First, the press release:

STOP TEXAS SET ASIDES

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: July 14, 2010        Contact: Shawn Johnson, (713) 454-9849

Texas Higher-Ed Students Face Ambition Tax

HOUSTON – In 2003, the Texas Legislature passed HB 3015 which deregulated tuition and required all public universities to set aside a certain percentage of every student’s tuition each semester to fund needs-based financial assistance programs for Texas residents.

This means that a Texas student paying $2,500 per semester in tuition will have $500 of their tuition set aside each semester for financial assistance programs under HB 3015. Students are obligated to pay into the fund even if they themselves receive some kind of financial aid. Over four years, the student will pay $4,000 into this program – a substantial amount considering that many students pay for college through student loans, requiring interest payments. In fact, if the student financed all of their tuition they would owe an additional $550 in interest on the tuition that was set asides for another student.

Tuition deregulation created two parts to tuition: statutory and designated.

Statutory tuition is the rate that the state mandates colleges to charge, and is the same for all public higher education institutions. It is currently $50 per semester hour for in-state students and $327 for out-of-state students. 15{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of graduate and undergraduate statutory tuition is set aside and reserved for the Texas Public Educational Grant and Emergency Tuition and Fee Loans.

Designated tuition is determined by each institution. According to the Texas Education Code, there is no limit on how much designated tuition can be charged. Universities are required to set aside 15{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of graduate and undergraduate designated tuition that exceeds of $46 per semester credit hour, and finances needs-based financial assistance programs selected at the discretion of each university. In the 2008-09 term $100 million in tuition was set aside from students for this purpose.

An additional 5{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} is set aside from undergraduate designated tuition to fund the Texas B-On-Time Loan Program. Set asides collected for this program go to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which controls the program. Although the B-On-Time program awards loans to both private and public institutions, only public institutions are required to set aside students’ tuition. This creates an unfair burden for students attending public institutions by forcing them to share the bill for other students attending private institutions.

Since 2003, tuition rates have increased 86{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986}. As the costs associated with higher education have continued to rise, more students and families are struggling to pay for college and must find additional funding sources to meet the growing costs. Yet many of these same students are unaware that a significant portion of their tuition is used to provide financial assistance to other students.

Not all students benefiting from tuition set aside programs are legal Texas residents. In 2001 HB 1403 enacted a loophole for non-legal Texas residents allowing students seeking financial aid that are non-U.S. citizens, who are ineligible to apply for federal student aid, to meet the Texas state residency requirements and can complete the Texas Application for State Financial Aid (TASFA) in lieu of the FAFSA form. These students can then compete for state funds without being U.S. Citizens or legal U.S. residents and makes them eligible for financial aid programs including the Texas Public Education Grant, the Texas Grant, and Texas State Exemption Programs.

Students of Texas universities graduate with the 4th largest amount of average debt after obtaining a four-year degree in the country. Texas Commissioner of Higher Education, Raymund Paredes, says that the average Texas student graduates with about $20,000 in student loans- a figure he said has roughly doubled in the last decade.

###

Stop Texas Set Asides is an organization of current and former Texas college students who were shocked to find out that 20{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of our college tuition had been “set aside”, without our knowledge, to fund another’s education. Stop Texas Set Asides is working to inform college students across the state of Texas about this hidden tax on education and put this practice to an end.

Attached to this email is Stop Texas Set Asides’ detailed study into HB 3015 tuition set asides. For questions or request that attachments be sent in another format, contact Shawn Johnson at (713) 454-9849.

---

Rorschach’s response and commentary on the B-on-Time program:

Shawn, it is actually a bit worse than that. The B-on-Time program further penalizes students that are enrolled in programs that take more than four years to complete such as most engineering programs. So if I were to take a modern art program or a western lit program I could be in and out in under four years and have my student loans forgiven, but then spend my entire working life waiting tables because my degree is essentially worthless. But if I were to take mechanical engineering I would have to pay back ALL of my loans, have to pay extra tuition/books/fees/room/board for the fifth year, but I would be pretty much assured of a long and profitable career. So if you are smart and can do calculus you have to pay the whole bill, but if you are dumb and can’t hack a real degree program your bills are paid. Which begs the question why such degree programs with very little application in the real world are even offered or at least limited to a few slots per year. Does the world really need a couple thousand art majors every year? Or wymyn’s studies majors? (and where are all the men’s studies majors eh?) I mean fer crying out loud, if they haven’t figured out their gender by now, I’d say they ain’t gonna get there. Do our universities have so much extra money and room that we can waste time money and resources just so somebody can throw paint at a piece of canvas or pee in a mason jar with a cross in it and call it art? Do we REALLY need to offer degrees in that crap? My NINE year old can do that and she didn’t have to go to college to do it!

