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Subject: C-NEWS: Congress News Special Post 4/21/95

               CONGRESS NEWS: SPECIAL POST            April 21, 1995
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        by: Kim Weissman 74157.1507@compuserve.com


   There seems to be a growing sentiment in this country that a
resort to violence is an appropriate response to overbearing
government actions.  NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH.
Violence against agents of the government is no more justified today
than it was 25 years ago, when it was the political left who engaged
in violent protest against the Viet Nam war.

   Conservatives today are, or should be, dedicated to a peaceful
restoration of the Constitutional framework under which our
government operated for the first century of our national
existence.  The ONLY WAY to restore the Constitution is to obey the
Constitution.  Any resort to violence has but one outcome: anarchy.
As has previously been pointed out in this newsletter, violence and
anarchy will destroy forever the Constitutional republic which has
been, and which remains, the beacon of freedom and individual
liberty for the rest of the world.

   Some have argued that our nation has strayed too far from its
founding Constitutional principles for those principles to ever be
restored again.  THEY ARE WRONG.

   Some have argued that it is the very openness to differences of
opinion, which our Constitution protects, which is at the root of
our current difficulties, and that we must establish a far more
structured and restrictive framework for our future well-being.
THEY ARE WRONG.  It is that very openness which makes this nation
great.

   Some have argued that we must resort to violence in order to
counter violence.  THEY ARE WRONG.  Injustice cannot be corrected by
resort to outrages such as the Oklahoma City bombing.  The old adage
that "two wrongs don't make a right" is as true today as it ever was.

   As this post is uploaded, we are being treated to widespread media
characterization that the people responsible for the Oklahoma City
bombing murders are members of an "ultra-conservative,
anti-government, pro-gun" group. There have already been
implications (by commentators, not official government
pronouncements) that it is the "climate of hate" fostered by
conservative radio talk shows which has created the environment in
which actions such as the bombing are encouraged. Free speech and
political dissent are being characterized as incitements to
violence.  In the days and weeks ahead, we can expect an
unprecedented verbal, and perhaps legal assault on conservatives in
general.  Members of the liberal left are already pointing to
Oklahoma City with an air of triumph, implying that this bombing
validates what they have been saying, that conservatives and the
conservative philosophy are dangerous.  Some are explicitly saying
that it is "the ready access to guns in this country" which permits
events such as this bombing.

   There will be a concerted effort, which has already begun, to
paint all conservatives with the broad brush of guilt.  In the
hysteria surrounding these tragic events there will be calls for
further restrictions on our Constitutional rights and our
liberties.  There will be calls for restrictions on free speech,
"for the general good".  There will be calls for restrictions on our
rights to keep and bear arms, "for the general good".  There will be
calls for restrictions on the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of
grievances, "for the general good".  As has been too painfully
demonstrated over the past half century, freedoms once surrendered
are all too often lost forever.  BUT:  Have no illusions about the
lengths to which the radical left will go to exploit this terrible
event in order to advance their own partisan political agenda.

   It has been said before, and cannot be repeated often enough, that
conservatism is not about violence, it is about freedom.
Conservatism is not about group divisiveness and hatred, it is about
existing together in individual equality.  Most importantly in the
current context, conservativism is not about the wanton taking of
human life, it is about viewing each individual human life as
precious and irreplaceable.  Conservatives, no less than all
Americans, reject the violence in Oklahoma City, and condemn such
actions in the strongest terms possible.

   "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not
upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future
of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all
of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."
-- James Madison

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