At the time of this writing, I have but one chapter left to read from Sean Hannity's book,
"Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama's Radical Agenda."As I had already mentioned in a previous post, the first several chapters which describe Obama's history of radicalism, his new radical friends, Obama the Socialist, and Obama the appeaser were truly frightening - to say the least - and emphasized the extreme importance for conservative victories in both the 2010 and 2012 elections.
While reading the first four chapters of the book, I was tempted to skip over to the section where Sean reveals how we must move forward and reclaim the future. But I was good! I didn't cheat!
Now that I am in chapter nine entitled, "What Are Our First Principles?" I was able to breathe a breath of fresh air. Reading the words of Ronald Reagan brought me back to a time in the history of our nation where common sense, liberty, economic growth, strength in our national defense, and the preservation of our orderly, morally healthy, and stable society existed. Today, I see nothing but chaos.
I am going to share a portion of the subtitled section called "The Real Ideologues and Extremists." If you haven't read the book yet and you like to read books in chapter order, this is your warning for a possible spoiler alert.
Sean starts out stating that our beliefs as conservatives are clear and firm. This does not mean that we are "extremists." Of course, it is the leftist liberal progressive ideologues job to paint us that way. Need proof? Recall the negative commentary by most of the Lamestream Media pundits who continually disparaged the TEA Party patriots who protested WITHOUT ANY VIOLENCE (except for some ObamaBot thugs who infiltrated and started trouble) across our nation for the past year and a half.
It's really weird. The fringe on the left want Americans to think that conservative beliefs are unrealistic and dangerous. Yet, far from being extreme, the TEA Party patriot movement indicates that our beliefs are fundamentally American!
Sean writes:
Were our framers extreme? Perhaps so, if only because they were founding a new nation in a world dominated by monarchies, oligarchies, tyrannies, and oppression. They were carving out a new space for freedom in a world were liberty was radical in theory and scarce in practice.
This, among other reasons, is precisely why most Americans hold to the idea of American exceptionalism. To the socialist left, such an idea is abhorrent. They want everything, and everyone to be equal - as is explained in their social justice beliefs - rather than for everyone to have the freedom and liberty to pursue happiness through equal justice. There is an enormous difference. Want a quick illustration? Greece. Their social justice policies (including cradle to grave entitlements from the government) are collapsing under the weight of that nation's huge debt. So, the people (mostly unions) are violently protesting in the streets because their entitlements need to be cut to save the nation from going under. Is this the direction that we want America to be heading? I don't think so! But that is the trap that the ObaMARXIST administration is now setting for us. And he and his evil Marxist cohorts are doing it at a breakneck speed.
It was recently announced that some big companies (like Verizon) are considering paying the fine to the government so that they don't have to provide health care coverage for their employees. The accountants at such companies figured out that it would only cost (estimate) around $.68 per employee to pay the fine, while it would cost $4.59 per employee (estimating here) to insure all of the company's employees. Conclusion. Who benefits in this scenario? Big government! They will get the company fine money, as well as the money from the dropped employees who will be forced to buy health care insurance from the government. As more and more companies join in with the scheme, the private health insurance industry will go out of business. Now you know why the TEA Party patriots were protesting against socialized medicine. We all had the foresight to see where it leads - government takeover of the health care industry.
Back to Sean's book:
But that was nearly two hundred and fifty years ago. The civilized world has long since caught up with our framers' unbending commitment to freedom; liberty is no longer an extreme political demand, but rather the fundamental human right. And we mainstream conservatives merely carry the same torch our forefathers did. We believe in adhering to the Constitution as written; in maximizing our liberties within the context of law; in maintaining a strong defense; and in traditional values and a strong, unwavering faith in God.
What is additionally very important is the fact that we endorse policies that are proven to have worked!
