Constitution PartyTexas

Integrity, Liberty, & Prosperity!

Dear Fellow Patriots,

 Our dear friend, Floyd Whitley, previous State Chairman of the Constitution Party Idaho. Please let me hear from you and how you find this information. My email is at the end.

Now. Here is Floyd.

Previous Essay-Political Repositioning

The previous essay proposed a political repositioning of conservatism, a radical departure toward a working interface with the American public that is beyond the stereotypic extreme reactionary. This commentary extends that discussion. If conservative thought is ever to be accepted as valuable insights in the future, it must be reconfigured now. The route it is taking leads to perdition.
 
The last essay embraced a more active role by conservatives, for example, using conservation as a key position. Benefits exist. First, achievable solutions to “global warming” may be gotten near term with wiser stewardship (i.e. conservation). And this benefits all, left or right, young or old. Second, workable solutions that move beyond the prevailing internecine stalemate of American politics will only serve to strengthen the conservative brand. Simple solution providers. Those are both good things.

The satellite heat image of Prague in the previous essay illustrates that by improving our city-scape environments with added greenways and parks can make urban areas more livable...and less heat generating. While this may be a low-tech solution, it is relatively cost-efficient. No, it is not a panacea. Few things are. But such cooperative involvement (which conservatives have heretofore all but ceded) can rebuild public trust in conservative views.

Reestablishing Trust

Reestablishing trust is crucial in an age where an entrenched public now routinely talks around each other, and often over each other. Bullhorn to bullhorn shouts fail to talk to each other with reason. Yet our nation was conceived in the Age of Reason (or Enlightenment). It desperately needs participation of classical conservativism. For without reason, our nation cannot possibly stand. The default position of the American conservative has been to deny and to label. Regardless, anthropomorphic climate change remains. Mounting evidence (at least anecdotally) suggests real environmental consequences are resulting from our heedless development. In just one example, treating people for third degree burns who fall to the ground in the urbanized American southwest is now commonplace. Strings of high temperature records are also commonplace. This ain’t grandpappy’s climate anymore.

Not to Beleaguer

Our purpose here is not to beleaguer global warming. It is to encourage a redraft of conservative platforms and priorities, to move away from confrontation and move toward cooperation. Conservatives in general have been non-participatory. In issue after issue, they’ve been against for so long they no longer know what they are for anymore. Operating politically from natural strongpoints is strategic and wise. Conservatives ought to be for that. Rock-ribbed conservationists. Conservation subject matter ought to be absolutely owned by conservatives. We are Scripturally charged to be good stewards of our Earth. But by denials and refusals, conservatives cede what should be their keep. And America is deprived of the enormous wealth of conservative environmental ideation brought about by an ill-thought decision to refuse to engage.

To borrow from Irish Labour Party and trade unionist James Larkin (1904-1969), “We are living in momentous times.” True. And this is irrespective of his ideology. Most who live in momentous times fail to recognize them as such. It is a matter of perspective...one can’t see the forest for the trees. A folk axiom about boiling a frog is also appropriate. The frog will jump out of a hot pot. On the other hand, incremental increases go unnoticed until the frog is cooked just the same. If history is a guide, momentous times are very much like that; almost imperceptible to those living in them.

Examples

Global warming is one example. Historical revisionism is another. In a word, history is being rewritten, or falsified, as we speak. To justify this or that ideology, an alteration of history is not just inappropriate, it is deception. Conservatives who hew to Scriptures are under strict command against this. “You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it.” Deuteronomy 4:2. This does not conflate our republic with the kingdom of God, but politically speaking we do continue to witness wholesale revision of American heritage as all manner of apocrypha are appended and numerous chapters are removed. This is destructive of our core unity.

To defend against that, conservatives must individually take up the study of our nation’s foundation, of our documentary evidence. Only a well-informed public can brace against contextual erosion under revisionism. If the foundation is undermined, the superstructure cannot stand. The left has been far more “creative” in its revisions, but the extreme right has its own as well. Often alleged in environmental issues, for example, is that no restraints on capitalism exist regardless of how abusive it manifests itself. But was this the view of our Founding Fathers? Not if one reviews the Articles of Association, the template for the creation of our revolutionary nation.

Many a conservative will voice the sobriquet “Socialist!” at anyone who suggests regulations, or who suggests boycotts and so on. Too few are aware of the Articles of Association, which was signed October 20, 1774 about two years prior to our Declaration of Independence. The Articles bear the signatures of colonial delegates—George Washington, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, Roger Sherman, John Dickenson...and more. Capitalist controls were indeed set forth, to ward against abuse.

For example, Section 9, declares “Such as are venders of goods or merchandize will not take advantage of the scarcity of goods, that may be occasioned by this association, but will sell the same at the rates we have been respectively accustomed to do, for twelve months last past.” Section 13, declares “That all manufactures of this country be sold at reasonable prices, so that no undue advantage be taken of a future scarcity of goods.” Their concern was the well-being of their fellow Americans. If only subsequent generations followed its words!

As and aside, the Founding Fathers also envisioned an emancipation in the Articles of Association at Section 2. “We will neither import nor purchase, any slave imported after the first day of December next; after which time, we will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it.” This is contrary to the many accusations posited in our time against our forebears. Yes, it is true they did not follow through. History is what it is. But when wrongly revised to cover up or to accuse, that is no longer history. It is fiction.

Scott Copeland 

State Chairman
scott.copeland@constitutionpartytexas.org

Constitution Party Texas

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