DC Protest Warrior: Conservative Principles Based on Founding Principles

DC Protest Warrior: Conservative Principles Based on Founding Principles

The primary legitimate purpose of government is the protection of individual freedom; and conservatism, as a philosophy of freedom grounded in the ideas articulated as the basis of the founding of the nation, has, as its rationale, the preservation and enhancement of that great ideal. That is not just a general intellectual concept. It is a sacred, activist purpose.

The coercive power of government must not be mobilized to enforce social norms if we are to suggest that ours is a philosophy of freedom. But there are places that are ripe for clarification.

Conservatives should bend themselves to the task of clarifying the First Amendment by proposing an amendment to the Constitution that recognizes that the Founders did not endorse a “wall of separation” between government and religion. Indeed, the adoption of the First Amendment by Congress was immediately followed by a resolution by that same Congress for a celebration of its great accomplishment by days of prayer and fasting. The suggestion that the Founders intended the First Amendment to prohibit nativity scenes on public property and prayers at public events is legally unsound and historically unsupportable. Only judges could get this so wrong.