Are Power, Ego & Compromise Ok?: Conservative Rules For Radicals (Part 4)

May 11, 2009 by Lisa Krempasky  
Filed under Politics

As conservatives we value the independence of individuals. We defend truth. We take the moral high ground. We are bold and courageous…or at least we want to be. And we look at liberals as mealy-mouthed and more about tactics and winning than about truth. But you know what? They look at us as power-hungry and greedy, selfish and uncaring. The point is that we all look at each other from our own prism. And unless we understand the prism of the other we cannot win politically or ideologically.

Today our prism says the left is in a rapid march to grab power. But you know what? So are we. Power is not wrong. The use of power can be wrong. The means to obtain the power can be wrong. The intoxicating affect of power can be wrong. But power is not wrong. We must have power if we are to get anything done. We just don’t like it when the enemy has power over us. And that’s what we are experiencing right now. Politically there is little we can do. We can threaten to throw our elected officials out and we can revolt. That’s what we have today.

Neither a physical revolution or a revolution at the ballot box carry much threat. They are hollow. They enemy knows that today (maybe not tomorrow or next week, but today) they would quash a physical rebellion in a minute. The political machine and the will of the people are against that and physical rebellion today would set the cause back years or decades. What about the ballot box? Well that is light years away in the shifting sands of politics. Yet still we must find power if we are too accomplish anything.

Where will this power come from? It comes from playing to ego and capturing self-interest. Conservatives are often to nice to voice reality. We want high minded ideals. But what we need is motivating hot buttons. The hard cruel reality is that people act in their best interest almost all the time. Our job is to show them how we are their best interest.

To win we cannot get people to vote for a “conservative” or the “GOP.” In modern society we have presently lost the war on those words. That is because they have been marketed to have negative connotations. They do need to be redifined, but that will not happen in a day. But most people are more conservative than they think. When you start talking to them about things like securing our borders from illegal immigrants, getting the government out of the abortion funding business, and lowering taxes, people want that. Our problem is that we have been lazy and have not spent the time talking about the real issues.

Our other problem is we have refused to listen. People will not change their ideals to fit us. We must change our message to fit what is important to them. Notice I didn’t say we need to change our ideals. That’s where this whole “big tent” argument goes awry. People will always vote their primary motivating factor and will tolerate non-preferred platforms if we are THE answer to their primary motive.

But what we must do is what liberals have successfully done for the last 50+ years. We must inch our way toward our ultimate goal. Compromise has gotten a bad name. Take abortion for instance. I am flat out against it. But you know what? Today we are not going to have abortion banned in America. You don’t compromise on the platform, but while we bicker about it amongst ourselves babies are getting slaughtered. We CAN attack liberals on federal funding of abortion, especially in this economic climate. And when we win that we go after the next thing and the next and the next. It is not a compromise of principle it is a political reality. Failing to compromise and accept intermediary success creates permanent failure.

You know we do everything we can to save one baby in the pro-life movement (using my example). We celebrate it and appluad it. Sometimes we even cry over it. At the same time our refusal to compromise, not in the end goal but in the intermediary steps, is causing the needless death of tens of thousands of babies. We need to start thinking of the end and figuring out incremental change. We celebrate that change then move another step forward. That is how the liberals have done it and we need to learn from them.

In part 3 we explored how to determine what means are acceptable given your end goal. In part 5 we will look into how to educate an organizer.


PS This too is a rewrite of a post taken down by hackers. That’s why it might look familar.

10 Ways To Change the World In One Hour or Less

May 8, 2009 by Lisa Krempasky  
Filed under Action Steps

Everyone thinks it takes so much time and effort to change the world. Well it does. AND it doesn’t.

Here are some simple things you can do right now, today, this weekend to change the world. Doing your part keeps the momentum rolling in the right direction. We WILL provide hope and change this nation can believe in.

1. Write a blog post. The more conservative points out there the better. If you don’t want to start a blog, be a guest commentator on another blog.

2. Encourage a conservative blogger with a comment. Obama has caused a conservative blog explosion, but many don’t have a lot of followers. It’s nice to have readers, but even nicer to have comments and props. We don’t want people falling by the wayside. Support them…and click their links. Income always helps.

3. Attack a liberal blogger’s premise with a comment. Liberal blogs are almost like listening into the seventh grade lunch room. You will get a lot of response if you address their arguments with facts and logic. Some of the more intelligent ones will even thank you for pointing out the log in their own eye. Really. I’ve had it happen. Use their tactics against them. One of my favorites is to criticize them for attacking conservatives. It is utterly inconsistent with their worldview that everyone is allowed to express their own opinion except for us. Hold them to their own standards.

