After a loss like this has occurred, when almost everything splinters and falls apart, one must take time to be introspective. There comes a time when we, the people of a certain movement who have received such a devastating blow, need to look deep inside and ask ourselves “How on earth did this happen? Why did it happen? When did it happen?” An introspective declaration is required in order to regroup and to make sure that something like this never, ever happens again.
So we have to ask ourselves, “When was the beginning of the end?” The rise of Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s brought to national prominence the conservative movement. The conservative ideology, which was embraced by most of the country and demonized by its theological enemies. An ideology that was based in self-governance, self-reliance, small government, capitalism and free market forces. How did we go from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama in a generation? After the 1980’s, out of respect for Ronald Reagan and his conservative philosophy, we, as a nation, gave his vice president what we called “Reagan’s third term.” During that term, George Bush violated conservative ideology and raised our taxes. This was the first crack in the glass floor. The country rejected what he had done to us and we ended up with 8 years of Bill Clinton.
Now, at this point, 12 years has gone by without any person in the White House speaking for us conservatives. During the 1990’s when Bill Clinton was president, we started to fight back with Newt Gingrich and the Republican Revolution. We made a contract that was called ‘Contract with America’. It was a list of our ideals and promises that we would do as conservatives if we were put in charge. Instead of implementing these ideas, we betrayed them. Our leaders lost their way and in the process started a serious deconstruction of the conservative brand.
After this, George Bush’s son takes our movement and hijacks it with a theme of Compassionate Conservatism. We were told he was a lot more conservative than his father and we accepted that. This was a fatal mistake. Any time one of our leaders come to us with a twisted version of conservatism or some kind of new hyphenated conservatism, we should reject that. Like any product, if you dilute it, you lose its original integrity. The practical applications of conservatism are not something that you can water down or add religion to. Each element of it is a piece of the entire body and the body cannot function as a whole if it’s missing any of its pieces.
We’ve heard a lot said about George Bush ruining the republican brand, however, it is the conservative brand that was destroyed.He turned a political movement into a religious movement. What we forgot was the Republican Party is only the vehicle that we use to apply our conservative values. It is conservatism that took a hit. The Republican Party brand was just a side effect.
So the pendulum has swung once again, this time completely to the left. So far to the left that no one in our lifetime has ever seen anything like this. Make no mistake about it; the conservative movement is in exile. We have lost control of our government. We have very little power to stop the direction our country is going towards. So how do we fix this? How do we swing the pendulum back to the right? How do we re-take control over our government; reverse the socialist tendencies and bring us back to a democratic republic with free market values?How do we hold on to our free market values and still hold Wall Street accountable to the people?
The answer is fairly simple; we go back to the basics. We start again from a grassroots level. The axiomatic reality is that it could take another generation to get all of this back. We have to have the patience and the fortitude to follow through. We have to acknowledge the truism and face it head on. We have lost a generation of people and changing their mindset back to self-reliance is almost impossible. So, we have to teach and convince a completely new group of people what it means to be conservative. We have to teach them what “are” conservative values. Now where do we start? We start right here with this website. Here is where we draw the line in the sand.
Here is where we create the base to launch the rebirth of the conservative movement. It is AmericaSpeaksInk.com that will be our base for conservative thoughts.There has to be an understanding that religion has played a part in destroying conservatism. These two things need to be separated in order for conservatism to re-emerge. The dominance of the religious right on conservatism is the single most destructive force that has altered a great political philosophy. Religion was not at the birth place of this political movement, yet religion took it over and destroyed it. We must reclaim it through reason.
Some would ask, “Why now?” Well, the answer is simple. We start now because conservative ideals and free market values do more to lift up people and pull them out of poverty than any other ideology or form of government in the history of the world. Some of the things that we must do is start at the local level and get a completely new set of politicians. We must realize that the face of our old politicians is the face of failure. We need new faces, new people from the local level with a strict conservative ideology to start our march back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Never again will we accept from any politician any thing short of pure and unadulterated strict conservatism.That means we care about the financial direction of our nation and not the way people lead their lives socially.That is not our business and never was. Keep that in your church, it has no business in this movement and it is not our place to judge people whether they be gay, atheist, or liberal.This is America; if people want to be liberal,gay or what ever they can in a free nation. Conservationism is about how we spend the tax payer money and small government. As soon as you start imposing strict moral values on everyone you become that “big government” you claim to be against. This notion of “We need to be a big tent and have all sorts of people and views underneath that tent” is a pragmatic way of thinking. It is a strategy that is born to succeed. We have to gather like-minded people together on money matters as a force and convince the rest of the world that our way is the better way. Not for us to bend to their views of government spending, but gravitate them towards ours.It will take both tax revenue and spending cuts to dig out of this mess, it is not either or.
A good place to start is in the public school system, which has become, undeniably, re-education camps for our children. No longer can we sit here in our homes and listen to what is being taught at school without telling our kids there is another way to look at things. We have to start with this next generation. We have to find alternative forms of education for our children outside of school that balances the propaganda they are being spoon feed.
We have to get the word out about this website. We have to tell as many people as we possibly can and advertise this free site as much as we can, to gather all the like-minded individuals together. This way, we can network with all of our different ideas and build this movement once again.
Whether through standing up to talk radio hosts who have lost their way, word of mouth, email or traditional advertising; we must make available to conservatives, the fact that there is a site where we can all read and relate to as true conservatives. AmericaSpeaksInk.com will be that place. Now while in exile, undoubtedly, we’re going to have splinter, underground movements of conservatism working in different directions and in many ways to try and reach the same goal. This will also help us with an open door policy among ourselves and networking. It is here where we can discuss different schools, politicians, websites, books, TV shows, movies, anything that we feel that is conservative. This is our base. Spread the word. We will meet here. We will work on these goals and we will once again have control over our own government.
AmericaSpeaksInk.com welcomes all ideas and any concepts that could help all of us regain national power, once again.
From this day forward, ask as many people as you can “Have you heard about the Conservative Reconstruction Project on AmericaSpeaksInk.com?” Ask them if they’ve read about the project. Let them know where they can go to read it. This is the beginning. The rebirth of Conservatism.
One last comment. The fundamental understanding and the acknowledgment of our history in the founding of this nation is paramount to the success of the Conservative Reconstruction Project. Do not let the bondage of religion or ideology blind you to the truth. When conservatives are wrong, we must call them out on the carpet just as much as our left-wing friends or we will be hypocrites. May God bless all conservatives and all independents out there that are free thinkers. Spread the word.
C. Rich
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