4 Causes 4 Conservatives & Capitalists

By Laura Crockett

What makes sense? A constant political struggle; or working to change the way the American voter thinks? What happens after we, the present generation, pass? Will our children and then grandchildren love the Constitution, or will they be victims of leftist brainwashing? How do we prevent the negative attitude about our culture? There are the questions Laura Crockett answers in her book. Change, she tells conservatives, libertarians and independents, must last longer than than political cycles. To make a real difference, the future generations must be affected now. How? By taking on one of the 4 Causes: education, entertainment, preservation and religions outside the box.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laura Crockett
• Release date: Mar 9, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458124449

Laura Crockett

Laura Crockett is the author of nine books and four plays. In her spare time she writes sonnets in early modern English. She is a speaker and storyteller. Laura is also a producer of live events including theater and music concerts. She has produced three videos and one spoken word project.Currently, Laura’s focus is on America’s future. Her newest book, 4 Causes 4 Conservatives & Capitalists encourages conservatives and libertarians, without attention to party affiliation, to become involved in one of the 4 Causes: education, entertainment, preservation and religions outside the box. Her next book is also on the future. Its subject will be applying the ancient wisdom to our present-day challenges. Everything we need to know, or so Laura thinks, is already there, in the old myths. We only need to pay attention.

Book preview

4 Causes 4 Conservatives & Capitalists

By Laura Crockett

Smashwords Edition Copyright©2011 Laura Crockett

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the expressed written permission of the author. Brief quotations embodied in reviews or critical articles are permissible. For further information, please contact the author.

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http://www.politicalhowl.com

ISBN:

This book is dedicated to the two thinkers

who have influenced me a great deal:

Ayn Rand and Stephan Hoeller.

Also by Laura Crockett

Books

Trippingly on the Tongue

Words of Course

Creating Personas

The Booke of Betrothal

Weddings for Lords & Ladies

Speaking the Speeche

Getting Noticed

Wedding Ceremonies for the Historically Inclined

The Ghosts of Princeton Battlefield

Plays

American Revolution!

A Matter of Friendship

Andalucia

Ghosts of Princeton Battlefield

Table of Contents

Preliminaries

Cause I: Education

Cause II: Entertainment & the Arts

Cause III: Preservation

Cause IV: Religions Outside the Box

Suggested Reading

The Bible. King James Version

Codevilla, Angelo, M. The Character of Nations, Harper Collins, 2009

The Constitution of the United States of America

Fischer, David Hackett. Albion’s Seed, Oxford University Press, 1989

_____________, Liberty and Freedom, Oxford University Press, 2004

The Gnostic Bible. Willis Barnstone and Marvin Meyer, editors, New Seeds, London, 2006

Hoeller, Stephan A. Gnosticism, New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing, Quest Books, 2002

______________, Freedom; Alchemy for a Voluntary Society, Quest Books, 1992

Homer-Dixon, Thomas. The Upside of Down, Island Press, 2006

Jacobs, Jane, The Death and Life of American Cities, Vintage Press, 1992

Martin, Sean. The Cathars, Chartwell Books, 2005

McCusker, John L. & Menard, Russell R., The Economy of British America, University of North Carolina Press, 1985

Ovid, Metamorphoses, translated by David Raeburn, Penguin Books, 2004

Tyler, Royall. The Contrast, Project Gutenberg

Wallerstein, Judith S., Lewis, Julia M., Blakeslee, Sandra. The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, Hyperion, 2000

Preliminaries

In taking the brute and savage for a model in their efforts to lop off the excrescences of civilization, men laid a destroying hand upon much that was the fruit of an ascending process of development which must be measured in myriads of years

—Theodor Gomperz

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

—Pogo (Walt Kelly)

This book is about preserving our civilization and culture. As I write this we are in the midst of an upheaval, the economy is nasty and the government, through the Patriot Act, is stripping away our natural rights. Conservatives, independents and libertarians understand that we have huge troubles. Even the liberals are aware of the intrusiveness of the Patriot Act that has set policies in place that many American find abhorrent. I speak of the strip-search x-ray machines at airports and pat downs of passengers. Unless these practices are halted, look for even more invasive searches of our physical persons in the name of our security.

