Representative Jeremy Faison’s recent attack on Thomas Massie reveals everything wrong with today’s Republican establishment. In his November 12, 2025 article, Faison argues that Massie’s “unwavering stance on nearly every single issue” leaves him “isolated and irrelevant in actual governance.” He concludes that every member of Congress should “immediately shift to governing from the center” because politics operates in “the land of the gray.”
I teach my three sons something fundamentally different. I teach them to stand firm on their core values, to hold fast to their principles even if they are the only one in the room standing. Representative Faison would apparently tell my sons they are being inflexible mercenaries rather than effective revolutionaries. History, philosophy, and the very foundations of American conservatism prove Faison catastrophically wrong.
What Faison Gets Wrong About Thomas Massie
Before addressing the philosophical bankruptcy of Faison’s position, we should understand who Thomas Massie actually is. Faison paints him as an ineffective purist whose principles render him useless. The record tells a different story entirely.
Thomas Massie consistently scores a ninety-nine percent constitutional voting record and maintains a ninety-six percent rating from Heritage Action for America. He does not vote this way because he is inflexible or unable to recognize nuance. He votes this way because he actually believes in the constitutional limits on federal power that Republicans claim to support when running for office.
When Congress was rushing through massive COVID relief packages in 2020, Massie was the lone voice demanding a recorded vote so the American people could see which representatives were voting to spend trillions of dollars. President Trump called him a “third-rate Grandstander” for this principled stand. Massie’s response was instructive: “Someone thinks they can control my voting card by threatening my re-election. Guess what? Doesn’t work on me.”
This is not isolation. This is not irrelevance. This is integrity. When everyone around you is compromising constitutional principles for political expediency, standing alone for what is right is not a character flaw. It is moral courage.
The Founders on Standing Against Political Pressure
Representative Faison seems unaware that America’s founding generation explicitly designed our constitutional republic to reward exactly the kind of principled independence Massie demonstrates. The Founders understood that mob rule and majoritarian impulses needed restraint through structural constitutional limits upheld by virtuous representatives.
John Adams taught his children that integrity must be “preserved in all events” and placed beyond the reach of political pressure. Writing to his son Thomas in 1789, Adams advised: “My advice to my children is to maintain an independent character, though in poverty and obscurity: neither riches nor illustration will console a man under the reflection that he has acted a mean, a mercenary part.” Adams insisted that government without virtue was impossible, warning that expedient politics over principle makes free government collapse.
Benjamin Franklin faced exactly what Thomas Massie faces today. When British officials threatened to remove him as Postmaster unless he changed his political opinions, Franklin refused with words every conservative should memorize: “My rule in which I have always found Satisfaction is, Never to turn aside in Public Affairs through Views of private Interest; but to go straight forward in doing what appears to me right at the time, leaving the Consequences with Providence.”
James Madison’s Federalist No. 10 directly demolishes Faison’s “gray area” relativism. Madison warned that when factious majorities unite around “some common impulse of passion or interest,” they will sacrifice “both the public good and the rights of other citizens.” Pure democracy fails, Madison explained, because such systems “have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention” and “incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.” Representatives must uphold constitutional principles against majority faction. This is precisely what Massie does when he opposes continuing resolutions that violate proper constitutional appropriations processes.
George Washington’s Farewell Address established that “virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government” and represents an “indispensable support” to political prosperity. Washington taught that “there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage.” Those who pursue expedient policies violating “eternal rules of order and right” cannot expect favorable outcomes. Washington also warned against party spirit enabling “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men” to usurp power. This sounds remarkably like the “Uniparty” dealmaking culture Massie opposes and Faison celebrates.
Alexander Hamilton provided the summary that should end this debate: “If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws.” Not compromise. Not pragmatism. Not “governing from the center.” Constitutional fidelity.
Modern Conservative Giants on Conviction Over Consensus
Perhaps Faison believes the Founders were simply products of their time, unsuited for modern politics. If so, he should reckon with the architects of modern conservatism who built their entire movement on the premise that principled stands trump political expediency.
