Mandate for Leadership 2025-Fourth Conservative Promise
Secure Our God-Given Individual Rights to Enjoy "The Blessings of Liberty"
From a Google Image Search - Time Magazine
Isn't that sweet? Conservatives promise to take over the US Government to ensure the rights we already possess. There is that niggling question, though, how do you preserve our republic, our democracy with only one political party? Conservatives don't see a republic as quite the same thing as a democracy. A republic is ruled by a constitution. A democracy is ruled by the will of the majority. Then there is the question of what version of the US Constitution will the rules be based on. Conservatives want to trim the US Constitution back to its original form. Just a teensy problem with that-slavery is all over our original constitution so of course conservatives say that they don't mean that part, but it has taken two and a half centuries to strip the interests of slaveholders from our documents, and conservatives have spent the last decade setting these reforms back at least 50 years. Conservatives don't like that democracy means majority rule because their side is currently in the minority.
Conservatives are Republicans so they like the term "republic," but they also like that republics are ruled by a constitution and so they have been working to create a bespoke conservative US constitution. Let's see what the Heritage Foundation and friends have to say about "the blessings of liberty." The right wing has labeled laws related to public safety such as seat belt laws, masking during an airborne pandemic, vaccines to halt the progress of a disease onerous invasions of an individual's rights, while slyly passing laws that rob these same citizens of voting rights. They claim that America was settled by 'rugged individualists' who 'pull themselves up by their own bootstraps' while demonizing Americans who don't seem to be able to escape the challenges they face.
What are the proper ways to "be happy" according to the conservative way?
"PROMISE #4 SECURE OUR GOD-GIVEN INDIVIDUAL RIGHT TO ENJOY "THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY"
"The Declaration of Independence famously asserted the belief of America's Founders that "all men are created equal" and endowed with God-given rights to 'Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.' It's the last - 'the pursuit of happiness' - that is central to America's heroic experiment with self-government.
When the Founders spoke of 'pursuit of Happiness' what they meant might be understood today as in essence 'pursuit of Blessedness.' That is, an individual must be free to live as his Creator ordained - to flourish. Our Constitution grants each of us the liberty to do not what we want, but what we ought. This pursuit of the good life is found primarily in family - marriage and children, Thanksgiving dinners, and the like. Many find happiness through their work. Think of dedicated teachers or health care professionals you know, entrepreneurs or plumbers throwing themselves into their businesses - anyone who sees a job well done as a personal reward. Religious devotion and spirituality are the greatest sources of happiness around the world. Still others find themselves happiest in their local voluntary communities of friends, their neighbors, their civic or charitable work.
The American Republic was founded on principles prioritizing and maximizing individuals' rights to live their best life or enjoy what the Framers called 'the Blessings of Liberty.' It's this radical equality - liberty for all - not just rights but of authority - that the rich and powerful have hated about democracy in America since 1776. They resent American's audacity in insisting that we don't need them to tell us how to live. It's the inalienable right of self-direction - of each person's opportunity to direct himself or herself, and his or her community, to the good - that the ruling class disdains."
(Is this an argument for anarchy? Still, conservatives are insisting that liberals are the elites. did conservatives intend to benefit liberal elites when they shoved through the misnamed 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act?)
"The United States remains the most innovative and upwardly mobile society in the world. Government should stop trying to substitute its own preferences for those of the people. And the next conservative President should champion the dynamic genius of free enterprise against the grim miseries of elite-directed socialism."
(Spending our tax dollars on ourselves is not socialism. Charity is not socialism.)
"The promise of socialism - Communism, Marxism, progressivism, Fascism, whatever name it chooses - is simple: Government control of the economy can ensure equal outcomes for all people. The problem is that it has never done so. There is no such thing as 'the government.' There are just people who work for the government and wield its power and who - at almost every opportunity - wield it to serve themselves first and everyone else a distant second. This is not a failing of one nation or socialist party, but inherent in human nature."
(Here Roberts makes another stab at placing blame for liberal ideas that persist during a conservative administration on the ‘administrative state’. Has capitalism, unfettered capitalism become just a path to riches for a very few? Again, WHO ARE THE ELITES? Are all elites liberals?
