...but will anyone listen?
Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, gave a talk at Hillsdale College in October that was featured in the October Imprimis titled "Populist Conservatism and Constitutional Order." What I particularly appreciated about the piece, was the fact that it wasn't simply a long lament about our problems. Roberts offered practical solutions that could set the United States back on a constitutional path.
Before you read Roberts' article, meet him. He's a Catholic and former president of Wyoming Catholic College where he led the school to reject the federal dollar. You can learn more about him at the Kevin Roberts Show podcast.
Hillsdale practices what they preach by refusing federal money. Most colleges and universities are lackeys of the state, bought and paid for by the elite globalists intent on brainwashing future decision makers. Hillsdale is different. They offer multiple free courses about the constitution, politics, economics, history etc. They also have a podcast site. One could easily get a free education from Hillsadale and be smarter than most professor on woke campuses. Letters after one's name don't necessarily equal brain power or even common sense!
Here's the section in the article offering solutions:
None of our problems are beyond our constitutional order’s power to solve. What is it we need, after all? We need a Congress that acts like a legislature rather than a company of moralizing performance artists. We need a president who acts like a responsible chief executive rather than a drunken king. We need a judiciary that acts impartially in accordance with the Constitution and the laws of the land rather than in a partisan manner. And we need to disperse the political power that is now concentrated in the hands of the Washington establishment.
In short, the solution to our problems is not to scrap or transcend the Constitution, but to start obeying and applying it again. Under that document, “We the People” already possess every power we need to reestablish majority rule, minority rights, democratic accountability, equal justice under law, and national sovereignty.
Writing my recent book on this topic, I kept coming back to a quotation from composer Gustav Mahler: “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” The preservation of fire strikes me as a good metaphor for conservatism. It’s not rose-tinted nostalgia of an idealized past. It preserves the best of the past and applies its lessons to the present—maintaining a controlled burn as a way to a better future.
The greatest challenges we face today are fairly straightforward. The necessary solutions, as Reagan said, may not be easy, but they are simple. It is clearly possible for a nation to control its borders, to prosecute criminals, to reclaim its sovereignty as it pertains to war, peace, and trade, and to protect and promote the values that most Americans espouse.
Step back from the Left’s Oz-like faux-authority and think for a moment about its legal fragility. Almost everything organizations of the Left do is either funded by taxpayers or ignored by prosecutors. A principled, populist conservative government could undo huge swaths of it with—in the immortal words of President Barack Obama—“a phone and a pen.” The supposedly un-fireable bureaucrats of the federal Deep State are nothing of the sort. The president could reclassify, reassign, or simply dismiss thousands of them. Moreover, agencies that have gone all-in on woke claptrap in the last decade have advertised their own irrelevance to budget-conscious congressional appropriators.
The U.S. Border Patrol could secure the border today if the president ordered them to. Energy companies already know where to drill—they just need permission. We already know which treaty loopholes China exploits to steal our jobs and trade secrets. The loopholes could be closed, or we could withdraw from the treaties altogether.
Cities and states that refuse to prosecute crimes or protect girls’ privacy can be disqualified from federal aid. Corporations that practice ideological discrimination can be prohibited from federal contracting. The Justice Department now harassing Christians and conservatives could start exploring Big Tech’s deliberate attempts to addict children to harmful online content. We could reform the tax code to prioritize families and workers instead of globalist corporations. We could do the same with education, labor, housing, and transportation policy.
Instead of funneling more money into DEI offices on campus, we could invest in trade apprenticeships. Instead of wasting money on global green energy boondoggles, we could build nuclear power plants. We could reclaim our sovereignty by withdrawing from the World Trade Organization and the United Nations and by clarifying our strategic alliances. And the institutions we need to revive—marriage and family, church and community, private enterprise and public spirit—already exist. Like flowers in a garden choked by weeds, they just need room, light, and water to grow again.
Returning to my metaphor of a controlled burn, we will need to ignite several of those to fix institutions like the Department of Homeland Security, the EPA, the Federal Reserve, the FBI, the Department of Education, the military-industrial complex, and apparently now FEMA. Today these institutions function as anti-American, anti-constitutional predators, serving their own interests at the expense of the national interest. Their institutional status quo is inconsistent with freedom and self-government. America must break and reform them before they break and destroy us.
I recommend Imprimis. One of our greatest challenges is never to stop learning. Our focus should be on the true, the good, and the beautiful. Hillsdale is one source where that goal can be achieved. Here's a five minute introduction to what Hillsdale is doing to form the hearts and minds of its students.
Shall we make 2025 a year of learning? Many people spend all their time vegging out with mindless entertainment that actually damages character. Here's one source (Free!) for challenging your intellect and strengthening your will.
May God bless us with a desire for lifelong learning and thanksgiving for those who offer us opportunities based on truth and godly principles.
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