Why Do We Need A “National Council for a New America?”

It is with a certain degree of trepidation that I reviewed the latest brainchild of Virginia Representative and Republican Minority Whip, Eric Cantor’s National Council for a New America.

Billed as a “Grassroots Caucus to Serve as a Policy-based Forum for Thoughtful Dialogue With the American People,” I am first struck to see it is not grassroots at all!

The American Heritage Dictionary defines “grassroots” as “People or society at a local level rather than at the center of major political activity.” This “grassroots caucus” is comprised of “Congressional leaders with a national panel of experts.”

Where is that anything remotely related to “a local level?” A true grassroots movement or forum would be initiated by those of us at the local level, not originating from Congress.

Calling this idea a A Blueprint for our Conversation with America brings memories of the ill-fated 1994 Contract With America introduced by former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich and promptly abandoned by Republican moderates once they were swept into power in the 1994 elections.

I am uneasy reading, “this is not a Republican-only forum. While we will be guided by our principles of freedom and security, we will seek to include more than just our ideas.”

That notion is exactly what propelled us into the minority, as those across the aisle have no intention of embracing our ideas or values. Time and again they have shown they only desire us to embrace their ideas and abandon our core principles.

The Republican Party slipped into minority status and near obscurity due to abandoning our core principles and adopting those of the leftist Democrats too much. More of that will not return America to the path away from socialism fomented by the Dictatorial Democrats. Watering down the conservative message to be politically correct loses elections.

The backbone of the Republican Party has been conservatives in the pattern of Ronald Reagan, not the moderate wishy-washy pattern of John McCain. As the GOP abandoned and even ridiculed conservatism, many of us moved away from the GOP and they began losing elections.

Meghan McCain, daughter of Senator John McCain, twice failed presidential candidate, has been making a name for herself by advocating suicide for the Republican Party by suggesting even more moves left into liberalism.

Isn’t one socialist liberal party enough?

In spite of much opposition from moderates, Ronald Reagan swept the 1980 election against liberal Democrat Jimmy Carter. He restored America’s pride in our selves. He stood strong and didn’t waiver or cower.

Since he left office as one of America’s most popular Presidents, the GOP has steadily abandoned his principles, while bragging of their association with him.

Too many are still waiting for a resurrection of Reagan, which isn’t going to happen. We have had candidates that truly are in the pattern of Reagan, but those very ones desiring another Reagan scoffed and ridiculed them.

President George W. Bush, possibly the most hated President ever in spite of his strong stand, wasn’t a strong conservative. Still, he stood by his values and led America through a very turbulent time, taking the fight back to those who have been attacking us for three decades.

From the beginning of his first term, he came under constant brutal assault by the Socialist Democrats, and moderate Republicans stood back and allowed it. They did not come to his defense nor did they stand with him much of the time.

Bush too made the mistake of reaching out and trying to work with and include Democrats, who promptly twisted his every move to portray him and the GOP as out of touch and irrelevant. The GOP shrunk back in fear and allowed our party to face such assaults.

Forming a new group suggesting dialogue with the left is just more of the same that caused the GOP to lose power.

For 8 years the Democrats carried out a strong and focused attack on our ideals and values, much like the Bolsheviks did to unseat the Czar of Russia and form the now failed Soviet Union.

We do not need to embrace such people and engage them in dialogue. We need to expose them for what they are!

We need to strengthen and fortify those areas were they attack us, including gays and evangelicals. We can accept we have gays and still oppose same-sex marriage. We need not be lock step as the Democrats are.

Evangelicals are a strong part of conservatism, but not all conservatives are religionists, myself included. We can maintain a strong belief in our view of God, but need to stop running for office as an extension of any church.

I was embarrassed for a lady at a recent Executive Board meeting for Republicans in my District as we sought to strategize for candidates to run against an incumbent Democrat Representative. Almost apologetically, she rose and asked if some potential candidates Mormon religion would constitute a problem, recalling the mass opposition to Mitt Romney over his belonging to the Mormon Religion.

While I did not support Romney and still don’t, his religion never entered into my position, nor should it for others in the GOP.

Many Gays also embrace conservatism and have been the subject of attacks by the left for thinking on their own. Leftist bloggers intentionally target those Republicans they feel are gay because they may not fully support the Gay Agenda.

When attacked, as Florida Representative Mark Foley was, Republicans shirk away and allow our people to be muddied.

We have allowed the Democrats, who have opposed Civil Rights for Blacks for decades, to highjack the work of Republican Everett Dirksen and defeat Democrat filibusters and pass Civil Rights for Black Americans in the 1960’s.

When told that we have no Blacks in Congress, we do not remind them that it is they who ridicule those Black candidates we put forward and drag them through the mud, as they did Justice Clarence Thomas, Condolezza Rice, Michael Steele, Alan Keyes and several others who were either nominated or ran for election.

Black Americans have a long history with the GOP of old, but we have sat back and not created waves and allowed so many to become convinced that it was Democrats who freed them while Republicans opposed their Civil Rights.

That, my friends, is how the Democrats have engaged us in dialogue or reached over to us. In other words, they have not. In return, we play nice as they slash at the very jugular vein of America and work diligently to recreate the failed Soviet Union in America and embrace those who hate America the most.

No, we do not need a “New America.” There is nothing wrong with the “Old America” that stood up strong and proud against enemies and raised living standards to the highest known in history and corrected wrongs.

We do not need a “New America,” but a return to “America.”