaceful transition from a Republican to a Democratic President with exemplary co-operation between President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack H. Obama.

It is the best of years because the test of the sea-based missile defense system has worked. It is the worst of years because most of America is not defended against a missile attack. It is the best of times because the 22nd city opens a light-rail system this December after light-rail nearly died out a few years ago. It is the worst of times because the Bush Administration has turned down 70 some cities which want light rail or streetcars. It is the best of times because Amtrak has set records in number of passengers carried. It is the worst of times because the airlines carry more people on one day than Amtrak does in a year.

It is the best of years because various factions are co-operating toward an agreement about the withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq. It is the worst of years because we are struggling in the war in Afghanistan.

It is the best of times because medical science continues to make great progress. It is the worst of times because we are about to suffer a government takeover of the most successful medical system in the world.

It is the worst of times because conservatives appear lost and without a serious agenda or a means of explaining such an agenda to the public. It is the best of times because Free Congress Foundation has a serious agenda called the Next Conservatism which should ignite a meaningful debate about the future.

The Opportunity Presented by Catastrophe

In 1975 Ronald Reagan addressed CPAC, the annual conference for conservative activists. His speech followed the Watergate scandal, President Nixon’s resignation, President Ford’s highly unpopular pardon of the former President, and the resulting disastrous Congressional elections of 1974. In those elections Republicans lost 49 seats in the House of Representatives, giving Democrats more than two-thirds of all seats. In the Senate, Republicans lost four seats, giving Democrats a 61 to 38 margin. It was, like our own day, a dark hour for the Republican Party. But the advice President Reagan gave was the key to his own triumph and a conservative resurgence.

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.

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?

President Reagan understood that when the Republican Party runs a Democrat-Lite candidate, promising less of the same, against a Democrat, the Democrat invariably wins. In a dangerous era, where the Constitution, individual liberty, and free enterprise will be challenged as never before, Republicans can champion the highest ideals of our republic and her people, not by offering less of the wrong prescription, but by rejecting it outright.

If we are to defend the principles and institutions of our republic, Republicans need to understand what it means to be a conservative Republican. We need to find leaders who have read Burke, Kirk, de Tocqueville and Hayek, who have thought deeply about the great philosophical issues of our time. We need to return to the true, Republican ideals of strict Constitutionalism and the conservative nationalism of leaders like Senator Robert Taft. We need leaders who have read the farewell addresses of Presidents Washington and Eisenhower and who understand the dangers of ever growing international entanglements and the threat of the military industrial complex.

We need to find leaders who, like President Reagan, not only believe with all their heart that conservative principles are the greatest guarantee to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but who can also communicate those sublime ideals in powerful, positive and winning ways.

We have endured catastrophe at the hands of a leader who pretended to be a conservative, while growing the size of the federal government by 60%, who believes that American exceptionalism means preemptive war and attempting to democratize Mesopotamia, who involved the federal government in areas such as education, expressly reserved by our Constitution to the states, who has nationalized banks, left our economy in shambles, and left the nation with the largest deficits in our history. Is it any wonder that Americans have rejected such “conservatism?”

Americans have consistently rejected moderate Republicans promising less of the same. They rejected President Ford, they rejected President George H. W. Bush after he squandered all that President Reagan had built, they rejected Bob Dole, and now they have rejected the Republican most inclined to “reach across the aisle” to cosponsor some of the most wrong-headed legislation with the Senate’s leading liberals.

The establishment Republicans who opposed President Reagan and are now attempting to destroy Governor Palin, will not go quietly. But one thing we can do to ensure no more Democrat-Lite presidential nominees, is to change party rules to allow only enrolled Republicans to vote in Republican primaries. Senator McCain would not have been the Republican nominee without winning the crucial South Carolina primary. But it was Democrat votes that provided his margin of victory. Governor Huckabee was the choice of Republican voters.

The years ahead should give Republicans an extraordinary opportunity to rediscover forgotten principles and to clarify what our party truly stands for. The differences are stark and fundamental. Do we preserve the old republic and its constitution, or yield to those who believe it is “defective?” Do we stand for individual liberty and free enterprise, or differ on the details of a new, socialist model? Do we stand boldly for life, from conception to natural death, or accommodate those who would even let those babies surviving abortion die? Do we uphold God’s natural law regarding marriage, or allow it to be “redefined?” Do we fight for the free speech of talk radio, or allow it to be silenced?

