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Wednesday, February 20, 2008
David Limbaugh :: Townhall.com Columnist
Conservatives and First Principles
by David Limbaugh
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Will the Dems' health care Christmas Present to America be an improvement or detriment to our health care system?


Conservatives also see quite clearly the interrelationship between economic and political liberty. Whether or not they've studied Friedrich Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom," they understand that expansive government and socialism -- no matter how well meaning, in some cases -- are ultimately incompatible with individual liberties.

Big government Republicans, however, evidently don't have the same distrust of governmental power, believing it is an unstoppable force that can't be beaten and so must be joined and harnessed to "conservative" ends.

No matter how smart these intellectuals are, they just don't get it. If they did, they wouldn't be happily surrendering to anti-constitutionalist liberals and willingly playing the game on their turf.

Conservatives realize that politics (and the preservation of our liberties) ain't beanbag. They don't invest their future in the platitudes of "hope," "bipartisanship," or "kumbaya." In the end, these are just recklessly naive expressions of confidence in the power of government to deliver us from all hardship.

Instead, conservatives believe that government is a necessary evil to establish order and promote the common defense and the like but otherwise must be restrained in order to unleash the power and freedom of the individual.

Conservatives should not be underestimated as mere players in a cynical chessboard game of party politics. They believe in the power of ideas and will continue to promote their ideas irrespective of the eventual identity of the respective presidential nominees and regardless of how much they are pressured to be silent about first principles.

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About The Author
David Limbaugh, brother of radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, is an expert in law and politics and author of Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party.
 
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Reply # 1
Date: Feb 21, 2008 - 1:47 PM EST
Lilly
I'm sorry to break it to you, but you are an absolute fool.

Conservatives know that government is necessary. Unlike liberals, however, we also recognize that government is unable to solve most of our problems, and that it should stick to the things that it does best. (This would include things like building roads, maintaining an army, keeping criminals in jail, etc.)

Your sentiment that "loving" the government is "patriotic" is both naive and dangerous. A government doesn't need love; a government needs careful oversight and constant restraint, or else it will begin to usurp the very principles and liberties that made this country great in the first place.

As for your assertion that paying taxes ought to be a cause for pride, well, I don't know what to tell you. Until poverty is "cured," the Big Dig is completed, and everyone begins to exhibit the remarkable benefits of education, I will continue to think that taxes are a foolish exercise in dog-like obedience.

I would prefer to keep my money and put it to good use. Then, if you want to flush your money down the toilet, or continue giving it to strangers with no oversight, or build statues in Juneau, you can. It'll be just like having a big central government (for you and the other liberals), but fiscally responsible people like us won't suffer at its hands.
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Reply # 2
Date: Feb 21, 2008 - 7:41 AM EST
Necessary evil ???
Conservatives like me wouldn't consider government to be a 'necessary evil' -- it's not quite so nefarious.

It's just the natural evolution of nations of people who believe their sovereignty and value comes from by God Himself (stated in the Declaration of Independence which was written BEFORE the Constitution) - and who individually and corporately govern themselves, while first-and-foremost protecting that founding principle - that our individual / corporate sovereignty and comes from God Himself... and NOTHING supercedes that first principle.

The evolution to self-government from there (we literally govern ourselves in TRUE American government) - is how we get to the US Constitution -- which merely points us in the direction of our inherent self-government. The Constitution is NOT the first principle -- but the individual sovereignty and value of every life - from conception to the grave and beyond - IS the first principle.
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