Excerpts

But while there are many branches of thought on the left, there is one necessary agreement among them: the desire for the continual expansion of the government’s power. The conservative’s truest opponent is the “government expansionist.”

The conservative believes that America is naturally good; the expansionist believes that America needs more government to make it good. The conservative believes that the rules of the good society must be based on natural law (and the subsequent moral law); the expansionist believes that a “good” society must be based on synthetic law (and the subsequent dictated standard of men eager to meddle in other men’s business). The conservative lionizes the self-sufficient individual, while the expansionist lionizes the victim. The conservative is a realist; the expansionist believes in utopianism. It is not that they do not want to agree, but it is that they are in constant philosophical contrast and opposition.

Many writers have defined conservatism in the past, and some of them have numbered its tenets. I, too, count a finite number of basic ideas that define conservatism:

First: Respect for the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law on which it is based.

Second: Respect for life as a natural, inherent, and inalienable right for all individuals at all stages.

Third: An insistence on government in its most limited format so it does not come into conflict with each individual’s rights and freedoms, and remains subject to the scrutiny of the law.

Fourth: Personal responsibility, the idea that the individual is accountable for all of his actions, and his actions alone.

Of course, the expansionist has himself a set of principles. The first is institutionalization—the creation of a governmentrun society under which all individuals and private sector institutions are subjugated.

Second, the struggle of classes (and, subsequently, the Marxist change doctrine, which we will discuss close to the conclusion of this book)—a clash between different individuals so as to create the change necessary to promote the left’s political agenda.

Third, victimization: encouraging the hope that the individual will find his worth in government and only by government’s help.

Fourth, the synthetic law, the dictated standard, and the repudiation of natural rights—the idea that the laws of the moral compass are wrong and must be replaced by a new, more “efficient” standard that promotes the left’s agenda.

The left’s agenda is in ascendancy as I write this book in the summer of 2009, as President Obama leads the greatest offensive of government expansionism that our nation has ever witnessed.

Only conservatism can protect Americans from the loss of freedom they are certain to suffer if government expansionism succeeds. Now, more than ever, it is important to know what it means to be conservative, and what we as conservatives must do.