After almost a year away from blogging here, I'm thinking I might take this back up again.

Stay tuned.

For now, here's a piece that I posted as a note on my Facebook page the day after this latest presidential election:

"Chickens of the Republican Variety Coming Home to Roost"

We awake this morning to a country in which the President-elect of the United States of America is a man by the name of Barack Obama.  Much to the surprise of many Republicans, the world has not ended and the United States has not ceased to be.  Those things won’t come to pass on January 20, 2009 when President-elect Obama takes the oath of office, nor will they happen within his first one hundred days in office.  Furthermore, they are unlikely to transpire by the end of his four-year term in the White House.

Will four years of President Obama be disastrous for our nation?  Certainly.  Crying over split milk will get us nowhere.  The thing to do now is answer two very important questions: (1) “How did we as a nation get to the point where it was even possible for this man to be elected?” and (2) “What do we do about it?”

The answer to the first question can be answered by a paraphrase of Reverend Jeremiah Wright: Republican chickens . . . are coming home . . . to roost!  Over the last two decades or so, the Grand Old Party has lost its way, particularly over the last eight years (with the exception of the all too brief Republican revolution of 1994).  I could make a long list of things that Republicans have supported in recent years, but why do that when Pat Buchanan has already done it for me?  Suffice it to say that No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D were only the tip of the iceberg.

Generally speaking, spending under the Republican-controlled Congress and White House, increased significantly.  We’ve seen the national debt climb from $5.6 trillion and 58% of GDP to an estimated $10 trillion and 70% of GDP.  I’m sure I’m not the only one that thinks something like that should never have happened under a supposedly “fiscally conservative” administration with the aid of a Congressional majority for most of its time in office.  Recently, Congress has approved hundreds of billions of dollars worth of bailouts for the financial industry, and many Republicans hardly batted an eyelash.  Nothing disappointed me more than seeing members of the Republican Study Committee (a fiscally conservative caucus within the GOP) voting in favor of the so called “rescue plan.”  If even the limited government, fiscally responsible wing of the Republican Party is abandoning its principles, there is little doubt about how the rest of the party feels on that issue.

For as long as I can remember the Republicans have been promising limited government and fiscal responsibility.  They’ve been delivering, however, compassionate conservatism and unfettered spending (last year’s children’s crusade against earmarks notwithstanding).  The Republicans came into power with the “Contract with America” and have slowly drifted toward positions held by Democrats.  Compare a typical Republican and a typical Democrat and you will find very little real difference.

That is why there will be an avowed socialist in the White House in the spring.  That is why the Democrats have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.  That is why the Democrats have commanding control of the House of Representatives.  Voters saw no difference between most Democrats and most Republicans so they went with the people they thought they could trust to do exactly what they say they are going to do: Democrats.

What is to be done about the complete failure of the Republican Party?  We can rebuild from within or start over entirely.  Whatever we choose to do, there must be a genuine and total recommitment to the principles for which conservatism once stood: limited government, reduced spending, noninterventionist foreign policy, and dedication to the rule of law and the Constitution.

Here’s what I think that implies.

We have to end the Iraq War as soon as is practically possible.  We went to war without following the constitutional method of Congress issuing a formal declaration of war.  We have to face the reality that although “the surge” reduced violence, we are fighting an enemy that cannot be permanently pinned down, we are trying to establish a Western, democratic style government in a culture that does not share the same values that underpinned the founding of our nation, and any gain to our national security is offset by the increased animosity toward our intervention in the Middle East.  Yes, “they” hate us because of what the United States stands for.  However, they hate us even more for sticking our noses in their little corner of the world where they think it doesn’t belong and where we are hard-pressed to show how it is in our own nation’s best interest to be.

On a related note, we need to take the advice of President Bush c. 2000 election campaign and not be the world’s police force, righting whatever wrongs go on anywhere in the world.  For instance, we need to keep out of the mess that Russia is creating between itself and the other former Soviet republics.  At this point, we have nothing to gain by getting involved and everything to lose.

We need to seriously cut back some of the programs that were passed in the immediate aftermath of September 11th.  While I can understand the arguments that led to some of the legislation that was passed (the most prominent being, of course, the PATRIOT Act), we need to put them in perspective.  The freedom from being spied upon by the government, the freedom from having the government break into your dwelling and search your belongings without probable cause, and the myriad other freedoms that have been compromised in the name of security, need to be greatly restricted or, in many cases, repealed altogether.  As much as some conservatives and Republicans deride liberals and Democrats for their “living, breathing” interpretation of the Constitution, it is positively dumbfounding that they would allow the government to listen to their phone conversations in light of the protections of the Fourth Amendment.  Did “evolving standards of decency” creep into the right against unreasonable searches and seizures?

We need to make a real effort at cutting back government spending.  Reforming the earmark process is not enough (they make up a miniscule percentage of the overall budget).  People like to talk about the now $10 trillion national debt.  That’s pocket change compared to the unfunded mandatory spending of Social Security and Medicare.  When we total up all the obligations of the federal government, the true figure is close to $100 trillion.  We are broke as a nation and almost no one is willing to admit it.  Republicans have done next to nothing to keep that dam from bursting and make no mistake, it will burst in the very near future.

I could probably go on, but I think I’ve conveyed my sentiments.  President-elect Obama won election on promises of change.  Change is definitely what we’re going to have whether we like it or not.  I am confident that the change we get will not be the change President-elect Obama promised or expected.  We will all be the worse for it.

Along with that change we as conservatives (or libertarians or what have you) have an opportunity.  We have the opportunity to reform the coalition that can bring freedom and prosperity for those that are willing to fight for it.  We must rethink some Republican policies and abandon a host of others.  What’s most important, however, is that we do not give up the fight.

Conservatives and Republicans have lost the battle.  President-elect Obama will ride into Washington in a couple of months to celebrate his victory; Democrats, liberals and progressives will gloat for a while.  However, with determination conservative Republicans along with the ill-treated libertarian wing of the party can form a new coalition and reorganize in time to win the war.

Dark times are ahead, but the dawn is only a few years away.  Now it’s time to get to work.