Conservative Heritage Times

This is from Chuck Baldwin’s Facebook page.

My dear friend Howard Phillips passed away this past Saturday. He was one of my heroes and one of the most brilliant men I have ever known. He forgot more about government and history than most of us will ever learn. He was a graduate of Harvard. He was the head of two federal agencies in the Nixon White House. Most people don’t realize that he was the principal founder of what became known as the “Religious Right.” He also inspired Jerry Falwell to start the Moral Majority. He was the founder of the Constitution Party and chairman of the Conservative Caucus. America lost an ardent defender of liberty, and I lost a good friend. The family has asked me to preach Howard’s funeral. I don’t know the exact day yet. When I know, I will post it here on my Facebook wall. The funeral will take place at the McLean Bible Church in Tysons Corner, Virginia. I’m sure going to miss my friend.

Cross posted at IPR.

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Chuck Baldwin is moving away from Pre-millenialism, and has endorsed Pan-millenialism, a humorous term meaning that someone doesn’t embrace a particular end-times system, but simply believes it will all “pan out in the end.” This may seem like theological inside baseball to many, but I think this is a pretty significant development. Chuck Baldwin posted the following post on his Facebook fan page. I’ll explain why I think it is significant below:

Another note about prophecy: regardless of one’s personal interpretation of Bible prophecy, this much seems clear to me: prophecy is mostly used by preachers to build crowds and make money. Before Christians become prophecy “junkies,” they need to get grounded in the “weightier matters of the law.” When asked about the restoration of the Kingdom to Israel, Jesus said bluntly, “It is not for you to… know…” (Acts 1:6,7) Let’s quit pretending that we completely know everything about the Lord’s return. We don’t. Our interpretations of Bible prophecy are educated guesses at best. Next: prophecy seems to be a tool of many Christians to promote war and military aggression overseas. This is not only unscriptural, it is VERY DANGEROUS. Jesus plainly told us that we are supposed to “occupy” (literally: “take care of business”) until He comes–whenever that is. If pastors and Christians would get as excited about taking care of business in the here and now as they are about something that God Himself is going to take care of in the future (and over which we have absolutely no control) our country would not be teetering on the edge of tyranny and oppression. Let God take care of His business, and we start taking care of our business!

People keep trying to pigeon-hole me into one prophetic camp or another. Just FYI: I was raised and schooled in the Pre-millennial, Pre-tribulational Rapture position. As I’ve grown older and studied more on the subject, I confess that I have become much more neutral. For one thing, I am totally disgusted with the way my Pre-millennial friends use the doctrine of the Rapture to excuse their laziness and cowardice. In the name of “Jesus is coming soon,” they sit on their blessed assurance and do absolutely nothing while our beloved country is being turned into a giant police state. They also use their understanding of prophecy to justify all kinds of undeclared, unconstitutional, and immoral foreign wars. If the tree is known by its fruit, the fruit of Pre-millennialism (at least nowadays) is pretty rotten. My bottom line is I truly don’t believe that we Christians are supposed to know the exact details of Christ’s return. My study of scripture convinces me that God purposely intended that we NOT know these things, that they are confined to the Province of God. I have further come to believe that it truly doesn’t matter much what one’s personal view of prophecy is. We have a duty to do; we need to do it! “Occupy” until He comes (whenever that is). I guess one could say I am a Pan-millennialist. I believe it’s all going to Pan Out according to God’s Sovereign plan. In the meantime, I want to be faithful to do my duty. And part of that duty is resisting these infernal attempts by big-government elitists to surrender America’s independence and liberties to a bunch of New World Order globalists. Regardless of your view of prophecy, will you join me?

A pan-millennialist. I guess that is what I am. In my opinion the Bible is not clear on the exact end-times scenario. If it was, we wouldn’t still be arguing about it. I tend to believe this lack of clarity is intentional. (Other than the clear teaching that Jesus is coming again.) It is potentially dangerous to know the future, because it could affect how you behave in the present. It is particularly dangerous to think you know the future and be wrong about it. The post-mils and pre-mils are both correct when they condemn each other based on the consequences of their beliefs. Ideas (theology) do indeed have consequences. One should be hesitant about embracing a certain set of consequences when the theology it is based on does not warrant the level of certainty that many give it.

