Republican Beliefs
Although I was raised in a Republican household, I was a skeptical senior in high school back in early 1976, and I doubted whether any Republican could correct the problems then facing the country. We had just experienced Watergate, the fall of Saigon, the first Middle Eastern oil embargo, and inflation; and the Soviet Union appeared to be on the march again in Africa, Asia and Central America. On the weekend prior to the New Hampshire primary that year, Ronald Reagan came to Peoria, Illinois to campaign, and a friend of mine talked me into going to hear him speak. We went and heard him talk in a room about the size of a large conference room with about 50 other people in attendance, many of whom had gone to college with him in Eureka, Illinois or had come down from Dixon where he had lived as a child. The experience changed the way I have looked at my country and politics ever since.
Over the last 33 years, the conservatism I embraced that night has been enlightened by the writings of Abraham Lincoln, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley, Jr., Jack Kemp, Thomas Sowell, and many others. What I learned about the conservative viewpoint is reflected in the following quotes from Goldwater and Reagan:
Goldwater wrote in 1960:
...Conservatives take account of the whole man, while the Liberals tend to look only at the material side of man’s nature. The Conservative believes that man is, in part, an economic, an animal creature; but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs and spiritual desires. What is more, these needs and desires reflect the superior side of man’s nature, and thus take precedence over his economic wants.
Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man’s spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy. ...Surely the first obligation of a political thinker is to understand the nature of man.
Reagan spoke these words in 1967 while dedicating a college library:
We have to re-examine our individual goals and aims. What do we want for ourselves and our children? Is it enough to have material things? Aren't liberty and morality and integrity and high principles and a sense of responsibility more important? The world's truly great thinkers have not pointed us toward materialism; they have dealt with the great truths and with the high questions of right and wrong, of morality and of integrity. They have dealt with the question of man, not the acquisition of things. And when civilizations have disregarded their findings, ...they have disappeared....
Someone once said that people who want to understand democracy should spend less time in the library with Aristotle and more time on buses and subways. In a way, that may be true. But to understand democracy is not necessarily to solve its problems. And I would venture to say Aristotle, and those others whom you will find not in the buses and subways, but instead in this building here, will give you more answers and more clues to the solutions of our problems than you are likely to find on the buses and subways. ...we must learn from yesterday to have a better tomorrow. ...The answers to all the problems of mankind will be found in this building by those who have the desire to find them and perception enough to recognize them. ...One of mankind's problems is that we keep repeating the same errors. For every generation some place, two plus two has added up to three, or in another place, five - four seems to elude some of us. This has happened in my generation and I predict, without smugness, it will happen to yours. ...I think that this is the significance of this library. The fact that we can use it to rechart our course, not into the great unknown, but onto paths that are clear and which, if followed, can show us how to cope with the new problems that always confront each generation and can lead us, as a people, on to continued greatness.
These thoughts were concisely restated recently by radio host, Mark Levin, when he wrote, "the Conservative is motivated to preserve and improve the civil society.
What We Share as Republicans
As members of the conservative party in this country, Republicans are committed to both the economic, and the spiritual condition of our citizens as part of our enduring mission to preserve and improve civil society. We must always remember that, as Republicans, we share so much that should unite us: we all want to preserve the institutions that have protected our liberties, to maintain a strong defense, and to allow for societal innovation; we all believe in a limited, yet effective, role for government, and in the economic principles underlying our free-market/free-trade economic system; we all believe that we must maintain a proper balance between the isolation and chaos caused by promoting unbridled liberty and the tyranny created by regimented conformity to one specific set of customs and traditions; and we all believe that the inalienable right to life includes the lives of both the child and the mother. Most importantly, we Republicans believe that Americans are the custodians of a story and an experiment that is exceptional in human history, and that must be nourished and preserved.
Each of us who call ourselves Republican are independent-minded, so we also hold dear certain ideas with which others in our party may disagree, but we can no longer allow these disagreements to divide us. Instead, we must recommit ourselves to the principles we share. Long ago, James Madison and George Mason warned us that to preserve our liberties we would have to engage in "frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." I believe now is one of those times.
The Fundamental Principles to Apply to Local Challenges
Over the years I have distilled the following principles that guide my political viewpoints and judgments, and I want to share them with you to help us focus on those principles that unite us:
The proposition of the Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...," is the fundamental ideal for the organization of human societies. This fundamental ideal was derived from more than three millennia of human experience, and the preservation of this fundamental ideal is a duty passed to each generation of Americans.
This fundamental ideal is rooted in the rules of basic morality-reflected in the story of the Good Samaritan and the Golden Rule-that provide the basis for true and lasting equality: we should strive to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, which requires that we treat our neighbors as we ourselves want to be treated.
Although government is necessary to secure and preserve our fundamental ideal, governments can't and won't love your neighbor. Only people can love their neighbors through their active involvement in the life of their neighborhoods. Our ancestors fought and died to free their lives and wills from the control of a State and an anointed class, but they never intended for us to be independent and isolated from each other.
By promoting liberty, morality, integrity, and a sense of responsibility for ourselves and our fellow man, we continue to develop the character traits of justice, moderation, frugality, and virtue needed by each individual to practice the forbearance, love, mercy and charity towards each other necessary to form and maintain lasting neighborhoods.
The original constitutional structures of checks-and-balances and Federalism, fortified by the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment, were designed to promote and secure the development of such neighborhoods of free people, without which true liberty will perish.
I am a proud Republican, because I believe the GOP is the only political party in this country, and in the Western world, that recognizes and promotes these principles. We must regain the courage of our convictions to promote these principles to respond to our local challenges here in Harris County.
