Common Sense Conservatism

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The battleground between the ideologies on the issues stirs emotions.  Stirring emotions elicits reactionary responses.  When one reacts without stopping and using common sense to articulate a response, we fall into the hands of those that wish to impose more government on the masses.

Liberalism is all about emotion, and nothing about common sense.  They contradict themselves on issues, they paint tyranny as being sympathetic to the poor masses, and they have convinced a large portion of the populace that the best way to save money is to spend, spend, and spend some more.

Death has become a right, and perversion has become a lifestyle.  The people who wish to take away your ability to protect yourself hire armed security to protect them.  The people who state that government-paid health care is the best thing for you has exempted themselves from the health care law.  Our allies have become the enemy, and the enemy has become our friends.  Terrorists are being called freedom fighters, and our military veterans are being called potential terrorists.

But with all of the madness, and the obvious truth that comes with those issues, conservatives have been labeled as extreme, radical, and a problem to the political system.

In reality, the liberal left has moved so far to the left that what used to be considered mainstream conservatism has become right-wing extremism in the eyes of the opposition.

Conservatism is not extreme, and the Constitution is actually dead center on the political spectrum.  In reality, when it comes to the issues, it is all about common sense.

Economy

In any financial situation, the common sense approach is that more must be earned than spent.  If spending increases, and revenue does not, then there will be a problem.  However, in a governmental system where taxation is involved, if revenue increases by taxing the public more, that leaves less revenue for the taxpayer to apply to their spending, therefore it forces the taxpayer to reduce spending to accommodate the reduction in revenue.  Less spending by the taxpayer means less production from the businesses, and less consumerism from the consumers.  Therefore, to increase productivity and consumerism, the taxes must be reduced.  By reducing taxes the private sector will begin to flourish, which should then increase profit and wages, which in turn will increase revenue to the government.  If government spending increases faster than revenue is able to,  and since increasing taxes against businesses and individuals will reduce productivity and consumerism, this leaves the government with no alternative than to reduce government spending.  To fail to reduce spending so that is does not increase faster than revenue is unsustainable, and will eventually lead to the collapse of the system.

Constitutional note on the economy:  The federal government is only supposed to spend on constitutionally authorized matters, like the common defense, securing the national borders, and running constitutionally granted organizations like the post office, patent office, and copyright office. . . to name a few.  The federal government is not supposed to be funding items that fall under State authorities, like education, roadways, and local transportation.  If the federal government was to eliminate all unconstitutional spending at this moment, the level of federal spending would be at about 5% of GDP.  An elimination of the federal income tax would set back revenues to the same revenue level of 1998.  In the late 1800s federal spending averaged between three and four percent, and there was no income tax back then.

Abortion

In the Declaration of Independence the three examples of God-given rights listed are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.  Life being mentioned first shows us how important the sanctity of life was to the Founding Fathers.  In Rome, as the collapse of the empire approached, abortion was also an issue that had raised its violent head.  In the Roman Empire, however, they allowed post-birth abortion.  If a couple did not approve of their child for any reason, including the color of the baby's eyes, it was perfectly legal to leave the child, as long as he or she was less than two years old, on the road to die from the elements.  Christians were often arrested for attempting to save these abandoned children.

In the United States, the ability for a woman to end the life of her unborn child is being hailed as a "reproductive right."  The liberal left has pushed for abortions to be legal up to the full term of the pregnancy, and Barack Obama as an Illinois State Senator voted against a bill that would require that babies that survive an abortion receive emergency care.  Instead, these people wanted the botched abortion to lay there, struggling for life, to die from the elements of the outside world without assistance.  Christians are attacked for speaking out against such a practice.

Cass Sunstein, one of Barack Obama's past Regulatory Czars, once wrote that abortion was fine up to two years old.

These are the same people that consider the murder of a pregnant woman a double homicide.

Constitutional Note on Abortion: No medical procedure, including abortion, is mentioned in the Constitution in the first seven articles, or any of the amendments, as being an authority of the federal government.  Since it is not an authority of the federal government, and not prohibited to the States (Amendment 10), then that makes the issue a State issue.  The States are free to decide individually whether or not to make abortion legal, or illegal, in their State.  Roe v. Wade overturned a Texas law banning abortion, making the case unconstitutional.  The court not only overturned a State law on a State issue, but also made law through the ruling by making abortion federally legal.  All legislative powers at the federal level belong to Congress, as per Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution.

Guns

Gun Control has never reared its ugly head until 2013 because it has always been a losing issue for democrats in the United States.  America is undoubtedly a pro-gun society, populated by people that hold dear their right to keep and bear arms.  The Founding Fathers penned in the Second Amendment that the federal government has no authority to infringe on that right in any way.

Now, after a series of shootings, and after using emotion-filled propaganda to stir up the masses, the liberal left democrats are hammering away on the issue, with the full intent to eventually, someday, confiscate all firearms in America.

Statistics show that an armed society is a safer society.  When the populace is armed, the criminal element is reluctant to commit their criminal activity.  The criminal element prefers that their opposition is unarmed.

