Rudy undeserving of conservative support

By Krista Kafer (krista555@msn.com) Since putting his hat in the ring for president, Mayor Rudy Giuliani has attempted to appease pro-lifers by saying 1) he does not support taxpayer funding of abortion, 2) he is committed to appointing conservative judges, and 3) he personally opposes abortion. In a CNN interview this week, Giuliani’s true convictions came to light and they are rather the opposite of earlier placations.

Giuliani plainly admitted he supports taxpayer funding of abortion. Moreover he sees abortion as an entitlement. Giuliani told the reporter “If it would deprive someone of a constitutional right. If that's the status of the law, yes,” he supports taxpayer funding. In other words, the Constitution entitles women to abortion and if they cannot afford it, we, the taxpayers must pay for it.

This reading of the Constitution is diametrically opposed to that of conservative judges, the kind that Giuliani promises to appoint. Conservative judges believe in inaliable or natural rights not entitlements. They believe as did the writers of the Constitution, that individual rights – namely life, liberty, and property come from God. The purpose of government is to protect natural rights - not to confer additional rights or entitlements. Entitlements are opposed to natural rights. In order to entitle one individual to a good or service, the government must deprive another of their property rights to pay for it.

Given his support for entitlements, Giuliani is likely to appoint activist judges who share his view of the Constitution and will work to secure additional entitlements rather than uphold natural rights.

The CNN interview exposed another attitude at odds with conservative jurisprudence – legal positivism. Giuliani said he supports taxpayer funding of abortion “If that's the status of the law...” In other words, as long as abortion is deemed constitutional, he’ll support taxpayer funding for it. In the positivist view, law is divorced from its moral underpinnings. A positivist never questions whether the law is just, he merely enforces it, however unjust or arbitrary.

Senator Stephen Douglas, for example, though he personally disliked slavery, supported the Dred Scott Decision, because the court had ruled it so. In the positivist view, human rights are not inalienable, they are given by the state which can take them away just as easily. The positivist judges Giuliani will likely appoint will not only uphold Roe v Wade denying the God-given right to life, but may deny other constitutionally-protected rights as well.

It does not matter that Giuliani says he “hates abortion” – a hollow sentiment indeed. If abortion is not the taking of a human life, what’s to hate? If not a child, than the procedure is no more hate-worthy than bunion surgery. If, however, it is a human life, then there is a moral and legal obligation to protect it. Like Douglas, Giuliani lacks a commitment to alienable human rights, a deficiency no amount of personal discomfort can allay.

The millions Giuliani will spend of our money to fund abortion while he is in office will be the least of his legacy. His judges, who like him deny natural rights in favor of entitlements and positivism, will do damage to the nation long after Giuliani has left office.

Must a conservative believe in God?

“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” - Theodore Roosevelt

What is at the core of a conservative philosophy? There is some debate as to whether you must believe in God (or in revealed Truth) to be a conservative. A few months ago Heather Mac Donald began a discussion in the online pages of National Review where she contends that religious beliefs and religious arguments actually harm the conservative cause.

I’ve stepped away from this blog for a while, but while I have been absent I have been able to do a lot of thinking about what it means to be conservative, and whether I am conservative, and what, if anything, being a conservative has in common with being a Republican.

I have discovered something- the first thing really; I am a Christian. And my belief provides, among other things, a foundation on which my political perspective is built. I think Mac Donald is right to say that you don’t have to believe in a God to be a conservative. Perhaps one could say that belief in God and conservative principles are not inextricably linked; certainly the many evangelical and mainline Christians that have adopted liberal positions on issues such as poverty, education and, more recently, global warming (www.sojo.net) provide ample evidence of that.

Mac Donald contends that knowledge of history and an assessment of human nature provide an ample framework for conservative philosophy. However, I would assert that, at the minimum, one has to believe in, or give difference to, a transcendent moral code in order to be conservative. And I find that Christian faith goes far beyond the minimum framework necessary for my political philosophy.

It is my belief in that framework, in addition to my observation of history and human nature, that has prompted my conclusion that we must conserve the heritage of the Judeo-Christian nation we live in. The moral framework provided by Christian beliefs provides a foundation for Western society and for conservative political thought, but it is not exclusively conservative, it is the foundation for society, the rule of law and for our nation’s founding documents.

I am Christian, but because I am Christian does not necessarily mean that I am politically conservative. In fact, to tie the two too closely together is to do disservice to both.