Such practices are not to be tolerated, and yet many find them a necessity if we are going to fly safely. How anyone who is a conservative can justify such measures is beyond my understanding. To that conservative I say, check your moral compass, it may be pointed more toward the population control measures favored by the left than by the preservers of American culture. Because the bedrock of American culture is our Constitution and the Bill of Rights attached to it. We are to be secure in our persons and in our property. That is the only security we are guaranteed! What sort of conservative would go along with such an unpleasant thing as the Patriot Act? Perhaps a neo conservative, that thing that enjoys the world according to the ruling class?

Our most beloved American civilization is under assault by the ruling class. Who or what is the ruling class? That group of people who think of themselves as a chosen people, set up by their god to dictate to We the People just how would should live, what rights we should enjoy and how much of our money we can keep. It is for them to know and for us to be happy with our lot in life. The ruling class spans both the left and right, from Wilson to Obama and from Teddy Roosevelt to Bush. All those men, and most in between, along with their followers among their class, thought they knew what was best for the American people. Unfortunately too many Americans agreed with, and participated in, their programs. Thus the troubles we enjoy today began many generations back.

As Pogo said, We have met the enemy and he is us. I want to help turn that around to, We have met our savior and he is us. We cannot do this work of saving ourselves from the calamity we face if we do nothing or try simple political solutions. Because we have seen over, and over, what voting in a conservative has done for us: gotten us into deeper doodoo. Though on November 2 of 2010 a large turnover in Congress sent a message that citizens are indeed concerned enough to make, at least and at last, a change in some of the legislative and administrative personnel. The conservatives and Tea Party members vow to make an even bigger change in the personnel by sending President Obama his walking papers. Since polls now indicate Obama may not be sent walking by the voters in 2012, we, and I refer to fiscal conservatives, social conservatives of both parties, independents, libertarians and constitutionalists, may find ourselves, once again, having to work extremely hard to find like-minded voters to vote for the men and women we know to be true to our American principles of small, non-interfering government and a free market. The question I pose to you, and the answers that are to follow in the 4 Causes, address this constant up and down and back and forth that we Americans have been living through for the past 100 years. Don’t you think it’s enough already? We live longer lives now and we don’t just read about our economic downturns and our wars, we live through them. My mother, at 86, has lived through three economic meltdowns and through three presidents that bungled the recovery. I have lived through two housing bubbles and two economic meltdowns with two presidents that are, well, ignorant. (I am being polite.)

The point I make is this: The solutions we strive for are political and political remedies are short term. This is so because politicians are subject to corruption. They are only human. The very sphere of politics is about the tugs of power, the dynamics of the push and pull in the fight for the power to control. Politicians can be tempted. They can be persuaded to hold fast to the power they so enjoy. Once tasted, a human being has a tendency to want to indulge his power because his appetite for it grows with each helping. Because power is so very delicious to a certain type of personality, and it is that type of person that runs for office. So We the People must be very careful about whom we elect and when we elect them. In the past we have not been very good about throwing the bums out. We have tolerated too much and been too lazy to see corruption for what it is. Too many of our fellow voters no longer refer to the citizen representative. We think instead of electing an experienced politician. Those experienced politicians are the very individuals that have a tendency to corruption.

Politicians ought to be turned out of office every decade. As voters we do not need to invite back elected representatives until they have spent a decade making a living like us regular folks do. That is what is meant by citizen representative. In our democratic republic we absolutely need real people to tackle our real problems, not issues manufactured for the sake of favoring certain businesses (crony capitalists) or promoting favorite causes that lead to political power. Which means the electorate needs to wise up, to understand things within context of our culture, not some other context of an alien culture. We do not need to be multicultural. We need to be steeped in our liberty loving ways so well that we can easily teach that culture to newcomers. I will argue that the real definition of a Patriot is a person who loves his culture, because it is within that context that our ideas regarding liberty spring. Other cultures do not have that respect for freedom and that desire to be free as we do. In those cultures, the individual is there for the use of the ruling class and its vision of what life is to be like. Therefore why show respect in our nation for those cultures that would see us enslaved?

Let’s be clear about what I mean when I say, culture. Culture is a civilization’s expression of itself. Culture is language, images, statuary, buildings, philosophy and a body of knowledge that is passed down, one generation to the next. My argument is that one culture can be better than the next. My criteria are simple. When a culture is known for elevating the individual on this material plane that is an advanced culture. When a culture encourages self-expression, that is a culture worth preserving. A culture that speaks of having no fear or to overcome fear, to explore, to look beyond the next hill, to climb mountains, to wander through the stars, here is a culture that is worthy of the pride many of us take in it. The United Stares of America is, and I say this with full awareness that the Progressives will hate me for it, the highest expression of Western Civilization. Let me repeat that. The United States is worth our blood.