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Our frequent critic Savrola asked me what I thought of Thomas Fleming’s recent comments about Chuck Baldwin. I was unaware of such comments. Turns out they were in the comment thread of an article, not an article itself as I had supposed.

As a supporter of Chuck Baldwin and the Constitution Party, I obviously disagree. I posted my comments there and Dr. Fleming has already responded. I won’t reproduce my them here because they are rather long. I’ll just direct you to them.

Your thoughts there (requires registration) and here.

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Check out this article at The American Conservative.

Antle covers Virgil Goode (CP) and Gary Johnson (LP). I promised to lay off Goode until after the election, and I have, but this is a perfect example of how the Constitution Party has harmed its brand by nominating Goode. Anti-war conservatives can’t unequivocally embrace the CP nominee. Any endorsement has to be hedged.

This dilemma is particularly acute this year. Let’s just go back to 2008, when the two major party candidates were Obama and a far more committed hawk than Romney in John McCain. At least the Constitution Party nominated Chuck Baldwin, a candidate who had opposed the Iraq War from the beginning. The Libertarian Party nominated Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman who had turned sharply against the war. Both men were fairly decent choices for the antiwar conservative.

Four years later, the Constitution Party nominee is a former Republican congressman who (like Barr) voted for the Iraq War but (unlike Barr) hasn’t had much to say about his second thoughts since. In his acceptance speech, Virgil Goode apologized for his support for the Patriot Act but not Iraq. In an interview with this writer for the print edition ofTAC, Goode seemed not to have gotten the memo — or the Duelfer report — on Iraqi WMD.

The Libertarians have nominated Gary Johnson, the former Republican governor of New Mexico, for president. Johnson opposed the Iraq War. He wants out of Afghanistan and never wanted into Libya. Johnson hasn’t exactly been humming McCain’s catchy tune “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran.”

But Johnson is much less conservative than Goode on issues like immigration (he’s as close to open borders as anyone this side of the Wall Street Journal editorial page can be) and abortion. His eagerness to dispatch U.S. troops to fight the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda while talking cheerfully about a 40 percent cut in military spending could be a forgivable bit of third-party incoherence, but it sounds like a prescription for disaster.

See more…

Similar post without the editorial content posted at IPR.

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Here is Chuck Baldwin’s latest. The original can be found here.

Much to the chagrin of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a federal judge has cleared the members of a Michigan militia who were accused by federal law enforcement agents of conspiracy to commit sedition. Since you didn’t hear much about this ruling from the national press corps, here is one online version of the report:

“Seven members of a Michigan militia have been cleared of plotting to overthrow the U.S. government as a judge dismissed the most serious charges against them.

“In a shock defeat for federal authorities, District Judge Victoria Roberts said the group’s expressed hatred of law enforcement did not amount to a conspiracy.

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Chuck Baldwin recently released a video endorsing Ron Paul. The content of this editorial is different from the video.

The recent passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the reaction–or better, lack of reaction–by the GOP’s Presidential candidates is a perfect example of how it will not matter to a Tinker’s Dam which Republican candidate wins the nomination, unless that candidate is Congressman Ron Paul. This is what so many people within the so-called Religious Right and establishment GOP just do not understand: they do not understand the fact that America is in the throes of a burgeoning police state. They have buried their heads in the sand for so long that they wouldn’t know what tyranny looked like if it came up and bit them on their blessed assurance! They have totally drunk the propaganda Kool Aid that purports that the biggest threat to our liberties comes from the Sand People. Our Founding Fathers were a much wiser lot, of course. They understood perfectly that the biggest threat to our liberties comes from Washington, D.C., not Baghdad, or Tehran, or any other foreign entity.

Read more…

Cross posted at IPR.

