Colorado Christian University made history
last weekend by packing the Western Conservative Summit's speakers list with
some of the nation's most influential conservative voices, opening the doors to
an audience that was double what was expected, and announcing a great
mission:
It's time to join the fight to recapture America's waning
freedoms.
Sponsored by CCU and its think tank, the Centennial
Institute, the summit at the Marriott South in Lone Tree, Colo., featured a
dozen voices at the center of the national conversation, including author and
political analyst Dick Morris, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, radio
commentator Dennis Prager, decorated retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, and other
top-tier conservative thinkers in economics, the military, and current culture.
Each issued a call to restore America's core values before leftwing
ideas, such as ObamaCare, become permanently entrenched in law. The motivated
crowd of 600-plus applauded and leaped to its feet more often than participants
in an exercise video. After one vigorous round of standing ovations, columnist
Michelle Malkin paused, scanned the room and quipped, "I love being among an
angry mob."
The heavy turnout, which for some speeches was standing
room only, surprised even the two men who had conceived the summit -- former
U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong, now president of CCU, and John Andrews, director of
the Centennial Institute and former president of the Colorado Senate.
Andrews likened the summit to a "trickle that's turned into the mighty
Mississippi."
Armstrong told the crowd, "I don't recall anything like
this in Colorado." He predicted that next year's summit would be a national
forum and magnet for presidential candidates who will be running in 2012
directly against Barack Obama and his policies.
First task: To win
elections in 2010.
"Everybody always says, 'This is the most crucial
election of our lifetime,' and most of the time, it's not true. This time it is
completely and totally true," said Dick Morris, an ex-Democrat and former top
advisor to Bill Clinton. "Will we follow Barack Obama into an economic grave or
will we survive as a free country? These are the stakes."
Morris was
one of many who warned that, if another election cycle is lost, the Democrats
will solidify government control over every aspect of citizens' lives. For
example, he said, under ObamaCare rationing, medical options will inevitably
decline not only for the middle-aged and elderly, but for everyone.
"To me the ultimate pro-life cause of our time is to permit people to die when
they die -- not when the government decides to kill you," Morris said. By the
way, he added, don't count on support from lawmakers who are conservative
Democrats, as he once was: "There's no more of 'me' in this country anymore."
The opening keynoter, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, urged the crowd to
rediscover America's founding documents and "the miracle that is America." A
former federal tax-litigation attorney, Bachmann outlined the financial
consequences for the country if Obama's crushing tax burdens go forward, and
warned that the staggering debt load of $13 trillion "has turned us into a
nation of slaves."
She said the American people, including
disaffected Democrats "by the boatload," are joining the fight to reverse the
tide: "Why do you think the left is apoplectic right now? They've never seen
this kind of coalition coming together."
Speakers sounded alarm
bells on every aspect of American life.
"The predominant cultural
struggle is over the free-enterprise system and limited government," said Arthur
Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute.
He said
Americans must fight the prevailing propaganda that links free enterprise with
unfairness and money. "We will continue to lose if we talk about money," Brooks
said, highlighting that "free enterprise is a mainstream idea, the core of the
American spirit."
Prevailing leftwing policies have also put
America's security at risk, several speakers said. Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin and
national-security expert Frank Gaffney outlined how Muslim extremists are
quietly changing America from within. Among the evidence: a mosque has been
okayed at Ground Zero and the federal government is backing sharia-compliant
financing. This echoes the situation in Europe, which is fast becoming subject
to Muslim, or sharia, law. The situation is considered even direr now that the
terror group Hezbollah is recruiting in Mexico and Obama refuses to secure the
border.
"This is the incremental taking over of our nation," Boykin
said.
Despite a pile-on of grim details, the summit ended on a note
befitting its name. Responding to an audience member who observed that Americans
face a painful fight in the upcoming election cycle, Dick Morris grinned. "I
reject the notion this is going to be painful," he said. "I think this is going
to be fun!"