Kentucky's Bill Johnson-a thoroughbred conservative for U.S. Senate

This past weekend I traveled to Kentucky to stand with Bill Johnson, a candidate for the Republican nomination for US Senate. Bill has all the characteristics that ought to make him the candidate of choice for grassroots "tea party" conservatives who understand that American liberty stands presently on the verge of its demise. A U.S. Navy veteran who served with distinction in the first gulf war, Bill believes that the oath he swore to uphold, protect and defend the U.S. Constitution represents a lifelong commitment. Bill isn't one of the politicians who pay lip service to the Constitution while promoting or tolerating the destruction of the unalienable rights from which it derives its purpose and content. As a matter of priority, he defends the unalienable right to life of all persons, from the moment of conception. Like the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Bill is not afraid to acknowledge that those rights are based in the authority of "nature and of nature's God". So he defends the prerogatives of marriage against the assault of those who seek to redefine it without respect for that authority, and who thereby discard its basis in the obligations of family and child rearing that arise from the natural relationship between a man and a woman.

Bill's stands on issues across the board reflect this principled commitment to American liberty. He stands against the Obama faction's determined efforts to push America over the cliff of socialism. As he says on his campaign's website " I want to be a voice for concerned citizens across the Bluegrass State who have 'had enough' of politicians violating our trust. For that reason, I am running in the 2010 Republican primary for the United States Senate. I stand for limited govern, low taxes, strong military, gun ownership, marriage between one man and one woman, and life begins at conception."

Though he competes for the Republican nomination, Bill Johnson is first of all a conservative in the true sense of the term. He refuses to capitulate in any of the areas vital to the moral, economic and physical survival of liberty. He will not sacrifice conscience in order to project phony moderation on issues like abortion. He will not sacrifice individual property rights or free enterprise in order to accept the consolidation of socialism that masquerades as compassion. He will not sacrifice the common sense requirements of our national security in order to curry favor with those who pretend that retreat from America's providential offer of leadership to forces of freedom around the world will somehow make our liberty at home more secure.

Bill Johnson represents, and advocates with passion, the core beliefs of common sense conservatives like those who have gathered at Tea Party events, and Town Hall meetings throughout the U.S. He is precisely the kind of candidate the Republican Party leadership would welcome if they meant sincerely to represent such conservatives. Instead, the Republican Senate Campaign committee has thrown its resources behind a so-called "moderate". This reflects the present Party system's tragic corrosion of representation in politics. The two parties actually represent one power, that of arrogant elites intent on wresting from the people unchallengeable control of the country's resources and its future.

But the Republican primary race in Kentucky also features another choice vital to the resurrection of real constitutional government in the U.S.: the choice between Bill Johnson and Rand Paul. Ron Paul's son is mounting a well funded effort to exploit the rising tide of voters who identify with the conservative name. But like his father, he rejects Ronald Reagan's 'Peace through strength' acceptance of America's leadership for freedom in the world. Like his father, he echoes Barack Obama's illogical willingness to pretend that America is to blame for the hateful attacks directed against us by Middle East terrorists. Like his father, he seeks the support of those who understand that the Constitution cannot survive unless its foundation of respect for unalienable rights is preserved. But, again like his father, he asserts that it can somehow be just and lawful for State governments to violate the unalienable rights of human offspring in the womb or the research laboratory. It's only wrong when the Federal government does so.

Sadly, Rand Paul's stands disregard the common sense requirements of our national security. They also contradict the clear logic of the conservative creed which, like the United States itself, begins with the understanding that the fundamental purpose of government is to secure the unalienable rights which, by God's will, are part of the birthright of our humanity. The U.S. Constitution explicitly requires (Article IV, Section 4) that all of the States of the United States adhere to the republican form of government, which is to say government based on the consent of the governed and limited in its powers to those actions consistent with respect for their unalienable rights. It makes no sense for people to claim that they respect and revere the Constitution, and yet take the position that the State governments can depart. whenever they choose, from the foundational premises of republican government. Whatever their claims, such people are pro-choice on unalienable rights, and in principle no different than those who abuse the rhetoric of 'choice' to camouflage the injustice of their assault against posterity in the womb.

Is it possible to abandon the foundational principles of Constitutional government, and yet still be regarded as a true conservative? Isn't liberty what we seek to conserve? But as our Founders repeatedly admonished, liberty is not the same as licentiousness. It does not mean redefining right to suit our desires. The root of our claim to rights is the idea of right as it is established by the will of the Creator God. We therefore cannot have the right to do what is fundamentally wrong, what contradicts, rejects or violates this basic premise of all justice. Ultimately, this is the basis for the concept of 'limited government'. It is limited not by calculations of human power and inclination, but by the requirements of justice, grounded in the transcendent will of God.

Thus, states' rights cannot trump unalienable human rights. The will of the majority cannot confer on government at any level a legitimate power to do that which contravenes the premise of all governmental legitimacy. If it could, then Cass Sunstein and other Obama faction ideologists might be right when they argue that government has the legitimate power to do whatever those who control the government believe is preferable. The collectivist logic of totalitarian socialist control, though it tramples on individual unalienable rights, could somehow be made compatible with formal respect for the Constitution, despite the consolidation of unlimited power in the hands of government to do as those who control it see fit.

What point is there in maintaining the façade of conservatism while taking stands that pave the way for legitimizing, in principle, every kind of tyrannical abuse?

I went to Kentucky to endorse Bill Johnson, and I will return again and again to help him as best I can. I will do so because he offers the only alternative that does not contradict and betray the common sense conservatives who long firmly to reestablish the simple logic of American liberty, so that it may long endure. I hope and pray that among those of you who read this, there will be many who see fit to visit his web page. Confirm what I have said. And then contribute what you can to the effort to assure that, at least in the 2010 U.S. Senate race in Kentucky, voters will be able to support a candidate who is truly conservative because he first seeks to be true to the American creed.