Jamal Greene: Why I am a Conservative
By HHR | February 23rd, 2010 | Category: General, HHR Contributors, Opinion/Reviews | 17 comments
By Jamal Greene
I am a Conservative because I believe in American Exceptionalism; I believe that Democracy and the rule of law is man’s best hope on Earth and that our way of life must be defended. As President Kennedy said, “we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” I believe that in the absence of American as the defender of Freedom, the world would dissolve into chaos, leaving Totalitarianism to rule the day and enslave the people. I am a Conservative because I believe in Open and Free Market Capitalism, and that Capitalism is the engine for economic growth and a nation’s prosperity, not wealth redistribution.
When I say Capitalism, I mean Laissez-Faire, with little to no government intervention into the private enterprise. I believe and history has shown that it is because of Government intervention, that Economic prosperity evades a nation. It is because of Capitalism and the Free Market that America has remained the envy of the world in terms of our standard of living, which is second to none. I believe, and history has shown, that a decreased tax burden spurs economic growth. This is true because when people have more disposable income, they tend to inject that that extra income to economy via consumer spending which causes businesses to generate more revenue and expand; when businesses expand they hire. This drives down the unemployment rate and because more people are working, more people are paying taxes which equals greater revenue to the government. More revenue means we as a nation borrow less and save more.
I’m a Conservative because I believe in the 2nd amendment. I believe that the 2nd amendment is essential if we are to protect the First. I believe in the right of the Unborn to live; not due to religious reasons but scientific. In week five during a pregnancy, the Fetus’ heart begins to beat and all four heart chambers begin to function; the arms and legs appear; major organs start to develop and the lungs are now visible. For anyone to say that at this stage, only Five weeks in, that this is not a living being is beyond reality to me. This is an organism with a heartbeat, brain function, and major organs starting to develop; this is a living being. I believe that abortion should be the last option, used only in the events of rape, incest, or threat to the mother’s life and that if parents cannot afford to keep the child then the child should be given up for adoption.
I’m a conservative because I am a Citizen of the United States of America, not the world. I believe America is a sovereign nation and that our national security decisions should reflect our interests, not the United Nations. I believe that the American President is not elected to rule by Global consensus, but to defend the interests and ideals of America by all means necessary. I believe in the principles of Democracy promotion and that America should always be a fierce advocate of liberty and foe of Tyranny. I believe in the rights of the Individuals, not the government, to make decisions about one’s life and well-being. I believe in Health Insurance reform, but through the private market, not government bureaucracy and more entitlements.
I’m a Conservative because I believe in the US Constitution and that it is the Ultimate and Supreme authority on all laws enacted to govern the country. I believe that when a Judiciary becomes rogue and forgets it constitutional role as a Reviewer of Law, and not an Author, that court should be brought under control by the Congress or Abolished, like the Ninth Circuit. I am a Conservative because I believe in the provisions of the 10th amendment. I believe that all powers not specifically enumerated by the Constitution to the Federal government belong to the states and thereby to “We the People”. I am a Conservative because I believe in America. America is a place where anything is possible if you work hard and apply your natural gifts and talents. America is a place where a child can grow up on welfare to become the Leader of the Free World. America is country where your place in society is not cemented at birth because of a less than desirable socio-economic status. In America, the “Dream” is still possible.
I am a Conservative because I understand that 2+2=4, no matter what the State says. I am a conservative because I believe it is immoral to steal from one man and give to another. I consider it theft for the government to seize the assets, through taxation and regulation, of private business ventures and use the funds as a piggy bank for social experiments. The investor and/or business owner invest his/her own money to start a new business and they accept all the liabilities of starting such an enterprise, how then can the government legitimately tax and control an enterprise they had no hand in starting? I am a conservative because I believe in fiscal sanity and a mandated balanced federal budget; if everyday people must cut expenses to balance their home budgets, the federal government must be required to do the same.
I’m a conservative because I believe in the freedom of choice in education. I’m a proponent of merit pay for teachers that produced results and penalties for ineffective teachers who don’t. I believe parents should have the choice to remove their children from failing public schools, and with State and Federal assistance be able to send their children to private institutions. As a conservative I’d like to see the State’s take more of a dominate role in providing educational policies for the children of their states. I do not believe in a Federal, one size fits all, Education policy for the nation’s schools. I believe these are decisions our governors, mayors, and local districts should be making, not politicians in Washington.
