The Conservative Revolution

Throughout history governments have ignored the rights of citizens and instead have maximized their own power. Those in public office have used it for their own personal gain, or to take wealth from some and give to others in order to maintain their own power. It is a classic model that hasn’t changed much in thousands of years.

The modern iteration of this is a leviathan federal government run by a political party based precisely on such principles. The bread and circuses of Roman times have merely been replaced with redistribution of wealth and a paternalistic state.

The other major political party in America ostensibly believes in limited government and free markets, but as the previous administration proved, this is true only when convenient. Sometimes it may be necessary to disregard the free market, “in order to save it.” How disappointing.

The flame of liberty does not depend upon the success or failure of either political party in America. No one politician, or party can keep that flame lit well into the future. Ultimately it is up to those that care deeply about freedom to stoke the embers, and protect them from the wind.

In the last year or so those of us who cherish liberty have been pushed up against a wall. We have watched the federal government bail out the elites on Wall Street for their own bad decisions. We have seen a new president waste a trillion dollars on failed economic ideas and increase our debt to dangerous proportions. We have heard the soaring rhetoric and watched the media fawn all over this new president who we are told is a new FDR. But we don’t want another FDR. We want our freedom, we want less government in our lives and we want to be left alone.

As we watched the size and scope of government grow exponentially this year we rose up in protests across the country. It is not in our character as conservatives and libertarians to protest, but we had exhausted all other forms of communication to our elected officials. In late February hundreds, or maybe thousands of Americans responded to the call for another Boston Tea Party by demonstrating in cities across the country.

We were mocked, we were doubted and we were vilified. They said that we were merely acting out, or that we wouldn’t be able to muster another protest like that. Weeks later, on tax day, more than a million of us came out again to send a much louder message to our elected officials.

We had spent the previous weeks organizing, making signs, pleading with our friends and family to come out and be seen and heard. We made history that day and shocked the elite media, which couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. Again, we were told that the protests wouldn’t continue, that we weren’t real.

But we pressed on, and continued to plan events around the country on July 4th and July 17th. The media essentially ignored us and barely mentioned the growing movement beneath their upturned noses. In early August everyone seemed surprised when thousands of us showed up at townhall meetings across the country and took advantage of our chance to meet face to face with the same politicians that have been voting for socialism in America. Now the attacks from the media and the left became more forceful, more ugly, more false. Finally, we had gotten our feet under us as a movement and had began to push back against the forces of socialism. The scene across the country was, I’m told, reminiscent of the sixties. Only this time the radicals were the ones protesting against left-wing establishment.