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Chuck Baldwin, the 2008 Constitution Party nominee for President, endorses Ron Paul while, ironically, Bob Barr, the 2008 Libertarian Party nominee, just endorsed Newt Gingrich. What was Bob Barr thinking?

HT: IPR

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From Chuck Baldwin: “Why we chose the Flathead Valley of Montana” and “Government cannot be trusted to police itself.”

From J.J. Jackson at Liberty Reborn “Things gleaned from the Republican Debate” and “To Tyranny and Beyond…!”

Alexander Cockburn at Chronicles: “Can any of these Republicans win? Can Obama lose?”

Jack Hunter at TAC: “Radical Kirk”

Justin Raimondo:  “The Persecution of an Antiwar Blogger” at Antiwar.com

The Second Vermont Republic’s Mission Statement

Our friend Jerry Sayler write on the “War on Raw Milk” at Front Porch Republic

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If you want to get into the ring, you better be able to take a punch. It’s true in politics as much as it is in boxing. Unfortunately, some can take punches better than others and then there are those who can’t take being hit at all, but like a bully insist upon dishing it out.

The Koch Brothers, the Wichita family oil barons, are a good example of the latter. They’ve been involved in the founding of the conservative movement when their father bought bulk copies of the book Conscience of a Conservative back in 1960. They helped start and finance the libertarian movement through think tanks, patronage of writers, even the Libertarian Party itself when David Koch got himself nominated as the LP vice-presidential candidate in 1980. They’ e spent and estimated $100 million on political activism. They’re publicity shy and like to remain in the background and do their political work from afar. Nothing wrong with that (if only more people did so the world would be much better off). The problem is, they don’t like people pointing all this out. Nor do they like it when persons criticize what they do, even though they have no problem criticizing others for their points of view, million of times and millions of dollars over and over again.

In fact recent criticism of the Koch for the money they gave GOP candidates last year has apparently bothered them to point where its actually degenerating into outright paranoia as this post on Politico shows:

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Chuck Baldwin resumes live streaming his Sunday messages THIS Sunday, January 16, 2011, at approximately 2:25pm MDT.

To view the live stream from Liberty Fellowship in Kalispell, Montana, this Sunday (and every Sunday at approximately 2:25pm MDT),
click here:

http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?page_id=17

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Has the 13th Amendment Brought About  True Freedom? by Robert Rohlfing

Is it time for Christians to Shred their Bibles? by Rev. Chuck Baldwin

Technological Advancements: A Path To Freedom Or a Path To Serfdom? By Robert Rohlfing

The Re-Emergence of the Neocons by SARTE

Montana Update by Rev. Chuck Baldwin

The Recession Bubble That Was Delayed by Robert Robert Rohlfing

Is it Uncle Sam or Mommie Dearest? by Robert Rohlfing

The GOP Has My Support on Bush Era Tax Rates by J.J. Jackson

You might this article from The American Prospect  interesting for it confirms from the Left what any Chronicles reader knows: culture trumps politics. Don’t believe me? Well then ask yourself how DADT was eventually repealed.

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Well this is interesting. PA Gov. Rendell is “appalled”(as he should be) that an anti-terrorism task force was keeping tabs on liberal activists, and is falling all over himself to apologize. Was he equally appalled when Missouri was fingering TEA Party activist, Ron Paul supporters, and Chuck Baldwin voters as potential terrorists? I certainly don’t recall this sort of outrage about that story except on the right. And I don’t recall the Gov. of Missouri doing this kind of abject apology dance.

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Wow! This is news to me.

I wish Pastor Baldwin luck, but I’m not sure how I feel about this. Like I’m not sure how I feel about the Free State Project or Christian Exodus. To move somewhere because there is more “freedom” there strikes me as overly ideological. One essential insight of paleoism is the value of family and community above mere abstractions. This seems like downplaying the former to seek after the later. You can’t just plunk unconnected people who are united only by an idea down anywhere and expect a coherent community to arise. Community is organic. Plus, Montana may be more “free,” but is it more Christian? The Panhandle of Florida retains much of its Southern and Bible Belt character, unlike anything below Tampa/Orlando.