The B-on-time program further penalizes people who are attempting to go back to college to get a degree while continuing to work. These people are not goof-off professional students that go to class when they feel like it and go to class then just to keep the gravy train from their folks rolling, these are people who have more often than not topped out in their pay scale in their current field and need a higher degree to move on. But they can RARELY afford to go to class full time. So because they have a family to feed and a mortgage to pay, they have to pay their student loans in full? How is that at all fair? These people are usually VERY motivated to finish just as fast as possible, so why must they be penalized for their economic situation?

You can find more of Rorschach’s higher education commentary in this post. His blog is at Red Ink Texas.

More information on the set asides can be found here: Stop Texas Set Asides!

 

 

“Many area churches have begun actively promoting a progressive message on immigration. They are acting on orders from an organization originally founded by Saul Alinsky. Is your church one of them?”

I have always supported the Tea Party in their effort to influence the political machine of Washington, however, I believe this has gone too far.   A political action committee should not be influencing the message of our churches.   Why would they do this?   Is it because the churches are not teaching a message that is in-line with their political views?   Is the message of Christian values of kindness, peace, love and support of or fellow humans not acceptable?   Has traditional Christian values become too progressive for the political movement of today?

I thought maybe this message was in error, so I looked at their meetup group which lists a different perogative:

“Is your church teaching you about your stewardship obligations as citizens of this great land? The Church Accountability Project is designed to redress this situation by placing a citizenship missionary in every church in America.”

http://texasteapartypac.ning.com/group/churchaccountabilityproject

Now this is reasonable, our churches do need to do more outreach.   But based on the previous email, I do not buy that this Political Action Committees true values are to spread Christian stewardship.   I believe it is attempting to use the churches to manipulate their messages.

Do you want the message of your church to become corrupted by a political action committee?   Do you want your church’s stewardship turned into a political agenda?   I do not believe this is the direction we want our nation to go.

Why would a political action group want to change the message of the church?   Are our Christian values that we learn in church, from a pastor, priest or messenger of God now going to be political corrupted?

I fully support the freedom of the church.   I do not want politics to corrupt or manipulate the message that I receive from my church.   My church is for my relationship with God, my government is for my relationship with my government.

Freedom of speech is vital to our communities.   Our churches need this freedom of speech from all outside political forces.

 

Bruce West

Candidate U.S. House District 8 – Texas

20418 Aspenwilde Drive, Cypress TX  77433

(281)622-0732

Official Website: BruceWestForCongress.com

*******

Editor’s Note: Mr. West is the Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. House District 8, currently held by Republican Kevin Brady. The Texas Tea Party PAC was founded by Suzanne Guggenheim‎, one of the original founders of the Woodlands Tea Party Patriot, which is now the North Houston Tea Party Patriots. Ms. Guggenheim‎ is no longer affiliated with the NHTPP.

 

My first thought was an overwhelming one of “where do we even start this?”

Now it’s time to begin to address this question.

To do so, I first want to direct you to two of the many works published over the last decade, which have had a profound effect on my thinking about this issue:  Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone (2000); and his follow-up work, Better Together: Restoring the American Community (2003) (which obviously influenced the name we gave our concept).

I direct you to these books because, to begin to answer the question about where we start to restore a sense of Neighborhood, I want to start with a story about Tupelo, Mississippi, which Putnam has highlighted in both of these books.  I believe this story provides a sort of blueprint for how to regain a sense of Neighborhood through political and private action.

During the depths of the Great Depression, Tupelo was a town that was on its knees.  By the mid-1930’s, cotton production in the area was starting a downward trend from which it has never recovered.  In 1936, the town almost was wiped-off the map by a horrendous tornado that killed over 200 of its citizens.  The following year, 1937, saw a devastating strike at the local manufacturing plant that nearly destroyed the remaining economic base of the community.  The only bright spot was the local success of the county’s local dairy farms; and that success gave one man an idea.

The editor of the local newspaper personally met with the leading businessmen along Main Street and convinced them to jointly invest in a stud bull to be used to expand the dairy business.  For an initial private investment of $50,000 the county got its bull, and a 60-year period of unprecedented economic growth started.  By agreement of the town’s business and political leaders, the initial returns from the expanded dairy business were reinvested into the dairy business, into other business ventures, and into the community.  Eventually, all of the investors made a profit, but the town got much more.

