A Townhall.com reader I respect wrote in one of his posts recently that many of the namby-pamby, mealymouthed pantywaists in the Republican Party are to blame for American conservatives' being on the outside looking in, in the wake of this latest electoral rout. This reader reminds us that "nice guys" finish last, and he insists that, for now, at least, "we are finished."

I agree.

But we are not defeated forever. No way. And I say that we desperately need something else now, a whole new political philosophy. That philosophy need not be novel — in fact it should NOT be. But it does need to be TRUE and to MAKE SENSE. The GOP, as it "functions" now, is USELESS, because it is FALSE and UNPRINCIPLED. No news there, I know.

I will add this, though: Those who are running down this country and threatening our constitutional republic, those who have made a sham of representative democracy and who are so consumed with envy and lust for power that they are hell-bent on fomenting a tyrannical socialist-statist system, those who are so blinded with barbaric rage that they will sell America out and betray our national security in a sneeze — such people are given over to their madness for the simple reason that they have rejected the One Who rules the cosmos He Himself has created, and Who alone judges justly. They have rejected Shiloh, and so their destruction is assured.

Anyone who wishes to may deny the existence of God. But everyone knows the truth in any case. Most people simply suppress it, to their personal destruction. So be it, but I will not go that way. The nations belong to Christ. Deal with it.

I do NOT want to preach, or come off as a religious zealot. I only mean to point out that any system of government or political philosophy worthy of the name must pay due deference, a right reverence, to the transcendence of truth — to an objective reality that is permanent and fixed, and which must constrain us all as we seek to "establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

I don't care whether anyone wants to go to church or not at this point. I do insist that anyone calling himself a republican (small "r," please) or who respects constitutional government be willing to acknowledge the legitimacy and centrality of traditional religious principle in the establishment of just government. This is nothing other than what the Founding Fathers said and bequeathed to us.

Let us return to that, posthaste and without apology, and let there be no dithering about it.

The American Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence are worth conserving — they are worth fighting for, in other words, so what is called for here is a manly conservatism.

And for heaven's sake — let's stop letting our women display all the manliness.

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