If you want to know something, the best way to find out is to ask. I wrote Gov Sanford about his participation in the Bilderberg meeting and this was his lengthy response.
"I appreciate you taking the time to write me with regard to the Bilderberg Conference because it was in fact helpful to me in learning more about a group I didn't know was seen in such a controversial light. Given the concerns that you raise, I guess I would say a couple of different things:
First, attending an event doesn't change who I am. I am invited to all sorts of different conferences, speaking events, and groups. It's interesting to learn from different people's perspectives and to hear where they are coming from, but who I am - and what I am about - was seared into me as a boy through summers at our farm down in Beaufort County under the tutelage of my dad. He was a man who fiercely believed in freedom and a man I tremendously admired, though I unfortunately lost him early in life. I am unequivocally a backer and believer in liberty. I believe in the sanctity of the individual and the family and God as pillars of our society. I believe what has made our society work for the last 200 years has been elevating those pillars of individual, family and God well above any foundation of state, local, federal or other government. I also believe in the sovereignty of our country, versus any world power - and in the checks and limitations of power as prescribed by our founding fathers and the Bill of Rights with its accompanying civil liberties. These things are all keys to limiting government growth at any level.
Second, those searing work experiences and learning lessons with my dad on our farm have in fact demonstrated themselves consistently in all of my actions in public policy. Not to blow my own horn, but as a way of answering the legitimate concerns you raised, I would point to the very consistent pattern to my votes and actions both in my time in Congress, and through my time in the governorship. As an example, I was rated number one in the entire United States Congress by the National Taxpayers Union in efforts to limit federal spending and the growth of government. During my time here in Columbia, we have very consistently tried to limit government growth and taxes at the state level. These debates for our administration have ultimately been about liberty because a dollar taken from individuals and spent by government represents a dollar and time taken from that individual - in other words, less freedom in what the individual can do. You see that same bent in many other policies, whether it's about restructuring - which is about restoring checks and balances within our political system at the state level that don't presently exist, but were envisioned in what the founding fathers described in the original Constitution as they outlined balance of power and limitation of power. You also see this bias in the fact that this administration was one of less than five governorships that really drew a line in the sand when pushing back on Real ID. Accordingly, I've taken the liberty of including an excerpt from the October 2008 issue of Reason magazine that talked about our fairly crucial role in that debate and the efforts to stem the tide on Real ID. The article stated:
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican, didn't need the pep talk. He had opposed a national ID card for years, starting when he was a congressman in the mid-1990s. "Illegal immigration was used as the Trojan horse back then," Sanford remembers. "The new ingredient is post-9/11 fears."
I could go on with a lot of other things, but I hope you get the point - which is rest assured, I haven't changed as a result of my attendance at this conference. I was indeed one of the two governors invited, one Republican and one Democrat. I would say that my experience was similar to any of the other conferences that I go to where you have a bunch of people talking about ideas on which they may have strong opinions - but have very little ability to impact the outcome. It was my understanding that this conference was originally born out of the old western alliance after World War II, and as the tie between the US and Europe was beginning to wane, it was put together by leaders at that time to keep the conversations going between people in Europe and America.
It's not to say that your concerns aren't warranted, but it is to say that I have never found any harm in talking to people and seeing where they are coming from. In this instance, the extent of my experience was conversation and visiting with some interesting business people and a handful of political leaders. I want to stress again that none of the people I talked to held many keys to being able to reshape the America, the South Carolina or for that matter the world in which Jenny and I live - or the world our boys will continue to live in after we are gone. This is important because I believe tomorrow should be shaped by the collective actions of millions acting in their own best interest as free people - rather than by the decisions of a so-called group of wise people or central government planners and bureaucrats.
Again, thank you for taking the time to write."
Mark
