by Ron Meyer
Columnist for the Principia Pilot
Published March 6th, 2009
Will Buchanan. OK, maybe not, but one thing is certain: Will is a gentleman and a scholar. I have had the distinct privilege of sharing this page with him for the last year and a half, and I will miss writing against him. Will’s excellence also illustrates a key point: good people aren’t necessarily Republicans. Which leads me back to the question:
Who is a Republican? Sarah Palin or Bobby Jindal? Rush Limbaugh or Ron Paul? Rudy Giuliani or Mike Huckabee? Ask any one of them and they will claim the conservative title, but who’s actually right?
All of these politicians have differing views, yet somehow they all claim the same party. The bible-thumpers, Libertarians, traditionalists, neo-cons, and the plain old generally disgruntled conservatives all share an (R) by their name, but they seem to share little else. The large schisms in the Republican Party have seemed and seem to be nothing short of overwhelming. In the last thirty years, there have been two clear party unifications. In 1980 and 1994, something or someone was able to unite these folks under the cause of “conservatism.”
The last two years have been anything but an exciting time for conservatives. Bush’s spending escapades coupled with McCain’s sleep-inducing speeches have left Republicans craving galvanization. Palin’s populism shook the base but didn’t awaken the intellectual beast.
What can awaken this beast? I think everyone agrees that to accomplish this feat, the Republican Party must be redefined. Let me take a swing.
We need a return to conservatism. Sorry, David Brooks, but we can’t be the oxymoronic party of activist moderates. We have to return to our principles, but the way we do so must morph conservatism into a clearly defined and inclusive movement.
The dictionary defines conservatism as a reverence for the past and for the establishment. In my mind, the current establishment has left little to be admired, so I recommend we look even further back into the inception of our government. I suggest we turn to the founders of our nation and look to the Constitution as our platform.
Unsurprisingly, last week I was watching CPAC. Surprisingly, I found out that Rush Limbaugh actually agrees with me. He said, “We have a challenge. We’ve got factions now within our own movement seeking power to dominate it, and worst of all to redefine it. Well, the Constitution doesn’t need to be redefined. Conservative intellectuals, the Declaration of Independence does not need to be redefined and neither does conservatism. Conservatism is what it is and it is forever.”
Wow. Rush Limbaugh, Ron Paul, and I all agree. How is this possible?
Every single American can relate to the Constitution. It is the unifying document of our nation. What has absolutely shocked me about both the Republicans and the Democrats is that neither party has claimed the Constitution as its own. Each uses it when convenient but never looks to it as its set of principles.
The Republican Party is the supposed party of small government, liberty, and freedom. If we really want to take a step away from the neo-con love of big government, maybe the party should follow the father of the Constitution.
James Madison states in Federalist No. 45: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”
The Constitution, the fundamental mandate for limited government, has 38 “few and defined” powers mentioned in Article I, Section 8. It also has a “necessary and proper” clause by which we can make laws to support the “foregoing” 38 powers. I encourage everyone to read these powers, and then think about the laws we are considering now. You will quickly find that over 70 percent of the legislation we pass is completely unconstitutional.
For years, federal politicians have been allowed to buy votes through expanding the federal government. The 10th Amendment gives the states the power to make laws that the federal government is restricted from making. This federalist model gives more powers to states, municipalities and the people, who are logically better set up to handle each state’s individual needs.
This federalist model, as I explained in my column last November, can be used to unify the Republican Party. If we can all agree to support a limited federal government, we can still encourage social legislation on the state level. This means that for national elections, Libertarians would have the exact same platform as Bible-thumpers. This platform, our Constitution, is something that all Americans can relate to, and it is also certainly something they can respect. Michael Steele has the right excitement and Bobby Jindal has the articulation skills. All they need is a solid platform.
