Right/Left Activism

I've been hearing word recently about different plans by Ron Paul supporters to march either on Washington or at the Republican National Convention right here in St. Paul. I find it quixotic as to why people would find this course of action so appealing. Thinking about why this idea appeals so much to people led me to realize a greater disparity of methodology between the right and the left.

While contrasting in my head the methods I've seen used by the Right and the Left I came to the conclusion that the courses of action follow along a pattern of separate objectives. The left operates under the ideology of control. From the most horrible excesses of Mao and Lenin, to the misguided and backwards causality of John Maynard Keynes, leftist economic policy is built on the premise of power. To achieve the ostensible ideal of equality, leftists imply upon themselves enormous powers to dictate human action. Thus liberal activism will always pertain to the accumulation of this power and the mobilization of sympathetic forces. Since absolute power is an all or nothing goal, liberal activism is tenacious and omnipresent.

On the other hand we have the Right wing. The essential objective of the Right wing is freedom, not lawless license, but freedom to live one's life free of illegitimate abuses of power either from thugs on the street, or thugs in the White House. This goal makes the right wing by nature a reactionary movement, live and let live, but if you mess with me, I'll mess with you. The problem with this mentality is summed up succinctly by the Declaration of Independence which says "mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

What all this means is that while the left assumes various levels of authority and aggressively seeks more power, the right is more inclined to let the situation deteriorate until they are roused to significant but oh so few acts of protest. Fortunately it has worked out enough times that the people have supported us solely due to our relative inactivity in the face of a too coarse and radical left. Unfortunately it has happened enough times that the left has learned how to veil and refine their message and gain establishment positions under the radar.

George Washington stated that the price of liberty is constant vigilance. I say that the path to power is endless persistence. The leftists are on the right track but we in the conservative movement seem to be completely missing the mark. Our goal is to live happy lives, raise our families' and live in peace. Paradoxically, in order to achieve this we must be willing to abandon our comfort and leisure to secure our political system from those who would subvert and abuse it. More importantly, we cannot as conservatives simply be content to hold the presidency and a congressional majority. We must bear the continual burden of staying true to our principles and shun the power we hold once we achieve it rather than become entangled in the vain raptures of authority.

First we must achieve the power, and doing so will take a lot more than a one time rally, no matter how many people show up. We must strengthen our own resolve to work persistently. We do not simply put forth our beliefs as correct, we hold our beliefs because we our convinced they are right. Do we have the strength of character to hang tough and follow through?