As the debt-ceiling debacle shows, Americans are genuinely frightened that our ever-expanding federal government will spend us into national collapse.  But while Americans are delivering a message of limited government to Congress and the President, proponents of small government have actually been sending a completely different message to the judiciary for decades.  That message—that any judge who strikes down a bad law is an “activist”—has been destructive to freedom and conducive to runaway growth in government.

Americans have always believed more in the power of individuals and the free market than in government power.  For example, ABC News and The Washington Times have been asking people the same question since 1984:  Do you favor smaller government and fewer services, or larger government and more services?  The results show a consistent national preference for smaller government.  In 1984, 49 percent of respondents favored smaller government while 40 percent favored larger government.  Today it is 56 percent versus 40 percent.

The American commitment to limited government is embodied in our Constitution.  The Founders were distrustful of government power and they wanted to limit government’s interference in our lives.  Largely ignored in today’s debate over limited government, however, is the role that our courts should play in keeping the government in check.

Our courts are a constitutionally co-equal branch of government.  The Founders spent considerable time debating the best way to ensure judicial independence so that the judiciary could temper overly ambitious presidents and legislatures.

A Constitution that says “no” to government requires judges who are willing to say “no” to government, too.   Yet when judges actually strike down a law as unconstitutional, they are frequently derided as “activists” by people who ordinarily think of themselves as advocates for smaller government.

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Remember the story of sisters Caitlin and Abigail Mills, the St. Louis-area girls who were told to close their cookie stand by local bureaucrats who insisted they were violating city ordinances? Well, the girls — 16 and 14, respectively — are back in the news and headed to court.

On Thursday morning, according to attorneys Dave and Jenifer Roland at the Freedom Center of Missouri, St. Louis County Judge Maura McShane will hear arguments on Hazelwood’s motion to have the Mills’ cookie stand case thrown out.

I reported the basics of the case in a post April 8:

Each February and March for the past six years, Caitlin Mills, 16, and Abigail Mills, 14, have put a card table in front of their home in Hazelwood, Mo., and sold Girl Scout cookies to drivers passing by. This year, however, the city of Hazelwood notified their mother, Carolyn Mills, that the girls’ cookie stand violated city ordinances and must be shut down.

Despite much national media attention, including coverage at Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, city officials have, according to the Mills’ attorneys, “dug in their heels.”

In a media advisory today, the Rolands said the City of Hazelwood “has enlisted four high-priced attorneys to fight to ensure the government’s power to prohibit these icons of American childhood, and those attorneys have asked the court to dismiss the Mills family’s case.”

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George Will in today’s Washington Post:

By the time Huntington’s book appeared, American had had four of what he called “periods of creedal passion” – the Revolutionary era (1770s), the Jacksonian era (the 1830s), the Progressive era (1900-20) and the 1960s. We are now in the fifth.

The American Creed’s values are liberal, as that term was understood until liberalism succumbed to 20th-century statism. The values, expressing the 18th century’s preoccupation with defending liberty against government, are, Huntington said, “individualistic, democratic, egalitarian, and hence basically anti-government and anti-authority.” The various values “unite in imposing limits on power and on the institutions of government. The essence of constitutionalism is the restraint of governmental power through fundamental law.”

What made the American Revolution a novel event was that Americans did not declare independence because their religion, ethnicity, language or culture made them incompatible with the British. Rather, it was a political act based on explicit principles. So in America more than in Europe, nationalism is, Huntington said, “intellectualized”: “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” Who holds them? Americans. Who are Americans? Those who hold those truths to be self-evident.

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A bit less than a year ago, I posted piece entitled Is Barack Obama a One-Trick Pony? I raised this question with an eye to three thumbsuckers that had recently appeared – one on Politico by veteran commentator Elizabeth Drew; another, entitled Amateur Hour at the White House, written by Leslie Gelb for The Daily Beast; and a third, drawing on the remarks of these two well-known Democratic scribes, published in The Wall Street Journal by Peggy Noonan.

Noonan had two things to say – first, that no one among her liberal acquaintances really loved Barack Obama the way so many Democrats had loved Bill Clinton; and, second, that the Democrats were wrong to think that passing his healthcare reform would help him. In her view, the passage of “such a poor piece of legislation” would, in fact, do him almost irreparable harm. Moreover, she added, “There is the growing perception of incompetence, of the inability to run the machine of government. This, with Americans, is worse than Obama’s rebranding as a leader who governs from the left. Americans demand baseline competence. If he comes to be seen as Jimmy Carter was, that the job was bigger than the man, that will be the end.”