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BATR’s latest: “Barry Soetoro, the blackface Alfred E. Neuman”

J.J. Jackson: “The Old Liberal Three-Step”

Chuck Baldwin’s  “You want these guys running health care?”

and Paul Gottfried has a good one on Alt-Right: “Dead Letter”

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By Chuck Baldwin

The GOP is frantically searching for the person who will lead them to the Promised Land (translate: White House) in 2012. Barack Obama is leaving a death stench so heavy that even most of the political allies in his own party are asking him to stay away from their reelection campaigns. You gotta give it to Obama: he has done in one term what most Presidents cannot accomplish until their second (lame duck) term. The problem is, the GOP just can’t seem to find their Moses (or even their Ronald Reagan). That means, as far fetched as it sounds now, Obama has a good chance of being reelected. And, once again, when any Democrat candidate for President wins, the GOP will have no one to blame but themselves. 2012 could be another example.

You see, the GOP (including their lackeys at Fox News) either really don’t know what a constitutional conservative looks like, or they do know what he or she looks like and don’t want them leading the party. I believe the answer is the latter, but in either case, the GOP continually does nothing to groom constitutionalist conservatives for leadership. Just the opposite: such people are routinely ignored, shunned, besmirched, or impugned. (Can anyone say, “Ron Paul”?) Is it any wonder that by the time the general election comes around, the GOP candidate for President is usually nothing more than a Democrat-lite, or a “Democrat in Drag” to borrow from Steve Farrell.

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I wanted to comment on the Kevin Thompson’s leaving the CP and Red Phillips response to it. Like Red, I too believe non-major parties can be useful if they are used in the right manner and organized in the right way.

I have written about such uses for non-major parties and I agree such parties should not just use ideology as their sole building block. American political parties have alwasy been building blocks for various communities of interest. The weakest parties, you will find, are those only based on dogma and ideology. Every left-wing and right-wing splinter group can attest to that.

Actually, why leave the party at all? What law says you can’t be a member of two parties? Hmm? I am not a full member of the CP, but I affiliate with it. I also do the same with the LP and the GOP. I’m like old Raymond Burr in those Independent insurance business commercials, I don’t represent one party, I represent many.  Kevin Thompson can do so too. No one is stopping him.

Without the CP or the LP around, there’s nothing stopping the GOP from going fully neocon. The Ron Paul Movement has made extraordinary progress within the GOP since it first started in December 2006 but it still has a long way to go and there is no guarantee it will get to where its going. 

Using activists from small parties to influence a bigger one way non-major parties can be used effectively. Winning local elections, especially for non-partisan offices is another.  Influence local communities so that policy is changed from the ground up should be the main goal for non-major parties.

Too many people in this country talk about political parties in the same manner that socialists do. They hold them sacred. The Founding Fathers would have said nonsense. Non-major parties keep our political system open and fluid. Without them, we would be at the mercy of a highly centralized duopoly. For the sake of our Republic alone, we need more than two choices. Whether or not Chuck Baldwin would have made a good President, your work and my work to get him on the ballot and have him as a choice for those not wishing to hold their nose and waste a vote on McCain, was very important.

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I have long been conflicted about how much effort conservatives should put into third parties (see here) because I can see both sides. As I tried to write a response to Kevin’s letter, I couldn’t keep it under several thousand words. So I will work on a large article for later publication and just answer some of his arguments briefly.

1.) First of all, as the situation regrettably currently stands the purpose of a third party is not to win. Anyone who believes that is the purpose is deluded and bound to wind up frustrated. If you want your candidate to win, or you personally want to run a winning or even competitive campaign, do so within one of the two major parties. The purpose of a third party should be first to secure ballot access, second to recruit candidates, and third to use those campaigns as platforms for informing the voters and punishing unfaithful major party candidates. In our current rigged system, ideological third parties do not exist to be serious players in electing candidates and third party activists who don’t realize this are kidding themselves. When third party and independent candidates do well, they are almost always centrist, outsider, and/or represent one of the two already existing dominant coalitions, center right conservatives or center left liberals. Successful independent and third party candidates usually have money (Ross Perot) or previously existing name recognition (Charlie Crist, Lincoln Chaffee). Ideological third parties (Libertarians, Greens, the Constitution Party) that represent more or less “purer” versions of one of the dominant coalitions almost never poll above a few percent and almost never win. (The Libertarians are a little harder than the Greens or the CP to characterize as a purer version of one of the dominant coalitions, but they are definitely an ideologically pure party relatively even though some of the “radical faction” might disagree.)

