The Classic Liberal Blog

Now that 2008 has come and gone ... Barack Obama has been elected our next president, the incompetence of Congress (with the help of the Federal Reserve) has created a massive financial scare, and thanks to the prodding of President Bush, Congress has virtually nationalized the financial, auto, newspaper, on and on, industries ... but there is still hope!

Our political landscape has never been more threatening ... The Democratic and Republican Parties have gone socialist, and with so many convinced that "we the people" only have them as our only two choices ... it's easy to loose heart, raise the white flag, prepare for the worst ... and forget how good we have it in America.

As our government continues this march towards tyranny, it's time to set our complacency aside and to accept the lesson of history - we either march down the road towards tyranny, or we turn around and march back towards freedom.

There is no middle ground.

So again, I'm here to highly recommend reading the modern-day manifesto of freedom - The Conscience of a Conservative, by Barry Goldwater - The manual that defined the conservative movement, and reignited political resistance in America!

Yes, the movement seemed to peak with the land-slide election of Ronald Reagan, but it continues on strong today, creating much needed, yet beneficial adversity in the Republican Party, and providing popular voice to the Libertarian ideals on which our country was founded.

While the Left ... the Progressives may claim to have an interest in people, they stake their claim only by turning every issue into a "class/race/gender/insert here" argument.  Goldwater succinctly reminds us, however, that:

The shoe is precisely on the other foot: it is Socialism that subordinates all other considerations to man's material well-being. It is Conservatism that puts material things in their proper place - that has a structured view of the human being and of human society, in which economics plays only a subsidiary role.

The root difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals of today is that Conservatives take account of the whole man, while the Liberals tend to look only at the material side of man's nature. The Conservative believes that man is, in part, an economic, an animal creature; but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs and spiritual desires. What is more, these needs and desires reflect the superior side of a man's nature, thus take precedence over his economic wants ... Liberals, on the other hand - in the name of a concern for "human beings" - regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society ... In this approach, I believe they fight against Nature.

Only a philosophy that takes into account the essential differences between men, and, accordingly, makes provision for developing the different potentialities of each man can claim to be in accord with Nature.

The Conservative knows that to regard man as part of an undifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery.

This short, yet precise manual, will help reintroduce you to conservatism, touch upon all the "hot button" issues of today, raise your expectations, and reignite the fire of liberty within you!

I have been much concerned that so many people today with Conservative instincts feel compelled to apologize for them. Or if not to apologize directly, to qualify their commitment in a way that amounts to breast-beating.

Can someone say, "Compassionate Conservatism?"

Freedom-loving Americans have been on defense for far too long! Instead of reacting to problems, thus allowing the inevitable encroachments on our liberty for reasons of whatever the "crisis du jour" ... it's time to get back on offense!

Thus for the American Conservative, there is no difficulty in identifying the day's overriding political challenge: it is to preserve and extend freedom. As he surveys the various attitudes and institutions and laws that currently prevail in America, many questions will occur to him, but the Conservative's first concern will always be: Are we maximizing freedom?

Get yourself a copy of The Conscience of a Conservative today!

Unless, of course, you are a compromiser, a person who ducks from adversity while clinging to the false notion of "bi-partisanship." If so, this book isn't for you. You won't even be able to make sense of its basic human concepts. You are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

The Conscience of a Conservative is only for those who are not content with the direction of our country, those who, as Thomas Jefferson stated "would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it," and for all the other revolutionaries who have decided to make a difference!