To this, I added, “The Democrats are getting what they asked for.”

In 2004, they tried a trick. If we nominate a man who won the Purple Heart in Vietnam, they thought, we will win. Never mind that John Kerry disgraced himself in the aftermath of his service in Vietnam, making unjust charges against his brothers-in-arms and resolutely thereafter refusing to apologize to those whom he had slandered. Never mind that he had no executive experience. Never mind that, as a US Senator, he was – to say the least – undistinguished. They wanted to win; and they gave not a thought to what sort of President he might be.

In 2008, the Democrats did the same thing. They had on their hands an inexperienced, recently minted US Senator from Illinois who was – as Joe Biden put it in a candid remark that typifies his propensity for speaking his mind without first thinking about the consequences – “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Never mind, they thought, Obama’s long-standing connections with William Ayers, the unrepentant mastermind of a domestic terrorist bombing campaign in the 1970s. Never mind Obama’s close association with the racist demagogue Jeremiah Wright. Never mind his lack of executive experience, his unfamiliarity with the private sector, and his ignorance of the ways of Washington. With the help of the pliable press, he could be sold – and the Americans would congratulate themselves on their lack of racial prejudice if they voted for him.

“Now,” I then wrote, “comes the reckoning. That is one problem. The other is that Obama’s one trick cannot often be played. As we have seen over the last few months, as he has tried to play this trick over and over and over again, the more we see of him, the less we are impressed. Franklin Delano Roosevelt never held his fireside chats more than three times a year. How many times has Obama demanded airtime from the networks in the last ten months? I shudder to think.” And to this, I added,

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After Barack Obama’s historic victory in 2008, many in the Democratic Party and on the political left argued that the GOP and the conservative movement were finished and that Democrats were destined to control, in perpetuity, the presidency, Congress, and culture, writ large. But then something unexpected happened–millions of sleepwalking, mall-shopping Americans finally woke up.

The activist left, which denigrated the previous president in a merciless fashion, took the reins of power with reckless abandon and shoved its brand of poisonous hope and change down the throats of the American people. So we the people, the reawakening silent majority, responded in the form of a grassroots movement that is turning into a juggernaut set to roll past November 2nd and become something transcendent and long-lasting. Our Founding Fathers would be proud that we have rediscovered the spirit and the essence of their ideas.

While the Tea Party has not been specifically partisan–many Republican carcasses lie in its rubble–this conservative and constitutional checks and balances has created a rejuvenated GOP, chastened and wiser.

This weekend I have the honor of sharing the stage with one of the Tea Party’s and Republican Party’s fearless leaders, Sarah Palin. Since her arrival on the national stage, the Democratic Party has recognized her potential as a political powerhouse and has worked in tandem with its partners in crime, the mainstream media, to wage an unprecedented personal campaign against her and her family. The Tea Party can relate.

But the power of Alinsky and the politics of personal destruction vis a vis the Democrat Media Complex has reverse effects when the object of the hate bravely stands up to the bullies and thugs. The Tea Party and Sarah Palin have given America a great lesson in standing up to the bullies who have co-opted the Democratic Party and the American media. (more…)

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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On Thursday, in Detroit, a federal district judge named George Caram Steeh ruled Obamacare constitutional. On Friday, Mike Pence, a Republican Congressman from Indiana, expressed his confidence that the Supreme Court will declare key sections of the bill unconstitutional.

I believe that Pence is right – and for three reasons: one principled, one personal, and one practical and political. The first is easy to grasp.

At stake, Pence asserts, is “whether or not the Constitution of the United States permits the government to order the American people to purchase goods or services, whether they want them or need them or not.” With this description of what is at issue, Judge Steeh, who was appointed to the court by William Jefferson Clinton, is in wholehearted agreement. As he puts it in his ruling,

The decision whether to purchase insurance or to attempt to pay for health care out of pocket, is plainly economic. These decisions, viewed in the aggregate, have clear and direct impacts on health care providers, taxpayers, and the insured population who ultimately pay for the care provided to those who go without insurance.