If Republicans reject the “pastel colors” and fight for the Constitution and the old republic, the heavy keel of public opinion will guide our way and ensure our ultimate victory.

Only Huckabee Can Save McCain

From what I have observed, John McCain only consults conservative voices in the Republican Party to ensure he is working against their interests. It may be the result of the drugs and brain washing that Soviet doctors applied during his imprisonment in Vietnam. Nevertheless, some conservative leaders are making one last attempt to salvage the 2008 presidential election. The following was reported by Right Wing Watch, published by People for the American Way.

A few weeks ago, we wrote several posts about the meeting in Colorado where a large group of right-wing leaders finally decided to support John McCain. At the time, all we had were second-hand accounts that those in attendance had decided that Barack Obama would “decimate [the] moral values” they hold dear and, as such, collectively decided to support McCain as the lesser of two evils.

Glossed over in the press coverage was the fact that their support for McCain seemed to rest heavily on his choice of candidate for Vice President, with those in attendance making their preference known that they really want him to pick Mike Huckabee:

Those in attendance also reached a consensus that they would send a letter to McCain, R-Ariz., encouraging him to consider former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as his choice for vice president.

"It's not a demand; it's a request," said [Mat] Staver, who couldn't say when McCain would be contacted about Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist pastor who resonated with some evangelical voters during the Republican primaries.

Until now, the content and signatories of that letter remained unknown. But recently Clark Vandeventer, founder and CEO of World Changers, Inc, who reportedly attended the meeting and signed the letter, posted it on a blog called Veritas Rex and it seems clear that they were not so much “requesting” that McCain pick Huckabee as his Vice President as outright warning him that doing so is “necessary for [his] success”:

We believe that a pro-life, pro-family Vice Presidential running mate is critical to confirm to our constituents that you will take affirmative steps to protect these values. Your selection of a pro-life, pro-family running mate will be one of the first and most important opportunities to communicate your commitment to such values, since we believe that personnel is policy.

As citizens who love this country and as leaders who communicate collectively with millions of values voters, we met this week in Denver to discuss our shared moral values and the need to support your campaign. As a sincere expression of what we believe is necessary for your success, we strongly agreed to respectfully urge you to select former Governor Mike Huckabee as your running mate.

We believe putting Gov. Huckabee on your ticket will immediately excite, mobilize, and activate a key grassroots constituency that is essential to your success and the advancement and defense of the values we share. We have heard this message so clearly and consistently from our constituencies that we believe it is our duty to respectfully share it with you -- not as a demand or condition of our support -- but as an honest communication of what we believe to be the surest way to immediately activate millions of social conservative voters and activists nationwide in support of your candidacy.

Thank you for your consideration.
Respectfully,

Phil Burress, President, Citizens for Community Values
Mathew Staver,Founder and Chairman, Liberty Counsel
Gary Glenn, President, American Family Association of Michigan
David Barton, Wall Builders
Bill and Deborah Owens
Clark Vandeventer, Chief Executive Officer, World Changers Inc.
Kelly Shackelford, Esq., President, Liberty Legal institute
John Stemberger, Florida Attorney and Pro Family Advocate
Dr. Beverly LaHaye, Concerned Women for America
Dr. Tim F. LaHaye, Tim LaHaye Ministries
Paul E. Rondeau
Rick Scarborough, President of Vision America Action
Johnnie Moore,
 Campus Pastor, Liberty University
Jim Garlow, California Pastors Rapid Response Team
Steve Strang, publisher, Charisma magazine
Kenneth L. Connor, Wilkes & McHugh, P.A.
Clint Cline
Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman, American Family Association
Randy Thomasson, President
Campaign for Children and Families
Rebecca Kiessling
Joshua Straub, American Association of Christian Counselors
Sandy Rios, President of Culture Campaign
Deryl Edwards, President, Liberty Alliance
Linda Harvey, Mission America
Diane Gramley, President, American Family Association of Pennsylvania
David N. Cutchen
Micah Clark, Executive Director, American Family Association of Indiana
Don McClure
Alex Harris, Founder and Chairman, Huck's Army and Director, The Rebelution
Brett Harris, Founder and Chairman, Huck's Army and Director, The Rebelution

Two Very Different Bush Presidencies

Having served in the administrations of both Presidents Bush, I can assure you that those two administrations could not be more different. Many see the former as a failed presidency because it was rejected after one term. However, on most issues it was guided by solid conservative principle. Many of its most senior appointees were held over from the Reagan administration, and one had confidence that seasoned professionals were in charge. They were, for the most part, ladies and gentlemen who loved America, respected the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, made sacrifices to serve, had a spirit of servant leadership, class, good manners and human decency. In the campaign of 1992, when many of us wished the President would tell the American people what he knew about the personal life of Bill Clinton, a sense of gentlemanly decorum prevented him from doing so.

