In the idiom of the New Frontier, I am called an “ultra conservative.” I accept the nomination—provided the title denotes one who tries humbly to follow the trail leading from tyranny to freedom which was hewed through government oppression by Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Hamilton, and the other pioneers of our republic. They raised a “standard to which the wise and honest can repair,” a standard which retains its integrity because it is rooted deeply in religious faith and eternal principles.
The elements of this standard are: First, man derives directly from the Creator his rights to life, to liberty, and to the unhampered use of his honestly acquired property, and thus he is not beholden for them to any human agency; second, to protect his rights he joins with others to establish a government, whose powers are carefully limited and clearly defined in order that they may not be used to usurp the rights they are designed to defend; and third, for man to grow in wisdom and worldly possessions, he must have freedom of choice, a free exchange for ideas as well as for material goods. These rights are to be used without hindrance, so long as the possessor does not interfere with the rights of others.
Transcending all is the conviction that for every God-given right there is a collateral responsibility to use that right in strict conformity with the moral law, as revealed in such statements as the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Golden Rule. When man’s appetites are disciplined by such inner restraints, he can establish a society which will require a minimum of external police power to maintain public order, and this, in turn, leads to a maximum of individual freedom.
On this solid foundation, our founding fathers erected the social order which became a haven for the oppressed and down-trodden of the earth and a beacon of hope for those who could not escape to our shores. While there was never a dearth of compassion and material help for the needy in our land, the major emphasis was always on opportunity, rather than on relief.
In this climate of freedom, our nation became the world’s cornucopia of spiritual and material blessings. Over the years it has poured out its abundance for the needy everywhere.
But in recent decades our people have been subjected to an unceasing barrage of allegedly “new” ideas. With increasing frequency, and most recently by our President, we have been told that the ideals of the founding fathers are “out-moded,” that their admonitions are “incantations from the forgotten past, worn out slogans, myths and illusions.” Individual moral responsibility to God and to one’s neighbor has been called a “cliché of our forebears,” and we are instructed that this generation must “disenthrall itself from an inheritance of truism and stereotype.” We are urged to discard the accumulated wisdom of our ancestors and the time-tested traditions of Western civilization as useless impediments because the State now takes full responsibility for its subjects’ welfare.
Unfortunately, many of us have yielded to these seductions. We have surrendered the solid substance of freedom for the illusory promise of security. In doing so, we have permitted the structure of our free society to be weakened and its foundations eroded so that there is grave danger of collapse.
All of us must share the blame for this debacle. Over the past fifty years we have participated in the propagation of a misplaced faith in the ability of government to accomplish any material, economic, social, or moral purpose. Implementing this faith, we have thrust enormous powers on government, or we have stood by meekly while government has seized authority at an ever increasing pace and has centralized it in Washington, far removed from the control of those from whom it was obtained. Such enhancement of political power at the expense of individual rights is correctly labeled “socialism.”
The tendency of citizens in all walks of life is to be complacent about government intrusion that does not encroach upon what each one believes is his own domain. We are apathetic about the general socialist drift. Frequently, we support collectivist measures which, it is claimed, will “promote the general welfare,” or will “stimulate the economy of the community” where we live. But we should now be aware that we are threatened by total State Socialism, an ancient tyranny under a modern disguise. If we are to survive as a nation of free men, we must oppose socialism with all of our vigor wherever it appears. If our sole concern is that aspect of socialism which affects directly our own business, our own industry, or our own community, we will contribute to the advance of State Socialism on other fronts by our neglect, and thus weaken the entire structure of freedom.
It is said that the people never give up their liberties except under some delusion. We have been surrendering our liberties under the delusion that government has some superior competence in the realm of economics, some magic multiplier of wealth, some ready access to a huge store of economic goods which may be had without working for them—merely by voting for them.
None of us is completely immune to these delusions or to the human passions aroused by the four horsemen of our own apocalypse—ignorance, fear, apathy, and greed. Nevertheless, those who see the inevitable end of this progression are duty-bound to sound the alarm.
The great iniquity of our times is that so many are trying to tell others how to live their lives. They ask, plaintively, “How can we do good for the people if we just let them alone?” As for me, “I’m fed up to here” with so-called “master minds,” with statesmen, clergymen, schoolmasters, and politicians who, though frequently unable to administer the affairs of their own small households, have no doubt of their ability to spell out, in detail, the what, when, where, and how that 188 million Americans and countless other millions throughout the world must do to have a more abundant life!
“I’m fed up to here” with pseudo-statesmen, whose wishbones are where their backbones ought to be, who are past masters of surrender, compromise, appeasement, and accommodation, who believe we can buy friends like sacks of potatoes, who fawn upon, cajole, and pamper our enemies and the so-called “unaligned” nations while they kick our time-tested friends in the teeth, who shiver and shake when “world opinion” is mentioned, who would depend upon United Nations mercenaries to protect the security of these United States, who never become surfeited with Soviet lies and deceit, who believe that the next time Khrushchev will surely honor his commitment, and who hold that the Russian Bear will soon change his claws and fangs for olive branches and rose petals!
“I’m fed up to here” with the wiser-than-thou, self-anointed oracles who insist that differences of opinion on foreign policy should stop at the water’s edge and that free Americans must not criticize programs conceived and implemented by our “no win diplomats” who, over the past thirty years, have racked up an almost unbroken string of losses to Communism throughout the world; with those who would trade American lives, limbs, goods, and services for Communist promises; with those who believe that the Castro Communist Cancer has now been excised from the body politic of the Western Hemisphere; with those who are determined to democratize the Katangans even if it is necessary to kill them and destroy their property in the process; and with those who insist that we must subsidize, with massive foreign aid, arrogant socialist and Communist governments all over the world, though while doing so we help their dictators enslave their peoples.
“I’m fed up to here” with Robin Hood government that promises to rob the rich to pay the poor (in return for votes) and, when there are not enough rich left to pay the bills, robs both rich and poor alike to pay Robin Hood; with those who would tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect in the expectation that the day of reckoning will come after they are gone; with candidates who run on a platform of “I can get more from the government for you,” without reminder of what the government must take from you; with officials who use defense contracts as instruments of political advantage; with politicians who think that a relief check means as much to an American as a decent job; with government agencies which harass our industries with anti-trust suits, threaten them with loss of government contracts, dictate their economic decisions on costs and prices, resort to biased interference with their labor relations, burden them with punitive taxation and regulation, or tempt them to conform by promising lucrative contracts. What do you think Khrushchev would give to have General Motors, Dupont, General Electric, U. S. Steel, and Lockheed on his team?
“I’m fed up to here” with businessmen who are so busy making and selling widgets at a steadily decreasing profit that they have no time or energy left to fight for preserving the system that makes their business possible; who do not protest government intimidation and interference; who support socialist projects of short-range advantage to themselves; who finance foundations, schools, churches, cultural activities, news media, and political parties which expound and promote socialist doctrine; or who “play ball” with the political apparatus in power when there is a potential “pay-off” in the form of subsidies, loans, or contracts.…
We can have the kind of government we demand! Let us demand what history has taught us is right for us! Our fighting men and women in legislative halls throughout the land will win, provided we give them the support they must have to regain our lost freedoms!—Admiral BEN MOREELL, CEC, USN (Retired), in an address to the Fifth Human Events Political Action Conference in Washington, D. C.
