If we are only motivated by greed to vote conservative, we are no better than the welfare recipient who votes for liberals to keep the entitlements.

Before you go ballistic on me, realize that I’m right there with you in the belief that our government is bloated, that it has far over-reached its Constitutional boundaries, and it should be taking far less of my hard-earned money to fund any of that.  The federal government as we know it today is dangerously close from slipping from being the necessary evil espoused by Madison to one guilty of a long train of abuses and usurpations called out in the Declaration of Independence.

What concerns me about the new “conservative” grassroots fires that are burning so brightly now across the fruited plain is their motivation.  People on welfare vote for a politician for no other reason or conviction than that the politician promises to continue taking money from those who have to give it to those who don’t.   If the only reason we vote for any given politician, be that some new rising conservative star, or an established GOP stalwart, is because they promise us tax cuts, how is that any different?  For a movement to succeed it has to light more than just a fire in the belly, it needs to set the heart on fire too.  Unless we are willing to do the hard thing and vote for politicians that exhibit a strong moral center that aligns with our own values, we are simply whoring ourselves out to whoever promises to let us keep more of our own money.  George Washington, our first, and without doubt, one of our best presidents understood this.  As I called out in my short series leading up to Presidents Day, in his farewell address, Washington said “Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.”

This isn’t a veiled attempt at proselytizing but an attempt to challenge conservatives on what their core values are.  If it’s just greed, we may succeed for a day in changing some minds, but until we develop and appreciate the same fiery core convictions that our Founding Fathers had, we’ll never change peoples’ hearts.  And this monstrous beast that is the federal government will continue to grow until it breaks free of all Constitutional bonds and sinks into the same absolute despotism our Founders declared our independence from. Then it won’t be a simple matter of reining in and fixing government, it will be our duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for our future security. I really don’t think we as a movement are ready to go there just yet.