In the vicious and coordinated attacks on Scott McClellan, we see the stark contrast between the father and the son and their two administrations. In the most senior positions of this administration is a cabal of arrogant and ruthless Texans whose highest value is power. They are not "movement conservatives," as so many in the senior Bush administration had been. They simply use conservative rhetoric to "secure the base." Those of us who actually believed the rhetoric and believed that this White House cares about such things as parental rights and school choice, were quickly disabused of any such notions.

In this Bush White House, the Constitution, law and civility take a back seat to the need to attain and wield power. McClellan's claims that there is a 24/7 campaign mode is absolutely correct. Even the Secretary's Regional Representatives in the U. S. Department of Education were told in 2003 that all of their activities, information gathering and weekly reports were to be done for the benefit of the 2004 presidential campaign.

The question is asked as to why McClellan did not speak up and raise his concerns with more senior White House staff in policy meetings; but this administration is not one that values independent thought. McClellan surely knew that to question in any way would raise questions about his loyalty, put him outside the circle, and on a plane back to Texas.

The bitter experience of this failed administration should be a reminder to conservatives that settling for the lesser of two evils yields evil. If this Administration, which gave lip service to conservative ideals, has presided over the largest growth in government and government spending since the Great Society, has run roughshod over civil liberties, has disregarded the Constitution, the division of federal power and states' rights, and has made preemptive global warfare our foreign policy, what should we expect from a Republican candidate who doesn't even bother to speak as a conservative?

Perhaps, as Pat Buchanan suggests in the following column, the good news is President Bush just doesn't matter any more.

Is Bush Becoming Irrelevant?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

After losing both houses of Congress in the 1994 election, Bill Clinton expostulated: The president of the United States is not irrelevant!

On learning his trusted aide from Texas Scott McClellan has denounced as an “unnecessary war” the same Iraq war McClellan defended from the White House podium, George Bush must feel as Clinton did.

The synchronized savagery of the attacks on McClellan as turncoat suggests he drew blood. For what he has done is offer confirmation to the president’s war critics, from within the White House inner circle, that Bush’s motive in going to war was not a clear and present danger of attack by Iraq with weapons of mass destruction, but to advance a Bush crusade to impose democracy on the Middle East.

Neoconservative ideology, not U.S. national interests, McClellan is saying, motivated Bush to launch one of the longest and most divisive wars in U.S. history.

When loyalists defect and seek to profit from that defection, it is usually a sign of a failing presidency. And, indeed, events suggest that history is passing Bush by.

Despite the administration’s designation of Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations, and of Syria and Iran as state sponsors of terror with whom we do not negotiate, America’s clients are ignoring America.

Israel has ignored Bush’s demand that it stop building and expanding settlements on a West Bank that is to be the heartland of a Palestinian state. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been secretly negotiating with Syria for the return of the Golan Heights in exchange for peace.

When America refused to play honest broker between Jerusalem and Damascus, Turkey, at Israel’s request, stepped into the role.

The pro-American Lebanese government of Prime Minister Siniora has negotiated a truce and power-sharing arrangement with Hezbollah, giving that militant Shiite movement and party veto power in the Beirut government. Egypt is negotiating with Hamas for a truce in the Israeli-Gaza war and to effect the exchange of a captured Israeli solider held by Hamas for Hamas fighters held in Israel.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard, designated a terrorist organization by the Senate, helped to arrange the ceasefire between government forces and the Mahdi Army in Basra and Sadr City. While the United States has used the roughest of language to denounce Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president has been received as an honored guest by the Iraqi government we support and by the Ayatollah Sistani, who has yet to meet a high-ranking American.

When Bush went to the Middle East to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Israel as the Zionist he has become, he was criticized by a Palestinian leader who survives on U.S. aid. When he went to Riyadh to plead for an increase in the flow of oil, he got a token concession from the king.

In Pakistan, the new government has been negotiating a truce with the radicalized frontier provinces, which would leave the Taliban with a privileged sanctuary from which to prepare their annual offensives to overthrow the government in Kabul and expel the Americans, as their fathers expelled the Russians.

