Conservative, not to be confused with GOP.

Note: This is an old article written June 2007. I happened to find it when I was doing some research for a piece I am currently working on. I thought I might as well throw it up here.

There is a saying that goes, "A young conservative has no heart, and an old liberal has no brain." While I agree that the latter part of the phrase holds some truth, the former part I must argue.

As a twenty-year-old conservative activist, I have been the subject of much criticism and controversy over the past couple years because there is ignorance in our society as to what a conservative truly is. Many of my peers believe a conservative is one whom espouses more freedom for big corporations and elites, while espousing an individual's personal and moral freedom less.

It disheartens me when the media, liberals, and uninformed citizens deduce my way of life -- my conservatism --to greed and religious fascism. The people of the United States, particularly the GOP, need to be taught or reminded what real conservatism represents.

Although I am a College Republican leader, I will confidently make the claim, though controversial, that Americans are ignorant to what true conservatism is because the term, conservative, is too closely associated with the Republican Party. This causes many to believe that a conservative and a Republican are one in the same. However, today's GOP leaders have diluted the meaning of conservatism with their hypocrisy.

Since Republicans gained control of the White House and Congress they have done anything but 'conserve.' The United States has experienced the biggest spending increases and expansion of entitlement programs since Lyndon B. Johnson. Also, the federalizing of education, the McCain-Fiengold restrictions on political speech, and most recently, Republican support for a bill that would grant amnesty to illegal immigrants: all of which is a far cry from the conservative principles that so many of these same Republican's campaigned on.

With the combination of our universities left-wing biases, and our supposedly "conservative" leaders being anything but conservative, it is no wonder young people today are liberal.

I encourage all sincere conservatives to expose the politicians whom adopt the word conservative for their own political gain, and then degrade all that it stands for. I encourage young people to study American history and read the works of great conservative thinkers such as Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, and TS Eliot. It is necessary that the youth educate themselves on the proper meaning of conservatism, since it's teaching seems to be forbidden in the contemporary classroom.

In contradiction to the modern day stereotype, conservatism is actually a philosophy of the heart. It is rooted in the love and respect of individuality, opportunity, responsibility, and most of all, freedom.

So long as the GOP continues to lose sight of this, then the GOP, will indeed, continue to lose.

Kentuckians, raise your Rebel Flag

Once, while waiting to meet a friend at the Ritz Carlton bar in New Orleans, I struck up a conversation with a couple sitting a few stools down. We ended up chatting about everything -- from history and politics to books and college. The husband was a professor at a small local Catholic college, and before the night was over, the nice couple asked my friend and me over for dinner.

When we arrived at the couple's house (which was more of a mansion), it was obvious they were very well to do. Their yard was clearly the handiwork of a professional landscaper; two luxury cars were parked behind a yacht in the driveway, and everything about the place oozed affluence. Well, everything except the Confederate Battle Flag fluttering at the end of a long pole off the front of their house.

"What would a wealthy, educated couple like this be doing with a Rebel Flag in their front yard?" I asked myself. "Isn't that more suitable for some racist redneck's trailer?"

That night at dinner, I asked the couple why they flew the Rebel Flag over their home. The professor quickly replied as if he had answered this question a million times:

"My ancestors shed their blood under that flag and several were even awarded the Medal of Honor. That flag represents my heritage, my distinct Southern culture, and a hallowed fragment of American history. I have as much reason to fly the Confederate Battle Flag over my door as I do Old Glory herself."

We discussed the subject for hours, and ever since then, I have held an entirely different view of the Confederate Flag. Not only am I no longer offended by it, but I also encourage people to raise their Rebel Flags without shame or fear of the militant multicultural factions of American society attacking them.

Kentucky played one of the most essential roles of any state during the Civil War. An estimated 130,000 Kentuckians fought in the war and President Lincoln famously declared, "I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game." Like it or not, Kentucky's history is indelibly marked with the scars of the Civil War; and those soldiers fighting in the Confederacy were simply fighting for the freedoms of the U.S. Constitution. Honoring their bravery by waving a Confederate Battle Flag in your yard is a celebration of your family's heritage and should not be twisted by modern interpretations. Slavery was an American issue, not merely a Southern issue.

In fact, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, "The prejudice of the race appears stronger in the States that have abolished slavery than in the States where slavery still exists. White carpenters, white bricklayers, and white painters will not work side by side with blacks in the North but do it every day in the Southern States..."

As Southern Americans, and particularly as Kentuckians, we should not allow the Confederate Battle Flag to be reduced to a racist symbol just so that, as one columnist put it, "professional guilt-mongers can point and say, 'see...see, racism is alive and well so let's throw more money at the phony idea of social equality.'"

Social equality should not mean that blacks can take pride in any part of history they choose (even if their self-proclaimed leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X were murderers), whereas whites can only honor those parts of history which minorities and the Left deem politically correct.

However, racism towards the South continues to exist and does not appear to be going away anytime soon. It is no wonder that the Left is so prejudiced towards the South: it's conservative, Christian, traditionalist, and resistant to cultural revolution. In other words, Southern attitudes stand in the way of Leftists' agendas. Thus, as usual, the Left finds it necessary to censor the South or berate it into submission by throwing guilt at its people.

As I was leaving the couple's house that night in New Orleans the professor warned me, "If the Left succeeds in removing the Confederate Battle Flag from the public sphere they will no doubt declare war against another emblem of American history: Old Glory herself."

I believe he is right. After all, shouldn't the Left consider the Stars and Stripes the ultimate symbols or slavery, racism, and sedition?

We must not allow the Left to make any more progress than they already have in this battle. They have succeeded in pulling the Rebel Flag from our State Houses, banning it from our schools, and removing its image from several State flags. We cannot allow the Left to outlaw this part of our American history and Southern heritage.

Pat Buchanan said it best when he wrote, " [If people] believe that the only folks who cherish this symbol are 'white trash' and 'yahoos,' that tells us more about them than it does about the South, of which they know nothing."