In their recent Politico article, “Constitution is inherently progressive,” John Podesta (former chief of staff to President Clinton and current president of the Center for American Progress) and John Halpin argue that the “values” of the Constitution are progressive, not conservative, and that conservatives should stop claiming that progressivism is at odds with the Constitution. “Since our nation’s founding,” the authors claim, “progressives have drawn on the Declaration of Independence’s inspirational values of human liberty and equality in their own search for social justice and freedom.”  The progressive “framework” of public-private cooperation, they continue, is “the essence of the constitutional promise of a never-ending search for ‘a more perfect union.’”  In short, the progressive “vision” of the Constitution best represents the American tradition. This argument, which is part of recent progressive efforts to rehabilitate their constitutional bona fides, might come as a surprise to the real founders of progressivism, for while some contemporary progressives might preach a Declaration-based faith and try to get right with the Constitution, early progressives had little use for either document.

According to Woodrow Wilson, what he called the “preface” of the Declaration of Independence—the part about “self-evident truths,” “unalienable rights” given to human beings by the Creator, and the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”—was not the “real Declaration of Independence.”  If you want to understand that, Wilson said, “do not repeat the preface.”  For Wilson, the point of the Declaration—and the Constitution, too—was not the permanence of any principles.  “No doubt,” he wrote, “we are meant to have liberty, but each generation must form its own conception of what liberty is.”  The Founders, early progressives held, wrote for their own time in our first documents, but not for future generations. For Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Croly, Frank Goodnow and other founding fathers of progressivism, the Constitution of the American Founding was an obstacle to be overcome.  Insisting that the Constitution must be interpreted in view of the new but increasingly dominant Darwinian model of constant change, progressives pronounced our Constitution a “living” document.  The Constitution, they believed, is as malleable as human nature itself.  The Founders’ old ideas about separation of powers could be discarded in favor of new and improved notions of “enlightened administration.”

Podesta and Halpin allege that conservatives “often mask social Darwinism . . . in a cloak of liberty,” but in fact it is progressivism whose roots run deepest in the political ideology of Darwinism.  The fittest among us, it turns out, are the bureaucrats, empowered by a Constitution whose original restraints, like federalism and the limitations imposed by enumerated powers, have been stripped by progressives in favor of a more “dynamic” model.

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About a month ago I had the chance to have lunch in Washington with my Trifecta friends, Steve Green and Scott Ott at BlogCon sponsored by Freedom Works. Scott told the story of his flight to DC, during which the person sitting next to him — a lifelong Democrat — struck up a conversation with Scott about conservatism. By the time the man got off the plane, he turned to Scott and said, “That makes a ton of sense.” Then he smiled and said, “My God, maybe I’m a Republican!”

That story really stayed with me. So here is the first of a new series of FIREWALL videos, called “What We Believe.” In them, I’ll do my very best to explain in as rational and non-antagonistic a method as possible, just what the fundamentals of modern Conservatism — especially Tea Party Conservatism — are all about.

Part one covers the two big items: small government, and free enterprise. In the future we’ll look at elitism, wealth creation, gun ownership, immigration, and more.

I know I don’t speak for everyone on these issues — no one speaks for everyone, not even those in the same camp — but I do hope to capture the core beliefs in a way that people who share these views can use to pass on to those people in their lives who don’t.

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The Republican Party’s 2010 Agenda, “A Pledge to America,” is in many ways an impressive document.  It contains both principles and policies that answer the call for a more accountable government in Washington.  It is particularly strong on the health-care issue.  Should the Republicans succeed in repealing ObamaCare, it will be rightly regarded as one of the most crucial victories in stopping the growth of the progressive welfare state.

As I look over the Republican Pledge, however, I am not convinced that it has all the power and principle it needs to change the direction of politics in Washington and actually to return the federal government to the limited—though important—role envisioned by the Founding Fathers.  Is, for example, cutting “government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels” a temporary tactic or a permanent goal?  The ultimate purpose of the Tea Party movement would appear to be not just a return to the status quo ante Obama, but actually a restoration of the first principles of government as understood by the Founding Fathers and as practiced in this nation for a century and a half.

While holding those elected in 2010 to their own Pledge, we should urge Republicans and concerned citizens to press beyond the necessary tactics for winning elections in 2010 and consider a more complete set of first principles that will return government to its more limited place in our lives.  To this end, I offer the following.

