So suspicious was Patrick Henry in 1787 of the Constitutional Convention convening in Philadelphia, he refused to attend, saying he “smelt a rat.” Henry was not alone. George Mason, the father of the Bill of Rights, left in a huff, when the assembled did not include protections for the citizenry. This cost Mason his lifetime friendship with George Washington.
Since that time, America has had a national discussion over the role of government in the affairs of the citizens, which continues amid debate over President Barack Obama’s “stimulus” plan.
Conservatism – modern conservatism – fell under George W. Bush and the Republican Congresses over the past eight years. Obama is merely continuing that acceleration of the concentration of power towards Washington, the public sector, the elites of Wall Street, Capitol Hill and K Street. We are dangerously close to the tipping point where the assembled power of the elites so overwhelms Americans, that they will be reduced to mere subjects, much as the powerless colonists were under King George III. Indeed, with the outpouring of astonishing affection for our new president, some only half joke about his divinity.
Though Obama’s administration is only weeks old a half-dozen cases of empowered liberals, defying the tax code with impunity, has emerged. The message is clear. Taxes are mandatory for the rest of us, but only suggestions for the elites. Although he pledged no lobbyists would serve in his administration, a handful have in fact been appointed or confirmed, with more on the way. Meanwhile, his plan is to hand over more money to the corrupt moneychangers on Wall Street, the very people who brought this crisis to America’s doorstep.
The unholy alliance is complete. The Republicans infamous “K Street Project” is being implemented, only now by the Democrats. A new “Spoils System” of perpetual power, fed by largess, is envisioned by the party of government. Indeed liberals like Robert Reich quite openly argue that Americans are ill-suited to decide how to spend their own money. They also argue openly for new, massive controls over the citizenry, including the re-imposition of regulations on speech.
Solutions to America lie in the homes, communities, local and state governments. In a nation as large and diverse and as heavily populated as ours, centralized power is not only inefficient and inherently corrupt, but it does not best serve the needs of the people. To answer Obama, it does not work.
Diversification, decentralization and local control are the answer. They also have great appeal, as does offering hope and optimism for the future, while Obama and the Democrats hang crepe, preaching a future of scarcity and sacrifice. What young person in America wants to hear that?
Americans, always ahead of their federal officials, are already taking their money out of Wall Street and putting it into local community banks. No fools them. If and when the economy revives, Wall Street, most doubt, will be a leading indicator of restored growth and confidence.
No one is arguing for a return to the Articles of Confederation; the Constitution is needed and necessary as the arbitrator of last resort. But that very document of negative governance screams out for the rights of the people and the states, over that of the national bureaucracy.
Washington will never be reformed. The entrenched elites will never allow it to happen. The nation’s capital, as any good general will tell you, cannot be conquered. It must be bypassed.
Modern conservatism, derived from the Enlightenment, has always been about the individual, and the challenge to the status quo, not the defense of it. Modern conservatism, brought to the GOP by Reagan, Bill Buckley and other great men, was always about the common good, rather than then collective good. It is “Common Sense.”
It is enlightenment over entitlement.
Misguided “Big Government Republicanism” has fallen and will not get up again. R.I. P. Ashes to ashes. But the Republicans of the 21st century need something to replace it; and the best answer to the liberals craving for national power is to argue for a muscular restoration of the rights, dignity and privacy of the American citizenry. This populism is not only intellectually based; it is ennobling, it is “right.”
Craig Shirley, president of Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, is author of the bestselling “Reagan’s Revolution; The Untold Story of the Campaign That Stated it All,” about the 1976 campaign. He just completed “Rendezvous with Destiny, Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America” detailing the 1980 campaign. Published by ISI Books, it is due out in September 2009.
LOAD-DATE: February 28, 2009
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Publication
