Reclaim Conservatism

I secured the domain and started this site in May of this year inspired by a post by Doug Ross. Examining the results of last night’s election leads me to believe that the idea behind Reclaim Conservatism is going to be needed more than ever.

Of course defining true conservatism can be as difficult as determining to everyone’s satisfaction the best baseball team of all time. The real discussion, to use this analogy, isn’t which baseball team was best, but what makes a team great.

Let’s start the discussion with some of the words of the Great Communicator in his first inaugural address.

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.

We hear much of special interest groups. Well, our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we’re sick — professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truck drivers. They are, in short, “We the people,” this breed called Americans.

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We are a nation that has a government — not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the federal government and those reserved to the states or to the people. All of us need to be reminded that the federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.

Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it’s not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work — work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it.

It is my intention in the weeks and months ahead to use this platform to discuss and promote those ideals. There are bedrock principles that will allow us to begin the reclamation. It is from those ideals that plans and platforms can be developed.

At the end of his address President Regan told the story of Martin Treptow, a soldier who was killed in France during the First World War. He then closed with these words,

The crisis we are facing today does not require of us the kind of sacrifice that Martin Treptow and so many thousands of others were called upon to make. It does require, however, our best effort and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds, to believe that together with God’s help we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us.

And after all, why shouldn’t we believe that? We are Americans.

Almost thirty years later those words have never been more true.