Strategies for the Preservation of Liberty

by Dr. Joel Skousen (Utah)

Address given during Freedom Forum of the IAP National Conference, July 14, 2001, Salt Lake City, Utah.  Joel Skousen is author/editor of the internet newsletter World Affairs Brief. 

I'm probably going to be the bearer of bad new today. I'm here to talk about Strategies for the Preservation of Liberty. But in order to strategise properly, we have to understand what our real situation is -- and our real situation is not very good. And its not going to get any better in my opinion. I want to tell you in detail why that analysis is so. I tell you this -- not because I've decided to give up --on the contrary.

I've decided that it is necessary to understand because of the things that I believe are coming in the future -- tribulation, judgements of God on this nation. We are not going to keep going at the mercy of God, with the cries of the innocent that continues to grow before his ears. And he's going to heed those cries. And there is going to be a great condemnation coming down on this nation. And if we do not prepare ourselves to take advantage of that situation, to restore liberty when those small tiny windows of opportunity arise, we will be caught flat-footed. We will be overrun with the momentum of the kind of establishment ignorance, establishment politics, and establishment law that rules this country today. And I will explain that I more detail.

Majority Myth

There's a myth that we live under today that conservatives are a majority. This is simply not true. Its easy to think as when you speak to the choir as we are today. But you go out and walk the streets of even Salt Lake City, and with a realistic eye walk down the street and ask yourself how many of these people could I approach with either the Gospel or conservatism, you'll find yourself hard pressed to see any -- that's what I'm telling you -- look around you. Don't look at what you want to see. Look at what is really out there. We are overwhelmed by ignorant people-- we are mainly a minority.

And that doesn't mean that there is no hope for doing anything. It simply means we must begin to think what is realistic in our position. Because if we delay thinking realistically, we will not have prepared for what is coming.

Bush vs Gore

Let me give you some statistics. These are real facts. Only 40% of American adults even claim to be conservative. 55.5 million votes, and there are only about half the American people that vote. And a good portion -- by far the majority of those people who don't vote -- are hostile to our position. But 55.5 million people voted for Al Gore and Ralph Nader. 50 million people voted for Bush. But we don't know how many of those were actually conservative. They certainly weren't all conservatives.

And this was at a time, by the way, when the press bent over backwards to be fair to make sure that they did not persecute or attack George Bush. In fact, they allowed the weaknesses of Al Gore to become very prominent in the press. They allowed Ralph Nader to mount a campaign -- he had only about 500,000 votes the previous election. And he had 4.5 million this election. That did not occur because Ralph Nader on his own engineered that. He was allowed to engineer that, and it was carefully manipulated. In order to pull down the votes of Al Gore.

Why, you have to ask yourself, did the media want George Bush to win? Was it because they were in favor of his ostensible conservatism? No. It was their agenda in having a phony conservative run this country. And also to take the blame for the next depression -- which is coming -- so they can pave the way for a massive democratic restructuring of this government that is going to come in on the tails of that. It may not happen in 2004, but I think it is coming. And there will be more things to follow.

Conservative Voters

But let's talk about what really did come out of this election -- what the numbers are for our side. 450,000 people voted for Pat Buchanan. And not all of those were conservative votes. Some of those were remnants of the Reform Party, which was anything but conservative. The Reform Party was an independent hodge-podge of many different groups created by Ross Perot, who did so in collusion with the Democratic Party.

Ross Perot -- investigators traced over a hundred phone calls with the Democratic Party in the months prior to his rejoining the presidential debates -- where he was specifically encouraged to come in order to take away votes from George Bush, basically paving the way for Bill Clinton to come into office -- And to maintain him in office in the subsequent election. 383,000 voted for Libertarians. And 104,000 voted for Howard

Phillip's Constitution Party -- by far, the largest of the true conservative third parties of the type that belong in the Big Three -- the Independent American, the American Party, and the Constitution Party. He got 104,000 votes.

National vs Local Races

But there are some other statistics you ought to be interested in. 1.6 million votes were cast for Libertarian congressional candidates. Isn't that interesting? -- Far dwarfing the number of Libertarians that would vote for their national candidate -- voted for Congressional candidates.