4. Write a letter to Congress. Emails are great. Letters are better. Faxes are best.

5. Visit your Congressman’s local office to discuss an issue that is important to you. You will be amazed at what an in person visit will accomplish.

6. Talk with your child’s teacher about something in the classroom that concerns you. Most teachers like feedback and you can swing what is taught not only to your child, but to the others in the class as well. Many teachers will seriously consider your input. Liberals are doing this. We should be too.

7. Take voter registration cards with you to soceer and baseball games. And don’t play so nice. If you know someone is a liberal don’t register them. They would not register you. We want to win! But many of your friends are not registered. You can usually download the form to carry with you. Google your state + voter registration to get a state specific form.

8. Protest and/or pray at an abortion clinic. It is not scary and will be very significant and meaningful to you and the mother and hopefully the baby. Saturday mornings are best for this but other days may be good in your area. Just being there makes a difference. You don’t need to talk with the mothers. As little as an hour can make a world of difference. I routinely hear reports of mother’s who decided to keep their baby just because someone cared enough to stand out front of the abortion clinic. You can be polite and non-offensive and very significant at the same time.

9. Help your neighbor. We’ve gotten so busy in life that many of us don’t even know our neighbors anymore. I live in a very liberal part of town and have had more opportunity to speak intelligently with the “enemy” just by talking with them as humans while we were working on a project. They will learn you are caring and compassionate. You will learn they are good intended, if misguided. And both you and they will be surprised at how close you actually are politically. This is part of changing the conversation. People are much more conservative than they think they are when you start talking about actual issues.

10. Buy a soldier a cup of coffee. My brother is in the Air Force. He sometimes tells stories of someone paying for his coffee or whatever when he is in uniform. These guys carry a huge load, really it’s the weight of the world, on their shoulders. It is unbelievable how the little kindness of buying their donut or their kids pack of gum or whatever makes such a huge difference to them. Thanks soldiers for all you do.

If you sit down and think about it you will see that there are hundreds of little ways you can be part of the change you want to see in this nation. We already are because we are good, decent, honest people but little actions make all the difference.

Go Team! Go! We are right! We WILL win! This nation does not belong to them. It belongs to US!

How to Choose Your Means: Conservative Rules for Radicals (Part 3)

April 29, 2009 by Lisa Krempasky  
Filed under Politics

Does the end justify the means? Conservatives have a tendency to play by the rules so we view this question as irrelevant. We have a blanket rule that the end does not justify the means and when the liberal does not play by this rule we criticize them. But by doing so we let them define the field of play and by defining it they have control of it.

The better question is does this end justify this means. Really every political action we take is a means. Some clearly are acceptable. Some we view as unacceptable. Take the example of stealing. Stealing is wrong. Plain and simple it is wrong. But the vast majority of people will steal food when their children are starving. Criticizing them for doing so neither feeds their child nor protects our food from being stolen. That does not mean we should compromise our morality, but to successfully win we must understand that most people will compromise their views given the right circumstances. That knowledge can be used for you or against you. And the enemy is using these rules and tactics. Failing to acknowledge them only guarantees we do not know how to fight.

That being said Alinksy lays out eleven concepts about end and means:

1. People are more concerned about means when they are not directly involved in the issue. In the case of the stealing mother, while she may feel remorse for stealing she would feel far more remorse for letting her child die when there was something she could do to prevent it. It’s easy for us to sit back and say she is wrong, but it is not our child.

2. Means is judged by your political position. To Americans the Declaration of Independence is a proud statement of independence from a leader who should not retain authority over us. The British saw it differently. To them it was traitorous rebellion.

3. In war the end justifies almost any means. We see this with our congressmen and their newly found politically correct disguist for waterboarding. In 2001 and 2002, shortly after 9/11 they were all in favor of doing whatever it took to stop the terrorists. Today with the memory faded they have an entirely different view.

4. Judgment of the means must be made in the historical context where they were undertaken. See the above example of waterboarding after 9/11 versus the view of waterboarding today. You must make your judgment for your means in the moment. History either views it favorably or unfavorably, but will look to the context of when the decision was made.

5. Concern with means increases as more means are available. In the stealing mom example, if taking that piece of bread was the only thing actually keeping her child alive she is not judged harshly and is generally viewed with compassion. If, however, she is offered a job that she refuses to take or is given food that she refuses to cook or has other means to obtain that food, then stealing is looked upon harshly. Creativity in means will often provide an acceptable, but also marketable, means. Acceptable is no good if it goes unnoticed.

6. The less important the end, the more alternative means you can consider. One tendency of radicals is to look at whatever our end is as extremely important. Here we must be realistic and view the objective through the eyes of those we wish to join with us. Almost universally Americans viewed planes crashing into the Twin Towers as important and would go to virtually any means to make sure this did not happen again. Yet the vast majority of Americans do not care about saving a bug on the verge of extinction, or at least do not care enough to make an effort to stop the extinction. Pick an end for which you can get a critical mass of backers.

