AMAC Action Weekly Advocacy Update: Russell Kirk

Our Stance on the Issues

Wondering where AMAC Action stands on key issues affecting our communities and nation?

AMAC Action, is engaged in a broad range of challenges to the inalienable rights of all Americans to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as protected and guaranteed by our Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We represent AMAC members in confronting the myriad of governmental and Leftist challenges to individual liberty and freedom, and the free market, while acting as a recognized and valued resource for AMAC members, Congress, state leaders and seniors throughout America.

To see a detailed list of issues and our stance on each, click here.

Calls-to-Action

Calls-to-Action are active for opposing the confirmation of General Charles Brown as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Ohio’s Issue 1, California SB 278 and SCA 2, the JP Morgan Chase assault on civil rights.

Chapter Meetings

The lone meeting for the week was in the great state of Texas! In TX-24, members had an informal coffee chat, “Deja-brew. Spilling the beans about what’s happening in TX-24.”

American Conservatism: Concise Guide to Conservatism by Russell Kirk

Chapter 3 – Conservatives and Conscience

Contrary to what some may think, the conservative is not anti-social and is not committed to rugged individualism at the expense of all else. Neither is he conscienceless, filled with a greedy heart and cold to those in need and less fortunate. Russell Kirk states, “The conservative is conscientious because he knows that charity begins at home…he looks upon men and women as his brothers and sisters, under a divine commandment of love, not as units in an efficient planned economy.”

A true conservative, a “thinking conservative” as Kirk puts it, recognizes his rights and duties towards his Creator and fellow human beings.

It should be a surprise to no one that our private perspective affects our outward actions. “Justice and generosity in any nation are no better and no worse than the prevailing private convictions of the men and women who compose that nation.” We see evidence of this today. At the most fundamental level, social problems are questions of private morality: “If that healthy private conscience sinks into apathy or vice, there is no use talking about ‘social conscience’: there cannot be a nation in which private morality is bad and public morality is good.”

With the erosion of private morality and a private conscience that no longer knows the difference between right and wrong, we see an erosion of accountability in the public square: corruption, greed, injustice… Each gets its start in the private recesses of our hearts and souls. Likewise, acknowledging that there is a right and a wrong and a moral code to live by, and by enriching our minds by focusing on that which is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable will create in us, and by extension our communities, a sense of personal charity and a commitment to personal relationships and private duties.

The conservative fundamentally believes “that all the ordinary problems of society except in great emergencies, can be dealt with sufficiently, and most humanely, on the personal, local, voluntary foundation of simple conscience, the sense of duty which good men and women feel toward their fellow-creatures.”

Quote of the Week

“The legitimate functions of government are actually conducive to freedom. Maintaining internal order, keeping foreign foes at bay, administering justice, removing obstacles to the free interchange of goods—the exercise of these powers makes it possible for men to follow their chosen pursuits with maximum freedom. But note that the very instrument by which these desirable ends are achieved can be the instrument for achieving undesirable ends—that government can, instead of extending freedom, restrict freedom.”

     ― Barry M. Goldwater, Conscience of a Conservative

Fight to save the America we love! If you’d like to become a volunteer AMAC Action Advocate, please contact us at (855) 809-6976 or [email protected].