Ronald Reagan’s 1981 address to the Conservative Political Action Conference praised conservatives who “held fast through hard and difficult years to its vision of the truth” through “many grim and heartbreaking defeats.” Reagan declared: “Our victory, when it was achieved, was not so much a victory of politics as it was a victory of ideas, not so much a victory for any one man or party as it was a victory for a set of principles—principles that were protected and nourished by a few unselfish Americans.”
Those “few unselfish Americans” standing firm on principle during decades of opposition enabled eventual conservative triumph. Reagan did not achieve conservative victories by “governing from the center.” He achieved them by articulating clear principles and refusing to abandon them for temporary political advantage.
Barry Goldwater gave conservatism its defining statement at the 1964 convention: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” In The Conscience of a Conservative, Goldwater wrote words that could have been written about Thomas Massie: “I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ ‘interests,’ I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.”
Margaret Thatcher explicitly rejected the philosophy Faison espouses: “I am not a consensus politician. I’m a conviction politician.” Her famous 1980 declaration became the defining statement of principled conservative leadership: “You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.” Thatcher understood what Faison apparently does not—that consensus is often “the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects.”
William F. Buckley founded National Review with a statement that demolishes Faison’s entire argument: “Middle-of-the-Road, qua Middle of the Road, is politically, intellectually, and morally repugnant. We shall recommend policies for the simple reason that we consider them right (rather than ‘non-controversial’); and we consider them right because they are based on principles we deem right (rather than on popularity polls).”
When Faison calls for Congress to “govern from the center,” he advocates for the very thing Buckley identified as intellectually and morally bankrupt. The center has no inherent moral authority. Positioning oneself between two opposing views does not make one right. It often makes one unprincipled.
When Conservative Compromise Failed and Principled Stands Succeeded
Faison’s pragmatic approach sounds reasonable in theory. In practice, it has consistently produced disaster for conservatives while principled stands have been vindicated by history.
Consider the 1990 Bush budget deal that Faison’s philosophy would endorse. President George H.W. Bush broke his “Read my lips: no new taxes” pledge, agreeing to massive tax increases in exchange for promised spending restraint. Heritage Foundation analysis revealed the catastrophic results: federal spending jumped by a record $158 BILLION in 1991, the largest spending burst in American history. The deficit worsened from $153 BILLION to $318 BILLION, directly contradicting every promise. The spending cuts never materialized, while tax increases became permanent. Bush lost reelection partly due to the broken pledge, and the deal created lasting conservative distrust of exactly the kind of “compromise” Faison advocates.
The 1986 Reagan amnesty demonstrates another failure of comprehensive dealmaking. The Immigration Reform and Control Act granted amnesty to three million illegal immigrants in exchange for enforcement and border security provisions. Heritage Foundation’s Ed Meese, Reagan’s Attorney General, later confirmed this was “a serious mistake.” The enforcement provisions were never implemented, and illegal immigration quadrupled from three million to over eleven million by the 2000s. Meese wrote: “Since the ’86 amnesty, the number of illegal immigrants has quadrupled. That should teach Congress a very important lesson: Amnesty ‘bends’ the rule of law.”
Now consider what principled conservatism achieved. Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract with America proved that running on specific conservative principles could win decisively. Critics called it risky to make specific promises voters could judge. Republicans gained fifty-four House seats and eight Senate seats, the first GOP House majority in forty years. Within 100 days, the House passed 9 of 10 contract items. The success forced Clinton to declare “the era of big government is over” and led to balanced budgets from 1998 to 2001.
The 1996 welfare reform represents the clearest vindication of principled conservatism in modern history. After two Clinton vetoes, Republicans insisted on fundamental reform based on work requirements, time limits, and reduced dependency. Liberals predicted catastrophe. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called it a “brutal act of social policy.” Marian Wright Edelman predicted it would cause 2.6 million more people to fall into poverty. Reality demolished every liberal prediction. Overall poverty declined, child poverty fell dramatically, employment among single mothers doubled, and child hunger was cut nearly in half.
