Why I am a conservative
By Charles A. Morse
web
posted July 16, 2001
This is the text of a speech recently delivered by Chuck Morse to his Synagogue.
Thank you Rabbi for inviting me to speak. I am a conservative in a liberal town, I am a conservative in a liberal synagogue, and I am a conservative in a liberal family, but I'm not just any conservative. My radio broadcasts, columns, and books, make me an outspoken conservative with a growing national audience.
Judaism has led me in the direction of conservatism. My understanding is that the central theme of Jewish life is a belief in a law giving G-D. The Torah, which we honor with rich traditions involving elaborate ceremony and reverence, and which is the center of Jewish life, informs me that G-D created the universe and that G-D created man in his image. This elicits a profound appreciation within me for the uniqueness, sanctity, and awesome personal responsibility of every individual human life.
Liberalism, on the other hand, leans in the direction of a morally relativistic secular humanism and atheism. Many Liberals today have also embraced the occult, neo paganism, earth worship, and other so called "New Age" beliefs, which, according to my research, constituted the religion of the Nazis. In the Torah, G-D forbids these immoral beliefs and practices.
A fundamental tenet of the Liberal faith is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. This unproven theory, wrapped in the sophistries of scientific certainty, claims that man somehow miraculously evolved from primordial ooze and is nothing more than an advanced animal. Conservatism, from what I understand, favors the Torah teaching that man was created in G-D's image, and as a result, conservatives tend to view human existence as imbued with a higher purpose.
In the Garden of Eden, the serpent tempted Eve with the promise that "Ye shall be as G-D's knowing good and evil." Trying to be as G-D is a fundamental sin. G-D reveals the nature of good and evil, Judaism teaches us, in the Torah, given to the Children of Israel, through their Prophet Moses at Sinai. The Torah instructs us in terms of how to worship, how to interact with each other, and how to live. It is up to us, as individuals, to either move toward holiness or to turn our back on holiness. While I am by no means holier than thou, I do, for starters, recognize the Torah as being immutable and unchangeable and I measure my life against its ineffable yardstick.
Liberalism seeks to replace G-D's immutable law with moral relativism, which is to say that individuals, acting in the place of G-D, decide what constitutes good and evil. They seek to supplant G-D's Torah, and its absolute truths, with the politically correct fashions and whims of an allegedly enlightened elite who claim a scientific, superior wisdom. They view the State as an instrument to enforce their self-serving experiments. This is the essence of the sin of the Garden of Eden. The conservative, on the other hand, is more inclined to recognize the sovereignty of G-D, not some earthly experts. To understand this is to understand why conservatives are not as easily controlled by the machinations of government.
Conservatism supports that most conservative of all documents, the Constitution of the United States of America. Like our founding fathers, and concurrent with the teachings of Judaism, conservatives believe that all rights come from G-D. The Declaration of Independence states that "We are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights; among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
The Constitution stands as a beacon of human progress, by the true meaning of the term, as it honors the ability of a moral people to exercise self-rule. Great progressive movements such as the labor, civil rights, and women's movements, sprang from the desire to obtain the individual and property rights guaranteed by the Constitution but not fully realized. The authoritarian minded left perverted these conservative movements, to a certain degree, with their cult of victimization and their dialectic of class and race hatred. They turned genuine conservative movements into cannon fodder in their war against American notions of limited government and freedom.
Liberalism contends that rights emanate from the State. The benevolent liberal expert, acting they tell us, for the common good, covets the right to decide which rights are granted to his neighbor and to what degree. They hold as a gauzy ultimate goal a centralized New World Order. They believe that this is inevitable, and they speak of a time when there will be world peace, an end of poverty and hunger, de facto equality etc. In their public utterances, the Nazi's also employed this same type of rhetoric. Just turn over your rights and property to us, the Nazi's promised, before they suspended the Constitution and confiscated firearms, and we will usher in a utopian paradise. This was the big lie then, and it remains the big lie today. Due to our unique historical experience, we Jews should know better than anyone regarding the nature of such empty promises and meaningless slogans. We should be warning the rest of the world about the iron fist that hides beneath the velvet glove.
The main struggle of our time as I see it, from a conservative perspective, is the struggle between those who believe in increasing government control, and those who believe in guarding the sovereign rights of the individual citizen. George Washington said, "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
Conservatism advocates for democratic principles as a means of preserving sovereign rights. This means that all lawmaking responsibilities should rightfully reside in the hands of elected representatives, whether they are City or Town Councilors, State legislators, or Federal Congressmen. That way, proposed laws are debated in public and the citizenry is more fully informed with regard to all sides of an issue. This way, the taxpaying citizen is able to maintain control over the laws that affect their lives. The trend today is the unconstitutional transfer of lawmaking responsibilities to appointed Judges, appointed commissions and authorities, and international agencies such as the United Nations, the WTO, and others who illegally pass laws by fiat and often in secret. This is why we are losing control of our institutions, our public schools, our families, our property, and our freedom.
I feel compelled to present some somber observations that may offend you. I hope and pray they do not, but I feel I must take the risk. We must come to grips at long last with what I would contend, is the underlying cause of the Holocaust against the Jews.
The Holocaust did not happen solely because of anti-Semitism. If that were the case, why wasn't there a Holocaust in Germany before the Nazis? Jews prospered in pre-Nazi Germany. There was always anti-Semitism in Germany and there is anti-Semitism in this country, yet, there hasn't been a Holocaust here. The Holocaust occurred, I would contend, because of the Socialist nature of Nazism The dictionary definition of Socialism is "Public (or Government) ownership of the mode of production." Nazism was no different, substantively, than the other significant Socialist experiment of this past century, left-wing Communism. Harvard University Press recently published the English translation of "The Black Book of Communism." This book definitively documents what Conservatives, and most Liberals who are honest, have known for decades, which is that Communism was responsible for the liquidation of over 100 million people, four times as many as the Nazi's and other Fascists combined.
What did the Nazi and Communists have in common? Both banned the private ownership of firearms under the guise of insuring public safety. Both controlled private property, my grandparent's relatives could have attested to this if they had only survived the Holocaust. Both sought to replace a personal relationship with G-D with the Furherprincip, or worship of an all-knowing leader, or of a vanguard elite. Both sought to change human nature under the guise of ending poverty and inequality. Both maintained that certain people had to be eliminated, or as Karl Marx said in the Communist Manifesto, "swept aside and made impossible," in order to create a New World Order. The Nazi's insanely believed that there were biological obstacles standing in the way of their utopia, those being the Jews. The Communists saw the obstacles to Socialism as being people in the wrong economic class or those who were not politically or socially correct.
As a conservative in a liberal environment, my views sometimes generate a certain degree of intolerance, and even, sadly, hatred. Certain members of our synagogue, by no means all thank G-D, who are familiar with my work, have behaved intolerantly toward me. While I don't subscribe to the idea that tolerance should be automatically granted, I do believe in the old fashioned idea of practicing manners and chivalry and I try to remain optimistic that I will be treated in kind.
I want to thank you for listening and I am available to discuss these
issues anytime. This Republic of ours was conceived in liberty. Liberty
and Justice are imperfect things, but with all our ragged edges and flaws,
I choose our blessed Republic over any other. The alternative, with its
utopian promises of a perfect world, is quite chilling. Thank you and
Baruch Hashem. 
Chuck Morse is the author of "Why I'm a Right-Wing Extremist" to be released in September.