Serious Political Commentary for Serious Conservatives

	The Independent Voice for Conservative Values and the Conscience of the Conservative Movement Less Government is the Best Government

Freedom
The Best Antidote for What Ails Us

-by Scott Rohter, February 2012

Freedom of speech is not a slogan.  It is not a bumper sticker.  Free speech is more than mere empty words.  Just as I believe in free speech, and free markets, I also believe that more freedom, not less freedom, is the solution for what is wrong with our country.  I believe that freedom is The Best Antidote for What Ails Us.  It is the strongest antiseptic for what evils have infected our body politick, and our ‘public square’, right down to our local city or county government.

I believe that to allow a small group of self-serving individuals to throw their weight around in private, and to try to implement their agenda in small meetings, whether it is in your own home town, or in Washington D.C., is not an acceptable way to conduct the affairs of this great nation, nor is it a realistic way to inspire the youth of our great country! When a small group of powerful individuals seeks to impose their unpopular will upon the rest of us, it is wrong, whether it occurs in your own hometown or in our nation’s Capitol, as it did recently with the gang of twelve in Washington D.C. The young people of our country see this and frankly it turns them off!  If you want to lead America then you need to inspire the youth.  Try doing something inspirational for a change.  You will find that it works.

What the Republican Party has been doing for the past 20 years in Oregon has not been working!  I’m suggesting a totally different strategy, and part of that strategy includes the free exchange of ideas and opinions on Republican websites.  Let the best ideas prevail.  If you think that you can turn this Party around, through some sleight of hand, and that you can turn this country around with just more of the same old same old, or some slight tweaks here and there around the edges, and some careful strategizing on your part, then you are sorely mistaken.  Young people are not stupid.  They want to be free.  Someone just needs to explain to them what freedom is about and the responsibilities that go along with it.  Does trying to suppress freedom of speech in any way sound like you actually believe in freedom, yourself?

The Republican Party needs a face lift. Those of us who have the courage to stand up to the Establishment are the face of that lift. Stand with me. The reason that the Republican Party has been nearly irrelevant in Oregon for most of the last 20 years is not because it was too conservative.  It is because it didn’t successfully explain conservative ideas and make a convincing case for them.  I want to change that by proving that Freedom is superior to the bankrupt ideology of dependence on the Federal government, as favored by the Democrats.

But it’s because of the way that the Republican Party has conducted its affairs over the last thirty years that explains why it has not been a significant political force in Oregon. By not listening to voters, by not returning phone calls, by not recognizing and nurturing talent in our midst, and by not selecting the best qualified people to lead this Party, Republicans have un-wittingly laid the groundwork for our own predicament.  That’s why we haven’t won a statewide election in Oregon since Gordon Smith, or elected a Republican Governor since Vic Atiyeh.  I actually find it hard to blame the voters of Oregon for not electing more Republicans to statewide office, when they look around and see some of the things that Republicans have done and quite frankly are still doing!

We are not going to change that with a few little tweaks here and there around the edges, or by pushing conservatives aside and nominating more moderates or liberals to run for office.  There needs to be an entire sea change in Republican methods and thinking, and writers like I am, who can reach independent voters and disillusioned Democrats, and the next generation that will grow up to become the next generation of voters in America are essential to winning that battle. Writers and political commentators are essential to preparing the ground for the next generation of Republican politicians.  You no longer have to be ashamed of being a conservative.  You don’t need to hide your traditional values in a closet somewhere in order to win an elected office anymore.  You just need to be able to articulate them and explain why they are better than the bankrupt ideas of the liberals.   And it doesn’t matter whether it’s Democrat liberals or Republican liberals. If you don’t want to do it, then I do!  I am trying to inform and educate independents, and disappointed Democrats, and the next generation of voters every day, on my website, and I put my money where my mouth is, right on my website! Progressive ideas have infiltrated into both of America’s major political Parties.

If you want to distance yourself from me, you can go right ahead, but you are heading in the wrong direction, and the winds of change are strongly blowing  against you. That’s not how you, or this Republican Party is going to foster the much needed conservative changes along.  And that’s not how we are going to move this country back to the Right.  We have moved so far to the Left in this country that we can’t even begin to see where the Center is anymore.  The only thing you will achieve from this kind of behavior is that you might elect more middle of the road Republicans, who won’t move this country anywhere at all.  You might win one or two General Elections here and there if you’re lucky with a strategy like that, but that’s about it! 

The final thing I want to say is this.  It is important that when liberals decide to run for office as Republicans, they know that they are going to get vigorously challenged, and that their liberal or progressive ideas and records will be exposed, just like I am doing right now with Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.  That is the only way we are  ever going to get real conservatives elected to office, and it is the only hope that we have of actually changing the unfortunate status quo in our country.

"The truth, the political truth, and nothing but the political truth. A journalist has no better friend than the truth." - Scott Rohter
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