The 2011 Tea Party Budget Control Act demonstrated that principled conservatives could force spending restraint despite universal condemnation. Tea Party-backed Republicans refused to raise the debt ceiling without spending cuts, facing accusations of being “terrorists” and “extremists.” They secured $1.2 TRILLION in spending cuts with no tax increases and automatic sequester enforcement. When compromise failed, the sequester kicked in and achieved the first sustained spending restraint in decades.
The pattern is unmistakable. Conservative compromises on fiscal and constitutional principles consistently produce poor long-term outcomes. Principled stands, though criticized initially, tend to be vindicated by events and policy success.
What Prudence Actually Means
Faison invokes “the gray” and implies that refusing to compromise demonstrates inflexibility rather than wisdom. This reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of conservative philosophy. Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk, conservatism’s philosophical architects, distinguished sharply between prudence (applying principles wisely) and expediency (abandoning them).
Burke established that prudence is not the absence of principle but rather its proper application. He wrote that “the principles of true politics are those of morality enlarged.” Prudence applies moral principles to circumstances; it does not replace them. Burke explained: “Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour and discriminating effect.” Circumstances affect how principles are applied, not whether they are maintained.
Russell Kirk’s ten conservative principles directly address Faison’s argument. Kirk’s fourth principle defines true prudence: “Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity. Liberals and radicals, the conservative says, are imprudent: for they dash at their objectives without giving much heed to the risk of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to sweep away.”
By this definition, Massie’s opposition to continuing resolutions demonstrates genuine prudence. He protects against long-term debt crisis and constitutional degradation over short-term political convenience. Faison’s position prioritizes immediate “governing” over long-term constitutional and fiscal consequences. This is precisely the imprudence Kirk warned against.
The crucial distinction is this: Principles are non-negotiable. These include constitutional fidelity, fiscal responsibility, limited government, and rule of law. Tactics and methods are negotiable. These include specific policy mechanisms, timing, political strategy, and coalition building. Faison’s error is treating principles as if they were tactics, subject to negotiation for political convenience.
Governing From the Center Betrays Conservative Voters
Faison’s call for members to “govern from the center” contradicts fundamental principles of representative democracy. When legislators are elected on explicit conservative principles and then abandon those principles to “govern from the center,” they betray their electoral mandate.
Massie ran for Congress promising to uphold constitutional limits on federal power and vote against deficit spending. He has kept that promise with remarkable consistency. His constituents re-elect him with overwhelming margins because they know exactly what they are getting. This is how representative government is supposed to work.
The “Uniparty” problem Massie identifies reflects the accountability crisis Faison’s approach enables. When representatives abandon the principles they campaigned on for backroom deals, voters lose the ability to hold anyone accountable. The American Conservative explained: “At the very core of the MAGA movement sits the reasonable and well-founded belief that the vast majority of congressional members are in it for themselves, not the people who put them there. It’s why the wars never end. It’s why the relief never comes. It’s why every year we all helplessly watch as another rushed omnibus or CR bill are voted through with ease to pile on more and more debt.”
Dealmaking culture corrupts constitutional government in several ways. It privileges process over substance, making “getting a deal” more important than whether the deal is right. It empowers unaccountable leadership while disempowering individual representatives. It circumvents constitutional processes, particularly the proper appropriations process that continuing resolutions violate. Massie has complained: “These bills are not being written by the 435 members of Congress and the 100 senators. They are being written by a few people.”
This is not how the Constitution designed Congress to function. The deliberative process, with amendments and recorded votes and individual accountability, gets replaced by leadership-crafted thousand-page bills that members have hours to read before voting. Massie’s insistence on proper process is not inflexibility. It is defending constitutional governance against the very corruption Faison’s approach enables.
What We Teach Our Sons
Faison’s article represents more than a political disagreement. It represents a fundamental question about what values we pass to the next generation. I teach my sons to stand firm on their core values, to maintain their principles even if they are standing alone, to have the moral courage to do what is right regardless of peer pressure or personal cost. Representative Faison apparently believes this teaching will make my sons ineffective and irrelevant.
Conservative philosophy has always emphasized character formation over conformity. Heritage Foundation’s conservative education vision states: “All of the educational choices we make at school are also moral choices, and these choices ineluctably contribute to the moral formation of students.” The purpose is developing “Freedom for Excellence: self-directed action toward the truly good and beautiful”—not conformity to peer pressure or political fashion.
