(Above: Former President Ronald Reagan, who served from 1981-1989. He is widely considered to be the first modern conservative president.)
In 1980, Republican candidate Ronald Reagan won the Presidential Election in a landslide over Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter. Over the next eight years, the "Reagan Revolution" dominated American politics with his philosophies of promoting less government intervention in the lives of the American people, a more laissez-faire approach to free-market economics and massive tax cuts as were preached by famed economist Milton Friedman, and his foreign policy of "peace through strength" that won the Cold War over the Soviet Union with his call for a dramatic increase in military expenditures which led to outspending the Soviets by a margin they could not match since their economy was in shambles. Reagan was one of the great presidents in history, often voted by Americans in several surveys to be the greatest, most admired of all-time. His stance on abortions was firm and resolute, for he instituted the Mexico City Policy in 1984 which cut U.S. funding to foreign nations using abortions as a means of birth control. While he was reviled by Democrats and left-wing politicos across the world, those who were conservative or were more moderate either loved or at least respected "The Great Communicator." It was under him, after all, that unemployment decreased from approximately 10% around the time he took the oath of office to about 4.5% by the time he left office in 1989 -- in other words, the unemployment rate was at what is known as "the natural rate of unemployment" domestically.
Sadly, his successor and former Vice President George H. W. Bush did not continue Reagan's work. During Bush's term, the fruits of Reagan's labor were realized as the Cold War ended with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, but at the end of that year, the nation fell into an economic recession. Rather than cut taxes to give Americans more money to spend, the Democratic-controlled Congress coaxed Bush into raising taxes, which began the Republican party's downward spiral. Bush would lose his bid for reelection to Democratic challenger Bill Clinton in 1992, and the re-ignition of America's love affair with entitlement programs and big government spending was on. Sure, George W. Bush spent eight years in the Oval Office from 2001-2009, and sure both houses of Congress were controlled by the Republicans from 1995 through 2006, with a brief interruption in the early 2000's when the Senate was run by the Democrats under the leadership of Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD), but the past four-plus agonizing years have seen another Democrat holding the office of President of the United States -- none other than Barack Obama, who is arguably the most liberal president America has seen since at least Lyndon Johnson, and possibly Franklin Roosevelt. And not only do the Democrats have the White House, they control the Senate, albeit narrowly. For all of President George W. Bush's great attributes -- his ability to keep the nation safe after the September 11, 2001 attacks and his tax cuts which jump-started a sluggish economy -- his unpopular decision to invade Iraq in 2003 that led to hundreds and even thousands of American troop fatalities due to terrorist bombings, and the economic and financial collapse of 2008 -- doomed the GOP for the foreseeable future, for Obama has proven to be a dynamic politician, though sly, cunning, and deceptive.
The Republicans have responded by running candidates in the past two elections who were not true conservatives: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney. Both were moderates to the point that I could barely tell their political views apart from those of many of the Democrats in Washington. The one saving grace for McCain, to me, was his strength as a military backer; he would make sure that the U.S. would have the strongest armed forces money could buy. But several of his policies scared me, including his views on the gun issue. McCain, in case any of you have missed it, voted for expanded background checks in the recent gun control bill brought up in the Senate in the past month. He also felt it ridiculous of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to try to filibuster the deal in order to prevent the bill from being brought onto the Senate floor, as well as McCain criticized Paul's 13-hour filibuster that condemned and questioned President Obama on the use of drones domestically. Gov. Romney claimed he would abolish Obama Care (Affordable Health Care Act), yet in a cruel twist of faith while he was governor of Massachusetts, he actually instituted a similar policy. He also said in the second debate with President Obama back in the fall that he was attempting to distance himself from the policies of George W. Bush, who was a true conservative. Clearly, these two politicians were not conservatives at the time of their runs at the presidency, nor are they conservatives to this day. The Republican party, in its desperation to find a presidential candidate who will give it a healthy chance at victory, have forsaken the principles set forth by Ronald Reagan of less government and more personal freedom in favor of moving more toward the left. This policy has not only jaded the conservative voters in America, it has alienated those who are moderate and undecided.
(Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, son of former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. Sen. Paul is one of the front runners for the Republican nomination for president in 2016.)
