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The fight is not over!

By Tom DeWeese
web posted July 16, 2001

Many conservatives across the nation believe that, with the election of President Bush, our fight against the forces of big government is over. Our troops are tired. Eight years of Clinton was an exhausting battle. We simply want to return to living our regular lives without having to prepare for battle at the next school board meeting or protect our property rights at the county commissioners' hearing.

We fought hard to elect a president and both houses of Congress to fight the battles for us. Many activist conservatives now say let them protect our borders from the UN. Let them pass the legislation necessary to protect our personal privacy, rescind Clinton's blizzard of executive orders and keep the government off our backs.

'Dubya' is what we call him
"Dubya" is what we call him

Conservatives have a perfect right to feel that way. We elected a President and a majority to congress with promises to fix education, lower taxes, and reduce the burden of government. Why should we have to continue to support efforts now to make sure those things happen? Just introduce the legislation and pass it. And leave me alone! The problem is, it just doesn't work that way.

True, President Bush has gotten a tax cut passed. He has stood up to the United Nations on the global warming treaty that would have devastated our national economy. And he has said no to the UN's global gun control scheme.

President Bush is certainly not the radical environmental zealot that Al Gore would have been. He has proposed a practical energy policy that would allow America to get off its dependency of foreign oil. Some ranchers and timber people in the West have felt a little relief as President Bush has backed off of Bill Clinton's drive to shut off roads in the nation's forests. Certainly, some things have gotten better under George W. Bush.

But there are storm clouds gathering over Capitol Hill. The defection of Vermont Senator James Jeffords was a huge blow to any efforts to reduce government intrusion in our lives. Not only are the Democrats now on the move, working to block any attempts to reduce government spending programs, but recent reports show that the left wing of the Republican party is "growing confident."

Liberal Republicans like Senator John McCain and Senator Olympia Snowe are defying Republican leadership and joining forces with the Democrats. As a result, they managed to scale back the tax cut. Senator Ted Kennedy was allowed to completely gut what was once the Bush education reform bill.

Jeffords now sits as Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. From that vital position he will be able to stop President Bush's energy plan and he may be able to revise the UN's global warming treaty that is so dangerous to the U.S. economy.

Worst of all, according to reports from conservative leaders like Tom Delay and Dick Armey, the White House is beginning to listen to the liberals instead of to the conservatives. The power has shifted to the left in the past two months.

With that renewed energy, new Democrat Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle is now setting the agenda in Congress. He has declared war on any further tax cuts and the Republicans have responded by scaling back their plans. Reports from Capitol Hill reveal that Daschle's strategy is to run up federal spending in order to eat up any surplus and then blame the Bush tax cut for a
return to deficit spending.

The Democrats have declared war on any possible conservative nominees to federal courts. As a result, the Bush Administration has promised to send only liberals and moderates. New York Senator Charles Schumer blatantly announced that the Democrats would no longer consider judges based on their legal expertise, but rather on their political philosophy. In other words, no conservatives will even be considered for judicial appointments.

Democrats have drawn a line in the sand against the Bush energy plan that calls for the drilling of American oil. As a result, the Administration is beginning to waver on an energy policy that the nation desperately needs to keep the lights on. If the Democrats succeed in blocking plans to drill more American oil and to build more refineries and power plants, the entire country will soon begin to experience energy blackouts like those in California.

The Bush White House has made a full retreat on its education program as Ted Kennedy succeeds in strengthening federal programs, building the power of the National Education Association (NEA) and further entrapping America's children in a public school cesspool of ignorance and leftist propaganda.

Yet, instead of declaring the Kennedy education program a disaster and putting a spotlight on the Democrat's scheme, Bush calls for its passage so he can declare a congressional victory in passing a piece of "his" agenda. The Heritage Foundation has said that if Bush accepts this disastrous education bill as his own, not only will Republicans be blamed for a continuing failure of public education, but it will be nearly impossible to mount a real effort to actually fix education anytime soon.

Politics is a simple game. Those who make the most noise get the ear of the elected representatives. It simply doesn't matter what rhetoric was used to get elected.

Right now, Capitol Hill and the White House are being besieged by high-powered lobbyists from radical environmental groups who want to expand their stifling regulations; from labor unions who seek to expand their power; from major corporations who want to use government spending programs to line their pockets; from the UN which hopes to recruit the new administration to their drive for global power; and from an endless number of left wing groups who know the game isn't over just because the Republicans won the election.

Why is this disaster falling on conservatives who thought they had finally won some peace? There are many reasons, but one in particular stands out. Conservative activists in the grassroots neighborhoods of the nation are not fighting back. They are not applying the pressure to counter the Democrats' theft of their victory. Where is the outrage? Where is the outpouring of opposition to the Left?

Sure we're tired of fighting, but do we just walk away and leave the field to our enemy? Do we accept our fate and watch our national borders meld into the global village? Do we allow them to deny us tax cuts of our own money? Do we have to accept the Left's theft of our judicial system? Do we abandon the Constitution because the fight is just too hard?

Tom DeWeese is the publisher/editor of The DeWeese Report and president of the American Policy Center, a grassroots, activist think tank. The Center maintains an Internet site at www.americanpolicy.org. © Tom DeWeese, 2001




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