Edmund Burke himself exemplified this principle. His biography notes he “deemed it necessary” to sacrifice friendships for principle, maintaining that “his principles continue the same” despite personal costs. This is the model of conservative statesmanship we should hold up to our children, not the unprincipled dealmaking Faison celebrates.
Groupthink represents everything conservatism opposes. Research defines it as “a psychological phenomenon in which the desire for harmony or conformity results in irrational or dysfunctional decision-making.” The Independent Institute warns that “classical-liberal and conservative ideas are often ignored, dismissed by way of elaborate dogmas, or treated only in false caricature” when groupthink dominates. The Berthoud Weekly Surveyor captured the conservative response: “Groupthink is defeated by independent thinking individuals who refuse to capitulate to the group’s demands of compliance. Never compromise your values, ethics, or morals. Stand up for what is right.”
Frank Sonnenberg articulated what I teach my sons: “It’s better to stand alone, with honor, than compromise your values to fit in. It takes someone very special to have the courage, strength, and conviction to do what’s right—especially if there are consequences for behaving that way. That’s called moral character.”
The Biblical foundation of conservatism reinforces this teaching. Scripture commands: “Stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.” Biblical heroes Daniel and Esther demonstrate courage to stand alone on principle despite consequences. These are the models for conservative character formation, not the expedient compromise Faison advocates.
C.S. Lewis observed that courage is “the form of every virtue at the testing point.” Without courage to stand alone when necessary, no other virtue survives under pressure. Teaching children to follow the crowd, conform to peer pressure, and abandon principles for compromise contradicts everything conservatism stands for.
So yes, Representative Faison, I teach my sons to be like Thomas Massie. I teach them that standing alone for what is right is better than winning approval by compromising their values. I teach them that moral courage matters more than political expediency. I teach them that keeping their word to voters matters more than dealmaking with leadership. If you believe this makes them “isolated and irrelevant,” then you have fundamentally misunderstood what conservatism means.
The Choice Before Conservatives
Representative Faison’s article forces a choice that cuts to the heart of what the conservative movement represents. Do we believe in constitutional limits on federal power, or do we believe in whatever deals can be struck? Do we keep faith with voters who elected us on specific principles, or do we “govern from the center” by abandoning those principles? Do we teach our children to stand firm on their values, or do we teach them that principles are negotiable when politically convenient?
Thomas Massie represents authentic conservatism. He maintains constitutional principles, keeps faith with his voters, defends proper legislative process, and has the moral courage to stand alone when necessary. His constituents re-elect him with overwhelming margins because they recognize integrity when they see it. His ninety-nine percent constitutional voting record and ninety-six percent Heritage Action rating do not reflect inflexibility. They reflect exactly what he promised voters when they sent him to Congress.
Representative Faison represents something else entirely. He represents the dealmaking culture that prioritizes process over substance, empowers unaccountable leadership, circumvents constitutional governance, and betrays electoral mandates. He represents the very “Uniparty” corruption that drove the Tea Party movement and continues to frustrate conservative voters who wonder why Republicans campaign as conservatives but govern as moderates.
The question is not whether we can “govern like Thomas Massie.” The question is whether we remember what conservatism actually means and whether we have the courage to practice what we teach our children. I know what I am teaching my three sons. I am teaching them to be men of principle, to stand firm on their values, to maintain their integrity even under pressure, and to recognize that moral courage sometimes requires standing alone.
History will judge who understood conservatism correctly. I am confident Thomas Massie and the principles I teach my sons will be vindicated, just as every principled conservative stand has ultimately been vindicated against the expedient compromises that seemed so reasonable at the time.
Honor God. Speak the truth. Do the right thing. This is what conservatism means, and this is what I teach my sons.
I was not surprised a couple of years ago when Representative Faison pantsed a referee at a local high school basketball game. But I am shocked to find that he would actually pants himself.