Human beings are individuals.  They are born not into a class or a race or a special interest but into the human community.  The American ideal has always been to treat individuals not as belonging to preferred classes or groups but as individuals.  Attempts to categorize and hyphenate individuals, particularly for political purposes, are far from being American.

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We have come a long way in the last twenty months. The President of the United States, his Chief of Staff, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the Majority Leader in the United States Senate have done for the Republican Party what no Republican could have accomplished. Just as rigor mortis was about to set in, they brought the old corpse back to life. For their efforts on our behalf, we should be forever grateful.

It is easy to lose perspective. It is easy to forget the dire straits in which the Republicans found themselves in and for some time after November, 2008. On the first Tuesday of that month, they were soundly defeated. The Democrats controlled the Presidency and both houses of Congress. In time, when Al Franken was seated and Arlen Specter turned coat, the Democrats would attain El Dorado – a commanding majority in the Senate capable to bringing a filibuster to a screeching halt.

The Republicans initially thought that to get along they would have to go along. Had Nancy Pelosi thrown a little patronage their way when the so-called “stimulus” bill was being put together, had Barack Obama intervened to insist that she include earmarks for compliant Republicans in the House, a great many of them would have voted for the measure. It is to her that we owe their solidarity on the occasion of the vote. She is responsible for the fact that on that occasion they presented themselves to the world as a party of principle. If the Tea-Party Movement, which sprang up in the immediate aftermath of the bill’s passage, was not as resolutely hostile to the Republicans as it was to the Democrats, it was because Pelosi and her minions wanted vengeance, sought it, and got it.

Even when the Tea-Party Movement had emerged, the Republicans were not quick to realize what was in the offing. On 2 May 2009, some six months after the election, Jeb Bush emerged from a meeting with Mitt Romney and House Republican Whip Eric Cantor to announce that it was time for the Republicans to give up “nostalgia about the past” and to leave Ronald Reagan and all that he stood for behind. “You can’t beat something with nothing,” he observed, “and the other side has something. I don’t like it, but they have it, and we have to be respectful and mindful of that.”

Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, and Eric Cantor may have been slow to grasp what was going on, but it would be a mistake to assume that they are dopes. It was not until early August in that year that I was willing to admit to myself that a political realignment in the Republicans’ favor was a serious possibility; and, as I noted in a piece posted in the aftermath of the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in early September, I was even then almost entirely alone. At that convention, I had attended a panel on Barack Obama’s first year as President at which not one of the distinguished students of American politics on the panel had in their prepared remarks even mentioned the Tea-Party Movement. And when I asked a question about it, I received a perfunctory answer. It was odd, my interlocutor remarked, that such a movement had emerged in the absence of institutional support. It was, I thought, very odd, very odd, indeed.

Now, thanks to Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid, the Republicans appear to be on the verge of an historic victory.

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Over the course of the past week I’ve written several entries that have infuriated the would-be tyrants among us.

• A Nation on the Edge of Revolt warned that “either the American people—not extremists, but good and decent patriots like your neighbors and yourselves—will revolt and destroy the ruling class and reform our government based upon first principles, or the United States we know as our forefather conceived it is dead.”
• Closer to Midnight attempted to answer a veteran’s question about why patriotic Americans that value our First Principles should prepare for a possible conflict if the corruption of our government cannot be tamed at the ballot box.
• We Get Letters! and We Get (More) Letters! chronicle the typical threats issued by followers when they cannot intellectually defend their unconstitutional actions with a reasoned justification for their behavior.
• The Edict-Makers notes the continued destructive path of the would-be ruling class, and the abuses they would heap upon the Constitution and citizens in their desperate quest to grab more power for themselves.
• Pre-Revolutionary, last but not least in this series of posts, highlights the revelations of experienced Democratic operative Pat Caddell as he notes the fracturing of his party and the attempt of the elites in the party to rule instead of serve the American people.

It will come as no surprise at all that those institutions and individuals that serve as adjuncts to the would-be ruling class have attacked this series of posts.

Media Matters attacked them twice. Conservative media figures openly discussing revolution…again places me among the company of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh as some of the conservatives in the media that note well and understand this point in history… though they obviously offer their own spin to evoke a response from their readers.

Wash. Examiner’s Owens suggests right-wing violence will be necessary, hopes we “feel threatened” is their same-day response to Closer to Midnight (link above), partnered with a none-too-subtle attempt to pressure the Washington Examiner into silencing me and others who would raise the alarm about the constitutional abuses and usurpations being orchestrated by their masters.

