Your contributions to the State of California through the sixteen years you’ve served in the state are immeasurable. I know how much I counted on you when I was governor.<\/p>\n
–Ronald Reagan<\/strong>, March 1983<\/p>\n Conservatives today are not in power nationally, but that does not mean they cannot win battles. If they are going to be effective, Richardson’s lessons need to be studied and applied.<\/p>\n –Paul Weyrich<\/strong>, Free Congress Foundation<\/p>\n Bill Richardson showed conservatives how to be principled without being dogmatic, informative without being burdensome, [and] even more important, he equipped a whole generation of young conservatives to pick up the load and follow in his footsteps.<\/p>\n –Congressman Dana Rohrabacher<\/strong><\/p>\n There were pioneers who figured out the real nature of politics and won many battles for their principles. Bill Richardson of California is one of the most important of those pioneers, and he’s still a major force in politics.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. [Here] he shares an enormous number of lessons he has learned.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. The book is fun to read, and conservatives who study it carefully and follow Bill’s advice systematically will win a lot more battles in the future.<\/p>\n From the Foreword by <\/a>In\u00a0Confrontational Politics<\/em>, veteran politician Bill Richardson essentially tells conservatives they\u2019ve been going about this thing all wrong. Conservatives\u2019 chief adversaries\u2014the Left, liberals, socialists, progressives, Marxists, humanists (Richardson uses the terms interchangeably)\u2014have been playing hardball going on centuries now, and he chides polite and accommodating conservatives for not adopting that methodology.<\/p>\n Confrontation to the average American is an uncomfortable, unbecoming attitude to be avoided whenever possible. This methodology of avoidance is a habit deeply ingrained in traditional American patterns of behavior. This, combined with ignorance of humanist methodology, makes the average American very vulnerable, the victim of his own decency.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Methodology is what this book is all about. Richardson shows us how Marxists have stolen a march on constitutionalists. Sure, millions of people vote in elections, but only a very few persons\u2014anywhere from 2 to 5 percent of the population\u2014actually determine the outcome. But these influential people are actually able to\u00a0predetermine the outcome<\/em>, not merely through their votes, but by out-organizing and outperforming their opponents.<\/p>\n They\u2019re the hardcore proponents\u2014the ones really committed to their philosophy, the ones willing to make hard choices and sacrifices\u2014who predetermine the results of elections even before they\u2019re held<\/em>. Lenin and his supporters\u2014never more than a few percent of all Russians\u2014recognized this truth and acted on it, making the most of the least and disdaining swelling the inner core of the Communist Party with people of unreliable loyalties. (Remember Orwell\u2019s\u00a0Nineteen Eighty-Four<\/em>, with the Inner Party comprising 13 percent or so? They could confidently command\u2014and even afford to ignore\u2014the other 87 percent of the population because none of them were as dedicated or organized and thus offered no real threat to Party dominance.)<\/p>\n Richardson warns conservatives that unless they\u2019re willing to play political hardball, the future lies with the Marxists. At one point he summarizes his approach:<\/p>\n The socialist programs initiated in America are failing as they failed in Eastern Europe. Socialism is based on inaccurate assumptions, fallacious premises, and a misunderstanding of the nature and origin of man. Socialism can survive only if subsidized by the free-market system and then, for just so long. It will, like the parasite it is, kill the host unless exterminated. It can be defeated. The quest for power, the excessive taxation needed to feed it, the bureaucracy it creates, the injustice it promotes, the regulatory excesses, and the desire for arbitrary control over all human action create dedicated enemies.<\/p>\n The task then is to politicize those who have been exposed to humanist excesses. Band them together, raise money from them, teach them the strategy of confrontational politics, build residuals, and form PACs [political action committees]. Then your political organization snowballs. Form these counter organizations around specific issues, after identifying the segments of citizens affected.<\/p>\n Already numerous groups have been set up to stop some of the socialist power grabs. However, most have been nothing more than barricade builders, attempting to keep themselves from being buried in humanist snowjobs.<\/p>\n It\u2019s time to select target districts, networking with like-minded groups who share the goal. Then, together we can work our way to the top of the hill and make our own icy missiles.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cCommunity organizers\u201d (really socialist evangelists) have been doing these things for years, making headway gradually, sometimes haltingly, primarily forward and seldom backward. Richardson believes that for conservatives such an approach is the only way to regain lost ground.<\/p>\n Just think of all the socialist programs [the Left] have implemented\u2014one step at a time. They advocate, we defend, and confrontation ensues. Then the traditionalists are asked to \u201ccompromise.\u201d In order to see the hostilities end, we concede a little. Later, we concede a little more until all is gone.<\/p>\n There can be no compromises with the Left. We are ideologically at opposite ends of the spectrum with no arbitration possible. Either they win or we do. They will run the government or we will. That\u2019s the only choice open to either of us. They know it\u2014shouldn\u2019t we?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n That, in a nutshell, is\u00a0Confrontational Politics<\/em>.<\/p>\n Mike Gray<\/strong><\/p>\n Published on behalf of the Gun Owners Foundation<\/p>\n For more information or to order books, contact:
\n–Morton Blackwell<\/strong>, The Leadership Institute<\/p>\n
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