120,000 votes in California for a Constitutional candidate, Diane Templin, when she was running against Senator Diane Feinstein -- exceeding the national votes that Howard Phillips got for the Constitution Party. Phillip Jarman, another candidate of the Constitution Party, gained 20% of the vote in a state senate race in Minnesota.

Now there aren't any Constitutional issues generally in state senate or house races. You essentially sell your votes on what you promise to do for your constituents. That's why socialism is so prevalent at the state level. Because it is through the promise of benefits that elections are sold -- except here in Utah where there is such a predominance of conservatives that they (the Republicans) have to at least play lip service to our side in Utah.

Here's why these votes did not translate into national votes. I'm going to explain to you the difference between the actual greater number of local races won by conservatives and Libertarians as compared to the national. First and foremost was the notion among voters that a vote for a hard-core conservative on the national level was a wasted vote. And that's because we have a winner-take-all system in the United States. Its a problem.

Its a problem that's gives a benefit in terms of stability. But its a real problem in other ways. Let me give you an example. In Oregon where I come from. Fully 49% of the Oregon populace is solidly conservative. Yet they never win any elections. Because 51% always takes the day. Technically, you could have fully 49% of Americans being conservative and not hold any office in the land -- with the winner-take-all system. That's a problem. And its getting to be more and more of a problem as the races are tighter and the media then makes a difference.

Metro Areas

We also have the problem, that in almost every state, major metropolitan areas are captured by a group of very liberal media, television, and newspaper networks. And those metro areas dominate the entire state. In Oregon, for example, you are dominated by Portland, which is overwhelmingly liberal. And its become that way because of two very basic factors: One is the media; and the other is the highest concentration of working class people who tend to be Democratic. They are susceptible to the benefits argument. "You are oppressed; your wages are oppressed because you are being taken advantage of in capitalism," they say. Therefore, government can help insure benefits. It isn't true. But they are susceptible to those arguments.

The rural portions of Oregon -- its the same thing in Washington -- Seattle dominates Washington. San Francisco and LA daminate (sic) California. ... I mean, dominate (maybe "daminate" is a pretty good term to describe it) -- Salt Lake City metro area dominates Utah, doesn't it? And Salt Lake City does not have a majority of conservative Mormons anymore. Its actually about 60-40% now in Salt Lake City. Liberals dominate local politics. Even the two major newspapers here have turned liberal. The Church-owned Deseret News is run by the former PR agent of the United Nations--John Hughes. This paper is very liberal and believes in suppressing the kind of news that the Tribune does.

There are also tougher ballot access requirements that discriminate against smaller parties and hurt their ability to get on the ballot. We have far less media coverage for smaller parties. Actually, I would say truthfully, it is not-existent. Its almost non-existent -- media coverage. And then there is the purposeful exclusion from television debates, requiring arbitrarily that 15% -- they have to have a 15% poll showing in order to get on the debates.

So what can we deduce from the numbers I have given you. Well, we can deduce one thing: There are only one million hard-core conservative- Libertarians that are willing to vote on principle even though their vote is lost in a winner-take-all system. One million people. That's it. Versus 280 million.

But how big is the residual quantity of conservatives who didn't vote or who merged their vote with the Republicans? How many true Constitutional conservatives did not vote for our people -- based upon this fear of throwing the vote away -- this fear of having Al Gore become the candidate? I estimate about four times the hard core voters--about four million.

Reagan Years

Let me give you some other things from my experience in Washington, DC as Chairman of the Conservative National Committee-- I was trying to do what Frank Creel of the newly formed Independent National Committee is trying to do here -- and I encourage you. We still need to put together larger coalitions, but our efforts to do so failed in the 1980's. --and the circumstances were even more favorable than what Frank is facing now. There was a bigger movement in the 1980s. We tend to lose momentum during a Republican administration because of a sense of complacency. The great movements that built the conservative machine in Washington, DC were bred on the Carter years.

When Reagan came in, the fundraising just dropped through the floor. And that's what's happening to conservative organizations nowadays. They assume that George Bush is going to save them. And if any of you care to pick up copies of my "World Affairs Brief" -- I can detail every single month how the Bush administration is giving us the rhetoric but betraying us behind our backs.

