Great or Greek?

Those of us who are Babyboomers were raised in the shadows of our parents. Our parents lived lives of sacrifice. They came of age during the Depression and many struggled to survive. They stood in the path of totalitarianism and defended and preserved freedom in World War II and Korea. They returned from the fight, rolled up their sleeves, and pitched in to re-build the nation. They stymied the expansion of communism and won the Cold War. They made the United States the greatest nation the world has ever known. Tom Brokaw paid tribute to their sacrifices in his book, “The Greatest Generation.” They were great.

The Greatest Generation also transformed American society in ways that now present a challenge to us, their children. Our parents sacrificed in ways great and small to assure that we would never have to do so. In the homes of our youth, most of us lived protected and sheltered lives where we never wanted for food, clothing, entertainment, transportation, education, and security. That we will have our wants and needs fulfilled has become a foundational expectation of our generation. The Greatest Generation not only saved our nation, but also birthed the entitlement society.

Our parents not only attempted to provide security to us in our homes, but also nationally through the construction of a massive “safety net” of entitlements. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, school lunches, education loans, and grants and subsidies of a broad variety became embedded as fixtures in our lives. The Greatest Generation had created such wealth that the nation seemingly could afford anything. Now that Babyboomers have come to leadership they focus on expanding those entitlements and creating new ones such as national health care. We have accepted government as a primary caregiver.

The entitlement society took root in Europe long before the flowering of social programs here. And the consequences of the concept of government as caregiver are bearing evil fruit there first also. Greece, burdened economically by increasing debt necessary to fund rich public jobs and entitlements, is on the verge of financial default. The citizens of Greece, however, addicted to the entitlement narcotic, have taken to the streets to fight any changes that might save them. They will sacrifice their country rather than accept modifications to their benefits. The descendants of the 300 who sacrificed their lives at Thermopylae to preserve Greece from the Persians will not sacrifice a euro to save their country. How sad!

The reality, however, is that the Babyboomer generation in America will face soon the same choice. Entitlements consume a greater portion of the Federal budget and our Gross Domestic Product each year. The entitlements that seemed affordable to our parents now exceed our capabilities. They are already not sustainable and if the health care entitlement passes our debt will be beyond any reasonable bounds. As the Babyboomers pass into senior status and consume more and more of these entitlements, we too will be beggared. Greece is our future unless we choose to change it.

Unlike the Greeks, we Babyboomers do not have to look back thousands of years for models of behaviors to guide us. We only have to look at the preceding generation. Our parents showed us the way. Yes, they laid the foundation of the entitlement society and gave us permission to live self-absorbed lives. But they also showed us that when America is in crisis, Americans have the courage and determination to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to preserve this nation. They showed us the no sacrifice is too great in the cause of liberty.

The unfortunate reality is that our nation simply cannot afford to fund the entitlement society for aging Babyboomers. The debt poses a threat to the existence of our nation as we know it. Yet the fear of the political consequences of confronting that reality trumps the economic reality in the minds of our political leaders.  They simply do not have the courage to keep us from hurtling down the same track as Greece. So it comes to us, the entitled, to make the difference. Unlike the citizens of Greece, rather than demand that we receive our due, no matter what the cost to our country, we must take the lead and concede that the entitlements must be reduced.

I’m not sure of the answer. Perhaps we must accept means testing so that only the truly needy receive the benefits. But I am certain that the time has now come for our generation to sacrifice to save our nation. We have been a generation of privilege that has sacrificed little for our country and taken much. As the primary beneficiaries of the entitlements, unless we are willing to sacrifice our “rights” to the benefits, nothing will happen. Our electoral strength is too great. The sacrifice demanded of us is not of the kind our parents made, but it is to surrender the security that our parents wanted to bequeath to us. The sacrifice that we must make is to take greater responsibility and risk for our lives in order that we might bequeath to our children an America that can be as great as that our parents left to us. Do we love our country enough to make that sacrifice? Are we made of the same stuff as our parents? Can we be Great?

Why I Am a Republican Conservative

 [Adapted from a speech delivered to the Reagan Republican Club, Baltimore County, MD.]

I am a white male. I am an attorney and have practiced law as a trial attorney. I have served as a corporate executive in several major insurance companies. I now am President of a small consulting company. I live in an ex-urb, am married, and have two children and a dog. I attend church on Sunday and am an evangelical Christian. And perhaps my crowning achievement, I play golf and used to belong to a country club. 

