We have heard a great deal lately from liberals complaining about "eight years of disastrous Republican policies." In fact, this could not be more wrong. We have actually suffered from eight years of very little in the way of conservative political principles that once were embodied in official Republican Policies. This is particularly evident when we review our federal government’s fiscal policies and practices over the past eight years. It is not a pretty picture.

We have had eight years of earmarks and profligate deficit spending. Eight years of an ever spreading and increasing Alternative Minimum Tax. Eight years of gross neglect of Social Security and Medicare despite the dire need for reform. Eight years of ignoring our continuing dependence upon hostile governments for our energy sources. Eight years of deficit spending and even, recently, a ridiculous "stimulus" bill that simply encourages even more profligate consumer spending at the expense of our children and grandchildren.

The Bush Administration began its tenure in the White House with a budget surplus and will leave an increasing deficit in its wake. How did this happen? Perhaps the best way to explain it is the lack of any genuine distinction between Republicans and Democrats in Congress when it comes to fiscal policy. More and more, it is Us (the folks paying the taxes) and Them (the people spending them freely and wanting more.) The earmarks and pork barrel spending have spiraled out of control. Despite this fact, there has been little more than lip service paid to fixing the problems inherent in major programs like Social Security and Medicare and today’s deficit makes any such fix even more challenging.

In the difficult times we now face, it is unfortunate that people are more willing to turn to Big Brother and demand action for Me and action Now. The Imperial Congress is more than willing to oblige as long as the response strengthens their hold on our lives and perpetuates the status quo.

We require what was, for a time, genuine Republican Policies, but are perhaps better identified as conservative political doctrine: lowering taxes, decreasing the interference of government in our business and personal lives, promoting capital formation and employment, living within our means as a government and as individuals, reforming Social Security to ensure the future security of young people beginning their careers and the folks retiring from theirs, promoting self-defense of one's life, family and property as a moral obligation wholly consistent with the Second Amendment and as a tenet of our nation's foreign policy, acknowledging the importance to a free society of religious freedom and the critical importance to any society of a right to life and preserving our environment. After all, it was Sir Edmund Burke who said "if I should change, let it be to preserve."

These are certainly some of the conservative ideals that became identified as genuine Republican Policies. These same ideals hold the answer to many, if not all, of the problems that now confront us as Americans. Unfortunately, the potential to recapture that vision is at a depressing low point given the choice in McCain and Obama and the self-interests of our Capitol's ruling class.

We need change all right. People are hurting from too many years of incompetent fiscal, social and energy policies implemented either through neglect (too often on the part of President Bush who failed to veto a single spending bill) or stupidity and self-interest (on the part of so-called leaders like Hastert, Lott, Pelosi and Reid as examples) or judicial fiat (Roe v. Wade). Very little offered today as a palliative will actually work. Throwing ourselves at the feet of Big Brother at the cost of individual freedom and responsibility is certainly not the answer.

Fundamental principles favoring a long term interest and based upon centuries of accumulated experience and wisdom are being discarded in favor of the modern day interest in Me and Now. We have moved from governing to serve the public interest to pandering in service of self-interest.

It is this change in how we govern our society that is the greatest threat to our individual freedoms. We must recognize that governing to serve self-interest diminishes the individual in relation to the government upon which that individual becomes increasingly dependent. Stalin understood this well when he made it so easy to divorce - one spouse simply signed a pre-printed form and the divorce was final. In this way, Stalin devised a means of decreasing the strength of the family and its ability to compete with the State as a means of security while increasing the dependence of the individual upon the State.

If only we had the ability to implement some true conservative and, what were at one time, active Republican Policies, we could arrest this process and elevate the larger interest by enabling each individual to reach their highest potential.

It is time to reclaim our Conservative Heritage. We need to reacquaint our Republican leadership with the conservative ideals that brought the GOP so much electoral success precisely because it brought our fellow citizens the hope and opportunity they need and deserve. After what has effectively been eight years of dismantling so much of what Reagan accomplished, it now appears that we are starting over - looking for the next Goldwater and hoping for the next Reagan.

If the Republican Party renews its commitment to conservative principles, we will have something worthwhile to offer the American public. If we do not, we will only participate in perpetuating the destructive political culture of Me and Now and the immense threat to individual freedom this ultimately represents.

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