Conservative National Committee

But let me show you what we did. I worked with Howard Phillips, Richard Vigary, Paul Wyreck, --the big three there in Washington. I was called to Washington because of my reputation as a Skousen and my Constitutional background to head the CNC [Conservative National Committee], an umbrella organization just like Frank is suggesting to bring together -- to try to undo the factionalism that pertains to our movement, and try to get some unity, so that we could hold the line against the compromises that occurred during the Reagan administration.

We were there basically attacking the compromises of the Reagan administration-- supposedly the most conservative glorious time that we ever had. If you really go back and study the record -- and Frank will agree with this I'm sure -- there were some tremendously bad compromises made during the Reagan administration--because George Bush was running the show. Ronald Reagan was really a fairly hands-off, delegating type president. He wasn't intellectually sharp enough to be able to see the kinds of contradictions going on.

I don't think Ronald Reagan was a knowing conspirator in the Bush operation that was going on. But I do think that he was shallow enough intellectually that he could not see, or did not take the time to go in and see, the dichotomy between what was going on. He would one day read a speech to the Association of Christian Broadcasters that was written by his conservative speech writers. It would be excellent, right down the line. The next day he would go over and talk to the liberal side, and another speech writer would give him something -- and he wasn't catching the contradictions of what he was saying.

And so he was what we referred to in Washington in those days as the perfect "patsy," because he could be manipulated carefully. As long as they let him feel like he was still being conservative, and feel like he was doing his duty to the nation, he would be satisfied-- -- and not realize the contradictions.

Conservative Mailing

We did an intensive survey. I remember when I got to Washington. Richard Vigery told me, "Joel there are only two kinds of people in the world: Those who respond to mail-order, and those who don't. And I don't care about the ones that don't. I only talk to the people to respond to mail-order."

Well, I disagreed with him there. Because, I said, I have a feeling (coming from the side that didn't respond to mail order) that we have some of our most principled people out there that are in the background that aren't susceptible to this hype that comes out in the mailing pieces.

And, so I said, "Let me do some experimenting with your mailing list." He had about ten million names of people who had responded to mailing. That's a lot of names. I said, "Let me test those lists and see what kind of a principled base we really have. Let's test them on some issues of what they would be willing to do."

I put out a package that got the highest response that he's ever had in any mailing going out; and it was a response attacking the compromising position basically. In essence, I talked about the politics of compromise; and how in the Reagan administration he was in essence convincing conservatives that we have to go along with this because we don't have the votes; and we have to do this because we don't have this. Our conservative movement was shifting leftward, just as it has been every year since then. And I wanted to find out how many conservatives recognized that shift -- that compromise. And what would they be willing to do about it.

I proposed something similar to the Contract With America, but a little tighter. It was a no-compromise strategy -- will not compromise on the increase in taxes. No more giving up of American sovereignty. No more compromises on the abortion issue -- no more allowing liberal justices into the federal judiciary system. We're going to tell the Republican Party in essence, "You hold the line on these basic ten issues, or we will leave you."

How many people would be willing to take and recognize that kind of a stand? Don't you think you would like to know the numbers on that? That's our message, that: We have to stop this compromise. We aren't winning. We aren't winning with a George Bush. We still keep losing -- even when Republicans get into office.

We got approximately 7 to 10% return from these mailings. Now you may think that's very small. But actually, in mail order, that's very high. Normal returns are 2 to 3%. Its almost unheard of to get a 4% return. You never get over 5% in returns -- unless you're selling pornography to a special list. But among good normal American people, you don't get that kind of return mail. We had 7 to 10%.

People were amazed that there was some proposal like this. But what was interesting is -- in a followup mailing, when we talked about what was their ability to help and respond, these people were, by and large, from the poorer segment, financially. These were the people who had the least financial means to help. Isn't that interesting.

But the people who seemed to sense the most principled area of law and government, and had a sense for these hard-core truths, had the least ability to help. And so Richard Vigery just threw the whole thing out because "they can't help us." --they are irrelevant. But principled people are not irrelevant--we just have to learn to work with the reality of the numbers. If we continue to mail to only the people who have money -- and they don't want to take a principled position -- the movement will drift toward the liberal Republican position.

And so, if your proposition or your reason for being in politics is to be popular with your constituency, rather than to lead them, we conservatives will continue to drift.

