THE TEN PRINCIPLES OF CONSERVATISM REVISITED

Let us make sure that we ALL know what we’re shooting for here. The below are the ten principles of Conservatism as written by Russell Kirk. Let us study them, know them, and teach them to others so that McCain #2, er, Romney, doesn’t have a chance in Hell of being elected as Obama-lite AND that we can start winnowing the wheat from the chaff at lower levels of government.

1. There is a moral order to the universe. It applies to humans and it is a constant. When we are following it, there is harmony and when we fail to follow it, the world is turned upside down. Observe Liberalism with its constant change for the change of the change, their rampant abortions, abject lawlessness, protection of the criminal vice the victim, their hatred of religion, their lacks of morals, and their need for instant gratification, homosexual agenda, etc. Their ideology can be summed up in one word: CHAOS. America WAS GREAT when the family was celebrated as the center of our society, we abided by a strong sense of right and wrong, we fought FOR the underdog, we demanded justice and we lived with honor. We helped one another and we didn’t wait on the government’s permission.

2. We follow customs, traditions, courtesy, continuity, and convention. By following the rules, i.e., custom, as laid down for us by previous generations, we are able to LIVE together and prosper. Again, the liberals with their change for the change of the hope of the change usher in hatred, chaos, and division. Who can deny that? Mores and continuity link our society together from generation to generation and it helps the individual as well as society in general by keeping the social order that has ensured previous generations have succeeded and prospered. Liberals like to mewl that Conservatives hate change (continuity) but nothing could be further from the truth. Whereas liberals run headlong into change without thinking it through, i.e., Hopey/Changey 2008, continuity of our society should not be interrupted for the sake of change but rather, for prudent change and well-thought out change, implemented slowly to ensure it works for the whole of society.

3. Burke, the father of modern Conservatism stated: "The individual is foolish, but the species is wise." That is, by following the precedents put forth by our Founders, i.e., right to self-defense by keeping and bearing arms, freedom of speech, property rights, that go back to the earliest days of humanity. Why? Because they have been tried and proven to have worked. Thus they remain. We embrace the Rule of Law, the Left embraces the Rule of Man, and we all know how that works out in the end. Sudden reforms, slashing changes, poorly thought out, are devastating to our society, as we see under the Tyrant in the WH.

4. We embrace private property and all that it entails, including the right to use as we will and to profit by it. Sir Henry Maine wrote: "Nobody is at liberty to attack several properties and to say at the same time that he values civilization. The history of the two cannot be disentangled." This then, is the indictment of the Left and the OWS crowd who seek to plunder that which they have not worked for nor do they own. Conservatives embrace private property ownership because it teaches good stewardship, obligations, morals, and responsibility, i.e., landlords, land owners, farmers, etc. A good landlord keeps his/her property kept up to attract decent tenants AND to be able to get a higher rent, one that the market bears up. Private Property also serves to reward one’s labors, to see the end result of one’s labors, to profit from it and provide for one’s family, and to pass it on to one’s heirs! It is private property that has allowed Americans to rise from nothing to something and to accomplish what they have worked for.

5. The principle of variety. Conservatives know that a leveling of a society so that everyone is equal invites stagnation. The variety of material conditions, orders, classes, living conditions, etc, is the real diversity in a conservative society and that diversity, along with a free market, allows movement up the social ladder as well as down. What could be more fair? Herman Cain is the perfect example of this, coming from a poor family and rising to Presidential candidate through hard work, not through forced equality, forced diversity, or affirmative action, that put an incompetent fool in the White House. Conservatives see God as the only true leveler (upon our death we are judged) and the Rule of Law, applied equally to ALL, is the only REAL Earthbound equalizer.

6. Mankind is imperfect and Conservatives know it. We know that NO utopia could ever be created on Earth and thus, do not waste our time trying. In fact, the OWS crowd is the perfect example of how so-called "utopias" get out of hand almost instantly, with robbery, rapes, and theft becoming rampant. What Conservatism works for is an ordered, just, and free society, where life is tolerable but where there is evil, suffering, and problems, that are dealt with through personal charity, equal justice, and smart reforms. How many times have we seen ideologues like Jim Jones promise a utopia only to see it degenerate into an unholy hell?

