Strength of our nation is the opportunity for any individual, of any race or creed, to get ahead

The real strength of our nation is the opportunity for any individual, of any race or creed, to get ahead provided he or she has the drive and a little vision.

Bill Clinton once touted himself as "the first black President," and we don't know how much, if any, African American "blood" he has. Perhaps the same as the 1/32 Native American heritage claimed by the Senator from Massachusetts? Mr. Obama is, certainly, the first President who looks the part, though the second to claim it.

I have no problem with the existence of the "Congressional Black Caucus." Of course it's racist, and it depends on maximizing the public impression of venal racism on the part of everyone else. That's politics at its, er, finest. What offends me about the caucus is that the occasional black Republican member of Congress is excluded from the tribe. Any conservative is considered unfit for membership, presumably because he or she is not "black enough."

The professional political left demands that all blacks accept its direction, vote and donate accordingly, and never publicly disavow the official line. For example, black parents seeking school choice are committing heresy. The success of the teachers' unions is far more important than the educational success of the children subjected to failing and failed schools.

Disparate impact, of course, applies only to politically selected and politically favored groups. It applies only to environments for which the left and its constituent groups cannot be held responsible. And it thrives in the legal limbo of coercion in order to prevent a court review of the fundamental flaw of "proof" of discrimination without any actual discrimination.

Obama and his administration ignore anything and everything in the Constitution which does not comport with his world view. If you want to know what Eric Holder will do, you need only look at how his Justice Department has been all over alleged "intimidation" of black voters, such as even the concept of voter id laws, while blithely ignoring clearly documented (via video images) of intimidation by members of the Black Panther Party of white voters.

The usual leftists, rushing to the microphones to denounce the Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act, talk about gerrymandering supposedly intended to prevent the election of black and Latino candidates.

What about the (sometimes court-ordered) gerrymandering intended to ensure the election of such candidates, with districts a few blocks wide and half a state long?

Majority black districts don't always elect black candidates. Majority white districts don't always elect white candidates. Majority white America twice elected a black President. Black turnout has exceeded white turnout.

So why do we need another 20 years of Justice Department meddling in election law, which is properly and constitutionally the province of the states? Because a power once grabbed by the federal government will never be relinquished, except at the point of a Supreme Court decision.

The Voting Rights Act was not intended to create "enhanced voting rights" for anyone. It was supposed to provide the same rights for everyone, so that whoever is qualified to vote (an American citizen, age 18 or older under a subsequent constitutional amendment, resident in the jurisdiction for the legally mandated interval) is able to do so. It should not enable a "snowbird" to vote in both states of intermittent residence, nor a college student to vote both at home and where the college is located, nor a non-citizen (whether authorized to be in this country or not) to vote anywhere. It should not give Justice a brickbat for coercion anywhere.

The GOP now has an opportunity to get back to the basics and emphasize the great opportunities this land offers. The socialists and statists are destroying those opportunities through their meddling. Vote for us and we'll ensure that you and your children and your children's children will have good jobs and educations in a secure, prosperous society. Vote for them and you'll get nothing but poverty and debt.

It's a simple message, really. Just get the message out, Republicans, and don't be afraid to tell it like it is. The Republicans can, if they try, rebuild the "Big Tent" party of Ronald Reagan and the Democrats will become the refuge of liberals, socialists, and entitlement brats.

Government has done many things very wrong that have hurt each of us individually and that have hurt our fellows. These include: promulgating a tax code that is incomprehensible and that distorts capital allocation; it has supported crony-capitalist through subsidies, regulation, and direct grants to the harm of free market capitalism which efficiently allocates resources, and it has undermined the concept of meritorious reward, self-reliance, undermined the individual's freedom to act and also to be held accountable for individual failure if that should occur. In the commercial realm government, through its policies, has undermined the concept of moral hazard.

What's needed is for the Republican party to step forward and embrace three things:

1. Commit to a plan that reduces the size of the federal government based on eliminating a significant portion of the current government structure by combining departments.

2. Reinforce the concept of federalism directly and commit to using block grants to the states for legitimate federally enumerated responsibilities.

3. Explicitly state that social issue are the province of state governments, not the federal government and commit to receding all laws and regulations not directly related to a federally enumerated responsibility.

The GOP should also propose that the IRS be eliminated and replace the current tax code with a consumption based tax code built around the principles of the fair tax.

Many would have people believe the GOP has a demographic problem, it doesn't. It has a core value problem in that it has forgotten that the government's core responsibility is to the protection of individual freedom and liberty, equity under the law, and the lightest government footprint possible consistent with these two objectives.

For far to long the GOP has simply pursued progressivism from the right build upon driving social goals from the federal level rather than allowing these types of issues to be resolved locally, and in pushing an interventionist foreign policy that isn't in our national interest.

Its high time the GOP moved decisively toward a more conservative and libertarian focused approach that respects the individual and away from an issue based political approach designed to attract this or that demographic group in order to cobble together a majority in order to win office.

The later approach won't work, but the former will.