Other leftists have followed the lead of Media Matters, and continue down the path of disinformation they hope will help them divide and conquer this nation’s citizens.

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In 1831, a French aristocrat, Alexis de Tocqueville’s recognized how different America’s infant democracy was from other democratic republics. He issued warnings to our young republic, “One also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom”. De Tocqueville continued, “…when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power”.

The agenda driven by President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Leader Reid is aggressively targeted toward our becoming an all powerful central government. Since the 2008 election we have seen unprecedented expansion of government. History has shown us that as government expands individual liberty contracts.

In January of 2010, during the waning days of my primary campaign for Illinois Governor, former Polish President Lech Walesa came to Chicago to endorsed my effort. Known as the great anti-communist, founder of Solidarity, best-friend of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II, Walesa continues to inspire and encourage strong leadership. During the luncheon, Walesa issued an ominous warning for America, “America is sliding toward socialism; America is no longer the shining city on the hill.” In the videotaped interview, Walesa saw a hint of socialism creeping into America’s domestic policies. He spoke of “the issue with the banks” and how “the government wastes all the money … building a bureaucracy — just for itself.”

Walesa said that the strongest candidates are committed to principles. The framers of our Constitution based out government on strong principles, sometimes referred to as the first principles. The “first principles” that will Ensure Liberty and the American Promise for future generations are:

1. Smaller Government,
2. Fiscal Responsibility,
3. Lower Taxes,
4. National Security,
5. Federalism.

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If you followed the news out of Nashville, you probably heard that some Tea Party folks are creating a Political Action Committee that will win 15 to 20 key Congressional races in 2010 and, perhaps, in years beyond. What you didn’t hear at the press conference was that several grassroots tea party organizers are so strongly in favor of this move that we have agreed to serve Ensuring Liberty PAC through its organizing parent, the Ensuring Liberty 501.c(4). Our local tea parties will continue unchanged.

Who Comprises the ELPAC

Very simply, ELPAC is led by six people from some of the most effective local Tea Party organizations in America:

• Mark Skoda of The Memphis Tea Party
• Steve McQueen of The Quincy Tea Party
• State Sen. John Loudon (MO-Ret.) of St. Louis Tea Party
• Rose Corona, a California farmer and Patriot
• Brad Ehmen of The Quincy Tea Party
• Bill Hennessy of St. Louis Tea Party

While you might not recognize all of these names, I do. These are the people who have been in the fox holes with us since day one. They are bold and resilient fighters for freedom. They are the men and women we turn to for counsel, support, advice, strength, and help across the Mid-West and across the the nation. We share mutual faith in each other. The men and women on this list have skills to win elections with grassroots activism. They embody what happened in NY-23 and Massachusetts.

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The Democrat Party’s “40 year majority” will come to a close 38 years early. The unbearable trinity of Pelosi, Reid, and Obama has managed to alienate a nation desperate to support new leadership. They accomplished this by an insistence on unwanted quasi-Socialist policies and an irritating propensity to lead with their chin in foreign policy. The era of Obama is over, even as his Health Care proposal will likely pass. But does this mean a new era of Republican leadership is about to begin? This remains to be seen.

Peggy Noonan, a former Reagan speechwriter who supported Obama, has views similar to many who consider themselves centrist. She now realizes her support for Barack Obama was misguided. Yet she is tempted to take a “pox on both your houses” approach. She remains skeptical of the Republican Party, as I imagine many voters do. In her recent opinion essay in the Wall Street Journal she states:

“The question isn’t whether they’ll win seats in the House and Senate this year, and the question isn’t even how many. The question is whether the party will be worthy of victory, whether it learned from its losses in 2006 and ‘08, whether it deserves leadership. Whether Republicans are a worthy alternative. Whether, in short, they are serious.”

I had grown weary of many of Ms. Noonan’s commentaries. Her support for Obama was predicated on an obvious misunderstanding of his politics, nature, and ideology. But her implicit challenge to the GOP is spot on. While the critique premised in her comment is not completely fair, without question Republicans are viewed with skepticism. After all, it was a Republican administration which brought us bailouts, supported expansionary and unsustainable housing policies, expanded domestic spending, proposed an immigration policy as unpopular as the Democrat’s current Health Care Bill and made “earmarks” a household name. Worst of all, the party seemed to lose any sense of foundational principles. Just what do Republicans stand for?

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