It is his view that – since our “decisions” to buy or not buy insurance have an impact on the market – the federal government can make these decisions for us.

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The Republican Pledge to America released last nearly perfectly addresses the problems being created by the current leadership of our federal government. Its first sentence, making the point that Nobel Laureate economist Friedrich Hayek made fifty years ago in his The Constitution of Liberty, America is an idea, is something of major import that has been forgotten in this era of using government in an attempt to escape individual responsibility.

The reference to the Declaration of Independence contained in the rest of the Pledge should be obvious to us all, but unfortunately our education system is today more about garnering largesse for political unions than about educating our children on what ideas form the basis of our country.

The current jobs recession and the financial crisis that created it are the result of those in charge of an expanded federal government attempting to make the world in their own vision—in this particular case the vision that everyone has the right to own a home.

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Pollsters and pundits alike most often concentrate on the marquee political races.  The Florida Senate race garners national attention because of its intrigue and its national implications.  In California, there is a battle for Governor that will decide the direction of the Golden State.  Just below that surface, however, is a key race that could prove every bit as momentous and which may be key to the future of regaining our limited government heritage – the race for California State Controller.

At first blush, it is a race between a big government, union-supporting incumbent – Democrat John Chiang – and a conservative, limited government reformer, State Senator Tony Strickland.  While there are many races that may fit that description, the Controller’s office is not just another political office.

Keep in mind that despite intervals between Republican and Democrat Presidents, Republican and Democrat Governors, Republican and Democrat Legislatures and Congresses, the size of the federal and state governments has exploded since the 1960’s.  The quaint, 1960s, pre-Great Society, federal budgets of $130 billion have given way to a $4 trillion dollar monolith.  Many state budgets, including California’s have seen similar growth.

That explosive growth, under the watchful eyes of both parties, occurs because more often than not, political discourse is a simple matter of what can government do and how can we fund it.  Far less often do meaningful discussions occur about making government accountable for the money it already has.  If limited government is to make a comeback, the latter must take precedence over the former and (1) today’s environment is the time to do it and (2) the California Controller’s race is the election on which to make that stand.

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As we all know, the result of the left’s takeover of our media and universities has been a vast ignorance among the young about America’s history, philosophy and institutions. That’s the disease but – huzzah! – PJTV’s Klavan on the Culture is the cure.

Here in just around four minutes is a complete refresher course on the history, meaning and importance of the United States Constitution for all you young dudes and dudettes. All right, it’s complete nonsense. Still, when you man and woman the barricades, at least now you’ll know what you’re fighting for! Sort of.

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I believe that the NAACP is making a grave mistake in stereotyping a diverse group of Americans who care deeply about their country and who contribute their time, energy and resources to make a difference.

As I campaign in South Carolina, I participate in numerous events sponsored by the Tea Party, 9/12, Patriot, and other like-minded groups, and I have had the opportunity to get to know many of the men and women who make up these energetic grassroots organizations.

Americans need to know that the Tea Party is a color-blind movement that has principled differences with many of the leaders in Washington, both Democrats and Republicans.

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Ronald Reagan admired him  a lot. In fact, when Reagan was looking over his new house—the White House—shortly after his inaugural in 1981, he entered into the Cabinet Room.

On the wall were portraits of Truman, Jefferson, and Lincoln. The White House curator commented at the time, “If you don’t like Mr. Truman, you can move Mr. Truman out.” Even though Reagan, a former Democrat, had voted for Truman back in 1948, he made his decision: Truman’s portrait was removed and one of Calvin Coolidge was dusted off and put in its place.

Nowadays, in all the “right” circles [to be found primarily among the academic elite], the person of Coolidge is a source of amusement, if not outright derision. Why, he was a do-nothing president, someone who didn’t use the power of the office as he should have. Probably his most grievous sin, in their view, was the way he put the brakes on destiny: he was a foe of the progressive movement that was intended to reshape American government and culture.

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Given the strong prospects for GOP resurgence in the upcoming elections, and the intimate connection which said resurgence is sure to have with the fortunes of the Tea Party Movement, it is no surprise that advice is presently being offered to that movement from all sides. The most recent instance of that advice comes from Cato Institute scholar John Samples, who has released a video under the aegis of the Institute entitled “Advice to Tea Partiers.”