With so many cracks in the bow of the GOP's ship, what do they do? I think I know the answers to some of its issues, though I am sure many liberals will wholeheartedly disagree. The Republicans border on being repressive on many social issues such as the same-sex marriage controversy and the legalizing of marijuana. Perhaps the biggest fault of the GOP's is its failure to adhere to the separation of church and state. For decades, the Republican party has fallen under the influence of religious evangelical demagogues such as Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and Pat Robertson. As great a president as Ronald Reagan was, he was greatly influenced by these people; it was the one major flaw in his considerable political repertoire he had. Liberals will say that Republicans and Libertarians believe in the type of economic policies that will lead to a greater divide between the wealthiest Americans and the poorest; however, with that comes the opposite phenomenon: there is typically an increase in jobs and relative wealth increases in all circles. This is the liberal establishment's attempt, then, at creating discord and disharmony domestically in the form of a Marxist class struggle between what they perceive to be the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. It is to this end that I believe the differences must begin, and that they must be further exploited by creating a more extreme form of fiscal conservatism than the Republican choices that have been presented to the voters in recent years championed.
If I were President of the United States, I would work to abolish the Sixteenth Amendment, which gives the federal government the right to tax the incomes of the American people. The amendment violates the Tenth Amendment, which delegates powers not already vested within the federal government to the states or individuals. Little did the leaders in Congress and President Woodrow Wilson pay attention to the dubious fact that this income tax is directly supported by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels in The Communist Manifesto in the 2nd Planck. While the income tax had made a few appearances in the arena of American methods of taxation in the previous 125 years, it mainly occurred during wars. The way the federal government taxed the people was through taxes on things like imports and excise taxes. Never did an income tax last for more than a brief period of time, until 1913, when the amendment was passed. While I believe the beginning of modern American leftist politics began in the latter part of the 19th Century after Reconstruction, there is no doubt that modern liberalism in American government began during the Woodrow Wilson administration.
Another thing I would do should I ever become President would be to become the first to actually decrease spending rather than increase at even the natural rate of inflation, which was what Ronald Reagan did. In order to do this, I would either cut out federal entitlement programs entirely or privatize some of those programs. I would eliminate Obama Care, EBT cards to those abusing the system, and Family Planning, while also privatizing Social Security at least partially and gradually ween people's dependence on the government to operate the system to the point where this expense is no longer in existence. I would maintain Social Security Disability as well as Medicare/Medicaid for those who are disabled and cannot work for themselves. These measures, which are but a few of what goes on in government, would greatly reduce the reliance and dependency of the American people on government, as I wish to make this country more responsible for themselves as individuals.
Next, I would seek to reestablish manufacturing within the American workplace. Over the course of the past 40+ years, the manufacturing sector of the economy has lagged due to a combination of labor unions pressing such issues as extremely high pay wages and working conditions as well as corporations which ran the factories moving their factories to developing nations due to cheaper labor as well as outsourcing because of the inability to pay the factory workers the wages their union representatives bargained for. It is a vicious cycle, and it will take several steps to do this. The first thing I would do would be to abolish the North American Free Trade Agreement that was signed into law almost 20 years ago during the Clinton administration that allowed for tariff-free trade between the United States and all nations in North America. Secondly, I would pass a bill forbidding all domestic factories, once opened, from ever moving out of the country. Lastly, I would take on labor unions and seek to severely limit their abilities to control the economy by labor strikes in order to procure such pay scales as what has led to past corporate flight. These three conditions must be met, or industrialization in American will remain dead. This is the best way to create jobs.
To win over the minority vote, I would seek to create more jobs for them in the private sector as well as in the public. I would not extend Affirmative Action laws to the private sector, but I would encourage businesses to consider hiring more minorities by offering tax breaks. Similarly, I would open military enrollment up more to minorities, ensuring them that they will have the opportunity to attend college on the G.I. Bill should they choose to do so. With the military agenda, I would have representatives scurry out to the inner cities to recruit those minorities who may be stuck in the vicious cycle of poverty brought on by hard luck, circumstance, and the present Democratic social programs that render them helpless, redundant, supine, and utterly dependent upon the federal government to subsidize them. It is through such initiatives as these that I would hope to end poverty the right way by giving the impoverished peoples of America a "hand up" rather than a "hand out."