As Russia and China move closer together to oppose U.S. missile defenses and the U.S. presence, military and economic, in the Caucasus and Central Asia, Latin America seems to be going its own leftward way. The halcyon days of the Alliance for Progress are long gone.

The world seems to be waiting for Bush to depart and for the next American president. For the foreign policy differences between John McCain and Barack Obama are as real and stark as they have been since the Reagan-Carter election of 1980, or the Nixon-McGovern election of 1972.

Looking back on the years since 9-11, it is hard to give the Bush foreign policy passing grades. We pushed NATO eastward and alienated Russia. We have 140,000 Army and Marine Corps troops tied down in Iraq in a war now in its sixth year, from which our NATO allies have all extricated themselves. We have another war going in Afghanistan, where the situation is as grave as it has been since we went in.

The Bush democracy crusade was put on the shelf after producing election triumphs for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. And the Bush Doctrine of preventive war, after Iraq, appears to be headed there, as well.

America remains the first economic and military power on earth. But after seven years of Bush, we no longer inspire the awe or hopes we once did. We are no longer the world hegemonic power of the neocons’ depiction. And the reason is that Bush embraced their utopian ideology of democratic empire and listened to their siren’s call to be the Churchill of his age.

Of Bush, it may be said he was a far better politician and candidate than his father, but as a statesman and world leader, he could not carry the old man’s loafers.

Reasserting Authentic Conservative Principles

The First Congress at Prayer.

Those feeling demoralized by the political choices confronting the American electorate would be well-served to read President Eisenhower's Farewell Address and the following article by John Laughland, recently published by The Brussels Journal.

Even as conservatives survey the rubble and wreckage that the Bush Administration has made of the once-dominant conservative movement in the United States, we are being urged farther down a desolate road of accommodation and compromise. We are told to accept what we are offered because the alternative candidate will be so much worse. But the lesser of two evils is still evil, and compromise with evil is both morally wrong and will only further diminish "the shining city upon a hill."

It will be a long and difficult struggle to rebuild a political movement founded on belief in God-given "unalienable rights," liberty, limited government, and constitutionalism. However, when a wrong turn has been taken we do not get to our destination by continuing down the same road, but by turning back and correcting our mistake.

What Henry Kissinger calls the "new international architecture" is under construction. Conservatives may feel overwhelmed and tired, our tools are worn out, but we must resist it, knowing that we have what the totalitarians and secular internationalists do not, the power of Truth and a vision of a truly Christian civilization.

What I Believe: Washington as Dangerous as Brussels

By John Laughland

Ten years ago, I was vehemently pro-American. Like many British Conservatives (I use the capital ‘C’ deliberately, to denote supporters of The Conservative Party), I regarded the United States as almost the ideal society. More importantly, and also like many Conservatives, I regarded any questioning of the Anglo-American alliance as a taboo which was broken only by those whose views were dangerously and irredeemably left-wing. I believed that the main threat to my values came from the quasi-socialist political tradition of the European continent (a subject on which I wrote a book) and that the “Atlantic community” was the right response to, and defence from, that threat.

Now, ten years on, I have become completely the opposite. I am a consistent critic of American (and British) foreign policy and I have long since despaired of the Eurosceptic movement in Britain, especially on the Right, which excoriates France for an allegedly servile attitude towards Germany while at the same time demanding that Britain behave with the same servility towards Washington. British Tories say they defend British sovereignty against Brussels but they see nothing wrong in having Britain’s foreign and defence policy subjected entirely to America’s. Indeed, any suggestion that Britain should have an independent military policy, for instance by not belonging to NATO, is regarded as the wildest heresy.

The change, for me, began with the bombing of Iraq in December 1998 and was completed by the Kosovo war in 1999. I opposed both operations, partly out of a revulsion for militarism but mainly because the latter war was patently incompatible with the doctrine of national sovereignty. (Indeed, it was deliberately intended to be so.) I quickly came to the conclusion that Washington wanted to create a supra-national New World Order as dangerous for the freedom of nations as the equally supra-national super-structure being set up in Brussels.

