It is sometimes said that the Republican Party is the Party of No.

That is to be avoided.  We should instead be the Party of Not Just No, But (Mabel, Grab My Pitchfork) No.

There are many problems in our world today, and many more problems on our sister planet, Washington, PC.

On Washington, PC, they look into our world from a pressurized cabin at 30,000 feet, or gain similar insight through a video screen between commercials.  With incomplete information the political class then talk among themselves, competing for attention, favor, and office on the basis of who can dream up the most effective way to buy our votes with our own money, or with that of our children.  They promise to help us with our problems if we will just give them more power, money, and adulation.

Does that describe everyone on Washington, PC?  I hope not.  Are there any left who will stand firm for the American values of small government, low taxes, and Constitutionally limited power?  I hope so.

Is there no one who will remind us that we are adults, and more, we are Americans, and by that virtue we do not need any help?

Many people are fed up with the Washington, PC mindset.  They have rejected the big government path instinctively, but need solid reasoning to back up their gut reaction.   The Republican Party should be the place they find it, or they will turn elsewhere, or perhaps worse, their passion will dissolve into apathy.

Because there are many among us who know in our hearts that it is wrong for the government to hand out money, but we do not refuse it when it is handed to us.  And on this slippery slope we are sliding into ruin.

But it is so tempting to take what is apparently the easy way out, both for the people and for politicians.  It is so easy to compromise our ideals, even though we know that in the long run it spells disaster, because it solves some short term goal.

To the politicians, I can only ask you to look at the results.  Which house of Congress do Republicans control?  Which branch of the government? With which Federal agency has blending in and going along allowed us greater influence?

There must first be a clear difference between the parties.  So many people refuse to get involved in the political process, even to vote, because they can find no difference.  Like all Americans, these people largely share Republican values, but don’t realize it because Republicans have chosen to blend in rather than stand apart.  That lack of obvious distinction is a bigger problem right now than showing we can get along with Democrats.

Yet people don’t like partisanship for its own sake.  I think this dislike is of lower importance to people than their disdain for sameness.  Part of what they mean when they say there is no difference between the parties is that they see both as pointing fingers in partisan opposition, not standing for anything except not liking the other side.

If we were but to stand for something, regardless of what the Democrats say, both objections would disappear.

Obama and his fellow marxists on Washington need to be opposed in every single thing they want to do.  We must oppose them not because they are the other side, as we naturally do.  We must know why we oppose everything they want to do, and give those reasons at every opportunity. In the end we will oppose them just as much, because everything they want to do will be harmful to our country.  We must oppose their ideas, and not their party.

What I don’t think we need to do is offer our own (government) solutions as part of showing the difference between the parties.  That kind of thing opens us to the charge of partisanship, because it often takes study to see the subtle philosophical differences between competing government solutions.  Instead, we should oppose the stupidity of Barack Obama and his fellow marxists on planet Washington.  We must say that people are able to solve their own problems, if government will only stand aside.

Freedom sells itself.  We just need to put it on display.

But we will always be asked for solutions, asked to solve people’s problems, until such a day as the people return to their senses and realize that government is the source of problems, not fixes.  So our solution to every problem should be to:

• Ask if it’s really a problem, and not assume that it is.
• Ask if the problem was caused or made worse by previous government intervention. Hint: it was.

Our general answer, then, will be to look first to repeal the law or dismantle the government agency that caused the problem in the first place (though probably it was a team effort). In short, we should ask how we can set people free to solve the problem.

In a few hundred years, after we have repealed a tiny portion of the worst laws, we may then need to show how the proposed marxist fix will destroy something good.

Above all: we must attack directly, forcefully, and without hesitation the notion that the government should give things to people, and must never propose that it do so ever again.

No more bailouts.  No more giveaways, buying votes with the fig leaf of compassion.  No government health insurance, no welfare checks for farmers.  No arguing for defense projects because they mean jobs.  None of it.

Do we believe in small government, low taxes, and the confines of the Constitution, or do we not?  If we do, we had better start acting like it.

If not, be prepared to remain an ever-shrinking minority party.  Then get ready for the pitchforks.