What should conservative Republicans stand for?

Here are some of my suggestions:

Education reform: “Educating the mind without educating for character is incomplete education.”

Education is in terrible shape, especially in poor neighborhoods, and throwing more money at it will not succeed but will make it even more dysfunctional.

Instead of the Department of Education telling schools what they should teach nationwide, the department should largely be transformed into a research facility, library, and funding of specific subjects and materials. It should not be about the funding of schools in general.

For example, the Department of Education could develop interactive computer audio-visual instruction modules which are effective teaching tools and which can be programmed with input from local or statewide teaching professionals so there is diversity in teaching materials nationwide.

The nationwide failure of standardized common core mathematics, which is what is taught now, is a bizarre and ineffective way to teach math and should be terminated as soon as possible. In an age of calculators, trying to obscure basic math principles with theoretical math understanding like common core is a disastrous nationwide policy.

Another useful function of the Education Department would be to store facts about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) education in the United States and in other countries of the world that are excelling at incentivizing the teaching of STEM subjects. The Education Department should fund those important subjects in schools of higher education, including some funding for those subjects and competent teachers in high schools, middle schools, and even elementary schools. Students showing ability in those areas could be funded, especially if they come from poor neighborhoods.

In poor neighborhoods, free computers can be provided for the classroom and home setting and funded by the Department of Education.

Another reason for the failure of education is that there is no competition among public schools for students. Parents should be issued vouchers so they could spend their money on the schools of their choice. This may be charter schools or even religious schools. The way that you get around the separation of church and state is to fund all the non-religious courses in a religious school.

By freedom of association, make the teaching of the religion to a non-religious offspring a parental choice. If the parent chooses to teach religion to their children, then the religious school would have to pay for the religious courses. Thus, the separation of church and state would effectively exist moneywise, which is the bottom line that counts. Yes, random audits would have to be made to make sure that religious schools comply with the law limiting federal funding to non-religious subjects.

The majority of students will not excel in STEM subjects. but at least they could be introduced to the basic skills in these subjects in an interesting way with age-appropriate experiments and information to motivate curiosity and understanding in these vital subjects in an era of technological advancement.

Department of Education funding of vocational school subjects and competent teachers of these subjects in poor neighborhoods is vital. Incentivizing corporations to have apprentice programs for the poor could also potentially be a good idea for conservatives to promote.

There is much more that can be said about what can be done to improve education, but one thing is sure: The Education Department needs a radical change which conservatives could provide.

Globalism:

Globalization can only be successful among non-tyrannical nations with similar ideologies. Europe and the United States are learning the hard way that economic dependency on tyrannical nations can lead to blackmail and, even worse, war. Europe’s energy dependence on Russia and the United States’ dependence on China for vital manufactured goods, especially pharmaceuticals, is causing economic hardship in the long run, and maybe even aggressive military adventures by China in the future. Tyrannical, oligarch-run nations like Russia and China simply can’t be trusted in the long run.

So, trade tariffs on tyrannical major economic nations is a "must have" idea for conservatives, and with China, there should be no federal funding of schools that have Chinese students from China. Chinese-speaking Taiwanese students should be an exception.

The United States should participate in NATO and definitely demand that at least 2% of a nation’s GDP goes to defense spending, as these allies have agreed to. In the Asian-Pacific, countries such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and those nations bordering the South China Sea like the Philippines, South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc., should be encouraged to contribute at least 2% of their GDP towards national defense given that China presents an ever-present potentially aggressive menace.

In fact, conservatives should encourage Japan to go nuclear with weapons to avoid nuclear blackmail and potential future aggression from China or North Korea. Keep in mind that Russian President Vladimir Putin has already tried to blackmail Ukraine with the threatened use of nuclear weapons. The United States probably doesn’t need to form an Asian NATO but can make treaties with concerned nations to protect against blockades of their countries by China with United States naval force.

In a nutshell, decoupling from China economically should be a high priority for conservatives because, in the long run, China has nothing good to offer the United States or Europe since it can’t be trusted to be a friendly nation.

Business:

International banks and corporations have become way too powerful and need some counter-balance competition. The United States should encourage individual and small family-owned businesses to thrive by not taxing them at all up to about 100 million in gross income.

Since the food business is the most important factor in human lives, nutritious, relatively healthy, relatively safe, certified organically grown food, organic restaurants, organic food distributors, and organic supermarkets shouldn’t be taxed at all. This is just a small sample of how small businesses can be encouraged to be founded and made to thrive against big money, which of course, could try to imitate them, or may buy them out eventually when these small businesses demonstrate enough money-making success.

Conservatives could also be behind a movement to encourage tax breaks or no taxation for made in the United States goods with United States materials for businesses.

Quality education and economic diversity in the form of more small businesses is the key to future prosperity in the national interest. Conservatives can lead the way intellectually and politically toward a more prosperous future for the United States.

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