Standing Firm: Why Jeremy Faison Is Dead Wrong About Conservative Principles
A Response to "The GOP Can't Lead If It Governs Like Thomas Massie"
Representative Jeremy Faison’s recent attack on Thomas Massie reveals everything wrong with today’s Republican establishment. In his November 12, 2025 article, Faison argues that Massie’s “unwavering stance on nearly every single issue” leaves him “isolated and irrelevant in actual governance.” He concludes that every member of Congress should “immediately shift to governing from the center” because politics operates in “the land of the gray.”
I teach my three sons something fundamentally different. I teach them to stand firm on their core values, to hold fast to their principles even if they are the only one in the room standing. Representative Faison would apparently tell my sons they are being inflexible mercenaries rather than effective revolutionaries. History, philosophy, and the very foundations of American conservatism prove Faison catastrophically wrong.
What Faison Gets Wrong About Thomas Massie
Before addressing the philosophical bankruptcy of Faison’s position, we should understand who Thomas Massie actually is. Faison paints him as an ineffective purist whose principles render him useless. The record tells a different story entirely.
Thomas Massie consistently scores a ninety-nine percent constitutional voting record and maintains a ninety-six percent rating from Heritage Action for America. He does not vote this way because he is inflexible or unable to recognize nuance. He votes this way because he actually believes in the constitutional limits on federal power that Republicans claim to support when running for office.
When Congress was rushing through massive COVID relief packages in 2020, Massie was the lone voice demanding a recorded vote so the American people could see which representatives were voting to spend trillions of dollars. President Trump called him a “third-rate Grandstander” for this principled stand. Massie’s response was instructive: “Someone thinks they can control my voting card by threatening my re-election. Guess what? Doesn’t work on me.”
This is not isolation. This is not irrelevance. This is integrity. When everyone around you is compromising constitutional principles for political expediency, standing alone for what is right is not a character flaw. It is moral courage.
The Founders on Standing Against Political Pressure
Representative Faison seems unaware that America’s founding generation explicitly designed our constitutional republic to reward exactly the kind of principled independence Massie demonstrates. The Founders understood that mob rule and majoritarian impulses needed restraint through structural constitutional limits upheld by virtuous representatives.
John Adams taught his children that integrity must be “preserved in all events” and placed beyond the reach of political pressure. Writing to his son Thomas in 1789, Adams advised: “My advice to my children is to maintain an independent character, though in poverty and obscurity: neither riches nor illustration will console a man under the reflection that he has acted a mean, a mercenary part.” Adams insisted that government without virtue was impossible, warning that expedient politics over principle makes free government collapse.
Benjamin Franklin faced exactly what Thomas Massie faces today. When British officials threatened to remove him as Postmaster unless he changed his political opinions, Franklin refused with words every conservative should memorize: “My rule in which I have always found Satisfaction is, Never to turn aside in Public Affairs through Views of private Interest; but to go straight forward in doing what appears to me right at the time, leaving the Consequences with Providence.”
James Madison’s Federalist No. 10 directly demolishes Faison’s “gray area” relativism. Madison warned that when factious majorities unite around “some common impulse of passion or interest,” they will sacrifice “both the public good and the rights of other citizens.” Pure democracy fails, Madison explained, because such systems “have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention” and “incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.” Representatives must uphold constitutional principles against majority faction. This is precisely what Massie does when he opposes continuing resolutions that violate proper constitutional appropriations processes.
George Washington’s Farewell Address established that “virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government” and represents an “indispensable support” to political prosperity. Washington taught that “there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage.” Those who pursue expedient policies violating “eternal rules of order and right” cannot expect favorable outcomes. Washington also warned against party spirit enabling “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men” to usurp power. This sounds remarkably like the “Uniparty” dealmaking culture Massie opposes and Faison celebrates.
Alexander Hamilton provided the summary that should end this debate: “If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws.” Not compromise. Not pragmatism. Not “governing from the center.” Constitutional fidelity.
Modern Conservative Giants on Conviction Over Consensus
Perhaps Faison believes the Founders were simply products of their time, unsuited for modern politics. If so, he should reckon with the architects of modern conservatism who built their entire movement on the premise that principled stands trump political expediency.
