Email from a Conservative Reader

Just reading Rove V W on Financial Sense, and although I appreciate your
feelings on conservatism and limited government, which is constitutionally
supported and on which we agree, I'm dizzy with parallax from your article,
which I fear refers to a world now 10 or 20 years out of date.

We agree that government has no business with social programs at the Federal
level, should reduce taxes, limit government, and reform Social Security
very likely with a Chilean model. We agree that the Democrats are missing
the importance of morality and of getting the inefficiencies of government
and high taxes out, to be replaced with freedom and independence. We agree
that we should reduce the size of government altogether, along with
government handouts, reducing the power and number of lobbyists and career
politicians.

My problem is that the Republican Party IS the party of big government,
special interests, and invasion of privacy. They are also the party of high
taxes, via inflation and deficit, the party of career crony politicians, the
party of political handouts, both public and corporate. They are the party
of increasing federal government, and decreasing privacy and independence.
The Democrats have nothing on them in this regard. (They are also the party
of deception, immorality, and crass cynicism, but let's not go there)

Let me name a few examples: Prescription drugs, which we do not have money
for, and is an expansive public welfare program even the people it was
created for didn't want. Polls of the day were overwhelmingly in favor of
shoring up SS instead of increasing benefits. No Child Left Behind, much
talked about by President Bush, which is another spending program that
begins to turn public schooling over to the Federal level, a flagrant
violation of so many principles I couldn't name them all, in addition to be
extra spending, bureaucracy, oversight, and beginning the road to
establishment of State-friendly curriculum. Patriot Acts I and possibly II,
which are flatly unconstitutional and are the greatest threat to privacy and
constitutional government since the nation was founded. Expanding military
and political involvement around the world, including payoffs to Africa, and
nation building in Afghanistan and Iraq among many, many others less spoken
of, such as Columbia and Georgia. A national debt that has expanded to $7.4
Trillion in 3 years; even excluding national and domestic defense a spending
increase of 30% with no vetoes and no Republican opposition. If you made a
million dollars every day of every year since Christ was born, you couldn't
pay just the INCREASE in spending since Bush became president. Income tax
can no longer pay even the INTEREST on the debt.

You're a Constitutionalist for limited government, what does this say to
you? The Democrats are losing because the Republicans have co-opted their
platform of political handouts. They claim to be for limited government and
yet increase programs for everyone, whether they want them or not. They
claim to be for fiscal responsibility and have spent more than Lyndon
Johnson could have dreamed, and following same agenda: the great society
and increasing government at home, with wars and foreign entanglements
abroad so warned against by General Washington. They're promising it all,
and delivering it, by selling their grandchildren to debt slavery. They are
both parties now.

I don't know what the Democrats are going to do, but I know what the
Republicans are doing. They are badly abusing the people's goodwill and
historical position of the party by taking actions 180 degrees counter to
their phony platform for many years now. A short look at the laws passed,
the agendas followed and the budgets approved makes it clear what the
Republicans stand for. More government, more invasion of privacy, more
spending, more handouts, more foreign involvement, less freedom and less
initiative, with no fiscal responsibility.

Only one thing is clear from the recent election. The American people lost.

Now I'm a younger person, so I don't have the history you do with each
party. But what you're talking about with Democrats vs Republicans is no
longer true, and hasn't been true for almost 10 years. The Republicans ARE
the tax-and-spend, big government, foreign intervention party, and have been
for most of my life. It's a shame they've eclipsed the Democrats in this
regard, because now we have BOTH parties flouting the Constitution and
bankrupting the nation morally and economically. And, being a young person,
I'M the one who's going to have to clean it up when their two-party
Socialist experiment fails.

As far as I can tell, there's no revolution here. It's just same-old
same-old. Bankrupt the country and sell off your grandchildren to live easy
today. Both parties. 24-7.

For a closer view, look here:

http://www.toptips.com/debtclock.html

It shows exactly what a Republican controlled House, Court, Executive and
often Senate stands for.

With the election, everything from now on is exactly what the Republicans
want. No more excuses okay? No more living in the past history of parties
long gone. The Republicans have it all their own way with no one to blame
now. Every law, every act, every dollar spent is exactly what they stand
for. We'll see if they have a Constitutional or Libertarian bone in their
body.

But I won't hold my breath. I'm going to need all the strength I can get
when the tide of Republican spending hits my generation like a tidal wave,
and our economic ruin makes a paupered, debtor nation like Argentina or
Germany were after their little experiments in paper money and government
control, bullied by the far stronger, creditor nations of China and Russia.
Is this what the Founders wanted?

Good luck. Remember what you stand for doesn't have to be a party.
Especially if that party is using you.

Here is my reply:

Great letter. Thanks for the reply. It is far more encouraging than you can know. 

I hope you have a gazillion friends and family and will send them a link to the Reagan Renaissance Archive. I may use parts of your email in the next article, even though I have targeted another topic. There are "professional" politicians in both parties, but I do hope you will give me the benefit of the doubt that the results of the 2004 election will prove to be a turning point. And I hope you recognize that it is the Reagan Wing and the Reagan Renaissance that has a meaningful chance to make this come true. I am going to need all the help I can get if this is to become a reality. Also it is important to recognize that there is no third party alternative that has any momentum or potential at this point that I am aware of nor is there any competing Constitutionally conservative group of which I am aware that has any momentum. And the reality is that the Reagan Renaissance effort at the moment does not have the momentum that would be possible if readers would begin to invite their friends, families and anybody they know who are Republican or conservative.

The next phase of the Reagan Renaissance is about to get underway with the next article. The next two or three articles, if successful will take the Reagan Renaissance into orbit and generate the Constitutionally conservative momentum that is lacking for any other effort. It is going to be up to the readers of the series to provide the catalyst that will ignite this rocket. Stay the course and stay tuned.