'Look, we know we screwed up when we were in the majority. We fell in love with power. We spent way too much money—especially on earmarks. There was too much corruption when we ran this place. We were guilty. And that's why we lost."In this article, I hear a lot of conservative policy talk, but not any 'preservative' founding principles talk. Conservative values without adherence to the founding principles, as embodied in the US Constitution, won't hold up. We found that after Reagan, and after the Republican revolution in 1994.
That's the confession of Eric Cantor, the 47-year old congressman from Richmond, Va. If Republicans win back the House in November's elections, Mr. Cantor would be the next majority leader—the second most powerful post in that chamber behind the speaker. And he could be Barack Obama's worst nightmare. (Continue reading...)
I make a distinction between "conservatives" and what I like to call "preservatives". Conservatives are merely fiscally responsible, and optionally, socially conservative policy wonks. "Preservatives" are people who want to preserve the founding principles, and our nation's political heritage for future generations. And the US Constitution backs us up.
Conservatives constantly have to argue each and every policy with the 'progressives'. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose. Sometimes they lose their will. Sometimes they lose their way. Sometimes they compromise. Preservatives, on the other hand, simply have to ask, "Which enumerated power in the US Constitution authorizes the proposed action?" If it isn't constitutional, it isn't constitutional. End of discussion. It doesn't matter if it's a Republican initiative or a Democrat initiative.
There are some who try to make the US Constitution into a rubber ruler (activists on the US Supreme Court). But we have the founding documents, written in plain English: The Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, and of course, the US Constitution. It isn't hard to keep people honest if we know our stuff, and pay attention. In the article, Cantor complains about the Obama regime being ideologues. We preservatives are, and need to remain, ideologues! The founding principles are an ideology with proven merit. They also still happen to be the law of the land!
Well stated,
ReplyDeleteI would even go so far as to use the term 'restoratives' because preservatives sounds kind of like we want to keep things the way that are which would be great if the doctrine was intact but since some 'rolling back' of things is required I prefer to go further in my terminology as well.
the common use for the term progressive has soiled the idea that undoing illegitimate laws could be called progressive as it is already used to mean an increase in illegitimate laws for the 'common good'. What an oxymoron.
Anonymous, I totally agree. I actually settled on "preservative" for the rhyming aspect of it. I wanted to say, "I'm not a conservative, I'm a preservative".
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