If you don’t think this nation is worth your effort, keep tuned in to that TV. Don’t bother to vote and there is no point to reading this book. This book is a call to action. I will ask you to educate yourself, to write letters and emails, to donate your time and money, to join organizations, yes, to infiltrate them, to go out on a limb, to write that play you’ve always wanted to, to attend the theater, to hobnob with art lovers and even invite artists to give demonstrations of their work at your church. I do this because I get around in the preservationist, artistic worlds and I want to see more conservatives and libertarians there with me. Come on down, I tell you, to walk the city streets where gorgeous old buildings reign supreme as a testament to our fabulous capitalistic system. Wander the old battlefields with me where our soldiers put their sweat into the creation of this nation and their blood into the ground. Let’s attend a play that addresses the great primary issues of life, or a movie that expresses an attitude that elevates human behavior. Let us educate the younger generations in the subjects that made Western Civilization and America the nations that investigated and then made possible the idea that all men are created equal. Let’s ponder the reasons why so many folks leave religion behind to stay in bed on a Sunday morning. For politics will not make the difference if we don’t make a difference in the voter. He and she are the ones that vote with their attitudes and their belief systems. It their attitudes are against America, so too will their vote be. If their beliefs have been formed by people that dislike America’s traditions and vision of small government and free markets, then those votes will be for big government and fascism or socialism. Therefore, to return the Untied States to its original vision, the culture needs fine tuning. The question is, who will do the tuning?

Illegal aliens or illegal culture?

I have always been a believer that, When in Rome do as the Romans. The reverse is true. When in the United States, do as we Americans do. Live free and prosper. Be self-reliant and under the thumb of no one. Instruct your representative. He or she shall not instruct you. Be responsible with your liberty; make your contribution to the civilization by voting, sweeping your own street, educating your children and lending a helping hand to those less fortunate. Be virtuous in your dealings with all human beings. Pay your taxes, but protest when government becomes onerous. Live openly by living within the laws. If you do not like the laws, work to change them. Enjoy life as you have that right to pursue your happiness as you see fit. But, you do not have the right to force someone else to pay for it. We are created equal in rights, but not equal in ability or drive. That is a part of the variety of life that gives it the spice.

The Founders were able to pull this nation together from a shared culture. Most of them were descendants of people that migrated from the British Isles, which is Britain (England, Scotland, Wales) and Northern Ireland. That is why English was the common tongue. Included in the mix were other Western Europeans, especially from Germany, Holland and France. The common reason given for the first wave of pilgrims is that they came here for religious freedom. That explanation is too broad. They came for the freedom to practice their religion as a community, but within that community, the rules were strict and punishment sure if one diverted off the path as set up by the fathers of these religious communities The pilgrims were diverse, with Separatists and Puritans in the North, Quakers in the middle and Anglicans and Catholics in the South. It’s what gave the original 13 colonies their distinct flavors.

What all the various religious groups had in common is that they had escaped threatened or actual violence in their home country. The practice of migrating was labor intensive. To pick up one’s belongings, literally stock and barrel, and place them and the entire family on a ship to a land very few had laid eyes on took not only courage but a bit of desperation as well. These first immigrants were the beginnings of a long line of folks that held to a hope that things would be better somewhere else. Ever since those intrepid voyagers of the early seventeenth century set foot on our eastern shores, they set the pattern for hundreds of years to come. We still see that pattern. Be it a wait of years to enter legally or the impatience to just crossing over, the immigrants keep coming. No other nation can claim this flattering dilemma.

The vast wave of immigration has begun to flood the system in a way that could not have been foreseen by our Founders or the writers of the fourteenth amendment. When the nation was formed back in the eighteenth century, the culture was, for the most part, shared. The immigrants were westerners, that is, from civilizations of the West. When immigrants arrived who did not speak English, they soon learned the language or enough of it to get along. There were communities that kept to their own original language, but it was not expected for an English speaker to adapt to the German speaker’s language. Indeed, during the American Revolution there were German speaking units that fought side-by-side their English speaking comrades. The German speaking units had officers that spoke English and could translate the commands and battle orders. No American officer thought to learn German. Official documents were not written in German or French or whatever. It was do