Beware the Siren Song of Change

As we all remember (I keep hoping it to be a horrible nightmare from which I shall awake) the last election was run, and won, on the theme of “Change.” But all “change” is neither good nor prudent. Even when declaring independence from England, the Founders recognized the dangers of imprudent change as it relates to governing. That is exactly what we got!

However, we Conservatives do not reject change. Edmund Burke, British statesman and thinker, wrote that “a state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.” What kind of change, then, do we Conservatives support?

Change for reform can be beneficial and is intended to preserve and improve the basic institutions of the state as the Founders intended. Change as innovation (which is what are being force fed now) is destructive and a radical departure from the past and the substitution of existing institutions of the state with potentially dangerous experiments, such as Cap & Trade and ObamaCare! Furthermore, the Liberal often justifies change as conferring new, abstract rights, which is nothing more than a Liberal deception intended to empower the state and deny man his real rights – those that are both unalienable and rooted in tradition and faith. Burke wrote, “By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways, as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little more than the flies of a summer.”

As Mark Levin in “Liberty and Tyranny” observes: The Conservative believes, as Burke and the Founders did, that prudence must be exercised in assessing change. Prudence is the highest virtue for it is judgment drawn on wisdom. The proposed change should be informed by the experience, knowledge, and traditions of society, tailored for a specific purpose, and accomplished through a constitutional construct that insures thoughtful deliberation by the community. Not the passing of Bills by a derelict Congress without even reading them! Change unconstrained by prudence produces unpredictable consequences, threatening ordered liberty with chaos and ultimately despotism, and placing at risk the very principles we Conservatives hold dear.

We Conservative must resist ‘Change’ for change sake. Any change in our governance must be necessary, prudent and designed to strengthen our liberty, freedom and safety. We must be active in the political arena and hold our elected representatives accountable to these ends. The elections of 2010 is THE chance to right this ship of state, even if it means throwing 535 politicians overboard! -- TO ARMS! TO ARMS!