Advice to Tea Partiers

Samples is also the author of the book The Struggle to Limit Government, a political history book which convincingly makes the case for a libertarian resurgence within the GOP grounded on Reaganite principles. The video, which in some ways is a much simplified version of the book, offers five points of advice, many of which are well-taken, but some of which are grounded more in wishful thinking than in actual political savvy.

On that note, the video begins with the dubious statement that because of the “spending” and “expansion of government” that was present during the Bush years, “the Republican Party is part of the problem.” This is a lead-in to point 1, entitled “Republicans Aren’t Always Your Friends.” Samples points out, correctly, that when Reagan’s budget director David Stockman tried to get much-needed budget cuts through the White House, all the various department heads opposed these cuts even as they worked under one of the most spending-averse Presidents since Calvin Coolidge. He takes this as evidence that the culture of entrenched programs in Washington can corrupt everyone, Republicans included.

On this much he is right. However, it’s worth noting that part of the issue with Reagan’s cabinet was also that it had to be selected in order to pass a Democrat-controlled Senate confirmation process, and thus was probably more moderate than anything Reagan envisioned. Thus, the conclusion that can be drawn from Samples’s video is not that mistrust of Republicans is the right option, but rather that mistrust of Democratic legislatures is the right option, for even under Republican presidents, such legislatures can wreak havoc on the agenda of limited government.

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After Republicans suffered consecutive bruising defeats in 2006 and 2008, boastful Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee officials warned that Republicans faced a difficult decision: Go along with the sweeping agenda of the new administration, or suffer the disastrous consequences of taking on an enormously popular president in the 2010 elections.

Perhaps the GOP of 2005 would have taken the bait and swallowed the administration’s bad medicine. After all, Republicans during that period were guilty of spending too much and growing government too much, both of which would become hallmarks of the February 2009 stimulus plan and the loaded agenda that would follow. That GOP became a bloated, go-along to get-along body that forgot how to lead. We blew it, and we were rightfully fired by our bosses – the American people.

But the GOP in the House today is different. Very different. Led by a new generation of young and energetic leaders, we are committed to restoring the public’s trust in our ability to lead as responsible adults.

Let’s take a look at the last 16 months.

In the face of one-party Democratic rule, House Republicans learned fairly quickly that an election won on ‘change’ would result in a far more intrusive and expensive government. At the time, many political pundits joined the chorus of Democrats who warned that House Republicans faced political suicide if they didn’t support the President’s signature inaugural initiative – his stimulus plan. Yet we decided to fight. And we fought hard. The reason we were able to credibly oppose such a popular President was because we presented a much more responsible approach that would have created twice the jobs at half the cost of the eventual stimulus law that has failed to deliver as promised. A 178-seat minority isn’t going to win many legislative battles in the House. But it did prove sufficient to offer a clear contrast and provide the first glimpse of a Republican Party that had returned to its fiscally conservative roots.

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So much is being written in the mainstream media about who the tea partiers are, but very little is being recorded about what these folks are actually saying.

We know that this is a decentralized grassroots movement, with many different voices hailing from many different towns across the country. But the tea-party message comes together in the “Contract from America,” the product of an online vote orchestrated by Ryan Hecker, aHouston tea-party activist and national coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots.

With nearly 500,000 votes recorded in less than two months, this Contract forms a blueprint of tea-party policy goals and beliefs.

Of the top-ten planks in the Contract, the number-one issue is protect the Constitution. That’s followed by reject cap-and-trade, demand a balanced budget, and enact fundamental tax reform. And then comes number five: Restore fiscal responsibility and constitutionally limited government in Washington.

Note that two of the top-five priorities of the tea partiers mention the Constitution.

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We are in a fascinating period in American history, where a confluence of developments has transformed our citizenry’s relationship with government. The mainstream media is distrusted and dying. The majority of our elected officials – let’s not bother with terming them “leaders” – no longer care to represent the interests of the people. In response, the American people are rising up in protest at a rate and in a manner not seen in decades, if ever.

Congressional approval ratings are at historic lows at around 14% (an acquaintance joked that during the American Revolution, the British Crown had double that approval rating, with roughly a third of colonists supporting the Crown and Parliament). Rasmussen recently reported that only 21% of Americans believe our government has the consent of the governed, and CNN reports that 56% of Americans believe that our government poses an immediate threat to American citizens’ rights and freedoms . . . well you get the idea.