By the 1990s, Tupelo and its county formed one of the largest dairy producing centers and furniture producing centers in the country, and it had become one of the largest banking centers in the Mid-South region.  It became home to offices of over 50 Fortune 500 businesses.  Its per capita income and standard of living grew to be among the highest in the region, and its schools performed in the highest percentages in the country.

And it all started with one man with an idea for his community—no federal government safety net was sought or needed (even as the country was still gripped by the Great Depression).

Now there will be someone who will read this post to this point and say—“Ed, that’s irrelevant to today, because we aren’t going to fix what is wrong with this country by encouraging every town and neighborhood to buy a stud bull.”—and that person would be right.  But that’s not the purpose behind re-telling this story.  Instead, I want to focus on the type of steps taken by the civic leaders in Tupelo to address the needs of the community, which are relevant to the Neighborhood model I am advocating.  Let’s break them down:

· The community faced a problem that appeared intractable, and that had been confounded by multiple events—not unlike the confounding factors of under-education, under-employment, chronic crime and poverty, and the impulse to be “left alone”, which exist in many of our neighborhoods today;

· One person, followed by a group of civic leaders, saw a strength within the community that created an opportunity that could be exploited to help the community address its problem;

· These citizens had the courage to take a risk with their own resources to take advantage of the opportunity and to share the gain with the community;

· These citizens involved businesses, private organizations, and local government in both the planning and the implementation of their plan; and

· The gains to the community were both short-term, and long-term, and were broadly shared—e.g., businesses were created and expanded, employment grew, per capita income grew, and schools improved.

These steps provide a formula—let’s call it the “Tupelo Formula”—that is similar to the formula for civic action that de Tocqueville found in America during his travels—using a sense of Neighborhood to help neighbors and to preserve liberty from an all-powerful government or self-anointed class of elites.

This formula for governance and civic action also is consistent with the “first principles” our Founders promoted.  Take a look at these excerpts from the last two paragraphs of the Virginia Declaration of Rights of June, 1776, in which George Mason and James Madison wrote the following:

…no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles…..the duty which we owe our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence;…and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.

The Tupelo Formula also is consistent with the idea of Federalism embodied in our Constitution, which was designed to preserve and promote our unique system of local governance from a too-powerful central government, and it is consistent with the organizational model that has grown from the current Tea Party movement.  It supports a model as applicable to the neighborhoods of the City of Austin as it is to countryside of Austin County.  Unfortunately, it also is a formula for governance and action that we have lost over the last two generations.

Literally hundreds of volumes have been written over the last 40 years about how and why we’ve tried to abandon the social and political formula that de Tocqueville found so exceptional, and that is embodied in the story about Tupelo.  Very simply, in order to correct grievous, historic wrongs, we tried to destroy the model, rather than open it up to all.  We must stop this destruction.  We must re-invigorate the model, and open it to all.

I consider myself to be both an economic and a social conservative, who wants the GOP to promote an effective plan for governance and action using the principles championed by both camps.  I believe that the Tupelo Formula provides a blueprint for a new commitment to engage our neighbors, local businesses, and local governments to effectively solve our problems based on our economic, societal and cultural principles.

In my next post, I will try to address some ways we can apply the Tupelo Formula to problems facing our local governments and school boards.

 

 

My first thought was an overwhelming one of “where do we even start this?”

Although I will try to provide a more concrete answer to this question over the next few weeks, I want to give a more general answer to this question as we head into the July 4^th weekend.  You see, I believe the answer is to be found (as it always has in America) by each of us looking in the mirror and asking that person we see in the reflection:  “what will you do?”

I firmly believe that one person, or one group of people, committed to positive ideas, can change the world for the better.  Such positive change rarely comes through revolution, which destroys more than it changes.  Instead, such positive change usually results from sustained effort to change one person, one family, and one neighborhood at a time.  Soon momentum shifts, and the change spreads like a wildfire.  Our civilization, at its best, is built on this notion.

Each of us is capable of being one of those people who ignites the wildfire–we have done that type of work all our lives with our family, our friends, our work, and our church or community activities.  Remember that the founding generation of this nation, as remarkable a group as ever existed on the planet, came to the struggle of the late 18th Century with no more special background (except, maybe for Franklin) than any of us.  They included farmers, surveyors, bankers, lawyers, doctors, ministers, silversmiths, printers, shopkeepers, and innkeepers, most of whom had never traveled beyond the hamlets of their birth, let alone seen the world.  Their ranks were joined by ordinary men and women people who made extraordinary journeys across an ocean in wooden sailing ships to start a new life.  Eventually, they each became committed to a cause greater than themselves, and that commitment created new opportunities and experiences for each of them individually, which they then used to their advantage to change the world together.