If you are a member of the Democrat party, you may need to hear nothing more. You will proclaim, “Of course you are a Republican. You’re the quintessential country-club Republican.” You will draw that conclusion because you are a Democrat. You don’t care what people think. You decide who people are by the groups you can identify with them. You divide society into groups and ascribe importance to the groups, not the people. And you make assumptions by the labels you pin on people. You ironically claim to care about people, but would make no effort to know who I am because I wear the label “country club Republican.” 

But my story, and those of most Republican Conservatives, fit none of the stereotypes that Democrats advance. For I became a Republican before I was any of the things that I mentioned, with the exception of being a white male, an accurate label I unavoidably have carried since birth. So why am I a Republican? 

I was born to a working class family in the mountains of Western Maryland in 1953. My father had an eighth grade education and my mother made it to the ninth grade. Money was always tight in our household. We raised some of our food and I cannot recall a time when I did not have chores and work to do. My father was a World War II veteran, a worker in the local mill, union member, and, significantly, a committed and active Democrat. 

I was raised on politics. Political discourse was part and parcel of our family conversation. I remember clearly our support for John F. Kennedy and his near sainthood status after his death. Franklin Roosevelt was also venerated. In my youth I campaigned for Democrats without question. It was expected as a member of our family. 

But politics took a back seat to something even greater……our country. My father loved this country and taught me to have a deep and abiding respect for this nation. He made me understand what a great privilege it is to be an American and to never take for granted the sacrifices that so many have made so that I could have this privilege to live in this country. And the core of that privilege is that I am free. You hear it stated so frequently that ours is the greatest nation in the world. But all too often they are just words without meaning. In the household of my youth, however, that was doctrine written on our hearts by my father. And it was not sufficient to believe that doctrine. We also accepted that we had responsibility to preserve that freedom and pass it on to our children. That expectation was far greater than any expectation my father may have had with regard to our political affiliation. 

By the 1968 election I was confused politically. The Democrats seemed to embrace to some degree radicals who appeared to support enemies of our country. Yet the Republicans and Dick Nixon remained an anathema in our home. I turned 18 in 1971 during the height of the Vietnam War. I drew #8 in the draft and had to confront what I truly believed, for I had no deferment, but was eligible for a conscientious objector exemption because of the church to which I belonged. I concluded, however, that, as my father had taught me, I had an obligation to serve the cause of freedom. If I was not willing to serve my country when it called, whether or not I agreed with the reason for the call, then all freedom was jeopardized. Our obligation to country and freedom carried no qualifications. 

Concluding that I wanted to serve as an officer, I joined Army ROTC at my college rather than accept status as a conscientious objector, which was easily available to me without consequence. Doing so was not a popular thing. Only a small number of students were in ROTC. Some of the supposedly “tolerant” liberal students found it acceptable to throw food and spit at me when I wore the uniform. I will not pretend that I was not relieved when the draft ended and I did not have to go to Vietnam. Few rational people actually seek out war, but I had no expectation that I would not have to serve there when I joined. Through that experience, however, I gained a deeper respect for those who do serve and the sacrifices that they make so that others may be free to throw food and spit. 

By the election of 1972, I was in college by a combination of some support from my parents, scholarships, loans, and money I could earn. I was the first person in my family ever to go away to college. Those questions formed in 1968 about the commitments of Democrats to American values and individual freedoms were now in full bloom. I was now an historian and a political scientist and firmly entrenched in the reality that our freedoms are found not in the institutions of government, but rather in the Constitution and statutes that limit those institutions. So when it came time to register to vote, I became the first person in my family not only to go away to college, but also to register to vote as a Republican. I became a Republican, because I had become a Conservative….a Republican Conservative. Conservative by ideology; Republican by political necessity. 

I was not of the country club set. I was not a corporate executive. I was none of the labels. What I was, however, was a blue collar kid working my way through school with a profound love for my country and a deep appreciation for my freedom. I became a Republican because the Republican Party was the party of freedom — the freedom of the individual from intrusive government, the freedom to earn my way in the world wherever my talent and ambition could take me, and most important, the freedom of our values and democracy protected by our strength and extended wherever people sought to be free. 

Although there was little doubt in my choice, if there was any it vanished with the election of Ronald Reagan. Reagan essentially embodied my conception of what a President should be and articulated my feelings for our country and my conservative beliefs in the limited role of the federal government. So in explaining why I am a Republican Conservative, I shall use the words of President Reagan as my guide. 

“Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.”

“Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.”

Reagan could have spoken those words today. The initiatives of Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi are studded with efforts to arrogate greater power and control over our lives to the federal government, either by coercion or by forced dependence. I could cite example upon example, and I truly believe that the sum of it all demonstrates that our freedom is slipping from our grasp as Reagan predicted. But looking at a few examples rather than just a laundry list might be more helpful. 

Obama’s health plan is illustrative. In Orwellian fashion, he suggests that he is just expanding our choices. But what he actually proposes is a detailed government run health care system. Yes, theoretically choice will remain, but when employers must provide benefits that match the government plan or be fined, or when individuals must buy insurance or be fined, then as a practical matter we all are being forced to accept federally mandated health care and the choice is illusory. The simple fact is that if Barack Obama prevails he will force us all into a government-run, government-mandated health insurance program where a government bureaucrat decides what we need and when we get it. The power over our health care choices will have been concentrated in the hands of government. That concentration of power is, as Reagan said, an enemy of our liberty. 

Take then the so-called Obama tax cuts. In another wonderful example of Orwellian rhetoric, he asserts that he gave a tax cut for 95% of the country when only approximately 50% of those people pay taxes. Simply put, Obama takes money from some and baldly gives it to someone else. He candidly admitted during the campaign that his goal is “to spread the wealth around.” There is nothing clearer than when I ask the government to take from you to give to me, we both are made slaves of the government; you because the government has taken what is rightfully yours, and me because the government has replaced responsibility, accountability, and motivation with dependence. And I will become an addict ready to give the government anything for my next fix. I can think of nothing more invidious to our freedoms than to allow government to treat us as victims needing government services rather than citizens capable of managing our affairs and the affairs of our republic. What I want from government is to do that which we must do to protect and develop the country, within the structure of the Constitution, in ways that can only be accomplished by the combined citizenry. I want nothing from government for me as an individual. And I certainly want nothing that enhances me at the expense of your liberty. For if I agree to the compromise of your liberty, I most assuredly agree to the compromise of mine at the same time. 

My last example is a seemingly small one.  But liberty is rarely seized by broad sweeping revolutionary strokes. It frequently vanishes as leaves blown away before the wind. Each leaf makes little impact as it disappears, but when the tree is bare we will notice. Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and a host of Democrats are behind efforts to eliminate the secret ballot in union elections. Think about that for a moment. There is little more critical to the machinery of our freedoms than the secret ballot. And they want to take it away. What possible good can come from that? How can eliminating election freedoms be consistent with the core values of our republic? And this is brought to us by the same people who have funded, supported, and, in the case of Obama, represented ACORN as it pursues a never ending campaign of electoral fraud that it admits and will not stop. If that is not, as Reagan said, our natural, inalienable rights being now considered as a dispensation from government, then I cannot imagine what could be. 

“We cannot play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent.”

“History teaches us that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.”

There is no greater responsibility of government than to protect our freedom and values from destruction or infringement by enemies foreign or domestic. The commissioning oath of every military officer is “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God.” The enlisted oath is similar. These young men and women pledge their lives in the cause of freedom. Our government has the concomitant responsibility to assure that those pledges are honored; that those lives are sent into harm’s way with a seriousness of purpose and a commitment to the preservation of freedom, either directly the freedoms of the citizens of the United States or others for whom we have the capability to extend freedom. 

I am a Republican Conservative because I see no seriousness of purpose regarding the protection or extension of freedom in the Democrats. They consider our soldiers, sailors, and Marines as victims and exalt those who complain. They seemingly have as great a concern for our enemies as our military, producing bizarrely restricted rules of engagement. They send them into overflights and missile drops, or into ground force policing actions, as symbolic demonstrations of will, but they loudly proclaim against using our military actually to fight in ways that they have been trained to serve and against actual enemies of our country. And President Obama naively believes that talk is a substitute for strength. He has reduced our military capabilities, and will do so in even more significant ways, proposes to eliminate our nuclear defense capabilities, and rarely speaks of how the military is a force for good. We live in a time where as Reagan said, governments from Russia to Iran to Venezuela perceive that the cost of aggression is cheap. I fear that the price is becoming even cheaper as they realize that President Obama is not a threat. Talk loudly but throw away our stick seems to be his plan. That will assure only that our military will get thrown into situations when they are long past desirable for the use of force and pay the price for such foolishness. 

My concern here is not academic or theoretical. My daughter is an ensign in the Navy and is now at flight school and will soon have her wings. When she joined ROTC, I asked her if she was prepared to sacrifice her life not in the cause of freedom, but for the folly of some politician. She told me that she recognized that risk, but she would follow her orders. She explained to me that some have to be prepared to fight, no matter the reason or cost, or there would be none to fight when freedom needed defense. As a father I am terrified that she may have to pay that price. I cannot control that. The folly of unfocused and ill-prepared military excursions certainly is bi-partisan. But it far more often flourishes in liberal weakness than the commitment to national defense that is bedrock conservatism. President Obama and liberal progressives encourage our enemies to regard the cost of aggression as cheap and make it more likely that our military will have to fight, but on far less favorable terms. That reason, even if I had no other, causes me to stand as a Republican Conservative. 

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”

We live in a time of fear. Our economy is more fragile than we have ever known it to be in our lifetimes. Islamic totalitarianism and its terrorist handmaidens threaten us. Our society weakens from within by selfishness, by tolerance and acceptance of immorality, and by the fraying of the religious faith that once bound us tightly together. In such circumstances, the fearful all too frequently will mortgage their freedom for certainty, even if the certainty is metaphorically a cell, just as long as it is comfortable. History has taught that lesson time and time again. And it will teach us again if we do not stop it now. 

As I prepared this commentary, I researched quotes from Reagan on freedom. They were easy to find. Choosing those to use was the problem. I then I decided to use a few quotes from Barack Obama on freedom as a contrast. Perhaps the most disconcerting thing for me in this entire exercise was the result of my effort. I followed the same Google search with Obama that I did for Reagan: “Barack Obama freedom quotations.” Do your own search. I could find none of significance. Freedom comes up with his name in a meaningful way with regard to his support for the Freedom of Choice Act, which nullifies all restrictions of any type on abortion. Otherwise, he just has not discussed individual freedoms and liberties and the role of government in relation to liberty. 

When President Obama uses the word “freedom” it is incidental to another point rather than his focus. But he did say at a graduation address in the Spring of 2008 at Wesleyan University, “our individual salvation depends on collective salvation.”  That is chilling. Barack Obama makes no defense of individual liberty, but espouses subordinating the individual to the collective.  Can you imagine someone rising to the presidency of the United States without having made any worthwhile statement regarding individual liberty? America is not the shining city on the hill described by Reagan because it presents an opportunity for you to serve the state, but because of the individual liberties that it cherishes and protects. I am sorry, but President Obama is no friend of individual freedom.

I am not blinded to the fact that Republicans also have expanded the role of the government and limited our freedom in doing so. That is why I emphasize that I am a Conservative first. But I remain a Republican because in our electoral framework there simply is not a practical alternative. We must work to hold Republicans to conservative goals for government. For Conservatives to pursue ideological purity in another party may be intellectually admirable, but ineffective for the defense of liberty. The Republican Party certainly has been inadequate, but there are Republican Conservatives who need support and are growing in strength. For that reason, if you are a Conservative I encourage you to be a Republican Conservative. If you are not, as a practical matter you empower liberal progressives such as Obama, who unquestionably do not champion individual liberty. You must understand that risk. 

In closing, I again cannot do any better than to return to Ronald Reagan: 

“Let us be sure that those who come after us will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.”

The advocates of government are in power, nationally and in the State of Maryland. The threats to freedom continue not only in the massive and obvious actions and proposals of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid, but also in all those small ways that are barely visible but nonetheless steal our liberty. We Conservatives must join and fight against the never ending encroachments of government. We cannot let tests for 100% purity in conservative thought to split us and diminish our electoral impact. As Marco Rubio, Florida Senate candidate said before Conservative Political Action Conference on February 18, the election of 2010 is “not a simple choice between liberals and conservatives. It will be a referendum on our nation’s very identity.” We must succeed now at the ballot box to defend and preserve freedom. Successful defense of liberty will come only in a long series of small victories on legislation, regulations, and elections at the local, state, and federal levels. It will come through a great deal of thankless work with little glory. But it is our obligation to those who sacrificed to hand us the freedom we have. If we do, we can say, as Reagan, that to those who come after us, “we kept them free; we kept the faith.”