The Seven Basic Tenets of Modern Conservatism

The Seven Basic Tenets of Modern Conservatism

1. Free Market/Capitalism
The principle of the Free Market and Capitalism are to be affirmed. An unfettered and deregulated free market should be allowed to operate. All functions that can be privatized (post office, airport security, etc) should be. A review of regulations must be made to eliminate those that most severely restrict private businesses. Regulations should be made by Congress not by bureaucrats and a sunset provision made for each regulation.
Free Trade should be encouraged. Free Trade means trade on equal footing; countries such as China which encourages piracy and does not allow an open market of goods imported should be punished by disincentives on their exports to America. Free Trade agreements with as many countries as possible is the preferred course of action.
2. Minimalist Government
Government should be viewed as a referee or judge not a participant in the economy: allowing the game of capitalism to continue and stopping only to penalize those who break the rules (fraud/laws). If it wants to change behavior, it should change the rules (moving goalposts back behind the end zone; moving kickoff to 35 yard line, etc) and allow the game to keep on going. That is, by incentives and disincentives behavior is to be modified not by fiat. For example: Instead of a CAFÉ that tries to change the laws of physics, government should provide incentives (yearly bonus) to those with vehicles with high mileage while charging an excise tax to those who wish to continue buying tax guzzlers.
The wisdom of our forefathers to have only four departments in the federal government should be revisited. Do we really need a Department of Education or Energy (for the past 30 years these departments have spent tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars and performance is worst today than when they were started) Major efforts within the government (education, energy, labor, commerce, agriculture, etc) should be downsized or returned to the states.
The Federal government should only be involved in Justice, Treasury, State (foreign affairs), and Defense. All other duties should be handed to the states or given to the private sector. If a function can be performed by the private sector, it should be.
Government is notoriously inefficient and by limiting the functions it has to offer, inefficencies should be diminished. Government only takes wealth and redistributes it, it does not create wealth.

3. Individual rights
We need to affirm the set of individual rights provided to us by the constitution and bill of rights: Freedom of Speech, Religion, Right to bear arms, etc. We do not accept all other individual rights often discussed: right to a job, right to certain level of income, right to health care, right to abortion, etc. It is an individual right to succeed or fail.

4. Maximizing individual Choice.
Choice is an important word in the conservative tenets. By providing greater choice, an individual is allowed to maximize his own welfare, his own utility. An individual knows more and will work harder to satisfy his/her own utility than any bureaucrat or the state. More choice allows the free market to work to its fullest. Monopolies do not provide choice. Monopolies of any sort should be dissolved. School choice is a major player for conservatives: every student age 5-21 should be given vouchers that will allow them to choose the school (private or public) they wish. By doing so, the free market in education will result with much higher dividends for the public as a whole. Those schools that perform better will succeed; those that are mediocre will fail; new schools with new business plans/models will arise and the market will indicate success.
5. Personal Responsibility
We affirm that each individual has the right to make choices and to acknowledge that each choice has an outcome that the individual must then accept. If he/she chooses to drink and drive, the outcome of drunken driving then becomes a natural outcome that he/she must accept and bear the complete responsibility of the outcome. If they have the freedom of choosing bad choices, they must accept the results of their decision. No moral hazard. No nanny state. We must return to accept the personal responsibility of our own actions; if one chooses not to stay in school, one must accept the results of that decision.
A return to equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. There will also be winners and losers; some better than others. If everyone wins, no one wins. Self-esteem should not take center stage rather personal motivation.



6.America is Good/ America First
We as conservatives do not apologize for America or its history; we rather glorify and wish to export it. We acknowledge that it has not always been perfect but it has accepted its faults and corrected it (Slavery was a bad episode in American history but a civil war costing hundreds of thousands of lives is a sufficient price to pay). We object to the political correct policy of ignoring our own history or glorifying those few mistakes in the past well out of weight to their significance. We believe each American citizen or potential citizen must learn about the American culture, learn its language, and be proud of its history. American English is the official language of America, should be legislated as such, and learned by all immigrants or aspirants before citizenship will be given.
We also believe in America First. We do not wish to shackle American hands by multilateral forces (such as UN or EU). America needs the ability to unilaterally act as it deems necessary to defend the country and its citizens.

7. Under God
Our forefathers made special mention of God in the Declaration and the Constitution. We believe the Judeo-Christian philosophy should be proclaimed and proudly posted as the proper heritage of America. The Freedom of Religion and “Separation of Church and State” means its citizenry has the right to worship as they believe and that no governmental religion be established. It does not mean banning religion from the public realm or requiring all religions to be equally pronounced in displays.