'Keep & bear arms' isn't negotiable

(Denver Post, Feb. 3) Firearms are dangerous. When learning to use a rifle in boyhood, and later when training with a handgun, I was drilled hard on this. Instructors barked at my least show of carelessness. But the force of government and political power is more dangerous than any gun. Our public officials are trustees over the organized monopoly of legitimate violence in this country. Under due process of law, they hold the dispensation of life and death over us all. How chilling if this fearsome power were to be used carelessly. Unfortunately, instances of its careless use are all around us, often on a massive scale and with disastrous consequences. That’s why in these United States we live not only under laws – in which the government tells the people what they may and may not do – but also under constitutions, in which the people tell the government what it may and may not do.

This recently came to mind as I listened to state legislators taking their oath “to support the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Colorado,” and last week to President Obama swearing for his second term “to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

In Barack Obama’s heart, however, it seems his constitutional agenda is more transformative than protective. He’s on the record in a 2001 radio interview, thinking aloud about the need to “break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution [which make it] a charter of negative liberties.”

Such goals as “redistribution of wealth and… political and economic justice in society” are harder to accomplish, the future president explained, because the Constitution says what the states and federal government “can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what [they] must do on your behalf.”

One of the “tragedies of the civil rights movement,” Mr. Obama concluded, was its failure to “put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.”

Tragic? Only if we misunderstand rights as claims on other people. The modern bureaucratic state establishes such claims all the time, obligating one group as givers and privileging another as takers. Society can sustain a certain amount of this without going broke or coming to blows, and opinions differ on how close we are. But if words mean anything, such a process is not the creation of rights. God alone can do that.

Rights, in the American political tradition, mean those equal, natural, inherent endowments of an individual’s very being which no one else – especially government – may arbitrarily take from him. “Negative liberties,” Obama’s term, is correct is that rights are a stern “Thou shalt not” to a grasping, meddling, paternalistic, power-hungry Caesar.

That’s true even when Caesar is cloaked in good intentions and a democratic majority. So the federal Bill of Rights, ten amendments to our U.S. Constitution, and the Colorado Bill of Rights, 31 sections of our state constitution, ban piled upon ban specifying what government “can’t do to you,” are a free people’s best friend.

The latter in particular, established for us since statehood in 1876, deserves your attention as gun control is debated this year. The right to keep and bear arms – federally guaranteed by the Second Amendment, but with a problematic militia clause – shines unclouded in Colorado’s Section 13, where it is justified explicitly by an individual’s “defense of his home, person and property.”

Now come Gov. Hickenlooper and his legislative allies, with their well-meaning proposals to, in some degree, disarm law-abiding Coloradans – supposedly in exchange for new assurances of what government “must do on your behalf” (to quote the President one last time). Don’t they recognize how much Section 13 ties their hands? They need to.

A center-right agenda for Colorado

(Denver Post, Dec. 29) Unlike Washington, DC, where divided government will continue in 2013, the new year in Colorado will bring a return of unified control by Democrats. On Jan. 9, Rep. Mark Ferrandino (D-Denver) takes the speaker’s gavel from Rep. Frank McNulty (R-Highlands Ranch), whose GOP majority was ousted by voters in November. If you visit the state House that day, you’ll notice that Democrats are mostly seated to Speaker's left, Republicans mostly to the right. The custom dates from the French Revolution, when legislators enthusiastic for political activism massed on the left side of the chamber, while those more skeptical massed opposite them. As Ferrandino assumes power alongside incoming Senate President John Morse (D-Colorado Springs) and Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, Colorado’s party of the left has another chance to show what it can do with dominance under the Gold Dome, an advantage Dems last enjoyed in 2007-2011. My housewarming gift, as a friendly opponent, is a memo from voters they probably didn’t persuade this time.

Colorado Christian University, where I work, polled some 1300 Coloradans shortly before the 2012 election with an automated phone survey by SmartVoice.com. We went for a center-right sample, with 44% of respondents self-described as conservative and 30% as moderate. Their views on the role of government may help caution Democrats against overreach while providing Republicans a roadmap to relevance.