As I ponder this topic I find myself looking much further back at what I believed, and how that affected who I was and what I did, and I came to the conclusion that in order to know which way to go, I needed to know where I had been.

So I am embarking on a series of blogs that I hope will explore the central core of what I believe, what a conservative is, whether that philosophy is necessarily tied to the Republican party, and what course is best plotted as we consider the future of the conservative philosophy. To be continued...

Boycott makes no friends

By Krista Kafer (krista555@msn.com) I am pro-legal immigration. My great grandparents were immigrants after all. I could become a squish on illegal immigration. I know from a friend’s experience how hard it is for a decent, hard-working person to come here legally. The barriers are too high even for those with skills and job offers. I understand the temptation to come here illegally. I can feel myself drift toward supporting amnesty legislation championed by President Bush and Senator Ted Kennedy. What snaps me back? The entitlement attitude voiced by immigration activists sends me running to the border of immigration enforcement policy.

Entitlement sounds like “we’re breaking the law and proud of it,” “we deserve to be here,” “I won’t learn English,” “How dare you enforce the law,” and so on. We heard it loud and clear during last year’s marches.

Sometimes actions speak louder than words. This week, according to the Denver Post, illegal immigrants are boycotting Colorado businesses. With the exception of food and medicine, they won’t spend a dime. The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, the leader of the boycott, told the Post, "The economic boycott will illustrate the need for immigration reform and that without immigrants, both documented or undocumented, our state could not survive. We can no longer take for granted immigrants and their contributions.” Apparently their contribution entitles them to be here even though they are breaking the law.

This entitlement mentality should worry Americans. It begins with “I’m entitled to be here.” Next it’s “I’m entitled to government benefits.” By contrast, my great grandparents were grateful to be here. They did not feel entitled to anything. My great grandmother worked as a maid and cook for a doctor in town while her husband farmed the land. They learned English. Their children, my grandparents, worked the land as sharecroppers before moving to Colorado to work in Commerce City’s factories. They were all about hard work. They never took government handouts. They only felt entitled to what they earned with their own hands.

There are a lot of immigrants and their descendants who embody these American values. It would benefit the country to make legal immigration easier for hard-working, self-reliant people. As for those who feel entitled to break the law, it would be best if they boycotted this country altogether.

'Easy Bill' learns on the job

(Andrews in Denver Post, Mar. 18) Big Labor is furious at the Colorado law making it hard for union bosses to collect dues from workers unwilling to join. A bill to remove that protection flew through the legislature, only to die on Gov. Bill Ritter’s desk. Now the AFL-CIO threatens to run the Democratic convention out of Denver unless their pickpocket proposal is revived. Ritter says he won’t be bullied, but stay tuned. Remember that our new chief executive, Kerry-style, was for the labor bill before he was against it. The battle for the governor’s soul, on this and many other issues, has barely begun.

Bill Ritter has the great political gift of not seeming like a politician. Yet unlike his predecessors – from Republicans John Love and John Vanderhoof, through fellow Democrats Dick Lamm and Roy Romer and down to the recently departed Bill Owens – this governor has skillfully marketed himself with a slogan, Kennedy-style: the Colorado Promise. Nice work for a rookie.

The trouble with a slogan is that it will stick you if you don’t stick to it. Ritter’s honeymoon ended when two inconvenient truths came out. First it transpired, to the dismay of business, the press, and the public, that the candidate had given his union allies a quiet pledge to support the controversial bill. Then it was labor’s turn for an unpleasant surprise, as Ritter yielded to the outcry, broke his word, and cast a veto. Gov. Promise was damaged goods overnight.

According to KOA’s Mike Rosen, we who labeled this a rookie mistake should lose our pundit licenses. He calls the veto a masterstroke, demonstrating Ritter’s integrity and positioning him as a bipartisan triangulator, Clinton-style. I don’t buy that. The governor narrowly escaped a trap of his own making. Blaming the mess on inexperience is generous, if anything. Maybe it reveals an artful dodger behind the disarming smile – again, think Bill Clinton.

As with any betrayal in love or war, trust took a beating in this episode, and it won’t soon be restored. The saber-rattling by labor over DNC 2008 proves that. Business does not signal its displeasure by threats of kneecapping, but you know the chamber types are equally suspicious and sore at Ritter. When the big fella from Credibility Gap starts in with his “promise” rhetoric, eyes now roll on both sides of the aisle.

Somewhere in all this melodrama, a nickname waits our nimble-footed governor. “Switch Ritter” was the inspired suggestion of my radio partners, Krista Kafer and Joshua Sharf. Another we might try for size is “Easy Bill.” Think of all the ways that one applies.

