Who we are

We are a group of ordinary citizens: bloggers, town council members, civil servants, business owners, engineers, you name it.  This is not an "astroturf" party funded by a billionaire or political has-been with an agenda of his own; this is America, as mainstream as it gets.  We're not a "TEA Party" trying to teach the Republican Party a lesson by "changing from within" but an independent limited-government political party.

The reason for that is that we believe that competition is the only healthy way to drastically move the body politic to the right for the long term.

Some of us have been registered Republicans; some Libertarians, a few Blue Dog Democrats, and a lot of people that have refused to apply any party tag to themselves.  Many of us have been citizen activists in the past, but became dissatisfied with the choice between the socialist Democrats and the Democratic-lite Republican Party.

How we came about

Early in 2008, a number of people who are conservatives, old fashioned liberals and traditionalists from all walks of life, across generations and from far flung areas of the country came together via the Internet for the common purpose of forming a new party. This was out of a common distaste for what the existing two major parties represent.  We come from many existing political labels, and yet none of them, because we feel that no party adequately represents American values.

We spent many weeks hammering out our principles, creed and mission statement during our Internet conferences. Founded by ordinary people we had little to no resources, just a desire to move back to our founding fathers principles of governance. We realize that the Democrats and Republicans have made it extremely difficult to develop a new party, much less one focused on curbing their (government) power, yet we are moving slowly but steadily along, with new members every day and new chapters being formed all over the country.

Well, now all we need is a leader...like Reagan...right?...

One Leader is not going to cut it

On Forbes.com website back in November 2008, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn makes some points about why the Republicans got drubbed at the polls. These bear repeating.

Conservatives find the charge that they have been suddenly expelled from American political life surreal because we have been a minority within the majority, then a minority within the minority, since 1996. Conservatives have been consciously marginalized ever since the new Republican majority decided inconvenient promises like term limits were no longer necessary now that the "good guys" were in charge. And, as far back as 1997, Republican leaders initiated the Republican leadership policy of referring to conservatives as "you conservatives"--a troublesome band best kept outside of the Republican machinery that was busy doing important work like constructing the K Street Project.

While establishment Republicans find solace in complaining about the demands from the right, the record of history shows that virtually every warning and call for internal reform conservatives have offered since 1996 has been vindicated. It was conservatives who indicted the corrupting practice of pork-barrel spending long before sitting members were formally indicted. It was conservatives who warned that budget surpluses would quickly disappear in an environment of out-of-control spending and decimate the Republican brand. It was conservatives who insisted that a culture of oversight was more important to our long-term success than a culture of parochialism.

Therefore, what led the Republican Party to this day was not the application of conservative principles but the abandonment of those principles while hypocritically appealing to those tenets. The past few years have shown a strong correlation between electoral success and fidelity to limited government conservatism. The more Republicans abandoned conservatism, the more voters abandoned Republicans.

The American Conservative Party was founded by a group of people who grew disillusioned with the Republican party, and tired of saying "Someone should do something about it. We need a leader like Reagan or Thatcher." Collectively, we finally decided that not only was there no Messiah of the Right, but there should not be such an icon. Given a hero to lead them, people would flock to his or her banner, and we'd march on to Washington, ready to smite our foes. Manna would rain from the heavens and we'd bask in our freedoms and economic prosperity.

Just one problem. What happens when that hero dies?

Well, for an answer to that, look at what happened to "Reaganism." Look what happened to "Thatcherism." Barely a generation has gone by, and the U.K. is selling is sovereignty to bureaucrats in Brussels, and we have "sold our birthright for a mess of porridge." We, the people, don't need an icon -- we need a firm political philosophy grounded in the 17th & 18th century Age of Enlightenment that produced this very country. The Republican party has failed to even address the need, let alone fulfill it. Instead, they engage in the politics of opportunism, voting for $700 billion bailouts when they are in power, and against them when they aren't. Individual congressmen decry government spending one week and brag how much they brought to their district in the next.

It has to stop. It has to be stopped at all levels. It can't just be stopped in Washington, the rot is too deep. We must fight at the local, the county, the state, and the federal levels to revive the philosophy of a limited government unable to tax us into peonage, make us dependent upon government for our very subsistence, unable to interfere in our home and work, unable to be the father, mother, and keeper of our very lives and that of our children. This is why we collectively declared, "if there should be no one leader, then there must be a thousand. Our numbers will be legion and we shall not falter with the life of a single person. We few are but the beginning."

We're not going to run any candidates for President, because we believe that in a country where the National Government was created by the States, that our principles need to find their way to Washington from leaders in their States and localities.

It's a bit pompous sounding, but it expresses the sentiment nicely: We take back our government, or we sell our future generations into tax slavery to pay off the madness that has gripped our leaders -- Democrat and Republican alike.

Conservatives: Welcome to your new home.   Let's get to work.