The Young Conservatives meeting took place Tuesday, May 6th at 7p.m. at Planet Sub on South National. There was good attendance, but please keep coming! The summer is busy but in nearly one month, we should be through the issues discussions and ready to re-hash our ideas and platform to present to the public. Following that, we will be able to relay Conservative Change and hopefully effect the next election cycle and breed strong Conservative Leaders.
The following is some verbatim discussion and commentary, but please take note of the additional forum posts for specific elaboration on the issues.
RIGHTS and LIBERTIES...what’s the difference?
We have liberties defined for us in the constitution..how do we feel about the mindset of the rights we think we have?
W:we have the rights to what we want to obtain what we want to have
V:if we have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we are right
There is a difference between positive rights and the rights to do wrong things: i.e. the right to get an abortion vs. the right to vote….rights do not have to be paid for or granted by the government
G: when it says’ inaliable’ the word is unwinnable, which means we cannot give the right up. It is not possible to place a lien on that right if it is granted by god and it is not something that anyone can take away. Of course, current governments do take that away from us, but rights are something that no one can take away from you…though some do by force….this is where our founding fathers got the idea of rights/…the Bible….I have a right to vote:NOT TRUE….it is a privilege. We have the PRIVELEGE to do things, but rights are inherent…a PRIVELEGE DEFINE!!!
John: a right to an action is something that I do and have the right to do.
M: the attack on our second amendment makes it easier to infringe on our rights if seized from us by the goverment…an attempt to disarm someone makes it easier to control free speech and free thought stemming from freethinking individuals, and so the second amendment attacks are the first in a line to remove our defense….what is our counter?
Nick: a good idea would be to take not hours, but pick apart the amendments on the forum. Is the first amendment, second, etc. important and are we 250 years passed due.
V: something worth remembering, with writing to back this up….the founding fathers did not believe that the constitution would still exist more or less unchanged 200 years later and that’s why there are provisions for changes withing that document. That the states would get together on a regular basis to reneg the contract was understood, but it has not happened 200 years ago. We have discussed supreme court justices but will come back to it.
There is particular issue with a history book being introduced in a school here and I wish a good conservative would have spoken out, but really, I think the front line that protects our children is very thin and remember that part of what we do is to ignite people the way obama has….what are the words and illustrations we have that can get people out of the house and on their feet to act?! Remember what the goal is here. Having said that,
Nick: rights are something you can pursue as a self-interest. Everybody will define freedom in a different way. Going back to burning the flag, I think it is despicable but that I have the right to punch one in the face if they do so. Are we willing to fight for a state, nation and community that has the freedoms we seem to be losing?
D: If you have to fight for something, you fight for good versus bad. There is a moral and sound ideology for our rights and we are not just fighting for a person’s rights, but it is what it is?
V: we have got to formulate a statement and this may be the cornerstone to the argument. What is a conservative really? This is bedrock of our ideology. What are our rights? What are our liberties? What are our obligations? I have the right to …..fulfill my destiny, do all I can within my life to succeed. Last meeting we threw the word “empowerment out” so the whole idea of Conservativism is the power of being able to start a ‘brushfire’.
New: the historical context is interesting…people who came here were from stratified societies….tey looked down on those below them and up to those above them…because there was no one to say that we could or couldn’t we found liberty and were so intoxicated that they didn’t need the ‘want’…that liberty bought them more than the security of the stratification. Liberty is the best guarantor of the pursuit and success of getting what we want.
DEFINE RIGHTS:Entitlements to certain kinds of treatment, based on one's status. The modern Western tradition is one of natural rights, in which each person is born with certain rights as a human being. Other rights are acquired by virtue of contract or ownership.
DEFINE LIBERTIES: The condition of being free from restriction or control.
The right and power to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one's own choosing. The condition of being physically and legally free from confinement, servitude, or forced labor.
DEFINE FREEDOM:ability to act freely: a state in which somebody is able to act and live as he or she chooses, without being subject to any undue restraints or restrictions
DEFINE ENTITLEMENT:to give (a person or thing) a title, right, or claim to something; furnish with grounds for laying claim
It is a very compelling argument to say that ‘don’t’ you feel you have the RIGHT to medical care, a good job…….’ And for someone that does nothing but watch American Idol, we can’t be too esoteric, but have to have the antidote, and so as much as they are lulled into entitlements, we have to make people realize that liberty is intoxicating and that we are willing to have no more want in their lives because of the significant freedom we have. i.e. the asian culture that is coming here has a hard time breaking out of a caste system. India and asia will not really get out of this
When empowerment vs. provision…when responsibility vs. corporate okays, …..we draw an argument with our propensity and there are good arguments on why we prefer one side over another.
