In Praise of Our Republican Party

In Praise of Our Republican Party
by Rep. Thaddeus G. McCotter
Posted 04/28/2011 ET

They were "Wide Awakes"—Americans marching through sleepy hamlets and urban centers for candidate Abraham Lincoln and the cause of human freedom. They were "Republicans!"

More than a century later, Republicans—wide awake to America's 20th century challenges—strode to the polls for candidate Ronald Reagan and the causes of ending a deep recession and defeating an evil empire.

Today, the Campaigner-in-Chief and his host of leftist lemmings are again stereotyping Republicans as everything but American. Whence stems their fear?

It is because, less than two years after leftists and their parroting pundits proclaimed our party's epitaph, resilient Republicans have arisen anew to define freedom for this New American Century. Hence, like the Founders and unlike the Left, Republicans are fighting for self-government, not Big Government.

Thus, Republicans seek to conquer a quartet of American challenges:

1. The social, economic, and political upheavals of globalization—notably a persistent recession and the impending implosion of the industrial-welfare state.

2. A borderless, worldwide war for freedom against evil, transnational enemies and rogue regimes.

3. Communist China's emergence as a strategic threat and rival model of governance.

4. Moral relativism's erosion of virtue within an exceptional nation built upon self-evident truths.

Taking heart despite the times, and rising to transcend America's challenges, who are these inspiring Americans?

They are not billionaires, Beltway power brokers, or bromide pundits, who in their foolish hubris claim the mantle of "leadership" and the ability to manage America through their contributions, opinions, and "acts." For as Ronald Reagan observed: "All great change in America begins at the dinner table."

Around America's transformational kitchen tables one finds seated Republicans: shopkeepers and workers, soldiers and first responders, teachers and artisans, students and retirees, among so many others. They reject leftist defeatism and apocalyptic conservatism. They know our nation's best days are ahead, and they realize our generation's defining moments of freedom will come not from the hands of Washington politicians, but from the hearts of the American people.

These are the Republicans who stayed true when their elected servants strayed. They are the GOP's integrity, inspiration, and activists, who canvass their neighbors, tweet, e-mail, stuff snail mail, post Facebook messages, attend Tea Parties, make phone calls—and who thereby lead any and every Republican victory.

These Republicans are the sane, sturdy, salt of the earth Americans who give much and ask little—chiefly, that Big Government stop assaulting their cherished way of life, encumbering their humble, hardworking pursuit of happiness, and endangering their hopes of bequeathing their children a better America.

In prizing self-government over Big Government, Republicans are united in America's founding principles:

1. Our liberty is from God not the government.

2. Our sovereignty is in our souls not the soil or a scepter.

3. Our security is from strength not surrender or appeasement.

4. Our prosperity is from the private sector not the public sector.

5. Our truths are self-evident not relative.

Adhering to these principles, Republicans embrace this, their historic duty:

1. Expand liberty and self-government.

2. Conserve our cherished way of life and its foundations of faith, family, community and country.

3. Reduce big government's burden, and thereby empower Americans to achieve constructive, necessary change that conquers America's challenges.

4. Defend America from her enemies.

Importantly, as they engage in their entrepreneurial idealism and apply their principles in this chaotic era, Republicans realize "politics is the art of the possible." Consequently, as an inclusive national movement, Republicans accept that differences of opinion will occur on how best to surmount America's challenges. Yet, as practical, philosophical citizens, Republicans, as history cautions, reject the ideologues' zeal to purge that which does not mute chaos but exacerbates it. In sum, Republicans agree with President Teddy Roosevelt:

"I am a Republican, pure and simple. ... Whatever good I have been able to accomplish in public life has been accomplished through the Republican Party. I have acted with it in the past, and wish to act with it in the future."

America's future is now. As heirs of their party's historic, visionary leadership, today's Republicans—wide awake—will lead our country through these challenging times and define and expand freedom for this New American Century.