The Hammer Goes Out Swinging

It should be said that I do not agree with the now departed House Majority Leader, Congressman Tom DeLay (R-TX) on everything, especially his silly statements pronouncing that there was nothing else that could be cut from the federal budget. All things considered, however, he was one of the most staunch and articulate conservative voices among the members of Congress, and the party will badly miss his work on the inside. That said, this reminds me of the liberals in the drive-by media who got Nashville blogger Bill Hobbs canned from his job at Belmont for things posted on his personal weblog, thereby leaving him more time to devote to his new consulting company and to blowing the whistle on shady shenanigans by local liberals both government and private citizens via that same weblog. I think the Dems may learn via the phony indictment secured by hyper-partisan Texas D.A. Ronnie Earle that the rule of unintended consequences has some teeth when the now private citizen Delay goes to work on behalf of the conservative cause from outside the Beltway.

From DeLay's farewell speech today, which is as ringing an endorsement of conservative principles as I've heard in a long time:

"What a blessing this place is, Mr. Speaker. What a castle of hope this building is, this institution is for the people of the world. It's one of those things in political life that you always know but seldom notice. The schedules we're forced to keep during our days in Washington are not always hospitable to sitting back and reflecting on the historical significance of our surroundings. In the weeks since I announced my retirement, however, I found myself doing just that.

I noticed things like I haven't in years. I noticed the monuments on The Mall. I noticed that in Washington's obelisk, the father of our country is represented not as an object of glory, but as a dutiful sentry at attention minding his post for eternity. I noticed that under Jefferson's dome the statue of the man is relatively understated while his etched words still thunder from the marble with the power to drive history. I noticed that Lincoln's chair, the man who sought above all peace and reconciliation, keeps one of his hands in a perpetual fist.

I walk these halls with a keener perspective. I notice now the statues of old and great and, in some cases, almost forgotten heroes that line the halls of this building that stand in Statuary Hall. In these halls, I have also noticed in recent weeks the number of tourists in the Capitol who speak no English. They are not from America, most of these visitors, and yet in a certain sense of course they are. They may speak Italian or Polish or Japanese, but the freedoms they enjoy, both here and in their own countries, have been inspired, won and secured by the ideals and the courage and the compassion of the American people. These pilgrims come from all over the world to the House of Representatives to sit up in these galleries, photograph the statues, and stare up at the Rotunda, to bear witness to the awesome feat of human liberty we have achieved right here. The dome above us, Mr. Speaker, is a lighthouse, a star even, by which all the people in the world, no matter how oppressed, how impoverished, how seemingly without hope can chart a course toward security, prosperity and freedom.

It is worth considering -- though I'll admit, it is considerably easier to consider after you've announced your retirement --whether the days we lead here, the debates we wage, the work we do is always worthy of the elevated ideals embodied in that dome. I submit that we could do better, as could all people in all things at all times, but perhaps not in the ways some might think.

In preparing for today, I found that it is customary in speeches such as these to reminisce about the good old days of political harmony and across-the-aisle camaraderie, and to lament the bitter, divisive partisan rancor that supposedly now weakens our democracy. Well, I can't do that because partisanship, Mr. Speaker, properly understood, is not a symptom of democracy's weakness but of its health and its strength, especially from the perspective of a political conservative. Liberalism, after all, whatever you may think of its merits, is a political philosophy and a proud one with a great tradition in this country, with a voracious appetite for growth.

In any place or any time on any issue, what does liberalism ever seek, Mr. Speaker? More -- more government, more taxation, more control over people's lives and decisions and wallets. If conservatives don't stand up to liberalism, no one will. And for a long time around here, almost no one did. Indeed, the common lament over the recent rise in political partisanship is often nothing more than a veiled complaint instead about the recent rise of political conservatism. I should add here that I do not begrudge liberals their nostalgia for the days of a timid, docile and permanent Republican minority. If we Republicans had ever enjoyed that same luxury over the last 12 years, heck, I'd be nostalgic too.

