There is huge disagreement among conservatives about where on the left-right spectrum they should be: center-right, middle or far-right?
Centrists argue this is the balancing point for not only all conservatives but independents and moderate liberals as well. There’s a much better chance of achieving compromise here they say than at the extreme.
The far right disagrees, especially of late. They argue compromise has been their downfall. Most government programs and spending have grown relentlessly during the Clinton years (center-left), the Bush years (center-right) and the Obama years (far-left). They say they have been tugged inexorably left, now precariously straddling center, and still they are being pulled evermore left.
None can deny the last twelve years have seen national debt, entitlements and size of government explode. Where will it end? What can Americans of any political stripe be thinking? Disaster looms large, but prevailing sentiments still trend left, driven by the Republican establishment, media, academia, the political elite, entertainment and a never-ending flow of 3rd world immigrants invading our country.
I say invade because, legal or otherwise, most of these newcomers are interlopers looking for hand-outs and freebies, uninterested in fitting in or contributing or even learning English! Not all but too many take what they can get. The foreign born now account for upwards of 20% of the population and almost half the citizenry get some kind of aid or benefit.
The far-right are dumbstruck at how things have gotten so far out of hand? They hearken back to our founding asking what got us here and made us so great? They find it was the courage of the people rising up against tyranny, the brilliance of the founders, the constitution and republicanism they crafted. It was the inherent spirit and vitality of the people, their rugged individualism and independence, their willingness to work and sacrifice, their respect for law and order, and their almost universal Judeo-Christian reverence for a higher power.
We were not a nation of takers or hangers-on. Families, communities, churches helped their own who were disabled or aged. We were a productive society in which all contributed as they were able, and the sum total of American enterprise soon grew far greater than its constituent parts, achieving a nationhood the world had never known.
Far-righters study all this and grieve at the sheer folly and nonsense of the liberal agenda. America created the greatest middle/upper-middle class in history, giving a better life to more people than ever before, but liberals ignore this and decry what they can only perceive as a have/ have-not society. They detest wealth, regardless of source. They want to punish success, control enterprise and regulate consumption. They would destroy a superb societal construct by throwing the baby out with the bathwater in their quest for a reality that can never be; an absurdity where equal opportunity forces equal outcome. They fail to understand human nature, to heed the lessons of history, remaining dumb to the corrupting influence of power and tyranny it promotes.
A hundred years of incremental progressivism requires the far right to stand fast. Too much has been lost, the risk of losing more too great. Constitutionalism, republicanism and reverential theism/deism must re-establish and prevail over a philosophically like-minded people if we are to maintain our supremacy among nations, if we are to present a beacon of hope to the world.
Americanism by definition is conservatism of varying degrees, operating on a governmental platform of democratic republicanism, anchored by the constitution. The individual, family unit and local neighborhood and township are the building blocks and glue of our society; not big govern ment, entitlements and socialism.
Liberalism, progressivism, statism can only be subsets of limited use and scope within the broader, overarching mechanism of republicanstyle democracy. There can be no usurpation of power, no leviathan government, no dictator or tyrant within the context of Americanism.
There must be a balance of power, constitutional sway, respect for the law with individual integrity/participation in the process. Without these we jeopardize our liberties and abandon our heritage.
The far right must stand firm to save our republic. They must reverse and/or negate the liberal policies and programs that have so under-mined our society. They must not compromise from the single-minded purpose of bringing our country back across the middle to the right side of the spectrum, the true side of Americanism, and the most effective and successful side of history and the civilized world.
Alvan Shane
Upland, Ca
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