I am a conservative because I believe America’s greatness is ahead of us, not behind. I believe that if the federal government would get out of the way of the American spirit of Ingenuity, Americans will pull the nation out of this recession and into a real recovery. I believe the federal government should drastically cut personal, payroll, investment, and corporate tax rates to spur economic growth. I believe that the AMT and the Estate Tax, more accurately the Death Tax, should be permanently eliminated; there is no reason a person should be taxed after their death. As a conservative I belief it is time for our elected officials to tell the truth regarding America’s unsustainable debt; currently the US has outstanding liabilities for all debt, including entitlement programs, of around $54 Trillion. We can’t pay it and the programs will have to be dramatically reformed in order to pay promised benefits. I am a conservative because I understand that the only way to save the bankrupt system of social security is to privatize it. I am a conservative most of all because I believe in individual liberty and the natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Jamal Greene is a writer over at the Philadelphia County Conservative Examiner
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Jamal,
The free market is a powerful engine, nothing more. It needs a steering wheel, transmission and braking system. Left to its own devices (e.g. hands off) the free market has shown a propensity to destory itself. The pure free market policies (NAFTA) has resulted in loss in manufacturing jobs and an individualism that is crippling this country. I would like an example of another first-world country that has applied this ideology. Prosperity from free markets can not be contained to a specific country. In 2010, self-described Reaganites shoudl really adjust their ideology to the current era of globalization.
I wonder how cutting government spending during a recession worked out for Hoover. Big mistake and serious economist know this.
You are a conservative, I believe, despite prospering from everything conservatives are fought against.
You are conservative becuase
Perfect.
Nice site!
A friend, Jeff Booker, posted this on my Facebook Wall. Below is my reaction:
If this is what you actually believe and what conservatives truly stand for, then there really isn’t a way to convince me it’s worthy of my support. It’s too divorced from history, reality, and frankly morality. I can get with a more pragmatic politics that is compatible with Christian…no scratch that…a Jesus centered morality which is paramount to me these days esp. during the Lenten season. The ideology sounds good, but when put into practice it becomes a contradiction and nonsense.
For example, you can’t believe in equal rights if you don’t have a government willing to enforcing them. The government is going to get in people’s business. People don’t magically respect each other’s rights. So the government will step in. You can’t then demand it stay out. As black people, you all should know this.
You can’t have laissez faire capitalism without the downside. If we “let it alone” then we have slavery, child labor, lethal work environments, and low wages. In a more modern context, laissez faire capitalism is you dying from a Lexus that can’t stop so I will know not to buy one. But what if every car manufacturer makes cars that unsafe? What’s your recourse then? Even a free market needs a government to keep it free because no one else really does and as a market matures get your Standard Oils and your Microsoft. Microsoft has zero interest in a free market. In finance, you get Great Depressions and Great Recessions. It sounds nice to have government leave things alone, until things get screwed up because government left people alone.
You can’t have American Exceptionalism that serves only our interests “at all costs” and respect the people of other nations. The trampling of their rights are the costs of doing whatever we want whenever we want because we are exceptional. Ask any of the victims of mass murder at the hands of Central American dictators that we supported in our interests against communism, even democratically elected communists. You get people using the same logic al Qaeda used to fly planes into buildings to call torture “enhanced interrogation.” Something has to give.
But most of all you can’t ignore history. You can talk about Lincoln until you are blue in the face, but the GOP is still the party of the Southern Strategy. Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck traffic in monstrous lies and presentable racism. They are celebrated. You have people at rallies calling for lynchings and killing “that nigger” President. That kind of ugliness finds a safe haven, a comfortable home, in the Tea and Republican parties despite loud protestations that “it has no place.” Really? Then why are they at the rallies? There is a reason that all those Dixiecrats jumped ship to the GOP when Johnson signed Civil Rights legislation (you know those laws designed to protect our rights) and it wasn’t Lincoln.
I find liberal ideology just as jumbled and self-contradictory, but at least with them I feel like I can vote with a clear conscience. Seriously.
Love it, Jamal! I echo your sentiments.
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The roots of the belief are attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, who claimed that the then-50-year-old United States held a special place among nations, because it was a country of immigrants and the first modern democracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism
I am a Conservative because I believe in American Exceptionalism; …
http://hiphoprepublican.com/general/2010/02/23/jamal-greene-why-i-am-a-conservative/
Only a punk-gott-damn fuel of a Macaw-addz Negroe would parrot this shig-guh-dy. In 1840, America was working enslaved Africans to death and killing Amerindians for their lands just like every other country in the western hemisphere. What is exceptional about that, hiphoprepublican-Negroe??!!
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Sir I could not have said it better so I won’t even try, but one thing I wish you had touched on is the Federal Reserve.
