Hundreds of leaders across the American Right have signed the Freedom Conservatism Statement of Principles since its inception nearly a year ago.
We did so to draw a line in the sand — to resist attempts by nationalists and populists to redefine our movement in ways that would both deny America’s past and imperil its future.
We championed the “distinctive creed that made America great: that individual liberty is essential to the moral and physical strength of the nation.”
And we committed ourselves to defending other values essential to American greatness, values such as fiscal responsibility, equal opportunity, the rule of law, free speech, free trade, competitive markets, and strong families.
As Freedom Conservatives, we continue to engage in robust debate with our rivals on the Right. But we also seek to expand conservatism’s appeal to a wide variety of audiences — building new constituencies to ensure the continued success of the American experiment.
Today we offer examples of FreeCons doing this important work.
Hollow commitments
Patrice Onwuka directs the Center for Economic Opportunity at the Independent Women’s Forum and serves as a co-host on WMAL-FM in the nation’s capital. A FreeCon signatory, Onwuka is also a senior adjunct fellow with The Philanthropy Roundtable and a Tony Blankley Fellow at The Steamboat Institute.
Prior to moving to Washington, Patrice served as a speechwriter for a United Nations spokesman. She is a frequent guest on Fox News, Fox Business News, and PBS programs. Her opinions appear in the Washington Examiner, The Hill, Washington Post, USA Today, Barron’s, CNBC, Bloomberg, and other national outlets.
In Philanthropy Daily, Onwuka analyzed recent incidents of antisemitism on campuses across the country. “It's no secret philanthropy has been a strong proponent of the social justice movement and DEI efforts in higher education and beyond,” she wrote.
“But racial justice statements and monetary commitments made by high-profile individuals, organizations, and corporations in the past ring hollow if they do not condemn antisemitism and calls for violence today.”
In a recent Daily Caller op-ed, Onwuka explored the effects of Biden administration’s fiscal and regulatory policies on small businesses.
“In 2023, black-owned startups rated their financial situation as ‘poor’ more than other demographic groups,” she wrote. Such economic realities “help explain the erosion of support for President Biden among black voters.”
Conflict of values
Colin Sharkey is executive director of the Association of American Educators and AAE Foundation. He’s also a FreeCon signatory.
AAE is a non-union professional educators organization, established in 1994. It focuses on student achievement without an emphasis on partisan politics and provides genuine professional benefits at a reasonable price.
Prior to joining AAE, Sharkey served as project coordinator for the coalition-relations department at the Heritage Foundation and worked at the Collegiate Network, providing financial and technical assistance to nearly a hundred independent college newspapers.
In a recent message to teachers, he articulated the case for abandoning labor unions to join a truly professional association.
“Everyone knows how hard it is to be a teacher these days,” he wrote. “It’s even harder when teachers don’t agree with their union’s leadership and how their hard-earned money is spent.
“When your values conflict with your union’s agenda, such as their inappropriate curricula, morale and trust drops while division rises.”
Opportunities for action
Benji Backer is is the Executive Chairman and Founder of the American Conservation Coalition and a FreeCon signatory.
The author of the just-released The Conservative Environmentalist: Common Sense Solutions for a Sustainable Future, Backer serves as a board member for the Wisconsin Conservative Energy Forum and Mainstream Republicans of Washington.
In a recent New York Times op-ed, Backer argued that environmental protection need not come at the expense of economic growth.
No lasting solutions are possible “without the buy-in and leadership of conservative America,” he wrote, arguing that “there are clear opportunities for climate action that conservatives can champion without sacrificing core values.”
For example, conservative environmentalists “firmly believe fossil fuels must be part of our transition to cleaner energy sources for years to come. So our movement will aim to improve the environmental impact of all energy sources, not just wind and solar.
“We’ll also focus on ecosystem restoration and other conservation measures that lower emissions. And we’ll call on policymakers to prioritize permitting reform, reducing government overreach and making it easier to build clean energy projects in the United States more quickly.”
In a separate piece for The Everett Herald, Backer criticized the state of Washington’s attempts to limit power generation by gas-fired plants. “Natural gas is the primary reason the United States has led the world in emissions reductions over the past couple of decades,” he pointed out. “Although natural gas is not currently carbon-free, it is a cleaner alternative to coal.”
Unjust use of force
Richard Lorenc is Chief Growth Officer of Iron Light, an award-winning strategic marketing firm specializing in helping purpose-driven brands change the world. He’s also a FreeCon signatory.
For nine years, Lorenc worked at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), including service as its executive vice president. Under his leadership, FEE annually reached thousands of students in person and hundreds of millions online.
He is the chairman of the board of America’s Future, the nation's premier network of liberty-minded young professionals. Lorenc is the treasurer for MapHabit Action Fund, Inc., which assists in the provision of technology to individuals suffering from cognitive impairment and the organizations that support them.
In a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-ed, Lorenc wrote about civil asset forfeiture, an issue he worked on as a member of the Georgia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
“The original stated purpose of civil asset forfeiture was to seize property from those involved with drug trafficking and other major organized criminal activity,” wrote Lorenc and his co-author, Chantel Mullen.
“Contrary to its intended purpose, it is used today to not capture the property of drug kingpins or international criminals; rather it takes the private property of those Georgians with the fewest resources.”
In the mix
• In National Review, Charlie Cook argued that the artificial-intelligence panic is overblown. “For basic tasks — rebooking flights and issuing refunds, for example — I can see AI being pretty useful,” he wrote. But for “drafting meaningful human communication, comprehending and retaining complicated ideas, or replacing skilled workers, it seems much less so.”
• In The Washington Examiner, Ben Rothove criticized “flag warfare” by politicians and activists, citing examples of both Republicans and Democrats displaying the American flag upside down as a form of protest. “Political symbolism can be a powerful thing,” wrote Rothove, a College Fix fellow, “but when you desecrate the American flag to make a political point, it makes you look fundamentally unserious.”
• In The Washington Post, George Will ridiculed attempts by “antitrust worrywarts” to “rescue affluent consumers from the threat to ‘affordable luxury’ or ‘accessible luxury’ in the market for women’s high-end handbags.” The Federal Trade Commission may think it has “a roving commission to prevent all imperfections, actual or anticipated,” Will wrote, but the agency’s latest crusade exposing them as little more than “scolds.”
• On his Governing Right Substack, the Manhattan Institute’s Andy Smarick urged readers to look beyond the legalities of an upcoming Supreme Court ruling on federal rulemaking. If it pares back so-called Chevron deference, “Will Congress suddenly become highly effective now that agencies have been tamed? Will Congress suddenly develop and elevate to positions of leadership workhorses who can get things done? Will Congress suddenly punish its members who hinder the body’s work? I doubt it.”