Indeed, it wasn’t that long ago that we still had leaders who understood the unique and exceptional challenge that lies at the heart of our civilization’s experience—and they led a victory over a world-wide tyranny.  By way of example, I am going to quote at length from two speeches:  Ronald Reagan’s speech at the end of the 1976 Republican Convention, given after a close and demoralizing loss of the Republican presidential nomination, and before he knew he would ever run for President again, in which he presented the challenge; and Pope John Paul II’s speech to the UN in 1995, reflecting on how the challenge had been met and victory had been achieved.

Reagan:

…I had an assignment the other day.  Someone asked me to write a letter for a time capsule that is going to be opened in Los Angeles a hundred years from now, on our Tricentenial….Then I tried to write—let your own minds turn to that task.  You are going to write for people a hundred years from now, who know all about us.  We know nothing of them.  We don’t know what kind of a world they will be living in…And suddenly it dawned on me, those who would read this letter a hundred years from now will know whether those missiles fired.  They will know whether we met our challenge.   Whether they have the freedoms that we have known up until now will depend on what we do here.  Will they look back with appreciation and say, ‘Thank God for those people in 1976 who headed off that loss of freedom, who kept us now 100 years later free, who kept our world from nuclear destruction’[.]  And, if we failed, they probably won’t get to read the letter at all because it spoke of individual freedom, and they won’t be allowed to talk of that or read of it.  This is our challenge; and this is why here in this hall tonight, better than we have ever done before, we have got to quit talking to each other about each other and go out and communicate to the world that we may be fewer in numbers than we have ever been, but we carry a message they are waiting for….There is no substitute for victory, Mr. President.

Pope John Paul II:

The revolutions of 1989 were made possible by the commitment of brave men and women inspired by a different, and ultimately more profound and powerful vision:  the vision of man as a creature of intelligence and free will, immersed in a mystery which transcends his own being and endowed with the ability to reflect and the ability to choose—and thus capable of wisdom and virtue.  A decisive factor in the success of those non-violent revolutions was the experience of social solidarity:  In the face of regimes backed by the power of propaganda and terror, that solidarity was the moral code of the—power of the powerless, a beacon of hope and an enduring reminder that it is possible for man’s historical journey to follow a path which is true to the finest aspirations of the human spirit.

We all are “immersed in a mystery which transcends” our lives, just as were Reagan and the revolutionaries of 1989–we all want to do more than just exist, we want to be a part of something larger than ourselves.  Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we need to stop always looking for that “something larger” somewhere else, and realize that we must start to make a better world by making better families, better neighborhoods, and better schools.

Over the past 18 months, I have been blessed to know many people who have responded to this challenge by forming Tea Party groups, forming organizations to spread conservatism in new neighborhoods and mobilize neighbors to stand and fight for our principles.  Each of these people, every day, is showing us how to meet the challenge to re-establish the sense of Neighborhood we need to unravel Obamaism and preserve the nation we love and the inalienable rights we have been blessed with—whether or not they fully appreciate the consequences of what they have started.

This moment in history has given us both a challenge and an opportunity.  We must remember that “we may be fewer in numbers than we have ever been, but we carry a message they are waiting for…”  If we succeed, we will have met our generation’s obligation to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

“There is no substitute for victory”.

Have a happy and safe July 4^th.

On her campaign website, Sheila Jackson Lee identifies the Criminal Justice system as a top priority, stating that “the bills I have authored are intended to make America a better, fairer place, and are intended to assist families and the incarcerated.”  With this statement, Sheila Jackson Lee tells readers the needs of the criminals in Houston take precedence over jobs, families and the economy, perpetuating the myth that CD-18 is a district of criminals. No wonder; an examination of her top campaign contributors reveals the American Association for Justice PAC  (including individual members) and the Association of Trial Lawyers of America contributed over $30,000 to her campaign over the past four election cycles.

John Faulk, by contrast, identifies the economy and elimination of wasteful and duplicative government programs as a top priority. John tells readers “According to the Office of Management and Budget, 28{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of federal programs are either ineffective or have results that are not proven. Reforming, combining or eliminating those programs will be among my highest legislative priorities.”