The CCU-SmartVoice poll asked about the best way of fostering prosperity, protecting liberty, helping the less fortunate, improving the schools, and encouraging people to treat each other decently. That is, most of what we want in living together. In prioritizing what civil society can do voluntarily, over what activist government might promise, respondents reminded us the left isn’t the whole ballgame – not yet, at least.

What’s the key factor in higher living standards? Free enterprise, said 45% of center-right Coloradans. Better education was next with 38%. Government programs were named by only 9%.

What’s most important in improving America as a free society? “Revival of our founding principles,” said 54% of poll respondents. Federal, state, and local government were named by 28%. Just 18% chose “progressive reform like most other countries.”

What factor matters most in providing for children, the elderly, and the disabled, the poll also asked. Families and churches were cited by 46% of those polled, voluntary private charity by another 18%. Only about one respondent in three, 36%, said government programs matter most.

The citizens typified in this particular survey obviously weren’t the voting majority that gave Democrats a 37-28 edge in the Colorado House. But Speaker Ferrandino would be unwise to ignore them if he seeks to govern with broad consensus. And House Minority Leader Mark Waller (R-Colorado Springs) should forcefully advocate for them during the upcoming session.

The teachers-union agenda, for example, calls for raising taxes by a billion dollars and softening tests, while blocking vouchers and charter schools. But the center-right agenda for education, as reflected in CCU’s poll, finds parental choice prioritized by 42% and higher standards by another 27%, whereas more spending is favored by only 31%. Jam-downs from the left will backfire.

Culture warriors on both sides, meanwhile, should take pause from the survey finding on how best to ensure decent treatment of one another. A mere 7% of respondents said it’s up to laws and government. Eighty-three percent said they’d rather look to families, churches, and schools for keeping America morally strong.

Polls can mislead, of course. Remember the statistician who drowned while wading across a lake that was an average of 18 inches deep. Our center-right survey respondents were older, more religious, and more female than Coloradans overall. But they count as much as their leftist neighbors – and one day they’ll be in the majority again.

A rehab kit for Republicans

(Denver Post, Nov. 25) Show me a sore loser, and I’ll show you a loser. This has rung in my ears since the election, as I listened to some fellow Republicans and conservatives weeping, whining, and caterwauling. Not to mention griping, blaming, and sulking. Enough already. Good losers being similarly scorned, who does that leave? Political party animals who rebound from a loss with humility, humor, and honesty. Happy warriors who take a setback in stride, undaunted yet undefensive. Those are the comrades I’ll share a shell-shocked foxhole with. The authors of anguished obituaries for America and the GOP need not apply. For a couple of days after Nov. 6, it’s true, I was bluer than the MSNBC presidential map. Then I stumbled on one of those websites, PoliticalDefeatTherapy.com, with a guaranteed offer to dispel the darkness and put you back on daylight time after voters clean your clock. Click, pay, and my Republican Rehab Kit was on the way.

When it came, I was initially disappointed. No Kryptonite to reduce Reid and Pelosi to jello. Not a word about Obama’s real birthplace. The envelope contained nothing but three toys – a magnifying glass, a telescope, and a small mirror – plus a pocket edition of the Declaration of Independence and U. S. Constitution. My $19.95 for this?

The instruction sheet - which I read last; typical man – quickly clarified things, however. To get past the superficial “optics” of the Democrats’ big victory, it advised, we Republicans can regain clear vision by putting the 2012 results under a magnifier, then scanning history and the future with a spyglass, and then, above all, looking hard at ourselves in the mirror.

But at no point in this perspective-recovering process, the instructions warned, should a shaken GOP entertain the temptation of abandoning its 150-year fidelity to individual liberty and personal responsibility, limited government and rule of law, free enterprise and private property, human rights and moral truth as gifts from God – the principles in America’s founding documents – first voiced by my party in behalf of the African slave.

This country doesn’t need, in other words, two liberal parties. Nor does it need a quixotic third party, a neo-Confederate secession craze, or a John Galt dropout movement. It needs the Republican party to continue our historically indispensable – and resiliently effective – role as the conservative party for these United States.

The magnifying glass that came in my rehab kit showed the Dems’ retention of the White House and Senate, as well as their Colorado legislative gains, to have been a tactical victory won on intensity and execution, not a repudiation of conservatism. The telescope, looking back, revealed many a political pendulum swing after all seemed lost – think 1964 for my side, 2004 for their side – and likely the same when looking ahead.

Then there was the mirror. Gazing into it was painful, but what a reality bath. Had the GOP, me included, often forgotten that politics is about people no less than principles? Was the other side’s edge in intensity and execution, securing reelection for Obama, baggage and all, partly our fault? Who could be to blame for the tarnished Republican brand but us? Ouch and ouch again.

Inviting a number of conservative audiences to try the mirror exercise has been interesting. There was pushback. “Nobody in this room bears any of the blame,” insisted a friend in Denver. “That’s moderate talk, RINO talk,” said another friend in Grand Junction.

“Death of a Nation,” went an online whine from Colorado Springs. “GOP, DOA, RIP,” moaned an email from Evergreen. Oh really? Time will tell. I’m betting that 2014 and 2016 will prove the reports of conservatism’s demise, like that of Mark Twain, to have been greatly exaggerated.

No more freedom on the cheap

(Denver Post, Oct. 28) Have you voted yet? Our state’s nine electoral votes could hand the presidency to Romney or Obama -- and the Colorado outcome in 2012 could turn on a few hundred ballots, much like the Florida outcome in 2000. Within months of achieving statehood in 1876, Colorado tipped the presidential election for Rutherford B. Hayes, as historian Tom Noel noted recently in these pages. Yet the dominant issue of that era, equal rights for former black slaves, wasn’t settled by the election. It troubled the American conscience for almost another century. So in battling over the high stakes to be decided between the candidates next week, we need to recognize how much this election will NOT settle. It’s folly to assume that the Nov. 6 verdict ties a ribbon around everything. “Keeping the republic,” our task as free citizens in Benjamin Franklin’s words, is a marathon not a sprint.

Whether your ticket wins or loses, we’ll all wake up in the same America as before. It’s an America where neither Republicans nor Democrats have yet shown the backbone to keep our deficits and debt from worsening to the level of Greece -- with broke California, no longer the Golden State, leading the way. Think that will suddenly change in 2013?

An AP profile on Xi Jingping, soon to be president of China, says he will assume power confident in “Beijing’s belief that its chief rival Washington is in decline.” Osama bin Laden’s taunt that America is a “weak horse” echoes from beyond the grave, emboldening al Qaeda in Libya, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the mullahs in Tehran.

Much as I favor the GOP, one party’s victory won’t instantly dispel those doubts. For they arise from what a smart investor or a winning coach calls the fundamentals. Those who are short-selling the USA take note of the actuarial tables for the rise and fall of great nations – which predict a lifespan of about 250 years – and the indicators of slackness in our national character.

They look at what has been called the Tytler cycle, whereby a people climbs up from bondage through faith and courage to liberty and abundance, but then slides down through complacency and apathy into dependency and finally into bondage again. Detractors see America in the late afternoon of our greatness, with darkness coming on. Can we prove them wrong? Absolutely, but it will take more than campaign slogans.

The worst deficit our country faces, looking beyond election 2012, isn’t in jobs, budgets, pensions, or infrastructure. It’s not in energy, health, education, or national security. It is the deficit of personal responsibility. In our enjoyment of liberty and abundance, we’re in danger of forgetting that the price of both is responsibility and self-discipline. Our experiment in freedom on the cheap is running out of time.

A president who constantly ducks responsibility and blames others is but a symptom of this. We elected him with our eyes wide open. Voters took a chance – in hindsight, an irresponsible gamble – on the hip young community organizer over the crusty old war hero. The Obama phenomenon merely shows how far the celebrity culture has gone in swamping principled self-government.

