Going Rogue: An American Life (117 page)

I am an independent person who had the good fortune to
come
of age in the era of Ronald Reagan and Margatet Thatchet. I am a registeted Republican because the planks in that party’s platform are stronget than any others upon which to build Alaska and America. I disagree with some of the characters in the party machine, but the GOP stands for principles that will strengthen and secute the countty, if they ate applied. I’m not obsessively pattisan, though, and I don’t blame people who dislike political labels even mote than I do. My husband, for example, isn’t registered with any party, for sound reasons, having been an eyewirness to the idiosyncrasies of party machines. I also don’t like the narrow stereotypes of either the “conservative” or the “libetal” label, but until we change the lingo, call me a Com
monsense Conservative.
What does it mean to be a Commonsense Conservative?

Going Rogue

At its most basic level, conservatism is a respect for history and tradition, including traditional moral principles. I do not believe I am more moral, certainly no better, than anyone else, and conserwho act “holier than thou” turn my stomach. So do some elite liberals. Bur I do believe a few timeless and unchanging

truths, and chief among those is that man is fallen. This world is not perfect, and politicians will never make it so. This, above all, is whar informs my pragmatic approach to’politics. I am a conservative because I deal with the world as it iscomplicated and beautiful, tragic and hopeful. I am a conservative because I believe in the rights and the and the inherent dignity of the individual.

In
his book
A Conflict of Visions,
Thomas Sowell explains the underlying assumptions or “visions” that shape our opinions and rhe

we approach social and political issues. He identifies twO

separate visions: the unconstrained and the constrained. People who adhere to the unconstrained vision (the label applied to them is “liberal” or “leftwing”) believe that human nature is changeable (therefore perfectible) and that society’s problems can all be solved if only the poor, ignorant, disorganized public is told what to do and plans are enacted. And who better

to make those plans than an elite bureaucracy pulling the strings and organizing society according to their master blueprint? No one can doubt that our current leaders in Washington subscribe
to this unconstrained vision.

Conservatives believe in the “constrained” political vision because we know that human nature.is flawed and that there are limitations to what can be done in Washington to “fix” society’s problems.

Commonsense Conservatives deal with human nature as it iswith its unavoidable weaknesses and its potential for goodness. We see the world as it is-imperfecr but filled with beauty. We

• 385

•

SARAH

PALIN

hope for the best. We believe people can change for the better, but we do not ignore history’s lessons and waste time chasing utopian pipe dreams.

We don’t trust utopian promises from politicians. The role of government is not to
perfect
us but to
protect
us-to protect our inalienable rights. The role of government in a civil society is to protect the individual and to establish a social contract so that we can live together in peace.

We are currently in the midst of an economic crisis, and the recovery is slow in coming. But I do have fundamental faith in the American entrepreneurial spirit. We go through booms and busts, and America comes out stronger. Just as wildfires in Alaska burn away deadfall to make way for new growth, so too does the business cycle undergo a process of “creative destruction.” We let some dying businesses fail as new businesses emerge. The horse and buggy gradually’ disappeared after Henry Ford introduced an affordable automobile. In my lifetime, we’ve gone from companies in the business of making LPs to eight-tracks to cassette tapes to compact discs to MP3s. My kids finally got me to rerire rhe portable CD player I lugged around while jogging. I now carry an iPod, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

The marketplace changes. Often it’s not. easy for politicians
to explain to their constituents this process of “creative destruc-
tion” with its booms and its busts, because more and more politicians prefer pandering instead. They complicate simple and sober truths, and make vague promises to get elected. It’s easy to promise free medical care and a chicken in every pot. It’s more difficult to explain how we’re going to pay for it all and to explain why social programs that were supposed to help the poor have ended up hurting them, becoming unsustainable financial liabilities for all of us. Ronald Reagan was the last president to really explain this to us.

• 3 86 •

Going Rogue

Somewhere along rhe way, these clear principles got lost. People look ar the Republican Parry today-the supposedly conservative party-and say, “Whar happened ro the Reagan legacy?” And we deserve that criticism.

The national GOP gambled away the progress of the Reagan years. Perhaps rhey meanr well, but it looked ro me as if they thought they could achieve a permanent majority by compromising their principles. In the end, they lost both. That bled on down to the state level. I saW it happen in Alaska. It’s why our GOP-controlled legislature, where the R’s outnumber the D’s, turned into a Democrat-controlled legislature. A few Republicans ‘gave key committee assignments to the most liberal Democrats in Juneau, just so they could secure favors and big titles. It’s why, even with billions of dollars in state savings accounts, we couldn’t permanently repeal a fuel tax ot a tire tax that hit the people in their pocketbooks. It’s why I had to veto huge budgets. And why, when I vetoed a government expansion program, it was ultimately overridden. It’s why an outnumbered Democrat, Hollis French, who was handed the Senate Judiciary Committee gavel by just a few Republicans, was empowered to kill a parents’ rights bill that would have protected our daughters from invasive surgeries without parental notification. When titles and personal power grabs are more important than fighting for the people, voters become discouraged and apathetic. Politicsas-usual continues, and the Reagan legacy cannot be revived.

You can’t claim to be a fiscal conservative and then instirute massive new spending programs without even attempting to reduce government in other areas. President Reagan used to speak of reducing the federal government. Now some Republicans barely bat an eyelash when helping create whole new federal bureaucracies. Today if you ask, “Why exactly do we need that
SARAH

PALIN

federal program? Can’r we do without it?” people will look at you as if you’re from outer space-or perhaps from Alaska. Many people had sropped questioning this federal government growth-until we elected an administration that is growing government ar a rare unprecedented in our hisrory. This “change” has awakened the curiosity and concern of all Americans. Now people are asking: “Why do we continue ro add ro our skyrocketing debt? How will our children pay these bills? We are already in a very deep hole; when will we srop digging?” We have allowed the left, with its unconstrained vision, ro convince us that America’s current woes were caused by roo little government involvement and regulation, and that the only way ro fix our problems is for bureaucracy ro regulate more, ro stifle more freedoms, and to force itself even deeper into the private sector. This is nonsense. We got into this economic mess because of misplaced government interference in the first place. The mortgage crisis that triggered the collapse of our financial markets was rooted in a well-meaning but wrongheaded desire to increase home ownership among people who could not yet afford to own a home.

Politicians on the right
and
left wanted to take credit for an increase in middle-class home ownership. But the rules of the
marketplace are just as constraining as human nature. Govern-
ment cannot force financial instirutions ro give loans to people who can’t afford to pay them back and then expect that somehow things will all magically wotk out. Soonet or later, reality catches up with us.