7. Winning justifies your end. Winning is the difference between being a traitor and a founding father. If you are not sold out to your cause enough to win you are on a fools errand to use any drastic means.

8. The morality of the means is judged by your strength at the moment it is employed. Put simply, people don’t like a bully. If the enemy is about to surrender and you kill them instead your end does not justify your means. But if your back is against the wall and you are on the verge of defeat a bullet to the head of your enemy is imperative.

9. If you means is effective it will automatically be hailed by the enemy as unethical. We see this political speak in the tea party movement. The media has portrayed the movement as anti-American. Why? Because they need the PR machine to convince scores of people seeking redress of their complaints that they are unethical. The movement is too large already and pressure must be put on others not to join. This pressure is proof of the effectiveness of the means.

10. You do what you can with what you have. History remembers Ghandi as a peace activist. But there is evidence that peaceful protest was not his preferred political method. He used civil disobedience because he had no guns. If he had had guns he would not have had trained men to use them. But what he had was a large number of bodies that could show up. Seeing that he crafted a strategy that worked with what he had.

11. Phrase the goals very generally. Make them marketable. We must have a slogan that engages and motivates people. Obama was a master of this. He sold hope and change. Who could be against hope? Who could be against change? But what do they mean? They mean something different to each person. Each person can project their hope and their change into that general goal.

Using these guidelines we can develop effective strategies, we can use effective means to justify our particular end or goal. Using these strategies we can regain political power and take back our nation!

In part 2 we identified the problem and the parties need to obtain a solution to the problem. In part 4 we will explore the role our language plays in our political cause.


Conservative Rules For Radicals: Identifying the Problem and the Players (Part 2)

April 18, 2009 by Lisa Krempasky  
Filed under Politics

The most significant thing we can do in our attempts to change the world is to recognize the world for what it actually is in the here and now and not for what we want it to be. In the model of Alcoholics Anonymous we must first realize there is a problem. If you don’t know how things are, if you haven’t taken that cold hard look at yourself, then there is not way to know who you can be or how you can get there.

Alinsky puts it this way. “It is a world not of angels, but of angles, where men speak of moral principles but act on power principles; a world where we are always moral and our enemies always immoral; a world where “reconciliation” means one side gets the power and the other side gets reconciled to it.

To change the world we must first understand the players in this change. The are basically three group of people participating in the process. The Haves are the ones in power. They are the status quo and the ones who benefit from how things are now. They are the hardest to motivate for change because change produces little positive for them. To motivate them you much touch on ancilliary needs or senses of guilt for being Haves. Former Haves can become powerful allies when they are removed from power. Alinsky’s view on motivating this group is to show them how the change will benefit them rather than hurt them. “The most practical life is the moral life and that the moral life is the only road to survival.”

The second group is the Have Nots. These people are at the bottom of the rung and make up the bulk of the world. They are always motivated for change because they have nothing to lose. Things as they are do not benefit them. They are willing to take great risk to have a better life because many feel like nothing could be worse than where they are right now. They tend toward the radical and are outside of the realm of power. They want to get and often will do so by any means necessary. To many attempting to change the world these people are expendable in the goal and purpose. Thus it is important for effective long term change to not just motivate the Have Nots but to connect to their real and felt needs.

The final broad group in attempts to change are the Have A Little, Want Mores. These people are generally referred to as the middle class. They are more risk adverse than the Have Nots because they perceive the risk of being worse off after a change. This group is caught in the middle. With one hand they are grasping for more, but with the other they are clenching on to what they already have, afraid to let go until they can firmly hold that which they are reaching for. This is the group most likely to agree with your end goal but be critical of your means. Means is important and conservative steady means is highly sought. This is the most significant group in change, especially in America where they are our largest group. When this group reaches critical mass you know you are onto something and change is inevitable.

In part 1 we looked at 6 basic rules for changing the world. In part 3 we will explore issues how to choose the means to your end.


Conservative Rules for Radicals Prologue

April 14, 2009 by Lisa Krempasky  
Filed under Politics

As one who wants to change my culture and my nation I thought I would look at a classic manual on how to do just that. In the 70s Saul Alinsky wrote Rules for Radicalsto teach a generation of liberals how to effectively change their culture. Though I don’t agree with the change they sought, the message of how to change a culture is as valid today as it was then. This is part 1 in a series reviewing Alinsky’s Rulesand applying them to conservative principles for today.

