The goal of any political party is to get its candidates elected to office and keep them there.  Obviously, the goal of the Republican Party is to get Republican candidates elected.

However, the goal of conservatives within the party is to get conservative candidates elected.  The Republican Party is at best a means to that end.  If the GOP doesn’t move back to the right and start working toward that goal, then there is no reason for conservatives to stay in the party, which is leaving us.

You might be a rightwing extremist if you . . .

. . . attended a tea party
. . . own a gun
. . . go to church regularly
. . . interpret the Constitution literally
. . . don’t believe the “mainstream” media
. . . believe the government should not run health care
. . . believe in states’ rights
. . . believe there are limits on what the government can and should do
. . . listen to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, and other conservative talk show hosts
. . . are a Christian
. . . pay your mortgage
. . . believe in free speech
. . . believe in freedom of religion
. . . served in the military
. . . watch the FOX News Channel
. . . drive an SUV or a pickup
. . . live in Texas
. . . believe taxes are too high
. . . believe the federal government spends too much
. . . think the public schools are failing to do their job
. . . believe that immigrants should follow the country’s laws and procedures to come here
. . . believe that the government shouldn’t be running businesses
. . . don’t want a handout from the government or anyone else
. . . are a capitalist
. . . believe the free market can fix the economy better than the government can
. . . belong to the NRA
. . . oppose abortion
. . . have read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution

The following organizations, which I would classify as conservative, all rate members of Congress on issues that they, the organizations, consider to be most important:

• The American Conservative Union: Congressional Ratings
• Free Trade, Free Markets: Rating Congress
• NTU (National Taxpayers Union) Rates Congress
• Council for Citizens Against Government Waste: Congressional Ratings
• Americans for Better Immigration: Immigration Report Cards
• Americans for Tax Reform: Congressional Ratings and Awards
• Center for Security Policy: National Security Scorecard 2007-2008
• Eagle Forum Scoreboard
• Family Research Council: Voting Records
• Federation for American Immigration Reform: Voting Reports
• FreedomWorks Key Votes: Economic Scorecard
• American Land Rights Association
• Gun Owners of America:  GOA House Ratings, GOA Senate Ratings

The truth about the Great Depression and the New Deal for conservatives:

Books:

• Thomas J., DiLorenzo, How Capitalism Saved America:  The Untold History of Our Country, from the Pilgrims to the Present, Chapters Nine and Ten (at Amazon.com)
• Burton W. Folsom, Jr., New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America (at Amazon.com)
• Jim Powell, FDR’s Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression (at Amazon.com)
• Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression (at Amazon.com)

Articles:

• “Great Myths of the Great Depression“
• “Great Myths about the Great Depression“
• “Four Myths about America’s Great Depression“
• “Five Myths about the Great Depression“
• “Three Myths of the Great Depression“
• “Barack Obama and the FDR-Great Depression Myth“

Videos:

• “Thomas DiLorenzo – The Great Depression, the Truth“
• “Uncommon Knowledge: The Great Depression with Amity Shlaes“
• “Great Depression vs. Today – New Deal or Raw Deal? – Rooseveltism vs. Obamaism” (Glenn Beck and Burton Folsom)

I’m also posting this information on the Information on Issues for Conservatives (II4Cons) wiki.  Please let me know if there are resources I should add by commenting on this post or sending me a message on Twitter.

Conservatism is a political philosophy based on the premises “that all men [and women] are . . . equal, that they are endowed . . . with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness [i.e., individual liberty], [and that] to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men [i.e., limited government], deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” (Declaration of Independence).

A conservative is someone who accepts, adheres to, and argues from these premises.  A person who doesn’t believe in these principles, individual liberty and limited government, is not a conservative.

We don’t need labels like fiscal conservative, social conservative, paleoconservative, neoconservative, etc.  Either someone is a conservative, or he or she is not–period.

Here are some online communities that I’ve found in the last couple of months:

• GOP Cafe in Second Life
• Smart Girl Politics (Smart guys are also welcome.)
• Rebuild the Party
• GOP Tech Summit
• Top Conservatives on Twitter
• Liberty on the Rocks
• Conservative HQ
• Roots HQ

If you’d like to get involved but would rather do so online, you might consider one or more of these options.

I joined Twitter on December 1.  As I wrote the next day, I was aware of a number of my professional colleagues (in higher education) who were using Twitter.  I didn’t see the point, but I decided to give it a try.

Right now I’m following 36 people/groups, I have 59 followers, and I’ve posted 132 updates.

