Where is my party going and why are we all in this handbasket? Towards a modern conservatism

Someone posed the question on RedState today, and I wanted to toss it out for you good folks over here at TMR, what is it that we want from the Republican Party? Enough with the complaining about McCain, we need to work on giving people something to vote for rather than the liberal bogeyman to vote against. Frankly, I'd rather have the Left take the rap for gross insufferable spending, corruption and unethical politicians, and a growing cynicism by the majority of Americans towards their politicians. As we move towards an election featuring two guys that most people are shocked made it this far, I have elected to no longer discuss John McCain. His crush on Hillary Clinton I find disgusting, and I fear he will be nothing more than an extension of the NewToning we have seen from the past 8 years. In light of that, my objective is to move the Party towards the right, by rolling out a new modern conservatism that will refuel the rise and excitement of conservatism in the 21st century. So what is the solution than?

We need something to excite conservative, someone to revive a movement that is increasingly dominant by older voters in the GOP. My solution is Ron Thompson. We need the domestic conservatism of Ron Paul, the willingness to stand up for our constitution and for conservatism. Ron Paul for me is a lot like Fred is for other conservatives-it is not so much what he has accomplished in the House, it is the ideals that he stands for. He opposes the Patriot Act as I do under the grounds that it is a gross intrusion of the federal government and civil liberties of American citizens. He is against Roe vs Wade and believes that abortion law and gay marriage are things that should be up to the citizens of the states, not the federal government, and he is against the drunken sailor spending that Congress has been doing throughout the Bush-Clinton-Bush years. And most of all, he was able to generate an excitement among voters that no other candidate in the GOP was able to duplicate. While he did not win any primaries, it was the excitement factor of taking back the GOP that I think should be seized upon, in terms of his domestic policy. Where he failed with most GOPers, and where he failed me is foreign policy. To this I turn to the other great man who could save our party, Fred Thompson.

"I'm never going to apologize for the United States of America."-Fred Dalton Thompson

This is the key point in conservative foreign policy that many people, including our current Presidential nominee have failed to extrapolate on, where our current President George W. Bush has-the doctrine of American exceptionalism, the key in any conservative foreign policy discussion. Bush, like Reagan, like Thompson understood the value in America as the shining city on a hill giving out light towards the rest of the world. It was never about Iraq, or Afghanistan, my fellow GOPers. (Here comes the neo-con in me) It has always been about America being a leader for freedom and democracy and standing up against tyranny and oppression. America must not ever stand down in representing freedom for all of those who seek it. It is why we must remain on the forefront against the Chinese, it is why we must continue to speak out about Sudan, and it is why we must always continue to stand strong in the Middle East against Iran and to defend our allies of Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel, while supporting true democracy in Pakistan and India. There is a an American interest in a free and democratic society, as we are a global economy that profits in peacetime, rather than having to deal with coward terrorists who seek to use America as a scapegoat for their unjust administrations like the Taliban and Mahmoud Ahmadinejād, a cruel and evil dictator in the mold of Hitler, who would outdo the Holocaust if given the capacity. We as conservatives must continue to stand for injustice in the world, protecting our interests at home and abroad. We must never forget these words "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

As we look towards a new conservatism, we must not hesitate to look towards the past for the future. We must not look at the principles of Barry Goldwater as ones to be set aside for a creeping federal and executive power grab that is necessary out of a need to protect citizens from foreign and domestic threats. We must look to smack down encroachments of the liberties of American citizen from the left and right wing, and reject them as perversions of conservatism. People who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither, to quote Benjamin Franklin, and we must not let conservatism die while we wonder aimlessly in the desert for forty years, wondering where our party has gone. We must avoid the massive domestic gaffes in spending, corruption and violation of our constitution that has taken place on our watch. We must end the NewTone pandering that allows the Republican candidate for President to speak to racist hate groups like La Raza and pandering to Black citizens in New Orleans, calling out ineptitude of the federal government as if a state disaster should not be handled by the state, feeding liberal Democrats with more ammunition against our own party. We must continue to support American exceptionalism, and America's interest abroad, preserving our image as a the shining city on a hill, and the superpower that is on the side of the people, not the dictators. It's time to take this party back-its time to fight. As the last great Senator from Arizona, Barry Goldwater said, if we're going to take this party back, and I think we can, let's get to work. Let's stop the complaining, the moaning and NewToning an rebuild the conservative wing of our party. Conservatism doesn't die unless we let it and I refuse to sit back and watch our movement die because of the top of our ticket. I hope y'all are with me-let's go get to work.