PROLOGUE

Conservatives are angry these days. We feel powerless and exploited. Honestly we feel we are being led by the blind. That is how liberals felt in the 1960s. The striking similarity is amazing. They felt powerless. We feel powerless. They felt they needed change now. We feel we need change now. Radical elements run a risk of turning off the masses of people that are needed for any movement to affect change. So what are the overarching principles to permanent change?

1. You’ve got to understand people. People act in their own self interest. To be effective you must show them how your message benefits them. It is irrelevant how the message benefits you or anyone else. People must have their own skin in the game and must understand that failure to act has a specific and direct unintended consequence to them personally.

2. Don’t do stupid stuff. In the 1960s it was flag burning. To the radical flag burning represented a no compromise stance. To the everyday person flag burning represented anger, intimidation and disrespect. Instead of listening to the message behind the flag burning the everyday person could not see past the act itself. People who might have otherwise been persuaded by valid points shut down and did not even listen to the argument because of their dislike for the act of flag burning.

3. Get an ideal people will organize around. It’s not enough to just understand people. You’ve got to motivate them. The message has to be simple and clear. The action you ask of people must be easy to incorporate into their lives. It takes a lot to get people to commit to do something. Make your message as easy as possible. Activate people by making it simple for the masses to participate. Write a sample email so they don’t have to think of wording themselves. Provide a link and the email addresses in easy format. Show them how they can take the action you request while they are doing something else they are already doing.

4. Work from within the system. The GOP is presently struggling over this very concept. Some are ready to bolt and start a new party because the GOP is too much like the democrats. That is a good and viable option, but it takes much more work, money and energy. If instead conservatives can work within the GOP and win the war of ideals the same work, money and energy that would be used to start a new party could be used to reach further and deeper within the present party structure. The same is true for all change. Working within the present structure whether it be a govenrment, an educational institution or other gives you the power structure to actually see your change come into being.

5. Be patient. Rome was not built in a day. Liberals have been on a steady march forward for generations and have had a long range strategy and plan for at least 40 years. We cannot expect to undo this by 2010 or 2012. We must be in this for the long haul. We must work everyday toward the goal of a free America with a limited government. We cannot rest on our laurels but must keep striving and striving so that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren can reap the rewards of our labor.

6. Don’t abdicate. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing” Edmund Burke. We got in the position we are in because we were busy with our own lives. Just like the frog put in the pot of cold water on the stove we didn’t even notice as the heat was being turned up. Now we are nearing full boil and in order to save ourselves and this great nation we must take back the reigns. We must take action. We must make our voices heard. Now is the time! This is the day! Do not stand by silent for another moment bemoaning the way things are. Plug in to a cause and make a difference.

Alinsky’s prologue is summed up in the following quote.

Men don’t like to step abruptly out of the security of familiar experience; they need a bridge to cross from their own experience to a new way. A revolutionary organizer must shake up the prevailing patterns of their lives — agitate, create disenchantment and discontent with the current values, to produce, if not a passion for change, at least a passive, affirmative, non-challenging climate.

In part 2 we will identify the problem and the parties need to obtain a solution to the problem.


Conservatives vs. the GOP Send a Message to Michael Steele

April 4, 2009 by Lisa Krempasky  
Filed under Action Steps

The GOP does not know what it wants to be when it grows up. It is struggling for direction. It lost its vision and mission but still wants your money and your support. Tell the GOP to return to its conservative roots by signing a petition to Michael Steele:

TO REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN MICHAEL STEELE:

Whereas, broadcasters and commentators such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck and Michael Savage are now seen as the de facto leaders of the Republican Party;

Whereas, this result is the natural and inevitable result of the fact that those who are supposed to provide leadership – Republican elected officials and party officers – are doing little to stand up to the socialist policies of the Obama administration;

Whereas, the GOP absolutely refuses to fire the Congressional leaders who helped get the party and the country into this mess;

Whereas, current Republican leadership cowers in fear of the President’s popularity;

Whereas, the anger of grassroots conservatives continues unabated towards weak-kneed, spineless, earmark-loving, Big Government, establishment Republicans;

Whereas, Americans are already beginning to realize that the new president is every bit as reckless and extreme as conservatives said he was;

Whereas, the Republican Party can’t get any traction, because the party leadership is as confused and clueless as the Obama administration;

Whereas, this problem will continue until all Big Government, anti-conservative Republican politicians are replaced with principled conservative leaders.

Resolved, the signers of this petition will withhold support and contributions from all Republican committees until Big Government Republican politicians are replaced with principled conservatives. Conservatives will no longer tolerate incompetent, weak-kneed, spineless, earmark-loving, Big Government, establishment Republican leadership, and we demand an immediate return to principled conservatism and a leader that will stand up to President Obama and the Congressional Democrats in their efforts to make America a socialist country.