The Charlie Brown Conservatives

**AirborneSapper7** · 08-20-2013, 11:16 PM

The Charlie Brown Conservatives

by Nelson Hultberg on August 20, 2013

In the famous Charles Schulz comic strip, Peanuts, Charlie Brown is enticed every year by Lucy to placekick a football that she volunteers to hold for him. Charlie runs down the field toward his beguiling friend, who is holding the football on the ground, and swings his leg in a huge arching kick. But at the last moment Lucy jerks the football away and Charlie flies through the air to land on his back with a loud thump and the scream of “Aaugh!” Every year, Lucy convinces Charlie to try another kick, promising not to pull the football away like she did last time. And every year, Charlie runs down the field and Lucy jerks the football away at the last moment with Charlie falling on his famous fanny.

Why does Charlie continue to fall for Lucy’s con? Because Charlie is a good-natured chap, but gullible about human nature. This priceless scene, which played out every year from the 1950s to 2000 in newspapers all over the world, is metaphor for that exasperating trait of large amounts of humans to fall for the beguiling promises of their fellowmen who seek something from them. Much of history is made – from the daily mundane events of our personal lives to the grand, epochal affairs of nations – because of this naïve trust that so many humans have in the professed benevolence of persuasive fellow humans who wish to enlist their support for a cause, a vote, a job, a war, a venture, a romance, etc. The world is full of guile because it is full of fools. Thus life for us as individuals and societies keeps running off the road into messy ditches of disaster.

America is no stranger to the ditches along with the fools who persist in driving us there; and the world of politics is an excellent arena to demonstrate this fact. For over four decades now from 1968 to 2013, the Republican Party hierarchy has been playing the role of Lucy to Charlie Brown conservatives.

Every election year GOP politicians promise to millions of traditional conservatives among the party that if they will donate their money, time and votes to elect them, they as Republicans will vigorously challenge the “horrid Democrats” who are obtusely driving America into ditches of disaster. But year after year, just like conniving Lucy, the Republicans we send to Washington go back on their promises and proceed to do as the Democrats do.

Where the Right Has Gone Wrong

Do conservatives show any signs of ever learning from this?

Unfortunately, no. They continue to do what Charlie Brown always did. They buy into Lucy’s con. They agree to cooperate with Republican beguilers giving them valuable money, time and votes. This is happening once again as we head for 2014. The Charlie Brown conservatives are insisting that we must cooperate with the Lucy Republicans of Washington. As if the likes of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Karl Rove, et al are suddenly going to become Jeffersonians and start fighting for strictly limited government. That will happen when mules qualify to run in the Kentucky Derby.

As Patrick Buchanan tells us in his book, Where the Right Went Wrong, “Robert Taft Republicanism is dead….There is no conservative party in Washington. There is a Democratic Party of tax-and-spend, and a Republican Party of guns and butter and tax cuts, too. Washington is all accelerator, the brakes are gone.

“Lobbying groups, manned by conservative activists, have now been set up in Washington to steer clients to the right GOP congressman to get their pet projects funded by taxpayers…. Everybody gets his or her slice of pork, so long as everyone votes for everyone else’s slice.

“What is the difference” asks Buchanan, “between the compassionate conservatism of George W. Bush and the Great Society liberalism of Lyndon Johnson?”

There is no difference whatsoever. Why is this horrendous profligacy taking place? Because the Democrats and Republicans have a monopoly over the ideas that feed the populace at election time. Statist-collectivist ideology dominates the electoral process and the TV Presidential Debates through the bogus two-party system.

Both parties work for the relentless expansion of government to handle all problems.

Both parties enshrine egalitarianism.

Both utilize Keynesian economics.

Both practice wealth redistribution.

Both legislate Nanny State cradle-to-grave security.

Both espouse open borders.

Both tolerate the subordination of American sovereignty to globalism.

Both espouse a foreign policy of “benevolent global hegemony.”

This has been going on for over 40 years ever since Richard Nixon dumped the Goldwater revolution into the Potomac and showed how to win power by becoming Democratic clones.

In other words, the Lucy Republicans have been jerking the football away from the Charlie Brown conservatives for over four decades. And still the gullible conservatives throughout America buy into the disingenuousness of Republican promises every election year. When does reality set in? When do the Charlie Brown conservatives wake up and realize they are being played by the Boehners, Grahams, Roves, and all the political Lucys of Washington who seek power over principle now and forever.

Rejecting the Snare and Delusion

There is a solution to this fools’ game. It consists of facing reality and cutting the umbilical cord that draws freedom advocates into the Republican web every election year. It will necessitate accepting that we no longer have a “two-party system.”

As Buchanan puts it, “Our vaunted two-party system is a snare and delusion.

Our two parties have become nothing but two wings of the same bird of prey.”

We have only one political party in America – the Demopublican Party, with a Democrat wing and a Republican wing.

To break this monopoly and give the people a choice again, Americans for a Free Republic www.AFR.org in Dallas, Texas has formed the National Independent Caucus.