We see that conservatives are hoping to establish a long-lived authoritarian state if we elect a conservative President. They say that libs will bring left-wing communism, but liberals do not favor authoritarianism. Liberals are not using the language of fascists and Nazis to whip people into a frenzy. Libs do not back a Presidential candidate who is at this moment meeting with an authoritarian leader at his elite country club (Viktor Orban).)
(Fearmongering)
"Nighttime satellite images of the Korean peninsula show the free-market South lit up, with homes, businesses, and cities electrified from coast to coast. By contrast, Communist North Korea is almost completely dark, except for the small dot of the capital city. Pyongyang, where a psychotic dictator and his cronies live. The same phenomenon is on display in the infuriating fact that four of the six richest counties in the United States are suburbs of Washington, D.C. - a city infamous for its lack of native productive industries.
The Soviet empire was a social and economic failure. North Korea, despite the opulence of its tyrants, is one of the poorest nations in the world. Cuba is so corrupt that its people regularly risk their lives to escape to Florida on rafts. Venezuela was once the richest nation in South America; today, a decade after a Marxist dictator took over, 94 percent of Venezuelans live in poverty. Even socialist Bernie Sanders' home state of Vermont was forced to repeal the state's single-payer health care system just three years after creating it."
(While these are undoubtedly facts where is the proof that liberal ideas are to blame? Even in the case of Bernie and single-payer health care, the blame may belong to the insurance industry rather than the libs. All this might apply if liberals were trying to establish a communist state, which they are not. No lib has ever said that s/he would be a dictator on Day 1. Although Bernie Sanders names his party the Democratic Socialists he is not advocating actual socialism. He simply believes that a society is undermined when it neglects those who are not thriving. Once again, the conservatives blame liberals for social ills that result from greed and deregulation, from capitalism on steroids with no financial stake in the larger community. Once again, the conservatives say that it is the libs doing what the conservatives are doing.)
"In every case, socialist elites promised that if only they could direct the economy, everything would be better. Very quickly, everything got worse. In socialist nation after socialist nation, the only way the government could keep its disgruntled people in line was to surveil and terrorize them.
By contrast, in countries with a high degree of economic freedom, elites are not in charge because everyone is in charge. People work, build, invest, save, and create according to their own interests and in service to the common good of their fellow citizens."
(Eureka! It's a conservative utopia - where women are forced to have babies.)
"There is a reason why the private economy hews to the maxim 'the customer is always right' while government bureaucracies are notoriously user-unfriendly, just as there is a reason why private charities are cheerful and government welfare systems are not. It's not because grocery store clerks and PTA moms are 'good' and federal bureaucrats are 'bad.' It's because private enterprises - for-profit or nonprofit - must cooperate, to give, to succeed."
(Conservatives are the ones who insist that every program to help Americans in distress must screen out those who just wish to game the system. Their suspicions stigmatize all attempts to protect those in need.)
"So as the American people take back their sovereignty, constitutional authority, respect for their families and communities, they should also take back their right to pursue the good life."
(As defined by conservatives.)
"The next President should promote pro-growth policies that spur new jobs and investment, higher wages, and productivity. Yes, that agenda should include overdue tax and regulatory reform, but it should go further and include antitrust enforcement against corporate monopolies. It should promote educational opportunities outside the woke-dominated system of public schools, universities, including trade schools, apprenticeship programs, and student-loan alternatives that fund students' dreams instead of Marxist academics. Just as important as expanding opportunities for workers and small businesses, the next President should crack down on the crony capitalist corruption that enables America's largest corporations to profit through political influence rather than competitive enterprise and customer satisfaction."
(Conservatives were really upset with the way they were treated on America's college campuses. They like to resort to name-calling, attaching negative ideological labels to denigrate people, laws, institutions. It's not considered a very sophisticated propaganda technique, but they have used it to great advantage. Here they have a chance in the foreword to reiterate their campaign against public schools which they consider WOKE.)
(Liberals have been trying to regulate capitalism but conservatives have been obstructing. Liberals did not sign pledges with Americans for Tax Reform to never raise taxes. Conservatives did that.)