7. Freedom and Property are linked to the stability and prosperity of our society. This is why Conservatives fight so hard against the Left because once we lose our property, whether land or an invention, we are at the mercy of those who would call themselves our masters. Through freedom, we are able to create, to prosper, to help our fellow Americans without government edicts, and it provides a bedrock for economic progress for our society. As we are seeing now under this Regime, the more they regulate, the more they take the fruits of our labor, the worse it gets.

8. We on the Right espouse voluntary community vice the collective. There is no freedom in the collective imposing their will on an individual because that collective is likely to be a central authority with little or no concern for the individual, only the hive. We can see this today with the Left’s urge to abort at will and make US pay for it in a "hive versus the child" mentality. We are against a central bureaucracy that takes all responsibility and decision-making AWAY from their citizens and leaves them without a will to live or think. This sort of thinking failed miserably in the former Soviet Union and cannot match up against a free people well-schooled in personal responsibility, personal accountability, efficiency, good common sense, and generosity. (Note that numerous studies ALL SHOW that Conservatives are MORE giving than Liberals.) This is why WE fight so hard to preserve a Republic and a government BY the People and FOR the people.

9. We Conservatives fight for the necessary restraints on power. We KNOW that absolute power corrupts absolutely and we can see this today with the Tyrant in the WH and his illegal rule by Executive Orders. THAT is why our Founders implemented Constitutional restrictions, checks and balances, three equal but separate branches, and an EQUAL enforcement of our laws under the Constitution. It provided the best mixture of a just government and the liberty of the citizens but Liberalism would, and has, turned this on its head, through the actions of a Tyrant. We embrace freedom and a government that represents the people because the people run it whereas Liberalism embraces despotism, which leads to anarchy, which leads to tyranny of the many by the few, as in an oligarchy. The lessons of history are rife on this, from Rome to France to Russia to Germany, and that in a vacuum, power tends to gravitate to the strongest hand and remain there, with the government growing ever more tyrannical as time goes on. The example here is the progression of the Obama Regime from a supposed "transparent" administration to one that monitors Twitter for "social unrest", that has TSA goons stopping cars and trucks for forced searches on public roads, that plans to seize control of the communication system for three minutes, that forces US to follow the healthcare plan 76% of us were AGAINST! This then, is tyranny and tyranny is what WE are against.

10. We embrace social improvement, in order to maintain an active society, through permanence and the progression therein. What this means is that we embrace the interests, mores, values, and convictions that ensure that the society enjoys the needed stability and continuity that ensures a great society. Thus, we progress through reasoned and temperate improvements as opposed to jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, as Liberalism does, with unthinking and ill-thought-out acts to try and improve everything for everyone, every time, slapping in the new simply because it is new, and condemning the old because it is old. The example being Obama versus the Constitution and it being, as he stated, an old document of negative liberals vice one of positive liberties of what the government does FOR YOU, i.e., the Soviet Constitution.

The crux of the matter is that WE EMBRACE a system of beliefs and values that works FOR the stability of our society, not the demise and/or chaos within it, as Liberalism does. We embrace and fight FOR the Constitution because as Sir Henry Maine wrote that it is, "the most successful device in the history of politics." Therefore, our mission statement should include the education of our fellow Americans not only of our First principle, but the other nine, in order to reintroduce the renaissance of conservative thinking and doing! We must point out, time and time again, that WE support belief system of a moral order in the universe, a constant human nature that is imperfect yet capable of higher living and charity, personal responsibility, and a duty to serve something larger than ourselves, whereas the Liberalism is simply ideology of "stuff", immediate gratification of needs no matter who is harmed in the process, and of tyranny, chaos, and degeneration of the society that adheres to it.