“…I urge you to beware the temptation of pride – the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history…” – President Ronald Reagan

[Monday, September 29, 2008 Update]

I am proud that the House GOP refused to ratify socialism today and that 100+ democrats jack-slapped the Speaker and the one.

Conservatives did not declare themselves “above it all” and we should respect also the Republicans that voted with the Democrats for the bail-out bill. They are not equally at fault with those Democrats that caused the crisis and who favor socialism-friendly panic prevention “solutions” like much of this law, and especially not McCain and the House Republicans (esp. Cantor and Boehner) that are responsible for Purging the bill of its most onerous Obamanations.

My original purposes in writing this column were to highlight a heretofore unknown to the blogosphere conservative writer in the State with no official nickname in the “Heart of Dixie” and her Palin-Reaganite message of duty as regards discerning the stark choice we face between an America led by an American patriotic hero named McCain vs. a lawyer without clients that can testify without taking the Fifth, named Obama, and voting accordingly Under God!

I had recently written two columns concerning the original “Paulson panic prevention proposal” (with numerous updates) and the compromise bill hammered out yesterday.

In the latter, I praise McCain and the House Republicans he publicly supported for their efforts in greatly improving upon the original Paulson proposal and the monstrosity the democrats had fashioned with socialistic add-ons after days of consultations between all parties but the conservatives.

So it is with some degree of disappointment that I see some conservative bloggers and columnists vilify our conservatives for using their great leverage in this crisis to maximum effect in engaging the Left and making the final bill more palatable, all of which took place over a 72 hour period this weekend in which the second largest bank in Charlotte was sold and world markets were threatening to crash absent “a bill.”

I hate the final bill for its Big Government response to this crisis and am confident that had conservatives controlled majorities in Congress we could have gotten a truly palatable, mostly free market remedy. In fact, we know that had we held filibuster proof majorities in the Senate from 2003-today, this Fannie Mae regulation caused crisis would not have been allowed to occur.

But, alas, we conservative republicans did not have the requisite majority and so, Senate and House dems ignore the warnings of President Bush in 2003 and McCain in 2005. Former President Clinton affirmed as much this weekend.

Have I mentioned that I also hate true crises. That I hate the fact that no money of consequence has been loaned to average home buyers nor any businesses large and small for weeks. Banks aren’t even lending to each other.

I hate market crashes that lead to Great recessions and those other bad -essions.

So, while I don’t know if this bill will work to prevent an assured hard time from becoming long hard times, nor even if I would vote for the bill, I do know that I hate scoffers.

And there is no basis for scoffing at those conservatives that vote for this bill; throwing up one’s hands and declaring oneself above it all and vilifying anyone that votes for the bill, especially given all the good work by our GOP advocates that culled so much Marxist manure from the final mimeograph.

NOTE: Lyle agreed to this update. Now to the one that inspired the whole subject for gamecock.

I was recently reminded of my favorite quote from The Gipper’s 1983 “Evil Empire” speech by a letter to the editor penned by Sherry Lyle of Athens, Alabama.

President Reagan was urging Americans to cut through the “peace” rhetoric of left-wing appeasers whose “nuclear freeze” would have locked in the Soviet Union’s military superiority in Europe; recognize the evil of the USSR that then enslaved half the globe; and, support his proposal to place intermediate range nuclear missiles in Western Europe.

Reagan continued:

While America’s military strength is important, let me add here that I’ve always maintained that the struggle now going on for the world will never be decided by bombs or rockets, by armies or military might. The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.

Whittaker Chambers, the man whose own religious conversation made him a witness to one of the terrible traumas of our time, the Hiss-Chambers case, wrote that the crisis of the Western world exists to the degree in which the West is indifferent to God, the degree to which it collaborates in communism’s attempt to make man stand alone without God.

And then he said, for Marxism-Leninism is actually the second-oldest faith, first proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with the words of temptation, “Ye shall be as gods.”

The Western world can answer this challenge, he wrote, “but only provided that its faith in God and the freedom He enjoins is as great as communism’s faith in Man.”

Lyle echoes much of Reagan’s sentiment in a different time today:

Dear Editor:

After being bombarded with political campaigning, I’ve noticed that some of us might be feeling somewhat lethargic about the upcoming election. I keep hearing two general phrases; “I’m not voting because there’s not a decent candidate.” or “I guess I’ll vote for the lesser of the evils.” To the first, what happened to “judge not, lest ye be judged”? To the second, I did not see Adolph Hitler or Idi Amin on any of my ballots.

Most of us are guilty of judging others’ morals and ethics. It seems to bring us some kind of security that we are lacking within ourselves. As for me, my worst personal decisions and actions have been due to a lack of moral fiber; my own, not those who have tried to guide or lead me.

However, no matter what values drive you in life, I feel it is our moral responsibility to vote.

Leadership begins at home. Let us not forget the ones that have gone before us, with unrelenting courage, and those that fight still to secure this scared right. Let’s not become indifferent. We need to be examples for our children and the ones that follow.

We have the luxury of living in the greatest country on earth. No man or woman can change our character, or lack of. Besides, we usually carry the best reminder around with us, in a pocket or purse, “In God We Trust.” I believe, if we put no man or woman before Him, we will remain a strong nation, no matter who thinks they’re running it! People have agendas, God reveals the way.

God bless America!

While I have always loathed scoffers, I have never been an opponent of general voter apathy. The right to vote is also the right not to vote, and much of the apathy is due to how great conditions have been in this country for most people for most all of my lifetime, despite, or in spite of, the party in power.

But, beginning with the assassination of JFK and then the McGoverite takeover of the Democratic Party, the nation lost its general agreement that politics end at the water’s edge and its general consensus on Judeo-Christian values at the national party level. I found I had to finally leave my former party and join the GOP in 2000 due to this fact and that I should have left the Dem Party 20 years earlier.

But Lyle’s message is quite different from any general attack against voter apathy. On the contrary, Lyle reflects Reagan’s call to admit the differences between the choices, and how vital it is for our nation’s continued prosperity for us to act on the fact of the stark differences. Sherry is not a political person or a journalist. She is one of the millions of patriots the beltway elites are ignorant of. She is America at its best.

John McCain is a flawed candidate. He is no Reagan, and to most conservatives, he is not even as good a choice as twice-elected, President George W. Bush. McCain has enraged conservatives with many of his policy positions and Sunday Show attacks on Republicans over the past decade.

But while there is a gap between McCain and other conservatives, there is a deep chasm between McCain and Barack Obama.

John McCain embodies the kind of patriotism that our nation, and especially our youth, desperately needs at this time. McCain showed his core when he went outside the Beltway box and chose Reaganite conservative Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

Hugh Hewitt recently wrote of an “Army of Sarahs” to describe the phenomenon of women flocking to the GOP ticket after her RNC speech, especially those women that have not previously described themselves as conservatives or republicans.

But I would point to Alabama’s Sherry Lyle and Alaska’s Palin to describe another fact: The majority in this country, of men and women, is still God-fearing center-right Reagan conservatives. There voices have been squelched in recent years given the spinelessness of many inside the beltway that get cowed by the liberal media and due to the fact that President Bush is no leader of a conservative movement and has chosen a “new tone” that refuses to call out the left for its sins in stark terms.

Many non-Alabamians and non-Alaskans confuse the postal acronyms for the respective states. (Which is AL again?) But one thing we don’t confuse are the echoes of Ronald Reagan in their respective voices.

Thank you, Ms. Lyle for reminding us of who we are; from whence we came; and, our duty on Election Day.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
Legal Editor for The Minority and HinzSight Reports
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