When Ronald Reagan was president, I saw how horribly the media treated him. But he was no shrinking violet. He stood up for his principles and values, and in a positive way (and often quite humorous ways) he stuck it in the eyes of the Lamestream Media and made them look foolish in front of anyone who was really paying attention. However, in an 180 degree turn from the pettiness, narcissism, snobbery, prideful (of self-importance), negative, and condescending attitude that Obama possesses today, Ronald Reagan had class, character, truth, and genuineness when he spoke about challenging the negative perceptions hurled at conservatives to discredit us and undermine our cause:
"If we allow ourselves to be portrayed as ideological shock troops without correcting this error," he said, "we are doing ourselves and our cause a disservice. Wherever and whenever we can, we should gently but firmly correct our political and media friends who have been perpetuating the myth of conservatism as a narrow ideology."
Sean adds:
And, in my view, if we express these principles clearly and firmly, another reward will follow: Moderate and centrist Americans will feel genuinely comfortable among us. For the truth is that our beliefs are straightforward, grounded in moral clarity and common sense, and worthy of a wide and deep following. Indeed, our task is not so much to convert people to our cause, but to make them realize -- by clearly articulating our principles and countering the propaganda that exists about us -- that they already share most of our beliefs.
Sean Hannity was one of the few radio and T.V. commentators who was willing to expose Obama's radical ties during the 2008 presidential campaign. Unfortunately, many Americans ignored his warnings (and often called him derogatory names for speaking the truth about Obama's evil and radical ties) and voted for him anyway. Now, a week does not go by where people calling into Sean's radio show do not tell him that he was right about Obama all along. It's truly a hard lesson learned, isn't it?
Sean continues:
[N]o, the true blind ideologues in today's society are liberals, who continue to push for policies and programs long after decades of painful experience have proven that they don't work. As Reagan said, "Ideology...always conjures up in my mind a picture of a rigid, irrational clinging to abstract theory in the face of reality. We have to recognize that in this country 'ideology' is a scare word. And for good reason. Marxist-Leninism is, to give but one example, an ideology....If the facts don't happen to fit the ideology, the facts are chopped off and discarded."
That is exactly what the American people are feeling right now - "a picture of rigid, irrational clinging to abstract theory in the face of reality." As Glenn Beck has demonstrated over and over again on his T.V. via the chalkboard illustrations he does, the radicals in charge in our government today are a hopeless bunch of ideologues who cling to their Marxist theories (that history has proven DON'T WORK!) and they force their ill-conceived notions onto the American people WHO DON'T WANT THEM! This is exactly why all of the worthless bills that have been passed DO NOT FIT IN THE FACE OF REALITY! Joblessness has increased again - up from 9.7% to 9.9%. Didn't some leaders (I use the word lightly) in Washington recently tell us that the economy is recovering? Guess what people - THEY LIE!!
Sean continues:
But his (Reagan's) next sentence was perhaps his most important:I consider [blind ideology] to be the complete opposite to principled conservatism. If there is any political viewpoint in this world which is free from slavish adherence to abstractions, it is American conservatism. When a conservative states that the free market is the best mechanism ever devised by the mind of man to meet material needs, he is merely stating what a careful examination of the real world has told him is the truth. When a conservative says that totalitarian Communism is an absolute enemy of human freedom he is not theorizing--he is reporting the ugly reality captured so unforgettably in the writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. When a conservative says it is bad for the government to spend more than it takes in, he is simply showing the same common sense that tells him to come in our of the rain. When a conservative says that busing does not work, he is not appealing to some theory of education--he is merely reporting what he has seen down at the local school. When a conservative quotes Jefferson that government that is closest to the people is vest, it is because he knows that Jefferson risked his life, his fortune and his sacred honor to make certain that what he and his fellow patriots learned from experience was not crushed by an ideology of empire.
That last part of Reagan's quote - "what he and his fellow patriots learned from experience was not crushed by an ideology of empire" - describes how many TEA Party patriots felt when they saw the crushing ideological implementation of bills that WE THE PEOPLE rejected from ObaMARXIST and the progressive Dem Congress; but were nonetheless forced down our throats anyway!
Sean goes on to say that government deficit spending should be rejected - and is rejected by common sense conservatives. It is actively destructive and runs against basic reasoning.
