Blogs For Victory

So just what, bottom line, do I want in a political party? Well, it’s really not all that much because, you see, politicians are, well, politicians and I’m not about to suddenly start expecting them to be worth much. Every now and again a nation hits the jackpot and gets a great leader who is also, at bottom, a good person…it is rare and it is just as rare in democratic or non-democratic government. It seems that rolling the dice with genetics or votes works out about the same (so, rare birds like Abraham Lincoln and Empress Maria Theresa are once in a couple century things…while we’re chock full of leaders like Richard Nixon and Nicholas II). But we live, pro-tempore, in a democratic republic and so it is with votes that we’ll determine which pack of fools governs us. That being said, what do I vote for?

1. First and foremost, got to be pro-life. Yeah, I’ve heard all the pro-choice arguments from rational to downright stupid. None of them matter – at the end of the day, an elective abortion kills a kid for no reason, at all. There are no conceivable effects of having a child which are worse than killing the child…as the child, you see, winds up dead. If you can’t at least get this basic thing right, then I don’t want any part of you.

2. Freedom of conscience is non-negotiable. If a person cannot say and write what he or she thinks true regardless of the place it is said or written then no one is free, at all. Other than obvious things like immediate incitement to violence everyone must be allowed to hold in public whatever opinions they want without suffering even the least bit of social or official sanction. I don’t care what your views are – I only care what your concrete, physical actions are, and then only if they affect others.

3. Property rights have to be respected. Every person has an absolute and unalienable right to the fruits of their labor, as well as the fruits of the labor of their forebears. Taxes we must have, but once a tax is paid that is the very last claim anyone has on your property. Only in the rarest of instances can I see a credible reason for a government to take a person’s property for public use and then, of course, just compensation must be paid…but we must also be sure that every other possible alternative is searched out prior to taking private property for government use.

4. All concentrations of power are wicked. Anyone proposing to create, preserve or expand concentrations of power is an enemy of justice. And power is two things – government power to compel and money power to corrupt. The ability to decide must be retained at the lowest level possible.

5. The right of the people to defend themselves with arms, if necessary, is absolute.

6. Elected government service is the duty of citizens, not the sinecure of professional politicians. Terms limits on office holders is a must.

And that is really about it – you’ll notice that I didn’t get into tax rates, what to do with Entitlements, social issues (other than abortion; but even there it isn’t abortion so much as a respect for each, individual human life that motivates my vote). As readers here know, I’ve got my opinions on such things and these things do move me to vote one way or another – but in the crucial aspects, those six points are what I’m about.

And right now, neither major political party is doing all six things. The GOP is at least pretending to do some of the six, Democrats aren’t even pretending to do any of them. I’m kind of politically adrift right now. For the moment, I’ll remain a registered Republican – though if Trump does become the nominee I’ll have to think long and hard on that. I can’t go over to the Democrats because they hold in explicit contempt everything I hold dear. I won’t go Libertarian, either, because while I admire them for their spirited defense of liberty, I suspect that in matters of religious liberty they’ll prove unwilling to fight vigorously for me. Perhaps if I saw them engaging the left on things like the absurd attempts to remove crosses from public lands, I’d have more faith in their alleged commitment to liberty.

I’m hopeful that true Conservatives out there are also thinking long and hard about all this. I’ve been drifting towards the idea of a new party for a while – not with any thought (at least initially) of such a party becoming the majority, but of a party which would hold the balance of power between the two major parties. A party which would speak for me and those like me and could extract concessions from either or both party’s in return for temporary political alliances for this or that particular issue (so, if the GOP had 210 House seats and the Democrats 205, a Conservative party could throw its 20 seats into the balance…ok, Ryan, you want to be Speaker? Ok, we want a Freedom of Conscience Act and a termination of funding for PP; and if the GOP proves unwilling, I’m sure the Democrats would throw us a bone in return for Committee chairmanships…but the ultimate idea is to slowly move the ball our way…and if things crater, then this new party is clear of all blame, and maybe a majority eventually turns towards it). I think in 2017 or 2018, such a party could be formed, and probably obtain immediately a significant number of adherents among those already in the House and Senate, and in State legislatures – and by being freed from the Republican/Democrat dichotomy, it would be free to run varied types of candidates in both GOP and Democrat districts as best opportunities present themselves.

At any rate, that is how I see things and how I see myself in the political spectrum.

This is actually one of the easier things to get hold of. The divide here is between Progressives who don’t believe in objective truth, and Conservatives who do.

Donald Trump caused a bit of a ruckus during the recent GOP debate when he opined that former President Bush lied to get us into Iraq. This, of course, was a standard talking-point of the left – “Bush lied, people died”. A host of reasons were put forth for just why President Bush lied, but the absolute assertion, regardless of reason, is that he lied. A lie, of course, is this: a deliberate misstatement of fact, or a withholding of vital information about your plans. If you believe that Fred is at the store, but Fred is actually at the bar, then you making a statement that Fred is at the store isn’t a lie. If, however, you know that Fred is at the bar and you tell someone he’s at the store, then you have lied. The difference is not in the information related but in the intent on your part – are you trying to deceive someone? If you are, then you are lying. If you aren’t, then you aren’t lying even if the facts you relate are 100% incorrect. If you say you want to borrow $100 and imply that the $100 will be to feed the kids, but you blow $50 of it at the track, then you have also lied – you failed to tell your lender just what your full plans were; and revelation of a trip to the track might well have convinced your lender not to lend you the money.

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