By Dr. Harold Pease

Please understand that I am deeply offended when called either a conservative or a liberal.  These labels are traps for the ignorant who wish to reduce my years of serious study to a word so that a part of my readers can praise me and the other part can dismiss me by a single word—even hate me. My views are the Founding Fathers’ collective views.  I draw from the same fountain of natural law and appeal to the same “father of lights to illuminate my understanding” (Ben Franklins words at the Constitutional Convention) as they did.

During the many years I have been a college professor, students sit in front of me just waiting to tag me with some label that does not exist and dismiss me or marginalize me in some way so that they do not have to think.  As long as they are not successful in doing so, they are teachable and have to deal with the inconsistencies of both ideologies.  I have friends in both camps, and sooner or later they say to me “I thought you were one of us.”

Like George Washington, I dislike political parties as they undermine the Constitution. They also create pooled or reinforced ignorance, which is more damaging than individual ignorance.  I have publically challenged the Republican Party for getting us into a war with Iraq and against Saddam Hussein because the evidence for doing so (9/11, weapons of mass destruction, and preemption, which is the concept that they would do something to us eventually) did not exist and had to be constantly changed to justify our presence. I did not oppose the war in Afghanistan because the evidence was there for 9/11, but I oppose it now because we have no clear definable win objectives and lack the will to unleash everything we have to win.  It is another Vietnam.  It was the Bush administration that gave us the Patriot Act, which allowed the government to define terrorists as her own people, which severely damaged the Bill of Rights.  While the government looks within for the enemy it fails to secure our borders from Middle Eastern intruders from countries with a known intent to harm us.

Democrats have taken spending to an unacceptable new level (especially in time of relative peace) and seem intent to risk collapsing the entire economy.  With each crisis they help to create, their answer is always more government as they hamstring businesses that create our jobs with numberless rules and regulations.  Their model is not the Founding Fathers or the Constitution, but is socialist countries in Europe, some of whom tax their people over 50% of their income and have far less freedom.  Even some devout revolutionary communists such as Van Jones have served in the Obama administration.  They seem to glorify Mao Za Tung, the greatest mass murder in history, as some kind of model.  A worshipful press has never properly explained even the President’s past connection with revolutionary Bill Ayers, founder of the militant Weather Underground that bombed government buildings in the seventies.  While China, Cuba, and even Canada are showing clear signs of backing off socialism, we seem hell bent to rush into it.

So what do I embrace?  I usually cry when the National Anthem is played.  I am touched by George Washington, who loved his country so much that he risked his life in a doubtful cause. He battled against England, the most powerful nation on earth, and refused pay from the government for his services as a general or as president.  I love knowing that Founders and presidents have acknowledged the hand of God in their crisis, and shamelessly went to him for help.  I love the stories of service men that put their lives on the line to save a buddy.  I have undying respect for those who served their country with the primary intent of saving freedom—even if they did not understand the motives of the politicians who sent them.  I love people who stand for traditional values of honesty, integrity and morality and do not wink at the numerous extramarital affairs of a president.  And I love the Constitution, which gave us the richest, freest country on earth.

So what am I if not a conservative or a liberal? A typical American that wants to return to our base.  I think more people embrace this description than either political ideology.  So please just call me an American.  That is a title that I wear with honor.

Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College.