Saturday, December 20, 2008

As Clear As,

The Nose On My Face.

Phyllis Schlafly wrote: in her Eagle Forum.

“In the period from 1976 to 1980, grassroots conservatives and Ronald Reagan learned from each other. That's the model conservatives should follow now and educate new leaders.”
-----link to article-----
http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2008/nov08/08-11-28.html
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Mrs. Schlafly goes on to show what it took for Reagan to win. How he spent 4 years getting in touch with and learning from the grassroots. He did that by getting out of Washington and traveling the country. She goes on to say that Republicans should do the same thing. Leave Washington DC.

To take that a step further perhaps we should re-educate or Home School ourselves as to what the people really want.

Peggy Noonan wrote in an article sub sub titled “the Age Of The Empty Suit”, in the WSJ about what she feels this country needs

“The return of the suit inhabited by a person. The return of the person who will take responsibility, and lead.”

-----link to article-----
http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html
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She also writes of our current state of the union. “It's a void that's governing us.”

Tying the two writers together seems simple. Our elected officials have become so out of touch with those they represent that they can no longer govern with our best interests in mind. They don't even know what those interests are. For the most part they have become “empty suits” or mouth pieces for interest groups and more and more simply for the “government” bureaucracies.

We lost recently a great voice of the people, Paul Weyerich. This was a person who knew the grass roots. He was not an empty suit. He was a leader. He also was one of those rare people who could seamlessly combine theory with action on the ground. As the link below shows Paul Weyerich was the force behind many of the Conservative institutions we take for granted today.
A Tribute to Paul Weyrich
by Morton C. Blackwell
-----link-----
http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/resources/?pageid=speeches&s=26
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I bring Weyerich into the discussion not because he was so much of a person who listened to the people but was the person who could put together the people necessary to form coalitions of groups of “The People” along with the money people to back them. I think the article shows what made him remarkable. His unbending and consistent belief in the Conservative Cause. If you backed him you knew what you were getting, and better yet you knew that his beliefs were not going to be changed, that they were not poll driven.

Perhaps it is obvious, but we not only need the grass roots, we need the organizers of those roots. The whole point is that those organizers have to have a message that is clear strong and above all consistent.

How can we be consistent. What is the thread that allows all the different groups we need to find common ground.

Phyllis Schlafly writes in her Eagle Forum an article titled “Some Change Is A Big Improvement” the following in her Eagle Forum.
-----link-----
http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2008/dec08/08-12-05.html
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“North Star Academy has a waiting list of 2,000. North Star's principal, James Verrilli, points out that providing a good education is "the new civil rights movement of our era."

What is “Civil Rights” all about? Simple, it is about Freedom. The Freedom we are guarrenteed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The Freedom to pursue happiness along with life and liberty. Happiness is found in a parent who is helping their children to a better life through Education. Lately this has not been happening to those who we as a culture make the most promises to. The poor.

Those very same people are now taking matters into their own hands. As Schlafly points out from Uniforms to same sex classes and schools, it is not the rich or even middle class that has bucked the status quo. It has been the inner city schools doing the deeds. It is the schools in the inner city that feel the blunt of the failed Liberal policies. She points out a quote from a headmaster at an inner city "Boys School" and then point out how the PC Harvard elite wouldn’t stand for it.

{Kerry Brennan, headmaster at the all-boys Roxbury Latin School (founded in 1645) observed that "it is well known that boys and girls develop differently and at different rates." It's a good thing he doesn't work at Harvard where the feminists ousted President Larry Summers for a similar type of comment.}

Schlafly points to the idea that this isn’t a Republican or Democrat idea. Freedom is bipartisan. Also she points out that the Feminists are really opposed. This is one issue where common sense seems to rule the day. If we as a party can’t get behind and facilitate common sense and the pursuit of Happiness, then we don’t deserve to get any power back.

It as clear as the nose on my face.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Thursday, December 18, 2008

New Thoughts From an Old Hand

Richard Viguerie writing for Reason on line
-----link------
http://www.reason.com/news/show/130562.html
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Viguerie’s quote.
When talking about the Religious Right, or as he calls them the “value voters” says the following.
-----Quote-----
so. It’s the only part of the Republican Party where there really are ground troops. The Left has different minority groups, unions, any number of groups that serve as ground troops and Republicans don’t, other than the religious right leaders, [who are] the only ones with any troops out there. Economic conservatives don’t have troops on the ground and are not organized in the way values voters are.
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Viguerie calls the religious right value voters probably to help break up the stereotypes. Whatever he calls them I agree with the above assessment of the power of “troops on the ground”. During the last election it was quite apparent that what the Republicans lacked was a base of volunteers on the ground.
Last night at our County Executive Committee meeting Holly Hughes spoke a long time about why we lost the election. How it was a lot of complicated things that all got together and caused our defeat. She is right. The reasons why people lose election or win them for that matter are many and complicated. But let us not obfuscate the obvious.

Our loss was NOT a fluke.

In his insightful answerers to the interviewer from Reason, Viguerie reasons that we as Republicans need to form our own self financed autonomous power groups, such as the Left has; ie Unions, Minority groups of all kinds from Black to Hispanic thru Gay. They have in the past and now used many others. Viguerie talks of a need for Conservative groups to form independently outside of the Republican structure. Be more narrow in their scope and aid the Republican Party in it’s need with their specific expertise on issues and troops on the ground when elections roll around.
I draw from the conclusion that with enough of these groups, each focusing on a particular issue, when combined with the continuous drumbeat from ten different drums, a more or less cohesive picture or brand for our Party will emerge. It is our job to keep that message within the parameters of a Republican platform.
------quote below to back up the above-----
It’s critical for conservatives to also operate independently of the GOP and launch thousands of new organizations at the national, state, and local level, dealing with narrowly focused issues, public education, or maybe in your local community it might be property rights, it could be taxes, whatever the issue might be, work on those issues wherever your abilities and talents lead you to. In my lifetime the most successful public policy issue has been the state of Israel. It’s so successful it’s off the table: Everyone supports Israel. The issue did not get tied to a political party, and any time you tie an issue to a party, your grandchildren will be fighting that issue.
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Viguerie has within his construct planks that include limited government, fiscal restraint, and the Religious or values voter.

Today I need to figure out how to transpose that to the local or County and Township and precinct level. So often Republicans get carried off into the big picture when talking about local stuff. One of our local group is trying to do that with a local issue about a parking garage. The difficulty Republicans have with issues is that we start trying to look 20 years down the road. That is our “responsibility” talking and that is a good thing.

We need however to try to also focus on how this issue will effect the everyday person. We have to also make it personal. Along with the facts and figures we have to continually make the effort to transpose those facts and figures into the effects they will have upon the individual people.

As with most things a two sided approach seems needed. The big and little pictures if you will. I don’t pretend to know the answer, but that could be one of the “thousands of new organizations at the national, state, and local level, dealing with narrowly focused issues, public education, or maybe in your local community”. From above quote by Viguerie.

Either way Richard Viguerie's new ideas seem grounded in Old ways and at least point out what is needed in general. It is up to us to teach ourselves how to apply those ideas to the specific and make it happen. It is up to us to take that responsiblity for our actions or lack of actions to secure and make flourish that Freedom so generously given to us.

Everyday on a Personal Level.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative