The title of this blog heralds from Proverbs 29:18 and rightly defines Conservatism.  It integrates two important principles for defining Conservative thought and philosophy: vision and restraint.  These are the drivers of Conservatism.

   Vision provides access to the landscape of Conservatism.  Landscapes are broad, beautiful, and scenic.  The landscape gives the traveler serenity, joy, and happiness on the journey.  It opens opportunity and encourages creativity.  But more important, it shows the traveler that there is more to life and living than for oneself.  The landscape extends beyond what the eyes can take in and motivates the traveler to explore with all the gifts given to him or her.  This is the definition of enterprise - exploring, creating, building, and exchanging with others on the road where people make discoveries and become creative with those discoveries for the benefit of all humanity.  Not all landscapes are the same.  Some are barren but bear great beauty, like Arizona or Nevada.  Some are flat and floral like East Texas where wild flowers bloom and flourish.  Other landscapes are mountainous and craggy like the Rockies or Appellations.  Each has its own beauty and richness.  The same holds true with individuals and communities.  Each has uniqueness, because individuals are unique and possess different and varying gifts from the Creator.  Vision permits individuals to enjoy the wonders of creation and to freely make use of the resources this creation yields. 

    However, freedom comes with a price.  Those who came before us yielded their lives for the cause of freedom and liberty and embedded in our Constitution the precious words of "inalienable rights, that among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  Therefore, freedom must be thought of in terms of sacrifice.  Just as liberty requires sacrifice, so also does vision.  Both imply that to pursue one thing, a person gives up pursuing another that would be contrary to the one pursued.  Consequently, both vision and liberty restrains one to a set purpose rather than to divided and conflicting purposes.  The mark of Conservatism, then, is having a single purpose for the benefit of others. In this sense, Conservatism is self-restraint rather than forced restraint from a governing source. 

   This is not to deny government, for government has a purpose. Its purpose is to govern those who cannot and will not govern themselves. Those who exercise self-restraint by the vision of the Almighty do not require government restraint. Therefore, in Conservatism, government becomes limited to those who require it without partiality.

   Vision is also about leadership.  It assumes that leaders are capable of casting a vision large enough for all to contribute and principled enough to provide the discipline necessary to give direction. Leadership’s vision inspires and motivates, because it frees those led to pursue their dreams and hopes. Consequently, Conservative leadership does not seek to control the dreams and hopes of others by meaningless platitudes of “hope and change” or “change you can believe in.” Such leadership does not force on others a belief system. 

   From freedom to hold one’s own belief system arises free speech. These two freedoms stand as foundations of our Constitution.  Conservative leadership encourage these two fundamental liberties but not without restraint. Our founding fathers did not dismiss restraint regarding free speech. We are not free to slander others or to bear false witness of them. However, we are free to render dissent, to be negative, to create satire, to criticize, or to speak as contrarians. Conservative leadership has the wisdom to realize the difference between speech that harms and speech that motivates, encourages, or renders dissent or an opposing viewpoint. Consequently, visionary leadership encourages freedoms and discourages oppression.

 

The founding fathers of our great nation knew that liberty would be short-lived if vision and restraint did not stand as fundamentals for guiding it.  That is the reason they wrote it into our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.  Jefferson's opening words ring out vision and restraint:

"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with one another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

 

This statement swells with vision in speaking of "the powers of the earth," "separate and equal station," "Laws of Nature and Nature's God," and "respect to the opinions of mankind."  Jefferson spoke of patience, constraint, and "repeated petitions."  These words represent constant restraint toward separation from England.  Yet time and patience ran its course against tyranny until restraint could no longer be held back.  As visionaries, the signers of this declaration determined that it was time to take another journey toward liberty and to leave oppression behind.  They sought restraint in another way - by the Constitution - for governing them, and placed this document at the feet of the people as both the authors of government and the governed.   Therefore, this Constitution became their living will and the will of a free people by which to live and govern their lives.  They were true Conservatives not willing to engage in this task whimsically but with great thought and enduring patience, looking down the centuries that would follow them and forging a document that would guide generations to come.  This took vision and great restraint on their part and provided a great blessing for us.  Let us not forget what they left us.