In the spirit of understanding and cooperation, I would like to initiate a series of articles which will explain the conservative position and motivation. It seems that there are many who act as if conservative folks are scary or heartless, because conservatives believe in the right of self defense, and disagree with government-provided welfare.
I firmly believe that fear of something decreases with understanding of it. In this spirit, I would like to describe and define the principles behind conservative positions. I will call these principles of liberty the Liberty Lions. I call them this because each one is powerful, and can stand on its own. Once we unleash these Liberty Lions, all other arguments fail before them. Freedom is won.
The first principle is that of Minimum Necessary Government. Minimum Necessary government is simply the minimum government necessary to safeguard our freedom. You see, we do not believe that the purpose of government is to “take care of us.” That leads to dependency and eventually oppression. What is the purpose of government? Put simply it is to keep us free.
Government can keep us free by imposing penalties upon those who harm our persons or property by force or by fraud domestically, and by protecting us from those outside our country who would do the same. That’s it. That is the purpose of government. That’s why we have a system of courts and law enforcement agencies. Taxes are imposed to pay for things such as courts, judges, law enforcement agencies and officers. The rest is up to us as individuals. We are free to make of our lives what we resolve to.
In the beginning of our nation, it was a tacit agreement between citizen and government that this is the purpose of taxes. Later, as money in the national treasury increased, this money was seen by members of congress as loot to be sent to their respective districts in the form of pet projects and sometimes very wasteful endeavors. Why do I bring this up? Because by taxing the citizens for purposes other than law enforcement and national defense, the government is taking our freedom, rather than protecting it.
You see, the government is the only entity that can legally take your property by force. My money is my property. It represents either hard work or smart work, or both, or in the case of inheritance, the hard or smart work of one’s predecessor. Now that the members of the government have discovered that they can use our money to buy votes for themselves from special interest groups, there is no limit on the amount of our money they desire. This is tyranny. This is an attack on the very premise of private ownership, because right now, there is nothing in the US Constitution which places a limit on the amount or percentage of taxes the government may levy on us. It is a blank check, or more appropriate, a credit card with no limit.
So we have a government that used to guard our freedoms as individuals, but now, because we collectively own this large amount of collected money, we have lost the individual right to choose how our money is spent. Even worse, our government has spent money than it takes from us, so now we have become collectively liable for the debt. Now whichever party is in power can control the spending of YOUR money. And, my friend, think not that is just waste at issue, but also the government’s expansion of itself. In order to secure power, the government makes more and more promises that are increasingly expensive.
When you work, and earn money, but another who has not worked for it can take it from you in any amount and for any purpose they decide-- you are not free. Conservatives believe in limiting government to its basic minimum functions. We believe that this will maximize our individual and collective liberty. That is the agenda of the true conservative or libertarian—to limit the size and scope the government and its activities.
Sincerely,
Bob Roushar
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