I would only increase spending in two areas: one is the military, which in the wake of the past decade-plus's worth of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and in our embassies, we need to beef up national security. That being said, the increased spending on the military would only last a limited amount of time, as I would start contracting out work orders on vehicles and weapons to various domestic industrial giants to mass-produce those items both to use domestically and to sell to such allies as Japan, South Korea, and possibly Taiwan which would hopefully lead to the government profiting. I would also increase spending on education, changing it fundamentally from being governed largely at state and local municipalities to nationalizing our system in order for all students to be guaranteed the same quality education in, say, Tennessee, as they would receive in Massachusetts. It is also within education that I would get rid of the present system of standardized testing. No test is truly indicative of what a child's capabilities are academically, as I am living proof of this because I suffered from test anxieties and thus never did well on them, yet I thrived in school in advanced classes from Kindergarten through my senior year of high school.
In my cabinet, I would eliminate a few positions. I would start by dissolving the Office of Homeland Security in favor of bestowing those responsibilities on the FBI and CIA. I feel the Office of Homeland Security serves as little more than a Gestapo or Secret Police for the federal government, particularly when a Democrat is in office. I would also eliminate the Department of Transportation and merge it with the Department of Defense since the highway systems were built originally for the military to maneuver across the nation. The Department of Education would remain, as would the Departments of State, Treasury, the Attorney General's Office, Health and Human Services, and as I said earlier, Defense. All other Cabinet positions would go. This nation only had four cabinet positions to begin with, and as the liberal fringe has taken shape in the history of the Executive Branch of government, the Executive Branch has grown dramatically. This government needs to simplify itself, and with the exception of the Departments of Health and Human Services and Education, the rest of the "newer" cabinet positions would be eliminated.
My administration would work to pass a constitutional amendment requiring the federal government to balance the budget every year, just as many state governments do, and utilize any excess tax dollars that are available at the conclusion of a fiscal year to pay down the federal deficit. There is no good reason for the federal government to engage in deficit spending every single year and putting this nation hundreds of billions and, in the case of the Obama administration, trillions of dollars in the hole. The current debt is listed at over $16 trillion, and I dare say the federal government will never pay that off in our lifetimes. It will therefore become incumbent upon our children and grandchildren to pay for the spending indiscretions their fathers and grandfathers made. The federal deficit has been a major problem since the Reagan administration, for it was in the 1980's when President Reagan massively increased military funding in his quest to defeat the Soviet Union and win the Cold War once and for all. The deficit tripled because of Reagan's decision to do this, rising up to over $3 trillion by the end of his presidency in 1989. For a few years, the deficit was balanced and a budget surplus was created during the Clinton administration, but after the attacks on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush greatly increased military funding in order to fight the war on terrorism, and therefore America was back in deficit-spending mode. How the federal government in the future will solve the problems of balancing the budget every year is up to the party in power, though I sincerely hope the Republicans are in power more than the Democrats since conservatives' plans for fiduciary monetary spending and economic growth go hand-in-hand when government spending is dramatically cut by way of cutting funding for most entitlement programs and subsidies. Taxes do not have to increase under the Republicans' methods, however, for if the Sixteenth Amendment is abolished and a national sales tax and a series of excise taxes are put into place, the amount of money funneling into the Treasury will peak and wane depending on how the economy is faring, which means if the economy happens to be in the midst of a recession, a Democratic president will not have the capability to force an economic stimulus package through Congress since there will be no way for the federal government to pay that kind of money since the people by controlling their spending, control the size and scope of the government.
George Washington wrote in his Farewell Address in 1797 warning the government to not become entangled in international affairs. This was the prevailing wisdom of the day, for the only correspondence the United States had with European powers Britain and France was through trade. However, starting in 1898, America by virtue of winning the Spanish-American War became a empire, something the Founders never intended on happening. During the 20th Century, the United States turned the tide of war during World War I in favor of Britain and France, and won both the European and Pacific theaters of World War II. The United States served as "the arsenal of democracy" during the Cold War versus the Soviet Union, leading NATO and the United Nations in their resolutions against what President Reagan termed to be "the evil empire." Now that the Cold War is over, we have newer, more clandestine and surreptitious threats. Terrorism has become this country's biggest threat with several attacks by foreign as well as domestic terrorists since 1993, including the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Most foreign terrorists have rallied against the United States, particularly in the Middle East, because of our close alliance with Israel, as well as our continuing to rely so heavily upon OPEC nations prevalent in the region for our oil consumption. To me, this is easily corrected. My administration would adopt a more isolationist policy with the exception of foreign trade and selling our arms to foreign allies. I would strongly lobby to change the ban on Japan of having a standing military similar to the one the empire had during the late 19th through the middle of the 20th Centuries to relieve the U.S. military of having to defend the Japanese archipelago against Chinese and North Korean military threats. However, I do understand that by law, we have our commitments to NATO and the U.N., as well as our pledge to defend South Korea and Taiwan from North Korean and Chinese forces, respectively, so those policies will not change. My goal is to get our government's noses out of the Middle East permanently. By opening up federal lands to oil drilling, I believe our nation can become less dependent on foreign oil and thus give it no rhyme or reason to remain involved in the Middle East's business. I would also cut funding to foreign countries whose people hold demonstrations against the U.S. by burning our flag.