Labor found Bill agreeable to a whispered signature promise, business equally so to a loudly demanded veto. He had an easy path to nomination last summer and to election last fall; only this winter did the price of insufficient vetting come due. The campaign did reveal that back in his prosecutor days, Easy Bill was quick with a plea bargain – and frequently even gentle with illegal-alien felonies. But how he eased his way home from Africa after that driving fatality, was never much discussed.

An easier life for Coloradans is foreseen in Ritter’s policy promises, if you share his preference for government solutions at the expense of personal responsibility and free markets. For a lot of us, though, Easy Bill’s premise invalidates his promise. Increased command and control over energy, health care, education, and transportation may not lead to a better future after all.

Our state will see between now and 2011, because that’s the Ritter route, the path the voters chose. We’ll also see whether or not his inaugural words, “The Colorado Promise is… about finding the strength in all of us,” bespeak an inner core of strength and principle in Easy Bill himself.

CPAC time capsule, 1985-2007

By Melanie Harmon (harmon.melanie@gmail.com)

"With conservative thought accepted as mainstream thought and with the people of our country leading the fight to freedom, now we must move." - Ronald Reagan, CPAC 1985

What else does a movement do, after all? It moves! That seems so obvious, yet at CPAC 2007 earlier this month, I had to wonder if our conservative movement has somehow lost the inspiration and the urgency of President Reagan's rallying cry to us back in the day.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. CPAC, if you didn't know, is the Conservative Political Action Conference. Over the last 34 years, the event has become a conservative tradition for members of the movement to come to Washington DC, share ideas, and forge relationships. The weekend of March 1-3 was no exception to that tradition -- another productive and exciting weekend at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.

Four years ago, I first attended CPAC when I was a student at the University of Denver. Along with many other young conservatives around the nation, I went to further my education of conservative principles and to network with all those who shared my values.

CPAC is heavily targeted toward students, though many other attendees are those who have been dedicated to the conservative movement since the beginning. The event is one of the few opportunities for conservatives of all generations to come together in the same setting and share their mutual values.

Every year, the conference organizes several training seminars, hosts a job fair and a trade show of every conservative organization from the Leadership Institute to Students for Saving Social Security. The environment fosters teamwork and relationships and lays the groundwork for young conservatives to become involved in the movement and perhaps stay interested for their years after college.

The largest part of CPAC is the vast array of fabulous speakers. During the 1970s and 80s, the most notable speaker was Ronald Reagan. His presence at the conference in those early years no doubt raised the bar for all of the years that followed him.

The education and training of young conservatives (and those who are not necessarily young but hope to make a difference in the movement) is especially important in these heady times. Democrats are in control of Congress and progressive ideas seem to flood our culture like a tidal wave wiping out an entire island. Conservative young people do exist, and it's vital that we as their peers do all we can to teach them how to win and stay principled.

That brings us to my time capsule. In 1985, President Reagan's speech at CPAC highlighted the fact that conservatives won brilliantly in the 1980s because they stayed true to their staunch principles.

"I believe we conservatives have captured the moment, captured the imagination of the American people," said Reagan. "What are we to do with our success? With conservative thought accepted as mainstream thought and with the people of our country leading the fight to freedom, now we must move."

The fact that conservative thought was mainstream still remains, more than 20 years later, but the difference is that conservatives have lost sight of their original vision and have stopped moving altogether.

Speakers at this year's CPAC included campaign messages from most of the Republican presidential nominations, legal insights from lawyers and commentary from journalists like Amanda Carpenter and a banquet with Vice President Dick Cheney. The entire event was inspiring and motivating.

But if Reagan were to speak at this event today, he would note that the movement has seriously lost the interest of the American people, and he would strongly be encouraging us to do get things moving once again.

Reagan warned in the 1985 speech that the movement would be a passing phase. If we are to keep sight of our traditional values and remain the party of mainstream America, we mustn't let the movement slip out of our hands.

That is the sole purpose of CPAC. Six thousand conservatives came together this past weekend to show that they are not alone in their views and that the movement is far from a trend. We must continue to educate our young people and show them as much support as possible. That is the only way to regain the attention of the American people.

CPAC is about a lot more than just students. Any true conservative can attend and I would strongly encourage those who have never been to go next year. You will come back motivated, energized and ready to take on the liberals who want to crush everything you stand for. The only way we can keep America's attention is to first give attention to the future of our own ideas.