A Matter of Principle

Now you have taken a hard-line position in this party. It is principled, its got a tough, consistent line and you've stuck with it. And look at our numbers here (referring to the small number of participants) . Now, I want you to think about what those numbers mean. See what a principled position does?

Now, am I going to sit here and recommend to you that we broaden our base, to pull in the Republicans? Many conservative leaders have tried that. Howard Phillips did not try that. And that's why he's still in a third party movement. And he's probably done the best job of any of the third parties in getting votes-- but its still only a hundred thousand votes. Its minuscule.

I want to try to help explain why this phenomenon is occurring--because there are more people out there that are good people. We're not the only good people in Salt Lake City. We're not the only good people around. So there must be some explanation of why we're not being able to reach the other good people. I want to help you come to those conclusions.

Media Control

First of all, the good people around us, who are potential converts, are "dumbed down" educationally. They are products of public schools.

Number two: They are dumbed down by dependence on the media. They listen to the nightly news. They get most of their information from the nightly news. Now are these people on the nightly news lying to them? Very rarely do they tell a bold-faced lie. What they do use though is the art of selective omissions of truth. They purposely refuse to tell things that will give people another view, that would change their opinion. The media makes selective use of the spike -- the spindle that sits on an editor's desk. That story on the spindle is the one that doesn't get published. And journalists know that.

Its never said overtly as the meet with their editors that they conspire to downplay the truth on certain things. But when a reporter brings up a sensitive truth and says, "What about this?" the editor responds, "Oh, no. We don't want to touch that or go down that route." And if he pushes it with his editor, he gets a private meeting where he is told, "if you continue to push that, you can find work elsewhere." And so there's this very selective way -- and that's why conservative journalists don't exist out there in the media -- of suppressing truth. There are a couple of exception in the media, however. Two conservatives.

You know there's John Stossel of ABC -- and how he survives, I don't know. John Stossel has got the most hard core, hard hitting libertarian exposes of government on his television show. And its very popular, actually. And the other is Bill O'Reilly. He's very conservative and doing a pretty good job on Fox News Network.

Our Constituency

[Third:] Most people -- and I want to describe to you the bell-shaped curve -- most of you have heard of this. But there's a curve that you can describes the types of people that have always been on the face of the earth. That is, at the low end of the curve, there's a very few small, really evil, intelligent, group of individuals. In the middle, there's a huge hump of middle-of-the-road, basic people--not very intelligent, but not dumb either. They have basic motivations, they are good hard-working people. And then there's a few really sharp, enlightened people at the far end of the scale.

The problem with the hump on the bell-shaped curve, is that these common people are too susceptible to the leadership. They don't have enough intelligence to really figure everything out on their own. They are not geniuses. They are not the top-end of the scale. They need leadership. Don't they?

Most of our constituency is in the middle class. They need leadership. When we are devoid of leadership, or when leadership is not allowed to rise to meet the needs of people, then these people become subject to that ignorance. And they do go down. They don't have enough internal enlightenment themselves, generally, to see through the deceptions of the world, without being carefully guided.

And the reason that establishment leadership refuses to tell people what the real threats are, even if they sense, is because the media will crucify them. And they will. Anyone that gets up and talks about the "C"-word in public, "conspiracy" -- which really does exist, will get crucified and will soon not be a public leader anymore.

Even organizations are very sensitive to criticism now. Many of the ecclesiastic leaders, who are conservative generally, are not ever encouraged to mention anything about the Constitution, or conspiracy, or the problems with evil foreign nations, lest it bring criticism on the church. So you see, just the threat that "we will make you less popular", makes middle-of-the-road leaders back off and say. "I want to be moderate then." That's all the media has to do to keep the moderate people from telling the truth. But, "Moderation in defense of truth is no virtue."

People Asleep

Fourth: Most people actually don't sense the threat spiritually. And this is a very disturbing comment I want to make. I remember at our meeting last night [at the IAP Social], I think it was Renee Dale [IAP National Assistant Secretary] who said to me -- she was talking about her experience in getting educated in conservative values -- someone helped find out what was going on in the world. And she became captivated by it, and it changed her life, didn't it?