Socially, I would work to legalize the selling of certain types of what are now currently illegal drugs by opening up "Red Light Districts" in every town in America in order to tax these items with what I would call a "Sin Tax." I would also place a "Sin Tax" on cigarettes and alcohol in order to discourage the selling of these products for reasons of public health. The purpose of such an act is two-fold: one is that allows more personal freedom, while the other is it eliminates much of the violent crime brought on by drug lords both on the Mexican border as well as inner-city gang. Also, I would change the legal definition of "marriage" from one that occurs between a man and a woman to a universally-defined definition of a "civil union" in order to erase any and all religious allusions from the concept. I would not, however, legalize polygamy, as doing so would no doubt lead to a decline in relative wealth per family despite the possibility of every single spouse being employed. The National Park Service would be dissolved and the land used for private owners with a law put into place that no person will legally develop the land without government permission. The Keystone Pipeline would be opened as well.
Last, but certainly not least, I would work to put an end to the practice of legalized abortions that rob a person - and a baby or fetus is a live person - the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness/property. Currently, the legal precedent under Roe v. Wade allows women the right to abortions, but like President Andrew Jackson once said in reference to Chief Justice John Marshall after a ruling he made against the Indian Removal Act in the U.S. Supreme Court case Worcester v. Georgia, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" The U.S. Supreme Court has turned into an apparatus of political activism, and I would seek to stop this intolerable cruelty, attack, and its making a mockery of the Constitution. My proposal would be to declare the legal beginning of life to be at conception, and that abortions under any circumstances other than danger in the life of the mother, unwanted pregnancy due to rape or incest, or the predetermined knowledge that the baby will be born with a severe disability will be looked upon as anything else other than capital murder. The U.S. Supreme Court may have made its ruling nearly 40 years ago paving the way for legalized abortions, but it has no authority to enforce them. If I were President, I would intentionally test the capability of the U.S. Supreme Court to enforce its ruling on abortions.
These are all desires I have, and as one friend of mine with whom I work and my very own father have even asked, "Do you think you could get elected with those types of views?" I think an affirmative answer is just around the corner. My endorsement for the Republican candidate for President of the United States is none other than Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. I believe he has his father's moxie and spunk as well as he shares many of the same Libertarian views, but he has made one improvement over his father in that he is willing to fall in line with the conservative mainstream on some issues. When he was named the featured speaker of the 2013 CPAC Conference, he mentioned he felt honored to be given the same honor as Ronald Reagan, the man many consider to be the father of the modern conservative movement. Rand Paul is no moderate, so he would be a departure from the GOP's failed attempts to falsely align itself to the wants and desires of centrist Democratic candidates when McCain and Romney ran on the Republican ticket for President. Rand Paul will be the political figure within the Republican party who will bring about a revolution and rejuvenation in party politics. Paul will be the most likely candidate to work toward the majority of the ends I would seek should I ever become President of the United States because Christie and Rubio will merely grow the size of government due to their close similarities with liberal lawmakers.
My questions to the average American citizen are as follows: Are you as well off today as you were four years ago? Do you have a stable job? Has your income been cut because of the economy having been suffering from the most serious recession since the late 1970's and early 1980's and thus cutting into your employer's profits and ability to pay you? Have you been laid off from your job? Do you have a difficult time paying for gas and groceries and yet your taxes are being increased by the year? Are you tired of your civil liberties being infringed upon? Do you feel safe? Do you desire to maintain the legal right to purchase and own firearms? Most of all, are you tired of just being tired? If the answers to these are "yes," then you might want to consider voting for a Republican who will promote free market strategies, creative and across-the-board tax cuts, who will create jobs in the private sector of the economy, who will work tirelessly to ensure our country's safety from terrorists and rogue nations, and finally, who will recognize your constitutional rights and civil liberties rather than curtailing them. The key to achieving this, however, is to vote for the proper Republican candidate in the primaries. You know who I suggest. I suggest you act wisely in choosing.
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