You are going to have to define for me, what you say a conservative is, because for me, first and foremost, a conservative is a person who, at all costs, upholds the rule of law. If one does not stand for the rule of law, especially one who claims to be an expert in the law, that person in my eyes is not a conservative.
IN THIS TIME of moral and political crisis, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths.
WE, as young conservatives, believe:
THAT foremost among the transcendent values is the individual's use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force;
THAT liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;
THAT the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice;
THAT when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty;
THAT the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power;
THAT the genius of the Constitution - the division of powers - is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government;
THAT the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs;
THAT when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation, that when it takes from one to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both;
THAT we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies…
THAT the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties;
THAT the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with this menace; and
THAT American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States?"
Some time and history have passed since that statement was adopted when I was a beardless youth. We have new challenges to fit into that framework and are flexible enough to modify the framework as needed.
YAF's founders did not/could not foresee the future that held Roe vs. Wade as a rogue exercise of raw judicial power crushing the rights of states to govern their own affairs. A serious flaw in our constitution (going back to its abuse in Marbury vs. Madison by Chief Justice John Marshall claiming for SCOTUS a non-existent "right" to declare acts of Congress "unconstitutional) has allowed the SCOTUS to convert itself into some sort of self-contained constitutional amendment system (see also "gay""marriage," affirmative action, and various other abuses of the 14th Amendment treasure trove of leftist dreams. This, above all else, cries out for rectification by fellow YAF member Mark Levin's idea of a Fifth Amendment Convention of the States. Improvise off that for domestic policy conservatism. Meanwhile, after the last abortionist is strangled with the guts of the last judicial treasonweasel, then get back to us on the "rule of law" which seems to exist only to protect our enemies and the elitist scum but never the babies or ordinary Americans.
As to foreign policy, YAF did not foresee our little immigration problem. I will defer to my fellow YAF member Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions on that. Build the wall. Shut it down. Scrap existing immigration law. Restore the status quo ante before Demonrat opportunists turned it into a pipeline for undocumented Demonrats and Obozo further expanded that pipeline to become a vacuum cleaner to scour the Middle East seeking to import terrorist wannabes in maximum numbers to vote Demonrat before blowing up themselves to kill Americans here in our country.
As to foreign policy, scrap the multitude of treaties that purport to bind us to some obligation to treat an attack on some unknown burg in EastNowheristan as though it were an attack on your hometown or mine. Time to prune many of our so-called "allies." Time for them to step up and at least defend themselves and, maybe, their share of Western Civilization. Time to stop promiscuously leaving military outposts throughout the Third World to save terrorists the trouble of having to travel to kill our young men in uniform (our young women ought not to be anywhere near such conflicts).
Military re-armament is necessary to an appropriate foreign policy. We had always been prepared in my lifetime to fight two wars simultaneously at least until Obozo began the quite unilateral disarmament. We now have fewer ships in our navy than before World War I. Women in combat roles???? Even if women are physically capable, despite all liberal efforts, men at arms will still make fatal mistakes in the name of chivalry to protect women from death or even becoming POWs of the Islamolooneybins or simply kidnap victims in the hands of the thugs with or without national identification. Those men should be able to concentrate on doing their job of killing and defeating our enemies.
Goal: a military second to none and so far ahead of whatever comes next that our enemies will not even imagine attacking the US. If they do, retaliation so swift, so effective and so final as to make anyone trying it and a LOT of their allies just a bad memory, glowing in the dark as necessary. Get in. Get it over with. Get out. We could even be nice and round up thousands of gallons of pig blood to be sprinkled over their cities, factories and, if necessary, mosques. No direct casualties, just an epidemic of strokes among apoplectic Uncle Alis. If they revert to attacking us, hit them again as hard as necessary to break the habit. They want medieval? Give them medieval! Think of the knight in the Monty Python skit having his limbs hacked off one by one. Not enough? Behead the miscreant! Not enough? Hack what remains into hamburger for the hogs. Whether their freedom results from that is up to them. We have enough on our own plate.
NO MORE SOVEREIGNTY SAPPING "TRADE DEALS!" Abolish each and every one that afflicts us already. Get the hell out of the United Nations, and out of any any pretentious gang constituting themselves a "world court" or any internationalist globaloney bunch of bureaucrats claiming a right to interfere with ANY American's rights anywhere. Our military exists to punish any who try. OTOH, maybe if Wall Street and K Street and the US Chamber of Crony Commerce were not so busy shifting American jobs to the Third World, there would be no need for our military to protect such misbehavior. There is no such "need" and we should tell them they are on their own.
Other domestic agendas: We would do well to ABOLISH: Department of "Education," much of the "Justice" Department, the "Energy" Department, the Housing and Urban Development Department, much of the Health and Human Services Department, Environmental Services Administration, Labor Department, Commerce Department, many other useless agencies and convert the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms into a privately owned national convenience store chain where ordinary folks can buy all those items hassle-free.
Once all those agencies and departments and more are safely abolished, it will save an AMAZING AMOUNT OF taxpayer $$$$. I can tell you that! And the resulting economic boom WILL make America GREAT again! Donald Trump can then buy the New York Yankees (my favorite team and the greatest franchise in the history of organized sport), continue rebuilding the farm system, make REALLY GREAT deals and start signing needed free agents again and make the YANKEES GREAT again! Great day in the mornin'!
Abolish Common Core which serves only to make our school kids literate enough to fill out their welfare applications when the time comes without costing the elitist nincompoops anything like decent wages and benefits.
Outlaw Planned Barrenhood and similarly subversive groups. Subject them to ruinous fines, individually and as corporations for every instance of human rights abuse.
Get straight once and for all that the First Amendment means Freedom of Religion. I get to be a Catholic. Others get to be Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Evangelicals or Pentecostals or Jews or Mormons or Sikhs or Bahais or Buddhists or Shintos or Hindus or even Muslims or agnostics or atheists as they individually see fit but agnostics and atheists (or Satanists for that matter) have NO right to expect courts or executives or legislators to suppress the public practice of religion by the conventional practitioners of various Judaeo-Christian faiths.
If Trump can accomplish some substantial portion of the foregoing, I will have to admit he's a far better man than I have given him credit for.
More available on request.