I am a Conservative first a republican second and I was so excited about the content of your forum that I posted then read the other posts so in light of the post by R.oB. I must comment. Sir the good thing about history is that it is recorded. The republican party was formed in protest of slavery. May I remind you that Strom Thurman was a democrat/liberal and what his actions against The Civi Rights Bill were? May I remind you of Sen Harry Reids shameful remarks, and Bill Clintons remark abou what Obama would have been doing ten years ago. Liberals always pull the race card in defence of their socialiatic agenda because it is the only defense they have. I do oppose Obamas socialistic ideology and the democrats borrow, spend, and tax schemes, but it has nothing to do with his race. I opposed Bush just as strongly as I oppose Obama and I will oppose any and all people, ideology, political partys and, organizations regardless of the color of the peoples skin who hold and support ideas not consistent with the Constitutions ideas of liberty and justice for all.
There is another quote of Alexis de Tocqueville, one that you conservative Negroes seem to avoid using:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS35CnwYEOk
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Jamal Greene, Alexis de Tocqueville also said the following; why aren’t you conservative hiphopping Negroes quoting it:
The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.
Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS35CnwYEOk
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Lloyd is confused. To call Strom Thurmond a liberal is like calling the CPAC a tolerant group of people. It was the Strom Thurmonds making MLK life a living hell with charges of socialist. It was the Strom Thurmonds of the world that wanted states to have more rights. People of color at this site enjoy the fruits of progressive efforts and spit in thier faces to support todays Strom Thurmonds.
BTW. CPAC let a racist be their keynote speaker (Beck). Last years keynote speaker (Limbaugh) says health care is civil rights and reparations to scare the white guys in their trucks at lunch time. Conservatives trading in racial paranoia to encite white America.
I come to this website out of true disbelief that there are people of color that would waste their enegies giving power to todays Strom Thurmonds.
Mr. Green, your work is well done. I agree, the private bank, The Federal Reserve should be abolished. The uber liberals who retort with jibberish and have no real substainitive debate resort to childish name calling. Glenn Beck is SO not a racist and I dare say that who calls him a racist is one themselves. I see nothing that they can offer against his well-researched presentations but “he is a racist”. The Red Phone never rings and no one has courage to come on his show and debate him.
Our country is returning right of center and that is a very good thing for all of us, even the ones who choose to exercise their right and stay uber left.
Keep up the good work…..you can influence the rational, logical independents……the uber left is a lost cause.
L. Gilmore
I only wish I had the time and energy to to make a point-by-point retort to your declaration. You’ve sadly drunk the Kool-Aid.But consider this, and it will lead you down the path of logic: funneling wealth upward, contrary to the postulates of the “free market” crowd, leads to little investment in business expansion and new hiring because no successful business person ever hires more people than he or she needs to get the job done. Hiring more people without the demand to require it will result in loss of the competitive edge, excess inventory, and reduced productivity. A case could be made for product and methodological research, but look at how businesses are actually spending their profits, spending more on public relations about their “green research” than on the research itself. Most profits are going into either higher executive salaries, increased dividends, stock repurchases, lobbying to reduce oversight, automating to eliminate workforce, and shifting production overseas. Henry Ford had it right. Only when the workers are well compensated does demand grow, and from demand comes the need for increased capacity, and with that comes new hiring, increasing wages, greater demand and so on. Trickle down economics is really gusher up and spiral down. It was proven bankrupt under Reagan, and reicht wing revisionist history can’t change that economic fundamental.
Oh, and for Dr. Loretta Gilmore: Did you ever consider that if no one ever calls Beck, it’s only because he’s not taking their calls? A phone that’s not plugged in rarely rings….
Thanks Jamal for your testimony! I totally agree and its all about getting back to the roots of the constitution. There would have never been any slavery if the folks had followed their own constitution. Thus you wouldn’t have a 2 party system where one is of the mindset of entitlements, gov ownage, pillaging off the prosper.
Wow — very powerful and well written. Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work.
Although I disagree with most of what you say, I have defended (though not to my death) in the Korean War, your right to say it. Having said that, we of the “Forgotten Generation” who followed up on the work left us by the WWII veterans; improved human and race relations, desegrated the U.S. Armed Forces; further developed the Civil Rights Movement to see the fruits of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act; the 1969 Older Americans Act, and support of the Feminist Movement, the Chicano Movement, the Gay & Lesbian Rights Movements and Amnesty International. All so you could, without any fear of retaliation, choose to be a Conservative Republican. How about a little appreciation until your contribution is made however.
It’s people like you NSangoma who push us back to a slave mentality. Get out of the past brother. You seem like one who still plays the blame game.
Cole-”Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” …