Sheila Jackson Lee also identifies education as a high priority and devotes this area of her website to the BILLIONS of federal dollars she’s brought back to Texas, the mold problem at Key Middle School, the dropout rate of CD-18’s schools and touting the “economic stimulus” package as “allowing Houston school districts to keep operating critical programs for students and minimize staff layoffs.” This perpetuates the myth that residents of CD-18 are lazy and selfish, raise kids that are all school dropouts, and are parents and community members that don’t spend enough on education. Sheila thinks Big Government should take over our children’s education and Big Education agrees; members of the American Federation of Teachers contributed over $10,000 to her campaign over the past four election cycles.

John Faulk also identifies education as a top priority, after a balanced budget and the economy. Nine Independent school districts lie within CD-18 and John realizes “There is not a single solution which will help all of these districts overcome their challenges. That is why the Federal Government should get out of the way of the INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT boards.” In contrast to Sheila’s old, tired and outdated “bring home the bacon” mentality, John supports initiatives to strengthen the class room teacher and class room education experience, including school vouchers so parents and not Big Government have the control to make choices in their children’s education.

Lastly, Sheila Jackson Lee doesn’t even list immigration as a priority on her website. But back in June 2006, PoliticalAffairs.net – Marxist Thought Online (affiliated with the Communist Party USA) affectionately wrote the following about Sheila Jackson Lee’s immigration bill HR 2092:

Another pro-immigrant bill, HR 2092, the Save America Comprehensive Immigration Act, was introduced in the House by Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX). It provided for a more generous legalization program, no guest worker program, and vocational training programs for African American and other poor and minority workers possibly displaced by immigration. It also included language protecting immigrant workers’ rights on the job from government interference. The Jackson-Lee bill garnered the support of many members of the Congressional Black Caucus, but could not find a sponsor in the Senate…The dignified spectacle of millions of working-class immigrants marching through our cities’ streets shows what the potential is for the immigrant “giant” that is now awakening. Those who march for immigrants’ rights today, will march tomorrow for labor rights for all, for a raise in the minimum wage, for a national health care system, for quality schools and all the other things that all workers want.

And when they can vote, they can do us all a favor by removing the likes of Sensenbrenner, Frist, Tancredo and Bush from office. (emphasis mine)

You read that right; in 2006 Sheila Jackson Lee PLANNED for and ANTICIPATED in her bill that African-American and other poor & minority workers would LOSE THEIR JOBS if immigrants were granted amnesty!

John Faulk supports the border fence and Birth Rights Citizenship Reform; Sheila Jackson Lee advocates for amnesty and unemployment in the African-American community. Again, this is no surprise; the SEIU, Teamsters, Communication Workers of America and other union leaders know the pensions of their rank and file need a bailout (HR 3936) and Sheila needs the union leaders to add to the $62,500 they’ve contributed to her campaign over the previous election cycles.

Sheila Jackson Lee spent over $888,000 to win her primary race. As of March 31, 2010 she had only $150,000 cash on hand. Sheila Jackson Lee needs to raise money from her trial lawyer buddies and from union leaders. She does this by perpetuating the myth that CD-18 is a welfare district. Tell Sheila Jackson Lee she is out of touch with her constituents and has been in Washington, DC too long.  Vote for John Faulk – he is Standing Up For Houston.

 

• I remembered the tenth anniversary of the passing of my mother, whose principles and values formed the basis for how I would approach my life;
• I remembered my late father, who, though blind in one eye from birth, memorized the eye chart to pass his Army physical, and when caught at the end of basic training, had already proven himself to the point that, though he never went overseas, he spent the duration of his tour of duty during World War II training marksmen for the Army—and his quiet tenacity shaped how I would attack every challenge in my life;
• I received a letter from my oldest daughter, who moved to Los Angeles after graduating from college last year, telling me that she would be producing and starring in her first professional theatrical production this summer;
• I talked to my middle daughter about her plans to move to Austin by the end of the summer to strike-out on her own; and
• I saw my youngest daughter receive the highest academic awards from her school as she graduated from 5th Grade.

My reflections also turned to that small band of people, who starting in late 2008, I worked with as we began the struggle to re-awaken our local GOP to needs it has to address, and to how these friends have seized this last year and a half to make a difference with Tea Parties, with radio shows, with internet blogs, with national organizations in African-American and Latino communities, and with grass-roots efforts in our precincts.  But, on Friday, I received a phone call from another of these friends who worked with me over this time, who told me of an extraordinary project he has now undertaken.  Of all the many projects this group has undertaken, I think I may be the proudest of what he is now doing (and that is saying a lot).  To explain my special pride in this effort, let me digress for a moment.

