Clarity on Conservatism, Part III: It’s the Big Tent, Not the Big Top

By Michael McGowan

It’s The Big Tent, Not The Big Top

There has been much talk in Idaho lately about “Big Tent” Republicanism. This usually comes from Left-leaning people (some of whom are the North Idaho “Republicans”, previously mentioned). Experienced persons see this for what it is: an appeal to supposed “right-wing extremists” to compromise with Liberals, in the spirit of “traditional” conservatism. Typically, Ronald Reagan is invoked as an authority for the idea that New-School, or Grassroots Conservatives, should tolerate the liberal views of Old-School “Conservatives”, citing the famous quote: “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor.” These people conveniently forget that Reagan’s 80-percent agreements referred to conservative essentials, and the 20-percent disagreements referred to disputes on non-essentials. They also forget something else that Reagan said: “For the average American…Liberalism is no longer the answer. It is the problem.”

Note also that he said this some forty years ago, and the liberal views of today are far more anti-Natural-Law than they used to be. In Reagan’s time, even most Liberals would have been appalled at the LGBTQ+ movement, and would have wanted to jail anyone responsible for placing sexually explicit material, geared toward children, in our public libraries, or helping children “transition” to a new gender against the will or knowledge of their parents (among many other insanities that the majority of Liberals advocate today). Yet at present there are many persons so deranged or dishonest as to support these things, all the while claiming to be Republicans, and even “traditional Conservatives”. Let’s make no mistake: not even an Old-School “traditional Conservative”, no matter how lax, can honestly do this. If you cross that Rubicon, you are no longer any kind of Conservative; you have converted to modern loony liberalism, full tilt.

It’s the Big Tent, not the Big Top. It’s not some circus, in which any clown is welcome.

That said, the tent is big; it’s as big as any reasonable person could want. As the name implies, Natural-Law Conservatism includes anyone who advocates Natural-Law public policy. It’s that simple. You could hold any religion, or no religion, and still hold to Natural Law so far as it applies to merely temporal human society. You could even be an atheist…though of course few atheists believe in Natural Law.¹

And let’s clarify something else. You don’t even have to personally practice Natural Law to be a Natural Law Conservative.

You may say: “What?! How does that work?” I answer that it works because politics is about public policy, not personal policy. For instance, there are publicly known homosexuals who preach Natural Law politics. They admit that they personally are stuck in a deeply flawed lifestyle, but exactly because they recognize this, they recommend a Natural-Law lifestyle to others. That’s all that is required.

Now some will object: “But as a Christian, I know Christ has said: ‘Without me you can do nothing’, and also, ‘My grace is sufficient for you’. And I — and others I know — have personal experience that we need the grace of Christ, even just to practice the Ten Commandments. Have you forgotten that human nature, since Adam’s first sin, is fallen?”

I respond: Not in the least! But what I just said above still applies. We are all sinners. You can be a total moral mess in your own life, but if you work for public policy that encourages good morals, you are doing your job for the common good, and that’s what politics is all about.

I’ll finish with a convenient list of criteria to distinguish a Liberal (in the modern sense) from a Natural-Law Conservative. You know you’re dealing with an anti-natural Leftist Statist when that person:

• Is anti-science; that is, refuses real science by blindly trusting in “scientists” (e.g. mask mandates)
• Is pro-abortion (against the natural right to life)
• Favors gun ownership restrictions against those posing no threat to society (against the natural right to life through self-defense)
• Is against capital punishment (against society’s natural right to self-defense)
• Is for open borders (against natural right and need of States to have borders)
• Publicly favors anti-natural sex (against natural law of reproduction)
• Favors homosexuality and transgenderism (against natural biological & psychological differences between the sexes)
• Favors racism by advocating programs that pretend to correct it by “righting” a wrong with another wrong (against basic natural justice)
• Supports education that indoctrinates the above errors (against basic natural justice; the right to truth in communication)

Any person who holds these attitudes proves himself to be, to the extent he holds them, lacking in basic reason and concern for the common good, and therefore unworthy of being trusted with any power to govern others.

Michael McGowan is chair and treasurer of the Kootenai Freedom Caucus. This op-ed represents his personal views, and he is not speaking on behalf of the caucus.

1. Please note here that though the Ten Commandments include the duty to worship God, this duty, in its details, is not known by man’s natural reason, but only by the supernatural revelation of God Himself.

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