Some people I follow are on the Top Conservatives on Twitter list.  People on the list are ranked by the number of followers they have.  The first-ranked person on the list currently has 7,355 followers and is following 6,510, and none of the tweets on his page right this minute have anything to do with conservative politics.

The stated purpose of the TCOT list is “to build the conservative community on Twitter.”

Why?

What will this “community” do?  How can more than 7000 individuals and organizations be a community anyway?  How can the top-ranked conservative possibly read updates by 6510 people?  (I can’t keep up with all the updates of the 36 that I’m following.)  How will increasing the number of followers of conservatives on Twitter aid the conservative movement?

Barack Obama has 156,095 followers on Twitter, but what did that accomplish?  Did his presence on Twitter actually convince anyone to vote for him, or was it just a morale builder for liberals?

There may be a point to following conservative candidates and leaders (like Michelle Malkin) on Twitter to demonstrate our support for them and find out what they are doing and thinking.  However, that doesn’t explain why I should “follow” anyone else who calls him- or herself a conservative–especially if he or she is posting about other uninteresting (i.e., personal) topics.

To be honest, I still don’t see the point of Twitter, or other microblogging services, and I think their potential in education and political activism is limited.  There are other tools that will probably work better–once we decide what exactly we are trying to accomplish in the conservative movement with web 2.0 (including “social media”) applications and other technology like virtual worlds.

I suspect, though I have no proof, that this emphasis on social media by a segment of the conservative movement is being lead by marketing types.  If conservatives want to learn how to use technology effectively to advance our candidates and causes, we should look to people in instructional technology and technical communication–not in marketing and advertising.

We need to focus on teaching Americans about the Constitution, the history of the country, capitalism, conservatism, etc., rather than trying to be the most popular conservative on Twitter or Facebook.

Yes, I will continue to update my Twitter account, and I hope my followers will find my posts informative and/or thought provoking.

According to a report at Rocky Mountain Right, “Former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis has openly argued for . . . moderating the GOP’s image and fielding more centrist candidates.”  The Republican Party did just that with McCain this year and lost.  A conservative might have won, but we’ll never know because the only real conservatives, Tom Tancredo and Fred Thompson, dropped out early in the primary, and Republicans were left with a moderate candidate who was selected by Democrats, independents, and the media.

Anyone who thinks the Republican Party should “[moderate] on social issues” and move more to the left should look at the results for Proposition 8 in California.  Despite the draw of having Obama on the ticket, the proposition that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman, a position supported by social conservatives, won handily.

When conservative candidates and issues were on the ballot, they usually won.  Leftists will vote for Democrats not Republicans who campaign as Democrat light.

Sofie Inkpen

After writing about “Conservatives and Republicans in Second Life,” I decided to create another avatar to use participate in some of the groups I listed.  (I originally joined Second Life a year and a half ago to explore its potential for education.) 

Her name is Sofie Inkpen.  Sofie is related to Sophia, which means “wisdom.”  (I hope I’ve developed some by my age.)  I selected the last name Inkpen because I’m a writer.  I picked the theme I’m currently using for my blog because of the pen at the top.

Last Sunday evening I attended a discussion at the GOP Cafe on Sagamore Island.  Billybob, whom I saw there, wrote about it in his blog Billybob at Sagamore.  He also has a couple of pictures of the island in another post.

Last Sunday, I wrote that Second Life (SL) “can be used to organize and train conservatives and teach future conservatives about the Constitution, capitalism, socialism, and so on.”  This afternoon I spent a few minutes searching to see how SL is being used by conservatives and Republicans.  Using the “in-world” search function, I found the following groups:

• Republican Party of SL (566 members)
• **The Grand Old Party** (209 members)
• Ron Paul for President (361 members)
• John McCain for America (243 members)
• Conservative Coalition (92 members)
• Stand Strong America (15 members)
• Rush Limbaugh Fans (74 members)
• Sarah Palin for President in 2012 (3 members)
• Go Sarah Go! (49 members)
• SecondLife Friends of Fred Thompson (3 members)
• Mike Huckabee for President (4 members)
• The Conservative Hall of Fame (2 members)
• Conservative Matters (36 members)
• Conservative Women’s Forum (15 members)
• Conservative Party of SL (109 members)
• Second Life Conservatives (18 members)
• Conservaties and Patriots (18 members)
• Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions (17 members)

I also found residents named Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Fred Thompson, and Newt Gringrich.  It looked as though the Coulter and Gingrich avatars might really belong to those individuals.

There were no results for the following individuals and organizations:

• Sean Hannity
• Bobby Jindal
• Michelle Malkin
• Mitt Romney
• Heritage Foundation
• American Enterprise Institute or AEI
• Independence Institute
• Heartland Institute