I’ve always believed that American Conservatism is more than a political movement.  For it to work, American Conservatism must promote principles for individuals to live as neighbors in a community of free people, and our political principles and policies should flow from and compliment these “life” principles.  I believe Goldwater was talking about this when he wrote in The Conscience of a Conservative:

Conservatism is not an economic theory, though it has economic implications.  …It is Conservatism that puts material things in their proper place—that has a structured view of the human being and of human society, in which economics plays only a subsidiary role.

…Conservatives take account of the whole man, while the Liberals tend to look only at the material side of man’s nature.  The Conservative believes that man is, in part, an economic, an animal creature; but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs and spiritual desires.  What is more, these needs and desires reflect the superior side of man’s nature, and thus take precedence over his economic wants.  Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man’s spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy.  Liberals, on the other hand—in the name of a concern for “human beings”—regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society.  They are, moreover, in a hurry.  So that their characteristic approach is to harness the society’s political and economic forces into a collective effort to compel “progress.”  In this approach, I believe they fight against Nature.

Surely the first obligation of a political thinker is to understand the nature of man.

An American Conservative knows that this land was settled, and this nation was founded, by people who tried their whole lives to understand the nature of man in this temporal world, to reconcile it with man’s relationship to his Creator, and to forge a real society based on that understanding.  Because we appreciate this basis for our unique society, many people of faith naturally are drawn to American Conservatism, though, as a political movement its principles are broader and more encompassing than the tenets of any one religion or sect.  Newt Gingrich, tried to discuss this unique “American Civilization” in a college course he taught in the mid-1990s, and he was ridiculed at the time by the left for his effort.

In fact, Reagan, in the famous 1964 speech that launched his political career, conveyed the political dilemma every American Conservative faces when they try to debate public policy:

…[A]ny time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate.  They say we’re always “against” things — we’re never “for” anything.  Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.

When I started to seriously consider how to fix the problems that confronted our local GOP and drafted a plan, I wanted to do more than just talk about the nuts-and-bolts of party building and management.  I wanted to discuss this bigger challenge to re-orient the discussion among conservatives to how we re-engage in the debate about achieving society’s humanitarian goals by using and implementing our principles in creative and dynamic ways—of addressing urban issues and education; of addressing the need to revitalize our understanding of the responsibilities of being a neighbor and maintaining a neighborhood; of what Steve Parkhurst, Jill Fury and I called “Renewing the American Community”.

In “Renewing the American Community” we wanted to remind conservatives that the American Conservative movement is not just about life and liberty, but—to be true to itself—it must address the third inalienable right:  the pursuit of happiness.  Not the purely material happiness that so many of our fellow citizens dwell upon, and that the creed of the Democratic Party focuses upon, but the happiness of the whole man (of the economic and spiritual sides of man)—what the ancients called “a whole life well spent,” and the challenge that St. Paul describes in his letter to the Galatians:

For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.  For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this:  ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

Above all else, we wanted to remind our conservative friends that we will not succeed politically in the long-run if all we say is “no” to the Democrat’s schemes and plans—we must show and pursue an alternative course for addressing the needs of our society based on rebuilding our bonds as free people, as neighbors, and as fellow citizens, and on pursuing policies that use those bonds that De Tocqueville found so unique—rather than government—to address pressing needs.  Our unique society can not work, and we can not limit the size and role of government in our lives, without these bonds. Neither liberty, nor “the pursuit of happiness” can long survive where free men and women isolate themselves from each other.  In fact, de Tocqueville’s observation crystallizes this dilemma:

When no firm and lasting ties any longer unite men, it is impossible to obtain the cooperation of any great number of them unless you can persuade every man whose help is required that he serves his private interests by voluntarily uniting his efforts to those of all the others.

Without the bonds of relationships and interdependence—of family, of neighbor—action for the common good must be bribed or coerced, and the only entity with power to do that will be a government with the power to do great harm (as our parents learned throughout the last century).

Well, back to my friend’s new project.  His plan is write a book and develop a seminar with a simple premise:  to re-teach our neighbors that conservatism isn’t just a political movement, it is a way of life; and that if we re-adopt this way of life, we can lay the groundwork for taking back our government and society based on the political principles of American Conservatism.  At his request, I look forward to mentoring him with this worthy project.  If he succeeds, than so much of what we all set out to do in late 2008 will be set in motion.

Thanks to my family, and to everyone who I’ve had the pleasure of working with over these last 18 months, for making this a memorable holiday weekend.