Conservative Environmentalism

By Mr. Right

Conservatives frequently come under fire for being “anti-environment.” Their accusers “conveniently” forget that the environmental movement was started by conservatives. In his speech at Osawatomie in 1910, Theodore Roosevelt, who is widely hailed as the first modern Republican, outlined his policy of conservation, stating, “Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us. I ask nothing of the nation except that it so behave as each farmer here behaves with reference to his own children. That farmer is a poor creature who skins the land and leaves it worthless to his children. The farmer is a good farmer who, having enabled the land to support himself and to provide for the education of his children, leaves it to them a little better than he found it himself.

I believe the same thing of a nation.” When boiled down, Roosevelt’s position of conservation means that while we should make use of the resources our nation has been blessed with, we should not needlessly squander or abuse them. This is a philosophy with biblical underpinnings; in Genesis, God gives Adam (and all mankind) stewardship over the earth. The terms of man’s stewardship are that while man is allowed to use the resources of the earth, he must ensure that those resources are responsibly cared for and that they are replenished for use by future generations. This creates a system which when followed will ensure that man is able to work in harmony with nature.

Conversely, the majority of liberals embrace a system known as preservation. Preservation calls for man to simply leave nature alone. It is easy to see why this is a foolish system; if man leaves nature alone he is neither able to use the land nor to ensure its future existence. Conservation, the system embraced by the majority of conservatives, is the only viable environmental policy. Under conservation, the country would be allowed and/or continue to be allowed to drill in Alaska, provide recreational forests for the public use, continue to harvest lobster and other sea creatures, and much, much more. All of these things can be accomplished through the responsible system of conservation, a conservative principle which is, not surprisingly, superior to the corresponding liberal principle.

Mr. Right is a senior at a local high school.

Taxpayer Dissatisfaction Not Considered Newsworthy

The grassroots conservative Tea Party firestorm crossing the country stopped on the corner of Market and High Streets in West Chester last Saturday. From noon till one, a vast cross-section of men, women, and children wearing tea bags and holding signs showed up to peacefully voice their collective discontent with taxation and government overreach. Four hundred people gathered on the courthouse steps for the hour, headlined by speeches from PA State Representative Curt Schroder and US Congressman Joe Pitts.
It certainly was newsworthy – but it apparently wasn’t news.
Conspicuously absent from the crowd were news reporters. The Daily Local sent a photographer, but even the lone West Chester newspaper could not free up an actual reporter until after the event had ended. Television news outlets admitted when contacted earlier in the week that they were not interested in coming, and they held true to their word.
So it should come as no surprise that the only news account of Saturday’s amazing turnout of concerned Americans had little to do with the actual Tea Party. It had little to do with a mass of citizens gathering with signs such as, “I’m 2 & I Owe China $80,000 Thanks To Congress,” and “Spread My Work Ethic – Not My Wealth.” It had little to do with Representative Schroder speaking emotionally about his efforts to protect our economic and voting freedoms. It had little to do with Congressman Pitts describing the delinquency of our current representatives, or the Russian immigrant speaker drawing erie parallels between the decline of his country into communism and the actions by Congress today.
There was a conservative firestorm passing through West Chester last Saturday. If it wasn’t clear before, it should be exceedingly obvious now – spreading our message of limited government, lower taxes, and economic freedom is up to us. We are not going to be helped in the slightest by traditional media outlets. Unfortunately, many of us knew this all along.

From ‘Compromise’ to Chaos

By Greta Scriboni

The rhetoric in Washington becomes more hysterical with each passing day.  In January, Congress’ actions resembled The Keystone Cops, or a remake of a Marx Brothers movie.  By March, our elected officials took on the mood of vigilantes – calling for AIG executives to commit suicide, proposing 90% taxes on a select group of American citizens, declaring the power to break legal contracts, and demanding authority to assume control of privately-held companies.
Now, as April approaches, I understand that there is nothing funny about what is happening to our America. Now, I realize, Washington is becoming something much more sinister and terrifying. On a daily basis, those of us who are watching see the images of destruction – a voyeuristic reality show starring Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, Christopher Dodd, and a cast of thousands, including big business, union leaders, ACORN, Wall Street, and the antagonists of the story, the adoring mass media.
If you believe that all the world is a stage, then Washington has become the Theatre of the Absurd. And like that theatre, we do not want to watch, but we cannot look away. Our Lady Liberty is crying out from the corners of small towns, from military families, from immigrants who entered the country legally, from corporate executives who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and from small business owners who bet everything for that one thing, the American Dream.

Where has our America gone? Will we resign ourselves to endless government tyranny? As we watch, we feel the lifeline of a Republican form of government slipping away. If we wait too long, it will be gone from our grasp, and we will be left with the faded remnants of a country, like a life taken too soon.

Believe me, fellow citizens, when I say that the chaos in Washington is intentional. We have heard the Obama administration state that, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” We’re told that, out of this chaos, will come “change.” And while we pay attention to the chaos in one hand, the sleight of the other hand is diminishing our constitutional rights and leaving us with a shell of a nation, founded on platitudes and socialist doctrine.

Now is the time for action. Now is the time for cool heads, great thinkers, and protectors of the constitution to speak up. Our government representatives must exert common sense, capitalist values, and patriotism. We must embrace conservative Democrats and encourage moderate Republicans to stand with their conservative counterparts. Raise your voices and put your backs into it. This is America – we can do anything!

*Editor’s note – Mrs. Scriboni’s reference to a “Republican form of government” does not refer to a government run by Republicans. Article 4, Section 4, of the US Constitution states, “the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government…” There is a great deal of confusion about this, and I’ll be doing a column about it in the future. For now, the simple explanation is that a pure democracy is mob rule. Whatever most people want becomes law. In a Republic, the people don’t have the right, nor the ability, to convey to the government any right they don’t personally possess. For instance, in a pure democracy, the people could vote for the government to seize property to have it redistributed to themselves. If the majority prevailed, the government could do this. Conversely, in a pure Republic, this could never happen. Since the people individually don’t have the right to seize the property of others, they also cannot convey to the government the ability to seize property. More to come on this in a later newsletter.