Someone You Should Know: Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown

A few weeks back I had the distinct honor of addressing 80 of the nation’s top conservative young minds from all around the country at the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara Califonia on the current state of conservatism in America.

Here is the transcript of the speech:

Exclusive: Conservatives: The Right Thing To Do: Transcript of speech by radio host + author Gregg Jackson at Reagan Ranch
Editor’s Note: Gregg Jackson gave a speech to The Young America’s Foundation in Santa Barbara, California. The topic was our obligation as Americans. The transcript is an exclusive to RFFM.org and it is a must read.

Transcript of speech by popular radio host and author Gregg Jackson at the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, California:

I am going to engage in an act of subversion this morning.

I have been given the privilege of addressing intelligent young minds in a formative stage- the best and brightest of the next generation of conservative thinkers.

At the risk of betraying the trust that has been placed in me today, I am going to engage in an act of disloyalty to the conservative establishment of which I am, arguably, a dues-paying member in good standing.

I’m going to tell you that your loyalty must not be to conservatism – merely a 12-letter word. Your commitment, your passion, and your loyalty must not now and not ever be to a party, an alliance, or a “big tent”. It must be to the underlying principles that inspired our heroes through the centuries, most of whom never used the word “conservative” to describe themselves.

Most — including the Founding Fathers and two millennia of historic Christian thinkers and leaders — would recoil at our use of their names and their legacies to dignify that word. They would detest that we so smugly and so blithely claim that our hodge-podge of issues, positions and realistic compromises is somehow a “pragmatic” fulfillment, development or refinement of their efforts.

Pragmatism which is defined as what works, after all, is about winning, right? Republicans do pretty well at winning elections. What we almost always lose is the three years between elections. We have retreated from our culture war. Our state and federal constitutions now bear almost no relevance to how we govern or how we are willing to be governed. And on the fiscal side, is there anything conservative about the last eight years of aggressive Republican expansion of the federal government?

Now this act of subversion may seem perfectly harmless and reasonable to you, at your age of relative innocence and idealism. Reasonable, it is indeed.

Harmless, however, it is not. Because our “conservative” movement has gone far astray. And there are not many powerful and influential conservatives who have the guts to report it to a group of young folks like you. Heaven knows they do their best to ostracize any peers who lean “too far right.”

rest here