I remember her comment was to me, "If only everyone could just know what I know. They would join our side." But it isn't true. It isn't true. It isn't just a matter of knowledge. I've given out hundreds of pieces of excellent information. You know, people get samples of my [World Affairs] Brief. And other people are just fascinated.

Another person gets the same material, just as intelligent, and it doesn't mean a thing to them. They don't sense anything. They are skeptical. They don't want to hear it. They are resistant to it, in fact. How do you explain that?

It's because spiritually, they really don't want this to be true. They want to believe in these illusions of peace and prosperity that are being foisted upon us. You cannot, in fact, bludgeon people with the truth. They have to be spiritually sensitive to it. And that's one of the things that we can learn from this conference today. What is most important is that we have to understand that we don't have the potential of converting everyone, or even a large portion of everyone. We really only can potentially convert those that sense the truth spiritually, as well as read the material that we give them.

Number five: Most people don't have the time or inclination to study. They want other people to do their homework. This is the laziness syndrome. But think of it. You're busy. You work. And there is this increasingly fast-paced economy. You have to work hard to make a living. A lot of people have to work two jobs, or have their wife work -- which I don't recommend. But at least people have very little time to really study.

The issues are getting -- and this is another factor -- Number 6: The issues are getting more and more complex. They are not simple any more. Now, we can simplify them here and talk about them, but they aren't simple. Believe me, I deal in the legal world all the time, and dealing in the Constitution area with legal permutations of the Constitution, legal maneuvers of the courts to try to get around Constitutional things. Its very sophisticated. It requires a use of logic that would exceed most of your abilities to follow those arguments. They are so sophisticated.

Constitutional Concerns

And this is one of the problems that we conservatives have as Constitutionalists. We keep saying that going back to the Constitution is our solution. However, I want to tell you -- in light of what I just said about complexity -- how that isn't exactly true.

In the first place, which version of the Constitution would you go back to? Think about that. If you go back to the original version -- that's the version where the Bill of Rights did not apply to the states -- and the reason it didn't apply to the states, were centered around two issues. There were many Constitutional Amendments proposed, and ten got passed -- twelve actually got passed initially.

One of those that did not get passed, stipulated that the Bill of Rights applied to the states. You know why they voted that down? In the first place, none of the state representatives felt like their own state government would violate their own citizens' rights-- they were there to defend fundamental rights against this government they were creating. They didn't realize that state governments that would follow after them would become the problem. And they are today a very real problem. States' Rights are no protection at all.

And that's one of the major loop-holes of the Constitution. How did it get in there? One, in over-confidence in the belief that they were patriots -- they believed in fundamental rights. They were defending their own states. So they didn't think the states were a threat there. They failed to foresee the kind of evil that would come later. And they can be forgiven for that, because it is very difficult to foresee the kinds of evil that would come forth.

Second, there was slavery. To apply the Bill of Rights to the states would have required that they give up slavery. Slavery could have been attacked by that amendment. And the Constitution would never have been ratified if that had been an issue. So it is one of those amendments that they turned down, that came back to haunt us. When slavery was finally destroyed in the Civil War, what else went down with it? The unalienable right to secede if the government becomes tyrannical.

That's why when you see me pledge allegiance to the flag, I never say the word "indivisible." That came about in the aftermath of the Civil War. And it makes us a Soviet system--where you cannot withdraw, no matter how tyrannical the government is. And I don't believe in that. I believe in the original concept of the federal government. That they were, in fact, sovereign states. Now, I also believe that there ought to be principles of fundamental rights that are mandated upon any state that joins the Union. States not ought to be free to violate fundamental rights just because they are sovereign. And that was another weakness in the Constitution, that I will talk about.

Definition of Rights

Next, the founders did not know how to establish a definition of fundamental rights. What they did in the Bill of Rights was simply take and copy the common law rights that were traditional in England. So what you had are common-law rights. But they are not based on a good definition. You can take a good definition, like the one I've written and discussed in Constitutional circles, and derive most of the Civil Rights we have in the Ten Amendments. But you can't go backwards. You have to start with a fundamental definition. And why is that necessary? You might say that its dangerous to define fundamental rights -- what if you miss something?

