A good government can be for everyone and against no one, but not if half its people call what is bad “good” and what is good “bad;” then, government must choose whom to serve and whom to persecute.
Conservatives have been chasing a fantasy for decades by idolizing a neutral, ‘live and let live’ limited government. It needs to stop now. ‘Live and let live’ only works when most of society agrees on fundamental morals, and that hasn’t happened for several years. The government is not getting any smaller, and the Left has taken advantage of our ‘live and let live’ philosophy.
The Left was able to do so because we were busy believing a lie, that the only proper response to something is to ‘let live’: The Left wants God out of the schools? Let live. The Left wants to normalize sex in society and media? Let live. The Left wants to normalize unnatural relations? Let live. The Left wants to redefine the ancient concept of marriage? Let live. The Left wants to deny the reality of gender and sex? Let live. The Left wants to promote the denial of that reality to children? Let live. The Left wants to sponsor pedophiles reading to children in public? Let live. The Left wants to threaten and intimidate the government into submission? Let live. The Left wants to control our breathing? Let live. The Left wants to force everyone to get a chemical injection or be ostracized from society? Let live. The Left wants to mobilize anti-terrorism agents against parents of schoolchildren? Let live.
The colonists cried, “Don’t tread on me!” and killed for their freedom; we cry, “Don’t tread on me!” and cower behind limited government principles. The historic phrase began as an implied threat against any who would disregard the life and liberty of proud Americans, but it has become a mere beggary against the onslaught of oppression.
If conservatives have any desire to legitimately conserve American culture, the answer lies in what many would call “big government,” but that would defame their aforementioned idol. Political conservatism is wholly meaningless if it forbids using political power to achieve its goals; it is merely a social movement at that point, and social movements rarely succeed when the government does not partner with them. We must establish a strong conservative government or else consign ourselves to being ruled by a strong leftist one.
The chief end of government is to determine and enforce morality. That is true according to the Bible, as the Apostle Paul states in Romans 13, it is true according to elementary political philosophy, and it has been true in every government throughout history. It is true particularly in our own Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
A government cannot and should not be truly neutral to live and let everything live. If everything is permitted and nothing has consequences, then there is effectively no government, just anarchy. A people can achieve union only when all are of one accord regarding morality, and that Union can only approach perfection when it promotes the proper morality. Strong moral government is better than weak passive government because weak passive government will give way to strong immoral government, as current events evince.
Government should not be neutral as it concerns principles; neutrality is only good as it relates to persons. That is, government should perpetually serve some principles over others but not perpetually some persons over others. The founding fathers of America sought to establish that neutrality, but the Left has convinced even conservatives that the reverse is true: principles are interchangeable and some persons deserve more legal favor than others. Establishing a strong government that will stop those practices is not immoral, rather it is explicitly required by morality; neither does it invite reaction from the Left, rather our refusal to act does.
Everyone wants a government that will work in service to himself, but only he who takes control of the government will have such a one. It is entirely impossible for a government to serve someone who has no control over or input in it. The Left knows that, and it is why they use every legal power they have and even invent powers that they don’t legally have so that they can mold society for their benefit.
We conservatives, by contrast, have handcuffed ourselves; we condemn all use of power for conservative ends and hope that legislation and society will magically stop persecuting our cause. It is a foolish way of thinking that hasn’t worked and will never work. Condemnation should instead fall upon the act of letting our government promote moral corruption while the possibility existed to prevent that outcome by using power.
Conservatism has the same mindset that Native Americans had when Europeans settled the continent. Conservatism thinks that it can halt infringements and undo past damage if its proponents will just demonstrate how peaceable and moral they personally are. Conservatism denounces its proponents whenever they repel infringements with force, on the grounds that it will neutralize the possibility of good relations between the parties. Conservatism thinks that the opposing party genuinely desires good relations, choosing to ignore the repeated injuries and insults that display a desire for its total destruction. And, like the Natives, conservatism will be conquered and fade into nothing unless we make a change.
The modern conservative mindset needs to die, because otherwise we cannot counteract the leftist political machine. In order to actually conserve America’s greatness—instead of merely saying we want to do so—we need to reshape the government to serve our purposes. There is nothing immoral about grabbing political power from unjust rulers and then using it to re-establish the country on solid moral ground, for so our founders did. But faith in our founders is also waning among conservatives.
Conservatives love to venerate the colonial patriots for their honor and bravery, but many today show by their actions that they would have scorned those patriots for abandoning the moral high ground by using the same tactics as their enemies. Many of today’s conservatives reveal that they would have thought the patriots no better than the Crown since both employed violence for their cause.
The fundamental question for patriots today is this: Would you rather watch the Left transform your government for your oppression and feel good about yourself for honoring limited government principles, or would you rather use your government to protect America from ruin but feel guilty for it?
Colonial patriots gave us their answer as our legacy. “Don’t tread on me” was a threat. Remember that.
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