Ronald Reagan’s 1981 address to the Conservative Political Action Conference praised conservatives who “held fast through hard and difficult years to its vision of the truth” through “many grim and heartbreaking defeats.” Reagan declared: “Our victory, when it was achieved, was not so much a victory of politics as it was a victory of ideas, not so much a victory for any one man or party as it was a victory for a set of principles—principles that were protected and nourished by a few unselfish Americans.”
Those “few unselfish Americans” standing firm on principle during decades of opposition enabled eventual conservative triumph. Reagan did not achieve conservative victories by “governing from the center.” He achieved them by articulating clear principles and refusing to abandon them for temporary political advantage.
Barry Goldwater gave conservatism its defining statement at the 1964 convention: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” In The Conscience of a Conservative, Goldwater wrote words that could have been written about Thomas Massie: “I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ ‘interests,’ I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.”
Margaret Thatcher explicitly rejected the philosophy Faison espouses: “I am not a consensus politician. I’m a conviction politician.” Her famous 1980 declaration became the defining statement of principled conservative leadership: “You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.” Thatcher understood what Faison apparently does not—that consensus is often “the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects.”
William F. Buckley founded National Review with a statement that demolishes Faison’s entire argument: “Middle-of-the-Road, qua Middle of the Road, is politically, intellectually, and morally repugnant. We shall recommend policies for the simple reason that we consider them right (rather than ‘non-controversial’); and we consider them right because they are based on principles we deem right (rather than on popularity polls).”
When Faison calls for Congress to “govern from the center,” he advocates for the very thing Buckley identified as intellectually and morally bankrupt. The center has no inherent moral authority. Positioning oneself between two opposing views does not make one right. It often makes one unprincipled.
When Conservative Compromise Failed and Principled Stands Succeeded
Faison’s pragmatic approach sounds reasonable in theory. In practice, it has consistently produced disaster for conservatives while principled stands have been vindicated by history.
Consider the 1990 Bush budget deal that Faison’s philosophy would endorse. President George H.W. Bush broke his “Read my lips: no new taxes” pledge, agreeing to massive tax increases in exchange for promised spending restraint. Heritage Foundation analysis revealed the catastrophic results: federal spending jumped by a record $158 BILLION in 1991, the largest spending burst in American history. The deficit worsened from $153 BILLION to $318 BILLION, directly contradicting every promise. The spending cuts never materialized, while tax increases became permanent. Bush lost reelection partly due to the broken pledge, and the deal created lasting conservative distrust of exactly the kind of “compromise” Faison advocates.
The 1986 Reagan amnesty demonstrates another failure of comprehensive dealmaking. The Immigration Reform and Control Act granted amnesty to three million illegal immigrants in exchange for enforcement and border security provisions. Heritage Foundation’s Ed Meese, Reagan’s Attorney General, later confirmed this was “a serious mistake.” The enforcement provisions were never implemented, and illegal immigration quadrupled from three million to over eleven million by the 2000s. Meese wrote: “Since the ’86 amnesty, the number of illegal immigrants has quadrupled. That should teach Congress a very important lesson: Amnesty ‘bends’ the rule of law.”
Now consider what principled conservatism achieved. Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract with America proved that running on specific conservative principles could win decisively. Critics called it risky to make specific promises voters could judge. Republicans gained fifty-four House seats and eight Senate seats, the first GOP House majority in forty years. Within 100 days, the House passed 9 of 10 contract items. The success forced Clinton to declare “the era of big government is over” and led to balanced budgets from 1998 to 2001.
The 1996 welfare reform represents the clearest vindication of principled conservatism in modern history. After two Clinton vetoes, Republicans insisted on fundamental reform based on work requirements, time limits, and reduced dependency. Liberals predicted catastrophe. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called it a “brutal act of social policy.” Marian Wright Edelman predicted it would cause 2.6 million more people to fall into poverty. Reality demolished every liberal prediction. Overall poverty declined, child poverty fell dramatically, employment among single mothers doubled, and child hunger was cut nearly in half.