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Editor’s Note: Kevin Thompson is a friend of this website, so I thought I would pass on his thoughts. While I am sad to hear he has made this decision, in some ways I don’t blame him. I agree with part of what he writes, and I disagree with part of it. I will post this now and let it simmer and then I plan to post a rebutal tomorrow. Thoughts? ~ RP

Here is a link to the original.

Dear Constitution Party Members,

This letter comes after much prayer, thought and discussion.  I have decided that it would be best to conduct my political activity within the Republican Party.  This was not an easy decision, but it is one on which I am confident.  Let me reasons for leaving the party.

(1)    For quite some time, I have been growing disenchanted with the Constitution Party.  The fact of the matter is, I no longer see the rationale of placing much time, effort and money into a party that will constantly and consistently lose in the end.  In the summer of 2008, I can’t think how much time I spent traveling all over Massachusetts dropping off and collecting signatures for Chuck Baldwin.  While it was nice seeing the sights, was all that effort worth the less than one percent that Pastor Baldwin was able achieve.  I also think of my own campaign for Congress three years ago.  Several months of my life were spent in an effort that gave me less than half of one percent of the over all vote.  While this race taught me a lot about the political system and gave me an experience I am now able to pass on to my students, but overall it really did little to help the party or the state of Massachusetts.  The party has been in existence since 1992.  What signs of growth or accomplishment can we really show to justify the party’s existence?  What is the point in exerting all this effort to accomplish nothing?  What really bothers me is that some in the party actually take pride in losing.  They proclaim their moral and ideological superiority as the reason for their defeat.  At least I didn’t compromise…  But, the problem is, you didn’t do anything else either.

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Independent Political Report has the story. Sean and I have already commented there.

For those unfamiliar with this story, due to some shoddy work on the part of the California’s Secretary of State, the minuscule Keyes’ faction is the officially recognized faction by the State, and they are now technically affiliated with America’s Independent Party, Keyes’ personal vanity vehicle. Technically the Constitution Party does not have a state affiliate in California even though the CP loyal faction is much larger.

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Our friend Trent Hill, who edits Independent Political Report, made this comment in the Roy Moore post below.

Look for Moore to go to the CP meetings now and start stumping for the Presidency in 2012.

I had had this thought myself. Moore has long flirted with the CP and the CP has openly pursued him. Moore would be at home in the CP, but I believe he held out against pursuing their nomination in the past because he had plans on running in the GOP primary in Alabama and knew that open affiliation with a third party would hurt him. But now after two less than stellar showings in GOP primaries,  he has little to lose.

While Moore’s status as a marquee candidate nationally has been diminished by his lack of electorial success in conservative Alabama, he remains a celebrity in CP circles and could likely have the nomination for the asking. No offense to past nominees Howard Phillips, Michael Peroutka and Chuck Baldwin, all honorable men and faithful servants to the cause, but Moore has a higher national profile than any of these men even after his loses in Alabama. And recall that the CP could not hardly give its presidential nomination  away in 2008. Interloping neocon Alan Keyes would have likely claimed the nomination in ’08 against some decent but not nationally credible contenders had not Chuck Baldwin been persuaded to step up to the plate and drop his name in the hat. (Again, I mean no disrespect here. I support the CP and attended the 2008 nominating convention, but I can say as someone who was franctically grasping for an alternative to block Keyes that credible candidates were not coming out of the woodwork.)

While Moore would have been a bigger coup for the CP right after his Ten Commandments battle, the CP could certainly do worse in 2012 than Moore.

Have any other contenders even been floated so far?

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