Amerika

The Tea Party is a chance for conservatism to return to its roots: preservationism. If we want to end the nightmare of modern government and protect our environment, this is the correct guiding principle for our future, and only the right wing can deliver it.

The Tea Parties in America and Europe present the most baffling political landscape ever. Ostensibly united around reducing government and preserving freedom, these movements seem to have another agenda. This agenda doesn’t fit into sound bites and cannot be easily explained. But in a nutshell, it’s that they are preservationist movements. They want to preserve indigenous European culture and European-American culture through the middle classes.

Those of us who are “crunchy” conservatives, or granola-eating tree-hugging conservatives, will have two responses to the Tea Parties. We like them; we think they don’t go far enough. We should use this outrage and confusion as a chance to gain clarity and instead return to the root of conservatism, which is preservation of our culture, heritage, values and natural environment.

Conservation has always been a conservative value. We are, after all, the people who value getting the heck away from these big cities and walking in the woods where no one is going to tell us what we can’t do — or try to save us from the bears, snakes and our own errors. There are no warning signs or Nanny States in the woods. If you pick up that coral snake and scare it, your bones warn others.

The conservative origins of conservation are twofold. First, conservatism is preservationist by nature. Second, we are the side of the political spectrum that’s willing to tell people there’s a hard standard for behavior, and we’ll hold them to it. Conservatives are the only people who can stop the growing environmental crisis, and it ain’t gonna be by forcing you to buy mercury-laden CFL light bulbs or jailing you for driving a Hummer.

With the rise of the Tea Parties, we can see a sense that government has wandered off course and is now acting in its own interests. It’s trying to replace the middle class with imported voters, welfare dependents, government bureaucrats and others who do not share our values. We’ve seen they’re trying to destroy us so they can remain in power. In the process, they’ll also continue bungling environmental policy.

Those who oppose us want to bury you in reams of laws and regulations. Our solution is simple: remove the overactive government, make clear and simple rules, and set aside as much land as we can. Stop swelling our population with welfare dependents, illegal immigrants and people so useless that only government will hire them. Let nature take her course and keep the productive, hard-work, constructive and intelligent on top.

Of course, this is totally taboo. The people who hate the Tea Party don’t want us to have any hard standards. They want “anything goes,” except if you buy incandescent light bulbs or forget to recycle your nose hairs. They want everyone to share in the wealth just for showing up, and to let in everyone. What kind of effect do you think that will have on the environment?

As our mainstream media winds up to whip us into a fury of hatred at the Tea Parties, think about the practical side of this political development. It’s a wide open chance for us to demand our society reverse its direction, and to start off on the right foot with a practical approach to our problems. Make your Tea Party a Green Tea Party by forcing a return to preservationism.

Tags: environmentalism, greenism, tea party