The 2011 Tea Party Budget Control Act demonstrated that principled conservatives could force spending restraint despite universal condemnation. Tea Party-backed Republicans refused to raise the debt ceiling without spending cuts, facing accusations of being “terrorists” and “extremists.” They secured $1.2 TRILLION in spending cuts with no tax increases and automatic sequester enforcement. When compromise failed, the sequester kicked in and achieved the first sustained spending restraint in decades.
The pattern is unmistakable. Conservative compromises on fiscal and constitutional principles consistently produce poor long-term outcomes. Principled stands, though criticized initially, tend to be vindicated by events and policy success.
What Prudence Actually Means
Faison invokes “the gray” and implies that refusing to compromise demonstrates inflexibility rather than wisdom. This reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of conservative philosophy. Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk, conservatism’s philosophical architects, distinguished sharply between prudence (applying principles wisely) and expediency (abandoning them).
Burke established that prudence is not the absence of principle but rather its proper application. He wrote that “the principles of true politics are those of morality enlarged.” Prudence applies moral principles to circumstances; it does not replace them. Burke explained: “Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour and discriminating effect.” Circumstances affect how principles are applied, not whether they are maintained.
Russell Kirk’s ten conservative principles directly address Faison’s argument. Kirk’s fourth principle defines true prudence: “Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity. Liberals and radicals, the conservative says, are imprudent: for they dash at their objectives without giving much heed to the risk of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to sweep away.”
By this definition, Massie’s opposition to continuing resolutions demonstrates genuine prudence. He protects against long-term debt crisis and constitutional degradation over short-term political convenience. Faison’s position prioritizes immediate “governing” over long-term constitutional and fiscal consequences. This is precisely the imprudence Kirk warned against.
The crucial distinction is this: Principles are non-negotiable. These include constitutional fidelity, fiscal responsibility, limited government, and rule of law. Tactics and methods are negotiable. These include specific policy mechanisms, timing, political strategy, and coalition building. Faison’s error is treating principles as if they were tactics, subject to negotiation for political convenience.
Governing From the Center Betrays Conservative Voters
Faison’s call for members to “govern from the center” contradicts fundamental principles of representative democracy. When legislators are elected on explicit conservative principles and then abandon those principles to “govern from the center,” they betray their electoral mandate.
Massie ran for Congress promising to uphold constitutional limits on federal power and vote against deficit spending. He has kept that promise with remarkable consistency. His constituents re-elect him with overwhelming margins because they know exactly what they are getting. This is how representative government is supposed to work.
The “Uniparty” problem Massie identifies reflects the accountability crisis Faison’s approach enables. When representatives abandon the principles they campaigned on for backroom deals, voters lose the ability to hold anyone accountable. The American Conservative explained: “At the very core of the MAGA movement sits the reasonable and well-founded belief that the vast majority of congressional members are in it for themselves, not the people who put them there. It’s why the wars never end. It’s why the relief never comes. It’s why every year we all helplessly watch as another rushed omnibus or CR bill are voted through with ease to pile on more and more debt.”
Dealmaking culture corrupts constitutional government in several ways. It privileges process over substance, making “getting a deal” more important than whether the deal is right. It empowers unaccountable leadership while disempowering individual representatives. It circumvents constitutional processes, particularly the proper appropriations process that continuing resolutions violate. Massie has complained: “These bills are not being written by the 435 members of Congress and the 100 senators. They are being written by a few people.”
This is not how the Constitution designed Congress to function. The deliberative process, with amendments and recorded votes and individual accountability, gets replaced by leadership-crafted thousand-page bills that members have hours to read before voting. Massie’s insistence on proper process is not inflexibility. It is defending constitutional governance against the very corruption Faison’s approach enables.
What We Teach Our Sons
Faison’s article represents more than a political disagreement. It represents a fundamental question about what values we pass to the next generation. I teach my sons to stand firm on their core values, to maintain their principles even if they are standing alone, to have the moral courage to do what is right regardless of peer pressure or personal cost. Representative Faison apparently believes this teaching will make my sons ineffective and irrelevant.
