A Few Points About Conservatism

Last night Sarah Palin's keynote address to the
first national Tea Party convention was aired.
It is a political party, it isn't a political
party, who knows for sure? Nobody knows how this
political movement will evolve. It could simply
embrace political conservatism that lives within
both our primary political parties that exist
today.

But the problem that conservatism has, about
small government, seems to spill over where
organizational skills are concerned.

Sarah Palin advised the Obama White House to
start listening. Unfortunately she failed to
warn the Republican Party, and the conservative
factions within the Democratic Party, to do the
same thing.

But this problem, in terms of Michigan's
conservatives at least, doesn't stop with those
two parties. We also have a Libertarian Party
that's somewhat active downstate, in Michigan's
lower peninsula.

I exchanged some email with Bill Hall, Political
Director of the Michigan Libertarian Party. They
don't seem very interested in the UP because of
the distances from their headquarters. That's the
same reason I won't go to their April 17 meeting
at Brighton, MI. One of the announced purposes of
the meeting is to encourage and assist individuals
who are willing to run for political office this
year.

I then suggested to Bill Hall that since we are in
a much closer proximity to a goodly number of
Wisconsin population centers, perhaps the Michigan
branch of the Libertarian Party should encourage
the organization and merger of UP chapters with
existing groups in Wisconsin. Brighton, Michigan,
is some 498 miles from Iron River. That's further
than Chicago and further than most, if not all,
population centers in Wisconsin.

My best guess is that despite Mr. Hall taking the
matter to the group in charge, I'll not hear back
from him on this matter.

So for all practical purposes, there is no one in
Michigan politics doing anything about conservatism
for the UP. The local Republicans are merely
placeholders, filling out their terms and doing
nothing. I've lived in this area since 2003 and
never have I seen or heard anything in the local
media about the Republican Party save a few people
who simply announced their affiliation when running
for office. The Iron River Township treasurer is an
excellent example.

There was a local meeting or two claiming some
connection to the Tea Party, but other than a few
speeches, (I mentioned one by Dan Stafford earlier)
nothing has been done and there's no continuity.

The dearth of organization in the entire conservative
movement is clear. I'm willing to participate if
we can develop either a Tea Party movement or a
Republican or Libertarian Party with some staying
power here in Iron County. How else can we hope to
vote out and replace those in office who are deadwood?
And it seems we have plenty of standardized yes
voting commissioners and councilmen to get rid of.

We're presently rid of conservative organizations,
and that's a situation that must be remedied if
we're to get out of the economic depression we're
experiencing in Iron County.

Bill Vajk