I also had the opportunity, through my membership of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group (now defunct), to observe political developments throughout the post-Communist world from 1998 onwards. I saw how American political operatives, from the Left and the Right, worked to ensure the victory at elections of their favoured politicians, often at the expense of the popular will and often thereby bringing back to power old Communists or people involved in organised crime. Whether these operations were conducted by the left-wing National Democratic Institute or the right-wing International Republican Institute, they pursued the same policy of doing down patriotic politicians keen to protect their countries’ interests and instead brought to power those who were only too ready to sell them out, usually to American corporate interests. That they pursued the same policies is no surprise: both NDI and IRI and funded by the same government body, the National Endowment for Democracy, which must now count as one of the most professional “regime change” agencies in the history of the world.

It was of course Bill Clinton who fought the Kosovo war. But the same policy of aggressive foreign policy has been continued, and massively amplified, by George W. Bush. Where Clinton invoked the (bogus) claims of universal human rights for his wars, Bush invoked U.N. Security Council Resolutions (as his father had done in 1990) to justify his drive for absolute American hegemony in the name of an international system based on a complete confusion between international relations and policing – the “war on terror”. These plans have been amply laid out by politicians on the Left and Right in America, from Zbigniew Brzezinski to Paul Wolfowitz. But, just as each French president is worse than his predecessor, so the Clinton years now seen like a golden age.

Have I changed or has the world? To be sure, I have partly changed. Many of my political friends now are on the Left. My book on the Milosevic trial was published by a very left-wing publisher (Pluto Press, the former publishing house of the Socialist Workers’ Party) and the preface was written by the notoriously left-wing former US Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, who has embraced every anti-American cause from the Sandinistas to Saddam Hussein. Ten years ago, this would not have happened.

But the change in me is not that I have become left-wing. It is that I have ceased to think (I hope) in terms of taboos. Much of what passes for thought on the Right in Britain is in fact nothing other than the searching out of intellectual tram-lines on which to base one’s views. Opinions are severely hedged around with taboos. If someone is critical of America, for instance, he must be a Marxist. Having defended a number of deeply unpopular causes (especially that of the former Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic) I believe that I can say that my thinking is taboo-free and that I instead analyse matters not tribally but instead on the basis of the facts.

The facts, as I see them, is that the cause of conservatism has been decisively abandoned by the Right in Britain, America and elsewhere. The Right in those countries is simply in favour of big business and turbo-capitalism which, as Chesterton said, is simply a way of centralising power (and capital) on a par with Communism. In America, the link to the arms industry is particularly worrying, since of course the arms industry entertains a particularly close relationship with the state. The Right in America under George Bush has become statist both in the sense that it believes in ever greater defence spending, and also in the fact that it bases American national identity on the country’s military in a way reminiscent of Germany-Prussia in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Even more profoundly, I am convinced that the neo-conservatism which unites both Bush and Clinton (including Hillary) is a revolutionary creed which has nothing whatever to do with conservatism. I have argued this view at length in The Spectator and The American Conservative. To put it briefly, neo-conservatism is a profoundly revolutionary ideology which betrays all the characteristics I, as a Catholic and a conservative, hate most. It is militaristic and millenarian; it is moralistic and Manichean; it is revolutionary and ruthless. Not only does it have its roots in Trostkyism (Irving Kristol boasted in 1983 that he was still proud of having joined the Fourth International, two years after Trotsky founded it); it remains an overtly revolutionary force with all the potential for wreaking havoc which many other revolutionary movements in history have displayed. Until that ideology is destroyed, until the stranglehold which the military-industrial complex has over the political class in America, and until a counter-weight to American hegemony emerges which permits the re-emergence of a multi-polar world order and the balance of power, the world will never be at peace.

Divided We Stand

Unable to unite behind a GOP candidate, religious right

leaders face a wilderness road to the White House

From WORLD Magazine

By Warren Cole Smith

Last month at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New Orleans, several dozen leaders of the "Christian right" met to strategize next steps—but the meeting inevitably included discussion of missteps in the GOP presidential campaign. Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association, an early supporter of Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, chided the group for cold-shouldering his candidate until it was too late. Others, including Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, disagreed. The meeting quickly threatened to dissolve into accusations, rebuttals, and recriminations.

Then, venerable Paul Weyrich — a founder of the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the Council for National Policy (CNP) — raised his hand to speak. Weyrich is a man whose mortality is plain to see. A freak accident several years ago left him with a spinal injury, which ultimately led to both his legs being amputated in 2005. He now gets around in a motorized wheelchair. He is visibly paler and grayer than he was just a few years ago, a fact not lost on many of his friends in the room, some of whom had fought in the political trenches with him since the 1960s.