Well actually, the problem with not defining them is that you -- under in Incorporation Doctrine, where the Supreme Court has generally accepted that most of the Ten Amendments apply to the states. Therefore, the courts are free to define what those rights are. We're free to invent rights, because we have no definition telling the courts what a fundamental right is.

Right to Discriminate

They have succeeded in inventing the right to privacy, which didn't actually exist. They have invented the right of non-discrimination. In fact, in doing so, the fundamental right to discriminate has been destroyed. Did you realize that discrimination is a fundamental right? As bad and evil as discrimination can be, its a fundamental right -- at least on your own property. Everyone has to have the right to exclude people from his own property -- otherwise how can you control your own property?

If you don't have that right, what have you got? Someone can say, you have to accept me on your property. You have to accept me in your home. You have to do business with me. And that's what we've got now, isn't it. If you own a rental property, you cannot refuse to rent to a non-married couple due to the laws on non-discrimination. You cannot refuse to accept someone on race, and now homosexuality, and even on being overweight. You've lost your right to make exclusionary decisions. And you have no liberty of private property without the right to exclusionary decisions.

What's the price of that freedom? You have to allow certain people the right to make erroneous exclusionary decisions. Why can we allow that? Because it doesn't affect anyone else as long as it stays on their property. When they move their discrimination to public streets and start to break windows of black-owned businesses, or Jewish-owned businesses -- they are violating property rights, aren't they? or rights to life. The racial motive is irrelevant. They are violating other fundamental rights.

So, you see, its very important how conservatives plan to construe the law. Its not enough, unfortunately, to say, "We're only going to go back to the Constitution." I tell you, as a matter of fact, we have about as much chance of going back to the original Constitution as doing a whole new Constitution. Its not going to happen. Even if it did happen, do you realize that the lawyers around us would have us right back to the same legal situation within two years-- Because the same loop holes are there. States' would again have the freedom to violate fundamental rights.

And how did we get so much federal power? Part of it was in reaction to states violating individual rights. Even when the Mormons were being persecuted, you know what the Mormon's had to do? They had to go to the federal government for relief, because someone must have the power to stop this. And you know what the federal government said, We can't. Its a matter of States' Rights. Its out of our jurisdiction. The states can violate your rights. And that shouldn't be.

Public Schooling

What conservatives really ought to do -- and I'll get in to this in terms of our strategy -- is that we need to prepare for defeat. Now, that's going to be very shocking to you. But I'll tell you, that there's only a potential of rising up a new Republic in defeat. Not in the present procedure where we're going to attempt to force the rest of the majority to see our way. Let me prove that point to you.

We now have a corrupted majority. A majority of people are receiving benefits from the federal government, including conservatives. What's the major benefit that has corrupted conservatives? Public schooling. Its the largest benefit that they partake of that they don't pay for. But you say, but we do pay for it with property taxes. No you don't. You pay in property taxes, maybe one-tenth of the total cost of public schooling. The rest is being paid in property taxes by people like me who never used public schools but use home school or private schooling.

Well taking my money to educate others is a violation of my property rights. Its unjust to take from other people to provide any benefit to another. And people just don't see that. If you try to talk conservatives out of that benefit, they will be very resistant. Here's the solution that is perfectly fair. Its that public schooling is legitimate as long as it is a cooperative endeavor -- meaning, it is user-fee based, rather than tax based for financial support.

Government is only a cooperative isn't it? That's all government really is. Any cooperative can get together and say we're going to start a school. And it can compete with private enterprise only if they are not allowed to use any tax money to do it. All government schools must simply charge a 100% user fee. So what would Utah conservative parents have to pay for public schooling in user fees? They would have to pay between $4-5000 per child for that schooling. If they had to pay that, and there were private schools out there for $2000, or home schooling for about $500 per year, which would they choose?

Well, some would like those big fancy gymnasiums and all those fat bureaucrats, you know, absorbing all those administrative salaries... A few would pay for that, but most wouldn't. What would happen, is that public school costs would come down very, very close to the private school cost. Private school costs would rise, because more people would have money to spend there, and they could finally charge what they need to hire better teachers. And home schooling would burgeon even more. The real solution, is that everyone pay the full share of what they use. But I will tell you that 99% of conservatives right here in Utah would resist that.