The American people are making it clear where they stand, and in an unmistakable manner. Next week, on April 15th, more than one million people will be at more than 1,000 Tea Party protests across the country as more and more Americans come out to protest where elected officials are taking this country.

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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 Scott Brown triumph heralds an enormous opportunity for Republicans this fall.  As I posited in Part 2 of this series, The Top 4 Things Congressional Republicans Must Do in 2010, in order to make the most of the 2010 elections, Republicans must run on a defined Agenda for the Fall Elections.  That Agenda needs to be Clear, Practical and Limited.  Here is what I mean:

Clear.  In the wake of the Brown election, the Democrats most certainly will have a messy 2010.  The Pelosi wing of the Democrats, driven in part by Moveon.org, Emily’s List and others, will continue to push their views and legislation on issues like Health Care, Cap and Trade, Taxes, Afghanistan and more.  The Evan Bayh wing of the party, located in swing districts and states and fearful of the message of the Brown election – in order to survive – will have to push back on those Left Wing plans.  At worst, that inter-party warfare will be politically very ugly.   At best it will portray a Democrat Party with no clear vision for the future.  Similar to the fate that befell the warring and splintered Democrat Party in 1968, the Democrat infighting in 2010 will hamstring their election efforts.

That lack of clarity on the Democrats part must be contrasted by a clear governing vision on the part of Republicans.  The beauty of the Contract With America, beyond its content, was that it provided a concise and clear Agenda.  It told the voters exactly what Republicans intended to do if they won.  This Fall, Republicans, in a unified fashion, must do no less than that if they want to take back the House.

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From today’s Washington Times:

If your finances looked like the federal budget, you wouldn’t get elected. You’d get arrested. Under the Democrats’ iron-fisted, one-party rule of Washington, family budgets shrink and the federal budget bloats: The deficit, the debt and spending are at record levels; massive tax increases impend in the days ahead; and widespread unemployment persists and pains working families. Compounding this crisis, the Democrats’ spending spree imperils our national security by creating a “debt threat” whereby antagonistic nations to which we owe hundreds of billions of dollars practice economic statecraft against America to influence our foreign and domestic policies and/or actively undermine our strategic interests. In sum, government exacerbates rather than ameliorates the economic chaos around us.

Amidst the economic, social and political challenges of globalization, the injurious inequity of Democrats’ fiscal irresponsibility is not lost upon Americans. We know the government’s morally bankrupt boondoggle, committed with our hard-earned money, squanders our prosperity, weakens our security and constitutes an immoral usurpation of our liberty and sovereignty. (more…)

As the Tea Party movement approaches its first “birthday”, the leadership is taking it to new levels.  The metamorphosis, which has been deliciously organic, has seen it go from street protests, to active demonstrations to serious political action.  All along the way, Big Media and Big Political Parties have failed to truly grasp what it is all about.  As Missouri lawmaker, Chris Kelly once famously said to another during Floor debate, “I can explain it to you, but I cannot understand it for you”.

At the end of the month, Richard Viguerie — legendary conservative activist, direct response fundraising pioneer, and currently chairman of ConservativeHQ.com — will deliver the keynote speech at the inaugural Leadership Tea Party training event to be held at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport Westin Hotel.  In addition to Mr. Viguerie’s keynote speech delivered on Friday night January 29, the event will consist of 11 sessions of grassroots leadership training over 14 hours on Saturday and Sunday, January 30-31. Mr. Viguerie’s speech is free and open to both the press and the public, though a limited number of seats are available. (You can request a ticket online here .)

Viguerie, who was hired by William F. Buckley Jr. in 1962 as the director of Young Americans for Freedom, worked for the Goldwater campaign in 1964, pioneered the direct response fund raising techniques that financed the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, and has been a key leader in the movement for limited government for decades.  Tea Party activists of varying levels of political experience, most rigorously eschewing party labels, are hungry to learn the tactics to win on the political battlefield.  Like latter day militia men, the Tea Party activists have seen the whites of the eyes of the red coats reds, and they are trading their microsoft office suite applications for html and eblogger and are training in the dark political arts for the battle that will shape their Country for the sake of their children.

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