(Do you resent these folks calling your/our colleges Marxist? Which party relies on big donors, and which relies on grassroots donations? Would you consider Citizens United v FEC a Supreme Court ruling that favored conservatives, or liberals? Which group produces the slickest ads and runs them most often.)
"Analogous pro-growth reforms for America's voluntary civil society are also in order. America is not an economy; it is a country. Economic freedom is not the only important freedom. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the freedom to assemble also represent key components of the American promise. Today, in addition to the problem of Big Tech censorship, we see speakers at universities shouted down, parents investigated and arrested for attempting to speak at school board meetings, and donors to conservative causes harassed and intimidated. The next conservative President must defend our First Amendment rights."
(There it is, the original sin of the libs, a desire to not have to listen to conservative speakers spout reactionary ideology and bigoted dog whistles. That sounds an awful lot like free speech, although possibly rude speech. Perhaps being polite didn't work. This was not an action of government or any political party. This was civic backlash, authentic and passionate. This was a desire to put hands over ears while saying la-la-la to drown out ideas unsuited to the times, speakers who didn't understand the temperature in the room. This was a popular response, not a government response. Changing the way our government functions is unlikely to change popular opinions or movements, but it may pave the way for repressing them.)
"Best Effort”
“Ultimately, the Left does not believe that all men are created equal - they think they are special. They certainly don't think all people have an unalienable right to pursue the good life. They think only they themselves have such a right along with a moral responsibility to make decisions for everyone else. They don't think any citizen, state, business, church, or charity should be allowed any freedom until they first bend the knee."
(Well, just put out a bunch of unsubstantiated claims about abstract ideas without offering any proof why don't you? Libs are not the ones bending the knee or kissing rings.)
"This book, this agenda, the entire Project 2025 is a plan to unite the conservative movement and the American people against elite rule and woke culture warriors.
Our movement has not been united in recent years, and our country has paid the price. In the past decade, though, the breakdown of the family, the rise of accountability in Washington have rendered these divisions not just inconvenient but politically suicidal. Every hour the Left directs federal policy and elite institutions, our sovereignty, our Constitution, our families, and our freedom are a step closer to disappearing.
Conservatives have just two years and one shot to get this right. With enemies at home and abroad, there is no margin for error. Time is running short. If we fail, the fight for the very idea of America may be lost.
But we should take this small window of opportunity we have left to act with courage and confidence, not despair. The last time our nation and movement were so near defeat, we rallied together behind a great leader and great ideas, transcended our differences, rescued our nation, and changed the world. It's time to do it again.
Now, as then, we know who we are fighting and what we are fighting for: for our Republic, our freedom, and for each other. The next conservative President will enter office on January 20, 2025, with a simple choice: greatness or failure. it will be a daunting test, but no more so than every generation of Americans has faced and passed.
The Conservative Promise represents the best effort of the conservative movement in 2023 - and the next conservative President's last opportunity to save our republic."
(This is the rousing call to the troops who back fascism, nationalism, racism, isolationism, book banning, an end to public schooling, an end to Social Security and Medicare, food stamps and unemployment, and working until you die. It is far more likely that the Great Factory Migration tore American families apart than anything that happened in the 60s and 70s. Children had to leave the communities they were born into to find work elsewhere. It is far more likely that the lack of a cohesive approach to stopping environmental damage to soil, sea, and air is affecting birth rates far more than either abortion or contraception. )
Conclusion
Conservatives plan to end their coup in November and roll into Washington, DC with a plan to cement their takeover on January 20, 2025, if they wait that long.
Those who love Trump - who is not Ronald Reagan reincarnated - should be careful of what they wish for because they - and we - just might get it.)
From the Foreword to the Mandate for Leadership 2025 pp.12-17
https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
This will be my last time down in the weeds for now, although I may look into the changes conservatives wish to make in our agencies. Sorry, this didn't work as a meme. Don't feel bad if you didn't read all of it.
Even to pretend that a Conservative Christian authoritarian state will offer more freedom than our democracy is to assume we are clueless.
Vote. Vote as if your future depends on it because it does.