The room — which had been taken over by argument and side-conversations — became suddenly quiet. Weyrich, a Romney supporter and one of those Farris had chastised for not supporting Huckabee, steered his wheelchair to the front of the room and slowly turned to face his compatriots. In a voice barely above a whisper, he said, "Friends, before all of you and before almighty God, I want to say I was wrong."

In a quiet, brief, but passionate speech, Weyrich essentially confessed that he and the other leaders should have backed Huckabee, a candidate who shared their values more fully than any other candidate in a generation. He agreed with Farris that many conservative leaders had blown it. By chasing other candidates with greater visibility, they failed to see what many of their supporters in the trenches saw clearly: Huckabee was their guy.

Why were the leaders of Christian conservatives divided and ultimately ineffective in the 2008 campaign?

The story may have begun a year ago when Newt Gingrich appeared on Focus on the Family's national radio broadcast on March 16, 2007. During the broadcast, Gingrich confessed past sins and Focus founder and host James Dobson declared, "I cannot under any circumstances support John McCain." Many thought that Gingrich would be Dobson's candidate, but those who had been disappointed by Gingrich's ineffectiveness as speaker of the House, or by his extramarital dalliance, withheld their backing.

That same day Sen. John McCain pulled in a disappointing $150,000 at a luncheon fundraiser across the country at the Westin Hotel in Charlotte. He was polling in single digits, behind Gov. Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, even behind former Sen. Fred Thompson, who had not declared his candidacy. At an after-lunch press conference, McCain took a reporter's question about Gingrich's performance on the Focus broadcast with an icy stare: "First of all, let me say that I'm a believer in redemption."

For McCain, political redemption was a year away. Gingrich failed to rally support from those who knew him best, and some conservative leaders turned instead to Romney, who had long courted them. In 2006, Christian public-relations guru and Romney backer Mark DeMoss had his candidate meet with about 15 conservative activists. In a gesture that — like much of Romney's campaign — was both opulent and desperate, Romney sent everyone in attendance an expensive office chair, along with a note that read, "You'll always have a seat at our table."

Despite the largesse, Romney gained only a footstool at the Christian conservative table, whose leadership increasingly was troubled over his flip-flops on gay civil unions and abortion. On Sept. 29, 2007, he spoke at a CNP meeting in Salt Lake City. The next day he met with Dobson, Perkins, and about 40 other leaders. Conservative talk show host Rick Scarborough told WORLD the verdict: Romney as governor of Massachusetts "just a few short years ago . . . fought against everything we're fighting for." He would not win the group's backing.

So, with Gingrich not in the running, and Romney a "no," Thompson's leisurely campaign and Ron Paul's iconoclastic one did not impress many Republicans. Giuliani's pro-abortion stance alienated most. The candidate who continued to draw support from grassroots folks: Huckabee.

"The other candidates come to you," Huckabee told 2,000 Christian conservatives at the Washington, D.C., Value Voters Summit in October 2007. "I come from you."

That line generated one of more than a dozen standing ovations during Huckabee's 20-minute address, and he gained most of their votes in a straw poll of those present.

But Huckabee could not gain traction among the religious right leaders who could have generated the financial backing he needed to run a national campaign. In October, as well, he met with a group of conservative Christian leaders — most drawn from the ranks of the CNP gatherings — who say they were "vetting" the candidates. Most didn't like Huckabee's positions on immigration and tax reform. Others thought him insufficiently ardent in criticizing Islamic extremism and abortion. Members of the group believed that Huckabee was "their guy" from a religious perspective but said he was not quite ready for "prime time."

But no other candidates thrilled the leaders, either, so Huckabee was the one candidate they invited back for what one leader called a "do-over." He did much better the second time, yet the group remained too divided about his winning potential to agree to endorse him. When he won a stunning victory in Iowa, he didn't have the resources to take advantage of that upset in the primaries that immediately followed. McCain beat Romney in New Hampshire, and the Arizona senator soon became the unexpected front-runner.

On Jan. 22, just days after the South Carolina primary, Fred Thompson dropped out of the race. The next day, American Values president Gary Bauer wrote the 100,000 supporters on his email list: "Fred Thompson — sadly, in my view — dropped out of the Republican presidential primary race yesterday. He was the one candidate who understood Reagan conservatism and who appealed to all three segments of the Reagan coalition — social conservatives, economic conservatives and defense conservatives."

Thompson's departure should have helped Huckabee, but Huckabee himself had finished a disappointing second in South Carolina — to McCain. When Giuliani failed to win Florida on Jan. 29, a state in which he had spent much of his time and money, he withdrew — and McCain got most of Giuliani's supporters.

On Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008, McCain won nine states to Romney's seven and Huckabee's five. McCain took 601 of the delegates to Romney's 201 and Huckabee's 152. When it was too late for Huckabee, Dobson endorsed him, but by then McCain had the endorsement of inevitability. On March 4, nearly a year after Dobson had said he would not vote for McCain, McCain won the Texas primary and enough delegates to clinch the GOP nomination.

Three days later the CNP met again, this time in New Orleans. McCain, trying to stroke conservatives, took the stage with a hand-held microphone. He received applause when he praised Huckabee, when he said, "We've let spending get out of control," when he said, "Radical Islamic extremism is evil. It's evil," and when he said, "As for the rights of the unborn: The noblest words written are the words 'inalienable rights.' That means the right to life."

When asked about his own faith in God, though, McCain launched into the story he has told often about a prison guard in North Vietnam who showed him compassion and once, in the prison yard, drew the sign of the cross in the dirt at McCain's feet, then quickly brushed it away. The story received polite applause. Later Family Research Council head Tony Perkins told WORLD, "He had a golden opportunity to talk about his faith. Instead, he talked about the faith of his guard. It was a great story, but not what we were looking for." Bill Owens, founder and president of the Coalition of African-American Pastors, was more direct: "It was a disaster. It just proves he has no clue what we're about."

But Phil Burress, who by championing a marriage amendment in Ohio in 2004 became instrumental in winning Ohio — and reelection — for George W. Bush, was among the last to speak before the New Orleans meeting broke up. Burress had been a part of the "vetting process" in Washington where the leaders reviewed and dismissed the GOP candidates early on.

With the election now just over six months away, he told the New Orleans gathering, "McCain wasn't my first choice, and I'm not sure about him now, but we've got a zero chance of getting a conservative Supreme Court justice out of either Clinton or Obama. I don't know whether we've got a 25 percent chance, or a 50 percent chance, or a 100 percent chance with McCain — but it's better than zero, and I'm going to do everything in my power to help get him elected. He's our best shot."

http://www.worldmag.com/articles/13894

Conservatives Offer No Hope

The following reflection is from Chuck Baldwin, the 2004 Vice Presidential Candidate of the Constitution Party. His is a sober, but I believe, accurate assessment of the conservative movement in the United States today.

"Since When Does It Matter What The Brand Name Is On The Tyrant’s Sword?"

Over the past several months, I have been privileged to attend (and sometimes endure) several significant gatherings of a variety of conservatives. Some of the meetings were large; others were small. The meetings sometimes featured mostly grassroots activists and sometimes very high-profile and notable conservative icons. In some of these meetings, I was allowed a platform to speak; in others, I was merely a spectator. In most of the meetings, there was a large percentage of Christian conservatives present. The meetings occurred in locations all over the country.

After witnessing the philosophizing, postulating, and pontificating of the various conservative speakers (or those to whom I spoke in private conversation), I am left with the very profound and distinct impression that the so-called conservative movement is dead. It is not dying: it is dead. Totally and thoroughly dead.

Oh, the spokesmen (and women) of the various conservative organizations will strongly argue that the conservative movement is as alive and vibrant as ever. They are either delusional or in denial. The truth is, there is no conservative movement in America today.

Most conservatives--even Christian conservatives--have embraced philosophies and ideals that are antithetical to genuine conservatism. In fact, my experience with these people leads me to the conclusion that today’s conservatives do not even know what true conservatism is--or was.

For example, I could not tell you how many times I have listened as speaker after speaker praised and promoted the candidacy of the "conservative" John McCain. These are the same people, mind you, that in 2000 properly identified McCain as the conservative phony that he was--and still is. Many of the same conservative organizations that rejected and repudiated McCain’s 2000 candidacy now boldly extol its virtues. But it is not John McCain that has changed: it is today’s conservatives.

The reason for this reversal of "convictions" is that this time John McCain is the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee. And if today’s conservatives believe in anything, they believe in the Republican Party. They might turn their backs on their best friends; they might forsake their pastor and church; they might even divorce their wife or husband; but, one thing they will not do is forsake the Republican Party. This rabid devotion to the GOP has made mincemeat out of a once-great movement.