Conservatives advocate peace through strength. There is good and evil in the world and appeasement of tyrants is immoral and dangerous!
The success of supply-side policies for economic growth shows that reducing income taxes increases overall revenue. And Sean makes one of the most telling observations of his book:
When a liberal opposes such policies, it's not because they don't work, but because they interfere with his rigid ideology--his belief that government should take the leading role in distributing wealth.
The redistribution of wealth is a Marxist idea. And Sean rightly states that liberal base their decision not to cut capital gains taxes because they believe that it's better for everyone to suffer equally, rather than for some to benefit more than others - a classic Marxist position, as painful as that is to say.
I would add that when some people "benefit more than others" - it helps create more jobs! Hey - I would LOVE to have the income of a baseball or football player, but realistically, it is not in the cards. But do I begrudge the fact that they make millions of dollars a year? No. Isn't it funny, however, that Obama claims that "at some point, you have made enough money" to the high income business CEO's, yet Obama himself made 5 million dollars last year? How much does Al Gore take in through his global warming hoax? He just purchased a 9 million dollar home near a beach in California! What happened to the threat he claimed in his bogus documentary that the seas will rise and wash away homes on the coast? Is he not worried about that anymore? Can you see the absolutely astounding hypocrisy of these people???
Many conservatives dispute the absolutism of the global warming fanatics. And we now have proof of the hoax. Recall those emails from Britain that exposed the "cooked books" of scientific faux research used to feed the frenzy of the Cap and Trade loons?
Sean states it better than I could:
When liberals declare the existence of a false scientific consensus on global warming, they are perpetrating an enormous fraud: It is they themselves, not the skeptics, who are the real flat-earthers in the debate. When they support policies that will destroy our economy, transfer wealth to third-world nations without even helping those nations ultimately to help themselves, and suggest that we wastefully and foolishly forgo our own available energy resources, they are advocating a devastating course for America--all for no appreciable difference in the global environment.
How can people embrace such insanity?
Here's the answer, Sean: FOR GREED AND POWER! Readers, if you haven't already seen the film clips of Glenn Beck's show on Crime Inc. you MUST see it and spread this information to everyone you know!!
Sean continues:
The truth is clear: It is the American liberal, not the American conservative, who is actually trapped by ideology. This is why, instead of debating the facts, liberals retreat to their emotions and respond with their empty, moralizing lectures.
We conservatives must remember the simple fact that we are merely peddlers of common sense, advocates of policy that's based on the wisdom of experience. We are anything but extreme.
As Ronald Reagan put it,The common sense and common decency of ordinary men and women, working out their own lives in their own way--this is the heart of American conservatism today. Conservative wisdom and principles are derived from the willingness to learn, not just from what is going on now, but from what has happened before. The principles of conservatism are sound because they are based on what men and women have discovered through experience in not just one generation or a doze, but in all the combined experience of mankind.
"When we conservatives say that we know something about political affairs, and that we know can be stated as principles, we are saying that the principles we hold dear are those that have been found, through experience, to be ultimately beneficial for individuals, for families, for communities and for nations -- found through the often bitter testing of pain, or sacrifice and sorrow.
How true--and how relevant even today.
Reagan faced the same kind of political opposition we conservatives face today.
And his response captures the core truth we must remember: that it is our opponents who are the extremists, not us. As he said;Let us lay to rest, once and for all, the myth [that conservatives are] a small group of ideological purists trying to capture a majority. Replace it with the reality of a majority trying to assert its rights against the tyranny of powerful academics, fashionable left-revolutionaries, some economic illiterates who happen to hold elective office and the social engineers who dominate the dialogue and set the format in political and social affairs. If there is any ideological fanaticism in American political life, it is to be found among the enemies of freedom on the left or right--those who would sacrifice principle to theory, those who worship only the god of political, social, and economic abstractions, ignoring the realities of everyday life. They are not conservatives.
Hat Tips:
Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama's Radical Agenda pp. 212-218
The Daily Beck