Public Benefits

I won't go into the view that public education is a "public" benefit--a general indirect benefit in having an educated society--therefore justifying the policy of forcing all to pay for it. Well, so is having a well-fed public a general benefit to all society. Does that mean we can justify taking everyone's tax money to provide food for everyone else? No.

I'm trying to give you this example to show that conservatives themselves have been corrupted by a form of socialism that they are not willing to give up. So, its very difficult to win those political battles by the ballot box. That's why we cannot win this politically. Once you have a majority of people that have become corrupted by benefits, they will never give those benefits up voluntarily by the vote. You must take them away from them. But we don't have the numbers or the force to do that. You see the picture I'm painting for you?

We can't win the elections because they hold the majority. You can't even induce them or entice them on Constitutional grounds because the Constitution would take away some of their benefits. And they are going to vote against that. Believe me, they will vote against that. Not only will 55 million that voted for Al Gore and Ralph Nader vote against it, but you are going to get all the people that didn't vote suddenly see that their benefits are threatened, and they are going to vote.

Manufactured Crisis

So what can you do? You can't win politically. Its a hard thing to say to a political party. But I want to speak realistically. I'm in your camp. I'm not speaking this as a Republican. haven't been in the Republican Party since before I went to Washington in the Reagan years. I was one of the first ones trying to get people to quit and dump the Republican Party.

But we have to think realistically. We have to figure out a strategy. And to understand the strategy, I think you have to understand what's coming. We've been under illusions of peace and prosperity. Both those illusions are going to be popped in this decade. I've made that case in my World Affairs Brief; I encourage you to read my research on that. I have a website called JoelSkousen.com -- two major pieces on that website-- One is "Strategic Threats for the Coming Decade" where I talk about the threat of war coming, and threat of depression.

They always give us a depression before a war. George Bush is going to be the Herbert Hoover of this decade. Mark my words. It paves the way for isolationism, stops military spending, and encourages the enemy to attack. But the globalists that control our government want that attack. They want that attack because you can't get to a New World Order with the American people and their penchant for sovereignty without it. And even those people who don't care about the Constitution do care about the relative freedoms that they have.

And you start hauling them before the court in The Hague, like Milosovich. And they're going to scream bloody murder to Congress. You start hauling them to the court in Brussels for wetlands violations, and you're going to see their congressmen just getting letters galore. The powers-that-be know that, and that's why they're going to give us a war to force the American people to say to the world government: Save us. Do whatever it takes. We will give up anything. Just do anything it takes to save us from this terrible nuclear holocaust.

And what we will get out of that is a New World Order without the Constitutional protections. Any many of the people will keep nodding their heads and say that we had to do it, we had no choice. But I want to tell you, that in this war, in this depression -- there will be sufficient dissatisfaction, there will be sufficient problems, perhaps a loss of control by the establishment-- that the Lord may create room for the remnant to coalesce and to create pockets of resistance to that New World Order.

World Government

And, then, if you do not prepare a governmental system of true liberty to fill in those opportunities for reform, the statists will fill the void while we are trying to argue among ourselves. Remember, hard core conservatives will be the people persecuted because they will resist the NWO. If you're smart enough, you won't be sending your children to fight for the New World Order. Even though they will promote the war under the name and guise of patriotism--and to save the Constitution. They will even tell you that even though they don't mean it. If you remember World War II, when they said we were doing this to save America -- they were actually doing it to create a United Nations.

And we will be doing this to create a United Nations with military power that will never be given up. And if you send your children ignorantly to fight for that New World Order in the name of Constitutionalism -- you will be fools. The smart ones won't send them. And they will be the Jews of this next war. They will be the ones rounded up and put into camps.

And that's my message. Its a very strong message. But here's what happens. If you spin your wheels -- if we spin our wheels -- for the next ten years in this last decade of peace and prosperity, trying to take over the majority, which we don't have any chance of doing--then we will be unprepared when the crisis comes. And there's a vacuum created, and there's anarchy, or there's lack of Constitutionalism.

Strategies

I think that what's going to happen in the wars and persecutions that come -- good people are going to be driven out from among the world and they are going to be led by the Spirit of the Lord to areas of safety where they can get together. And they can protect themselves and institute again Constitutional government.