Conservative philosophy has always emphasized character formation over conformity. Heritage Foundation’s conservative education vision states: “All of the educational choices we make at school are also moral choices, and these choices ineluctably contribute to the moral formation of students.” The purpose is developing “Freedom for Excellence: self-directed action toward the truly good and beautiful”—not conformity to peer pressure or political fashion.
Edmund Burke himself exemplified this principle. His biography notes he “deemed it necessary” to sacrifice friendships for principle, maintaining that “his principles continue the same” despite personal costs. This is the model of conservative statesmanship we should hold up to our children, not the unprincipled dealmaking Faison celebrates.
Groupthink represents everything conservatism opposes. Research defines it as “a psychological phenomenon in which the desire for harmony or conformity results in irrational or dysfunctional decision-making.” The Independent Institute warns that “classical-liberal and conservative ideas are often ignored, dismissed by way of elaborate dogmas, or treated only in false caricature” when groupthink dominates. The Berthoud Weekly Surveyor captured the conservative response: “Groupthink is defeated by independent thinking individuals who refuse to capitulate to the group’s demands of compliance. Never compromise your values, ethics, or morals. Stand up for what is right.”
Frank Sonnenberg articulated what I teach my sons: “It’s better to stand alone, with honor, than compromise your values to fit in. It takes someone very special to have the courage, strength, and conviction to do what’s right—especially if there are consequences for behaving that way. That’s called moral character.”
The Biblical foundation of conservatism reinforces this teaching. Scripture commands: “Stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.” Biblical heroes Daniel and Esther demonstrate courage to stand alone on principle despite consequences. These are the models for conservative character formation, not the expedient compromise Faison advocates.
C.S. Lewis observed that courage is “the form of every virtue at the testing point.” Without courage to stand alone when necessary, no other virtue survives under pressure. Teaching children to follow the crowd, conform to peer pressure, and abandon principles for compromise contradicts everything conservatism stands for.
So yes, Representative Faison, I teach my sons to be like Thomas Massie. I teach them that standing alone for what is right is better than winning approval by compromising their values. I teach them that moral courage matters more than political expediency. I teach them that keeping their word to voters matters more than dealmaking with leadership. If you believe this makes them “isolated and irrelevant,” then you have fundamentally misunderstood what conservatism means.
The Choice Before Conservatives
Representative Faison’s article forces a choice that cuts to the heart of what the conservative movement represents. Do we believe in constitutional limits on federal power, or do we believe in whatever deals can be struck? Do we keep faith with voters who elected us on specific principles, or do we “govern from the center” by abandoning those principles? Do we teach our children to stand firm on their values, or do we teach them that principles are negotiable when politically convenient?
Thomas Massie represents authentic conservatism. He maintains constitutional principles, keeps faith with his voters, defends proper legislative process, and has the moral courage to stand alone when necessary. His constituents re-elect him with overwhelming margins because they recognize integrity when they see it. His ninety-nine percent constitutional voting record and ninety-six percent Heritage Action rating do not reflect inflexibility. They reflect exactly what he promised voters when they sent him to Congress.
Representative Faison represents something else entirely. He represents the dealmaking culture that prioritizes process over substance, empowers unaccountable leadership, circumvents constitutional governance, and betrays electoral mandates. He represents the very “Uniparty” corruption that drove the Tea Party movement and continues to frustrate conservative voters who wonder why Republicans campaign as conservatives but govern as moderates.
The question is not whether we can “govern like Thomas Massie.” The question is whether we remember what conservatism actually means and whether we have the courage to practice what we teach our children. I know what I am teaching my three sons. I am teaching them to be men of principle, to stand firm on their values, to maintain their integrity even under pressure, and to recognize that moral courage sometimes requires standing alone.
History will judge who understood conservatism correctly. I am confident Thomas Massie and the principles I teach my sons will be vindicated, just as every principled conservative stand has ultimately been vindicated against the expedient compromises that seemed so reasonable at the time.
Honor God. Speak the truth. Do the right thing. This is what conservatism means, and this is what I teach my sons.
I was not surprised a couple of years ago when Representative Faison pantsed a referee at a local high school basketball game. But I am shocked to find that he would actually pants himself.
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Gary Humble
Gary Humble