Of course, there are modern-day prophets. Men such as Alan Keyes, Judge Roy Moore, and Ron Paul, for example. For the most part, however, America’s conservatives--including Christian conservatives--have dismissed these "voices in the wilderness" with either utter contempt or wholesale indifference. These prophets are about as welcome as an outbreak of influenza.

Even as a pastor, I am not immune to the odious attitudes and actions of Christian brethren. I have seen people I thought were my closest friends--people I have helped in untold ways--turn and walk away, without so much as a goodbye. I have watched as my own dear wife and children have been subjected to insults, tongue-lashings, and even obscene gestures by these "loving" Christian brothers and sisters. I have witnessed my preacher brethren refuse to even "reason together" over the omnipresent threats to our liberty and independence.

The beginning of the end came when Christian conservatives began idolizing President George W. Bush. They have done this to the point that they have come to accept just about any and all abuses against the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration principles, and even our very way of life. Furthermore, they have become robotic foot soldiers for universal and everlasting war. At the same time, however, they see no harm in the decimation of individual liberties, as long as it is a Republican who is stealing them. But these same Christians will cry and wail--to the point of almost cutting themselves--against the thought of a Democrat doing the same thing. But, pray tell me, since when does it matter what the brand name is on the tyrant’s sword? Are not our liberties just as dead?

But look at how our modern prophets have been treated. Alan Keyes has been forcibly removed from debate platforms, only to be released in remote, crime infested neighborhoods at night by Republican Party operatives. Roy Moore was lampooned and utterly destroyed by Republican Party operatives (including those within George W. Bush’s White House) in his attempt to become Alabama’s governor. And, in his recent Presidential campaign, Ron Paul has been subjected to the most insidious attacks by Republican Party operatives that I have ever witnessed.

Regardless of how the Republican Party has compromised, capitulated, and castrated genuine conservative principles, conservatives--including Christian conservatives--continue to refer to the GOP as "God’s Own Party," and other such nonsense. In fact, the current lapdog performance of modern conservatives to the candidacy of John McCain demonstrates just how far down the road of destruction they will go in order to grovel before the Republican Party.

National Right to Life even had the gall to say that it is "grateful" for John McCain’s "strong pro-life" record. What balderdash! McCain has repeatedly voted to spend Title X tax dollars to underwrite the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. He publicly supports killing unborn babies conceived via rape or incest. And he continues to lie to the American people about killing babies "to save the life of the mother," which almost any OB/GYN doctor will tell you almost NEVER occurs. According to the OB/GYN physicians that I have spoken to, the only pregnancies that pose a legitimate health risk to the mother are those where the unborn baby has already perished.

How can National Right to Life--an organization that once vociferously opposed Senator McCain--now compromise the life issue in such an egregious manner and support the corrupt candidacy of John McCain? I’ll tell you how: NRL is bought and paid for by Republican donors. And that is the problem with the vast majority of our "conservative" organizations today. As the old saying goes, "He who pays the piper calls the tune."

In fact, I will say it straight out: there is no hope for America within today’s conservative--even Christian conservative--movement. None. Zero. Zilch.

The closest movement to reclaiming America’s freedom and independence was the recent Presidential campaign of Congressman Ron Paul. With Congressman Paul effectively neutered and neutralized (by a hostile media and mercenary Republican hierarchy), the only hope is in America’s churches and a burgeoning independent movement.

I only wish I could expect today’s pastors and churches to stand in the gap for our nation. They have the power to thwart the forces of globalism, corporatism, elitism, and liberalism that are destroying America. So far, however, this has been nothing but wishful fantasy. Most of our beloved Christian leaders are as beholden to the same Republican donors as are the previously mentioned conservative organizations. And just as impotent.

That leaves The Constitution Party as the only political party with the courage and convictions to set the ship of state aright. With someone such as Judge Roy Moore at the helm, true Christians and constitutionalists would at least have an opportunity to vote for someone in November without being forced to hold their noses and surrender their principles.

After attending numerous meetings of conservative activists, I am more convinced than ever that, ultimately, the survival of liberty in America does not depend upon political parties, special interest groups, or corporations. In these United States of America, God has put the destiny of the country squarely in the hands of "We the people." It will not be conservatives or liberals, Republicans or Democrats, Christians or unbelievers that restore America. It will be individuals from all walks of life, all backgrounds, and all political persuasions who love liberty enough to fight to maintain it. Ultimately, of course, all nations--just like all individuals--must give an account to our Creator for how we protected the freedoms and liberties that He gave us. Right now, we are not doing a very good job.