G: a lot of popular motivation in politics ought to have a platform with personal distinction, we can’t beat something with nothing….we have to provide options.
FREE MARKET PHILOSOPHY
Government does it poorly, wastefully, irresponsibly
How long did it take for the contract with America to fall apart? It was a great mantra to get people elected, but how long did they adhere to those tenants….we didn’t hold our feet to the fire…
ETERNAL VIGILANCE IS THE PRICE OF LIBERTY
We cannot convert the whole of America, but the good news is that in a federal election, only half of the people vote, so really all we need to worry about is reaching 30 percent of America and that makes the task entirely less daunting. When it comes to the issue of free market philosophy. How many people feel that we need limited involvement in the federal free market society? (almost majority for free market completeness) if we are going to attract the general public, are we comfortable with the entire government in a free market? You see a perceived injustice in the economy. It’s easy to attach ETOH to a perception that the government wasn’t moving fast enough to move the economy so we had to give it a kick. Our government does need to have limited involvement in the economy.
The creeping incrementalism of the government in the economy is like SOCIALISM. It’s just north of the border…inch by inch we will become socialists. The government keeps taking a little bit more, but insurance is a good example. Claims and central entities are hard to deal with, so now each state in Canada has insurance that they buy from the state.
One of the free market words is innovation. When you disassemble the free market, you kill the desire to innovation….like Russia, they have to do something to increase themselves or people become placid, flaccid and apathetic and innovation is dead and free markets die.
Anytime you enter into a partnership with the government, they become automatically the senior parter and shareholder. Where do we want to compromise how much power we surrender to the government? Will the government still be the senior partner?
DEFINE FREE MARKET:trading without government control: an economic system in which businesses operate without government control in matters such as pricing and wage levels
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: EQUALITY VS. OPPORTUNITY
Is affirmative action a right or liberty? Could it also be ‘constitutional originalism’? do we look at the constitution with subjective or objective eyes? If we are putting together a national platform…what if we approach diversity by saying that we do not want affirmative action?
B: as a grandson of a prominent black man in this area, I saw the benefits of hard work and labor. To the black community, if you talk to the educated portion of the society, it is a vital topic of conversation…black people want to be recognized by their accomplishments…..your skin is your sin or your skin gets you in. affirmative action stomps the need or want based on the need for praise. Affirmative action is offensive when it becomes a cash cow for a college, an employer, and I have to ask if it was my talents that got me places or was it my ‘whoring out’ to a college that got me leveraged in society. Bush never brought this to the table…..
It has not been brought to the table since Barry Goldwater (1960s)
If you were put a black man in a private room way from influences and asked them what they want most, they will say they want to be treated fairly, that skin color not be a stigma. I have great disappointment with the GOP, Bush garnered 7% of the black vote, but the Black Panthers sat down with the Young Republicans and then got larger in 2004. After 2004, the conversation died, though not completely. “It is no secret that blacks are just as, if not more than, conservative as republican whites”…..you HAVE to appeal to self-worth, but never in conversation does it haveto appeal to self-worth, but we have to sit back and consider that the other half of the community has to be concerned. Half of us are capitalizing on the shame of affirmative action and some people, meanwhile, have to be told to think and act a certain way to capitalize in this society.
WHEN CONSERVATIVES TALK , they must emphasize SELF-WORTH
Self-worth boils down to establishing the uniqueness of every single person and what they can offer to society….this is a basic decanting of the issues that we’ve been talking about at hand….over the course of the last two meetings, this one being one of those, several things have come to the surface. One thing is EMPOWERMENT and the other is SELF-WORTH. To be able to argue and build in elements of self-worth and the right to be empowered in that worth, to be better than being a domesticated Ferrell hog, we need the power to break free and really attain liberty that was original. You don’t need an affirmative action case to prove that life is harder for some and more regulated sometimes. Affirmative action is devisive.
On a personal note, I invite you to come to the next meeting, which should be Tuesday, May 20th. Please bring a friend. Also, the Missouri Republican Assembly will be meeting Saturday, May 17th. Stay tuned for more information on that meeting. We need to meld with the Right Side to recentralize the core Conservative values in our society.
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