Had liberals not fought us tooth and nail over tax cuts and budget cuts and energy and Iraq, and partial-birth abortion, those of us on this side of the aisle could only imagine all the additional things we could have accomplished. But the fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, they didn't agree with us. So to their credit, they stood up to us, they argued with us, and they did so honorably, on behalf of more than 100 million people, just like we did against President Clinton and they did against President Reagan.

Now it goes without saying, Mr. Speaker, that by my count, our friends on the other side of the aisle lost every one of those arguments over the last 22 years, but that's beside the point. The point is, we disagree. On first principles, Mr. Speaker, we disagree. And so we debate, often loudly, and often in vain, to convince our opponents and the American people of our point of view.

We debate here on the House floor, we debate in committees, we debate on television and on radio and on the Internet and in the newspapers and then every two years, we have a huge debate. And then in November, we see who won. That is not rancor, that is democracy.

You show me a nation without partisanship, and I'll show you a tyranny. For all its faults, it is partisanship, based on core principles, that clarifies our debates, that prevents one party from straying too far from the mainstream, and that constantly refreshes our politics with new ideas and new leaders.

Indeed, whatever role partisanship may have played in my own retirement today or in the unfriendliness heaped upon other leaders in other times, Republican or Democrat, however unjust, all we can say is that partisanship is the worst means of settling fundamental political differences -- except for all the others.

Now, politics demands compromise. And Mr. Speaker, and even the most partisan among us have to understand that, but we must never forget that compromise and bipartisanship are means, not ends, and are properly employed only in the service of higher principles.

It is not the principled partisan, however obnoxious he may seem to his opponents, who degrades our public debate, but the preening, self-styled statesman who elevates compromise to a first principle .

For the true statesman, Mr. Speaker, we are not defined by what they compromise, but by what they don't.

Conservatives, especially less enamored of government's lust for growth, must remember that our principles must always drive our agenda and not the other way around. For us, conservatives, there are two such principles that can never be honorably compromised: human freedom and human dignity.

Now, our agenda over the last 12 years has been an outgrowth of these first principles. We lowered taxes to increase freedom. We reformed welfare programs that however well intentioned undermined the dignity of work and personal responsibility and perpetuated poverty. We have opposed abortion, cloning and euthanasia, because such procedures fundamentally deny the unique dignity of the human person. And we have supported the spread of democracy and the ongoing war against terror, because those policies protect and affirm the inalienable human right of all men and women and children to live in freedom.

Conservatism is often unfairly accused of being insensitive and mean-spirited, sometimes unfortunately even by other conservatives. As a result, conservatives often attempt to soften that stereotype by overfunding broken programs or glossing over ruinous policies. But conservatism isn't about feeling people's pain, it's about curing it.

And the results since the first great conservative victory in 1980 speak for themselves: millions of new jobs, new homes and new businesses created thanks to conservative economic reforms; millions of families intact and enriched by the move from welfare to work; hundreds of millions of people around the world liberated by a conservative foreign policy's victory over Soviet communism; and more than 50 million Iraqis and Afghanis liberated from tyranny since September the 11th, 2001. To all the critics of the supposedly mean-spirited conservative policies that brought about these results, I say only this: Compassionate is as compassionate does.

The great Americans honored here in bronze and marble, the heroes of our history and the ghosts of these halls, were not made great because of what they were, but because of what they did. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln have almost nothing in common with Junipero Serra and Jack Swigert, except the choice they each made: to live, to fight and even to die in the service of freedom. We honor men with monuments not because of their greatness or even simply because of their service, but because of their refusal even in the face of danger or death to ever compromise the principles they served. Washington's obelisk still stands watch because democracy will always need a sentry. Jefferson's words will still ring because liberty will always need a voice. And Lincoln's left hand still stays clenched because tyranny will always need an enemy.

And we are still here, Mr. Speaker, as a House and as a nation because the torch of freedom cannot carry itself. Here on this floor, I have caught and thrown spears of every sort. Over the course of 22 years, I've probably worked with and against almost everyone in this chamber at least once. I have scraped and clawed for every vote, every amendment, for every word of every bill that I believed in my heart would protect human freedom and defend human dignity. I have done so at all times honorably and honestly, Mr. Speaker, as God is my witness and history is my judge.

And if given the chance to do it all again, there's only one thing I would change: I would fight even harder."