Our purpose is to recruit a prominent libertarian-conservative candidate to launch the NATIONAL INDEPENDENT PARTY and its “Four Pillars Strategy” of tax, monetary, immigration, and foreign policy reform.

This will create three basic groups vying for power – Democrats, Republicans, and National Independents. But this triad will not be permanent because once a genuine choice exists between big and small government visions, the natural instincts of the voters will drive all small-government supporters (50% of the nation) away from the Democrats and Republicans to the National Independent Party.

The big-government Democrats and Republicans remaining (liberals and neocons) will, by necessity, have to merge with one another in order to remain politically viable at the polls. We will then have two official parties: the National Independent “freedom” Party and the Democrat-Republican “statist” Party.

Voila! The Demopublican monopoly will be broken. America will no longer be a one-party state. We will now have an “open forum” of ideas where two visions of government will be presented to the people at election time rather than the one statist vision we have at present.

To bring this about, we at AFR have written a 23-page essay titled, “How Tea Party Patriots Can Break the Demopublican Monopoly and Win in 2016.”

In the essay, we discuss two themes: 1) how the growth of the Federal Government can be stopped through what we call the “Four Pillars Strategy,” comprised of tax reform, monetary reform, a strong crackdown on illegal immigration, and a restoration of a mind-our-own-business foreign policy. And 2) we discuss how a nationally-known libertarian-conservative candidate can challenge the Demopublican power structure in 2016 and win a substantial victory at the polls.

At least 50% of American voters want the Four Pillars of Reform. The ones who don’t are the Democrats and the neocons who control the Republican Party. Our Four Pillars of Reform are “cornerstones of sanity.” They will bring about a dramatically refurbished America with fervent support from conservatives, libertarians, and independents throughout the country.

To read this exciting essay, click here: http://www.afr.org/downloads/TeaParty-Essay.pdf

The ideological forces of the past 40 years have been steadily building toward this kind of paradigmatic challenge, and the world’s present economic crisis is the catalyst that will bring it about. The rising disenchantment we see throughout the American heartland is conservative-libertarian disenchantment.

We need to tap into it. The Republican Lucys will continue to do what they are programmed to do – default on their promises. But we as conservatives need to quit playing the role of gullible Charlie Browns. We need to become heroic patriots again. We need the National Independent Party!

This is the only approach and attitude that can save America.

Tell Congress: Abolish the Internal Revenue Service! Sign the petition.

Tagged as: Four Pillars Strategy, free market economics, keynesian economics, nelson hultberg

About Nelson Hultberg

Nelson Hultberg is a freelance writer in Dallas, TX and the Director of Americans for a Free Republic www.afr.org. His articles have appeared in such publications as the Dallas Morning News, The American Conservative, Insight, The Freeman, and Liberty, as well as on numerous Internet sites including The Daily Bell, Canada Free Press, and World Net Daily. He is the author of The Golden Mean: Libertarian Politics, Conservative Values. Email him at: nelshultberg@aol.com.

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**AirborneSapper7** · 08-20-2013, 11:37 PM

this is a good read to get a visual of what is actually going on and the General Direction we are going to go to get out from under Carrear Politician death grip on the people of AmeriKa

The Base is starting to split / fracture from the Entrenched GOP / RNC

**AirborneSapper7** · 08-21-2013, 12:03 AM

"Just thought I would let you know that we had a huge turn out last night. I know one thing for sure: People are angry, really angry!... Everyone there wanted the amnesty stopped... Rep. Burgess is pretty sure his fellow Reps are being confronted all over the country."

-- Teresa H., NumbersUSA member

Like I have been saying: The GOP and RNC are in MAJOR Trouble with its Base and they don't even see it coming

**imblest** · 08-21-2013, 01:03 AM

This all sounds really good, but I don't think you'll ever get the religious right republicans to join with the libertarian conservatives because the religious right just can't abide the idea of allowing people to do what they want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. Too many Libertarians (big L) are pro-abortion (which makes no sense whatsoever to me based on their philosophy of not hurting anyone else) for the religious right to be able to acept that. A lot of (small L) libertarian conservatives are Pro-life, but that seems to get lost in the "End the drug war" and "Stop sending foreign aid to every nation in the world" arguments. Then there is the name calling--wacko birds or druggies or "Those crazy libertarians."

And it goes both ways. Many (big L) Libertarians are atheists and think religious folks are nuts. They'll accept the religious person individually once it's been determined that the person is not a nut, but there is a prejudice there. Big L Libertarians also think America should let in everyone who wants to come and will work and contribute, so there is another bone of contention. (Most of these, however, are young and have GOOD jobs!) I've had major arguments with people that I otherwise agree with on most everything else politically, and they are just so open borders, it's maddening.

I wish it would work though. We have to do something to get rid of the establishment elitists who are running DC now, and I can see we are making some progress. However, it is SLOW going, and I don't know if it can be turned around before everything falls apart.