Media elites didn’t care when Obama flew to Vegas for a fundraiser the day Ambassador Stevens was assassinated in an act of war. They shrugged when the former drug dealer Jay-Z threw a party for him. But few noticed either when Kid Rock, whose songs were too dirty for radio, opened for Romney in Denver the other day. Chill out, man.

I hope Mitt wins. He’ll do our country proud. But the rebirth of responsibility America needs, if we’re to survive, isn’t up to him or any politician. It’s up to the person in the mirror: you and me. ----------- John Andrews is director of the Centennial Institute, former president of the Colorado Senate, and the author of Responsibility Reborn: A Citizen’s Guide to the Next American Century (Denali Press, 2011).

Why the legislature matters

(Denver Post, Sept. 27) “It’s sucking Colorado dry,” a Republican state senator lamented the other day. He wasn’t talking about the demand on our rivers from Arizona and Nebraska. He meant the massive outflow of campaign dollars to Obama and Romney, diverting money from state races in this election. If you don’t have to think about political fundraising, as do state Sen. Bill Cadman, working to dislodge an eight-year Senate Democratic majority, and state Rep. Mark Ferrandino, trying to oust the House Republicans who took over in 2010, count yourself lucky. Even so, you feel the effects in TV ad saturation, where Denver trails only Cleveland and Reno in the air war this fall. Those spots we’re all tired of focus on the presidential race. You see about as many ads for legislative candidates as for dogcatcher. Of course the White House is the world’s biggest political prize. But voter beware. The legislature matters too. Which party controls the Colorado General Assembly can really make a difference in your life

We elect 100 fellow citizens to make laws for our state. If they prioritize individual liberty, personal responsibility, free enterprise, and the Constitution over big government, collective solutions, and progressivism – or vice versa – this becomes a more desirable or less desirable place to raise our families and better ourselves. Ask yourself these questions:

1. How much economic freedom? Republicans favor entrepreneurship and deregulation to spur growth. Democrats like to pick winners and losers. What’s your pick?

2. Who cares about taxpayers? Republicans favor spending limits and voting on taxes. Dems evade TABOR when they can and are suing to annul it.

3. Who says the budget is out of control? It’s stabilized since the GOP took the state House. Maybe a GOP Senate, facing Gov. John Hickenlooper (D), would help even more.

4. Will the PERA pension bomb blow us all up? Not if the party less beholden to unions takes charge. (Hint: it doesn’t rhyme with “bureaucrat.”)

5. Why not unlock Colorado’s energy treasures? Conservatives like the job creation, the revenues, and the non-Arab aspect. What’s not to like? Fracking, say liberals, armed with junk science and groundless fears.

6. Any way out of the Obamacare swamp? The whole unpopular PPACA law collapses if states resist the health-insurance exchange provision. Both parties in Colorado have fumbled this, but the GOP more nearly gets it.

7. Who will put students first? Democrats just caved to the Chicago teachers union. Republicans just de-unionized Douglas County schools and passed parental choice.

8. Is armed self-defense still a right? Democrats cite recent mass shootings to urge disarming us through gun bans. Republicans prefer tougher enforcement of existing laws, and polls agree.

9. Will we become the cannabis capital of America? Polls also suggest Amendment 64 may pass. Either way, marijuana is on a roll here. Which party do you trust to put the brakes on?

10. Is freedom of expression and conscience still a right? Muslims, gays, and Obama’s administration advocate speech codes and church-busting mandates. Your General Assembly has a role here too.

America’s going through a rough patch. Our genius for self-correction needs to surge. Decentralized government, responsive human-scale institutions, and reform from the bottom up are a big part of that – which gives us an advantage over ungainly rivals like Europe and China. The 50 state legislatures not only matter. They matter as never before.

When I was a state senator, it was always funny to have someone who should know better ask us how it was going in Congress. Sheesh, we’d say to each other – is the legislature that obscure? But I’m betting that you, a discerning reader of this newspaper, are a cut above. You can prove it on election day by voting smart for state House and Senate.