In Great Britain, after the guns were confiscated in 1997, the occurrence of violent crimes and home invasions went up drastically.  Though liberal leftists like Piers Morgan likes to state that gun deaths are down, he fails to recognize and verbalize the increase in violent crime in that country since the full confiscation of all firearms.  Killers, and people who use violence in their criminal activity, may be using guns less because of the decreased availability, but they have increased their violent activity through other methods because though they are unarmed, they know their potential victims are as well.  Burglary becomes a much easier proposition when you are not worried about hearing that clicking noise of a gun somewhere in the house.

I have always found it interesting that the people who wish to take away your right to defend yourself, your loved ones, and your private property hire armed security to protect their own lives.

Constitutional Note on Guns: The 2nd Amendment was written to apply to the federal government.  The federal government "shall not infringe" on the citizen's right to keep and bear arms.  The right to keep and bear arms, according to the 2nd Amendment, is "necessary" for the "security of a free State."  In other words, necessary to protect the States, and that includes from a tyrannical government.

For those that claim the mention of a well regulated militia in the amendment means that gun possession is a collective right, rather than an individual right, we have to remember who the militia is, and the definition of the language used.  The militia, according to Title 10 of the U.S. Code, is broken into two groups - the organized militia, and the unorganized militia.  The organized militia would be State militias, and the National Guard.  The unorganized militia is everyone else.  Therefore, we are all a part of the militia.

For the militia to be well regulated means for it to be "in good order."  We must remember the disarray of the militias under the command of George Washington.  The stories of history tell us that many of the folks in the militias during the War of Independence had no shoes, and the muskets were of various sizes.  The militia during the American Revolution was not in good order.

In the 1828 Webster's dictionary, the definition for "regulate" is, after the primary definition regarding weights and measures, "to put in good order."  This was also the definition being used in the 2nd Amendment.

Entitlements

The liberal left hails entitlement programs as being the ultimate charity.  These folks, once again fueled by their raging emotions, feel better about themselves when they are using government to take from the successful only to redistribute those funds to the poor.

For the political element, the redistribution of wealth is a fantastic way to buy votes.  When giving gifts from the treasury to a class of people, that particular class stops caring about the issues, and is convinced through their own human nature to only care about if their entitlements continue.  This means they will vote, regardless of any other issue, for the politicians promising to continue to give them gifts from the government treasury.  Since it comes from government, people begin to believe they are entitled to the gifts, and as we have seen in Europe, will even resort to rioting if the entitlements are reduced.

Conservatives agree that the poor should be looked after, and assisted, but not by government.  Individualism suggests that charity must be a voluntary decision made by each individual that decides to help. When this happens, the recipient is less likely to view the assistance as an entitlement, and more likely to view it as a gift of charity.  This makes the recipient more likely to appreciate it, and more likely to work their way out of their unfortunate circumstances so that they can do the same for someone else.  Charity, unlike entitlements, encourages the recipients to improve themselves, to prosper, and to share that prosperity as individuals in a voluntary manner.

Constitutional Note: Entitlements are not authorized by the Constitution to the federal government.  This does not mean the States can't have such programs, though I don't believe these programs are beneficial even at the State level.  In fact, to protect the nation against "vote buying" by the politicians, non-property owners didn't even have the ability to vote in elections because they had no skin in the game.  When a voter has no skin in the game, reasoned the founders, the way to win their vote will be by buying it with gifts from the public treasury - a practice the founders knew would lead to the downfall of our financial system.

Marriage

The issue of marriage has become a hot topic because of the push for gay marriages to be recognized as valid by the government.  My first thought is "why is government involved in marriage in the first place?"

It is amazing that those that practice the gay lifestyle wish to marry when a few decades ago these same people were ostracizing marriage.

As a Christian, I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that homosexuality is a perverted lifestyle.  However, this is America, and except for things like murder, lying under oath, or theft, a sinful lifestyle is not, and should not be, punishable by whatever the government deems.  Such a lifestyle, as sinful as it may be, is an individual choice.

The gay agenda's desire to redefine marriage has become an issue that among the younger crowd dominates their political world.  Homosexuals have used a well-funded lobby to convince the public that theirs is a struggle for a civil right - a constitutional right.

Conservatives largely do not wish to use the power of the law to outlaw homosexuality.  Though the lifestyle is seen as being perverted, and unnatural, it is the business of those that decide to engage in such a lifestyle.  However, conservatives tend to not wish for the traditional definition of marriage to be changed for a group that wishes to destroy the very institution they claim to desire.  Nor should institutions be redefined to accommodate a behavior, nor should the door be opened to eventually enable the gay lobby to force all churches to allow gay marriage because it is deemed a "constitutional right."

Constitutional Note:  Like abortion, there is no authority over marriage mentioned in the Constitution for the federal government.  This means that it is a State issue, and for the States to decide individually.  This would also mean that the federal Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional, as well as the federal court's decision to strike down Proposition 8 in California.

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