But I'll tell you, if you haven't pre-prepared better laws based upon the Constitutional principles, tighter language, than what we've got, the same even conservative people who are lawyers today will say "we know about government." And the same people who are running for state offices here in Salt Lake -- who are running for governor and being governors -- they will say, "we know how to run the government." And they are the ones that are going to be in charge. And that's not what you want, because they will give you a duplicate system of what we have today.

See what I'm trying to say? I'm trying to say, if you spend all your time trying to win at their game, we will be unprepared. When the window of opportunity arises, when we can, in the name of crisis, in the name of tribulation -- the opportunity to join together in smaller groups in specialized covenant societies. We will covenant together to live a more Constitutional covenant. We will have a more Christian society.

If we don't prepare at pre-training our leaders by having sessions where we train people in how to tighten up the law and make it according to the Constitution, and do those things...if we don't take that time...if we don't expend that energy on that which guarantees that we will have fruit some day, we won't be prepared. I guarantee you will have the chance to use those documents you prepare, to use those leaders that you create.

If we never take the opportunity during these last few years of peace and prosperity to do resolve our differences, as hard as that is to do, we won't be prepared. We still must do it. We must have more unity.

There isn't any way to do create this unity by only by concentrating on the positive and avoid controversial issues that divide us. If by evasion you gain a large coalition and get to a significant size of organization, where you have some political power, your constituents are going to want you to tackle specific problems. And you're going to have to move away from the generalities that you agreed in and discuss the specific problems that you disagree on. You are going to have to discuss with conservatives how to reform public schools, and you are going to offend a lot of them.

And you are going to have a hell of an argument to try to teach them and convince them that you can't use other people's tax money-even for what they think are good causes. Even if you think you're controlling the schools -- its as improper for you do it as it is for the liberals to do it. The only solution is that everyone pay for their own schooling. Now that's a tough one. But what I'm saying is you've got to reach that bridge some day.

Someday we're going to have to face the issue of proper funding of education when we are driven together in a crisis some day and have to educate your children together. Are you going to have a socialist public school system, or are you going to do it the right way? If you do it the right way, you've got to already be pre-prepared to have convinced one another, to build a coalition based upon real unity which is not just blind our differences, but which has solved some of these major issues. We won't resolve all of them. But we have to be good enough to resolve the major issues.

Covenant Societies

I've got a major piece that I've written, that I would like to give to the leaders of your party, called "A Defense of a Principles Approach to Law." And its how to establish the basic principles of law necessary to tighten up constitutional language, to do certain things to reestablish liberty--one that would even be acceptable to libertarians who may not be religious or even Christian, who can see there's a level playing field where no-one will take advantage of the law, or persecute religion, or drive religion underground. But it gives a level playing field that allows many covenant societies of different cultures, where you can have higher forms of law that are protected by government.

When you have Christian organizations that wants to have a tougher form of using law within their own society to enforce Christian values, they can do that. They don't have to impose that necessarily on the rest. But in our present legal society, we are not allowed to do that. We're not allowed to form a covenant society where we abide by more restrictive Christian ideals. We're required to compromise higher laws to the lowest common denominator.

Now I believe that all states ought to have a lowest common denominator where no one is allowed to violate fundamental rights. But I believe we ought to be able to write more restrictive laws among consenting people and have many communities which have higher standards--almost like covenant restrictions that we have in subdivisions, but with religious and moral values--So we don't have to impose those on the rest, but we can defend them ourselves with our higher forms of law.

These are some ideas that I would like you to consider in the coming years to come. But that does not mean that you do not attempt to continue to act as a political party. But he main purpose of your political party which should be to reach those of the true sheep. I don't believe we are ever going to convert the majority to our way. There are too many benefits, too much enticements in their weaknesses of the human flesh to keep drawing them elsewhere.

But we can reach those that are sensitive to the spirit, and without having to say our whole purpose is to try to take over the government. But we can say that we have training, we have a concept we want to prepare so that as a covenant community some day, we can have the kind of society that the rest of society isn't going to let us have presently. And there will be hope that others can see in that system of liberty. And they will see you as leaders, and you need to hold conferences to help introduce people to these new things.

That's my vision for you. And that's my message. Thank you very much.