Why I'm a Conservative (and You Should Be Too)

I'm a conservative, because I care deeply about the individual. I want every individual in America to succeed. I believe that history has proven that the best path to achieve this is by valuing every life and allowing every individual to pursue their dreams. I believe there is no greater role for government than protecting our God-given rights to Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I believe the Constitution and Bill of Rights are sacred, that these rights should never be infringed upon; not by any institution or corporation or government agent, and certainly not for any program designed for the "social collective good."

"This nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened." Those words were spoken by John F. Kennedy. I know he's a Democrat, and if Democrats were still following his advice, maybe I wouldn't be voting Republican. But they're not. The Democratic Party has been hijacked by extremists and progressives who are intent on forcing the individual to relinquish his liberties for their utopian vision.

I'm a conservative, because I trust people to make their own decisions, even when those decisions are wrong. I trust them, because I know that we learn from our mistakes, that we succeed or fail in the free market based on our merits. Some of the mistakes I've made have been the best learning experiences of my life. A caged bird never learns to fly. Removing difficult decisions from a person's life only induces a spiritual emptiness that, like a narcotic, leaves a society totally dependent and morally bankrupt.

Like all conservatives, I'm for lower taxes. I believe Americans are the best judge of how to spend and save their own money. I trust every American to earn their entire paycheck, to find jobs that meet their needs and to keep every dime for the needs of their families. I think we are overburdened by unnecessary taxes and big government. The economy keeps shrinking while the government expands. I think it's wrong to make Americans spend four, five, or six months out of the year working for the government. The government should work for the people.

I'm a conservative, because I grew up in a small town where I learned government works best when more decisions are made at a local level. I believe tax dollars are spent more efficiently when you know the person allocating them, when you see him or her at your church or in your neighborhood, and when you have access to their office. I believe for government to work for the people, it has to be held accountable by the people.

When the average American's hard-earned money is sent to Washington, it enters a dragon's lair of greedy lobbyists and special interests. There is too much red tape for anyone to be held accountable. These dollars are taken out of the pockets of families trying to budget for cars and vacations, college and doctors visits, and instead put in the hands of political cronies. The money is no longer playing a contributing factor to the US economy, prevented from being spent at local restaurants, mom and pop stores, and small businesses. It has been stolen from the community that created the job that produced it, kept from improving their neighborhoods, roads, and schools. If by some miracle it gets sent back to them, after accounting for fraud and administrative costs, its worth would likely be cut in half. Only a Democrat would call this efficient.

I'm a conservative, because I believe the best way to help people is to make them independent, not more dependent on government. Too often government handouts simply enslave the recipients, robbing them of their self-worth. I believe in volunteering and giving to charity, not waiting for the government to provide charity through various faceless agencies. A garden requires more than sunlight and water to grow. It needs to be tended to, weeds pulled, with a constant gardener to nurture the seeds into fruit. By creating huge bureaucracies to do the social work that we should all be doing in our own communities, we have removed the human element of "love your neighbor", allowing money to replace spiritual growth and hurting American families in the process. I would rather teach a man to fish for life than give him a fish for a day.

I believe that America is the land of opportunity. I believe in supporting entrepreneurs and encouraging the American Dream. I have seen how the success of my business sends ripples throughout the economy, helping create jobs and allowing my vendors to purchase new machinery, spurring growth in other sectors. Like most conservatives, I believe that out-of-control government spending, overreaching bureaucrats, and burdening regulations often prevent businesses from creating these opportunities for many Americans.

Our forefathers didn't come here because America was the land of tranquil servitude; they didn't come here for welfare or union jobs or because America guaranteed success. No, in fact, they risked everything, including their lives, for the chance to start their own enterprises, for the grand adventure of life, to dream bigger dreams for their children and grandchildren. They came here for the promise of freedom, to live free of the constraints and taxes of authoritarian regimes that so often destroy prosperity and happiness.

I believe America stands for freedom. As Ronald Reagan used to say, we are the shining city on the hill. Our freedoms - the right to bear arms, the right to disagree with our leaders, freedom of the press, freedom to worship, freedom to engage in economic activity by starting our own businesses - they are a beacon of hope, an example for all people and nations to follow. We are exceptional not because of our government or any piece of legislation we might pass, but because we, the people, are the government. It's this guiding principle we must always stand for and always fight to protect. When we retreat from voicing our disapproval of hostile regimes around the world, when we compromise our principles to try and please others, when we fail to stand up for American values, we risk letting others move us away from that light and into the darkness.

I'm a conservative, because I believe this is the greatest nation on God's green earth. I believe there's no need to apologize for it. I believe in American Exceptionalism, which our current Democratic president doesn't seem to comprehend. I believe a man's heart is measured by how much he is willing to help others, not how much he is willing to take from others. I believe the wealth of a nation is measured not by how much the government can confiscate from its citizens, but by how much its citizens freely give of their time and goodwill towards a greater purpose and future.

I believe the spirit of a nation is measured by virtue and valor. How true are we to the principles of our democracy, and how willing are we to die for those principles? A nation without faith in liberty, trust in its citizens, and men of such spirit will surely perish, replaced by a truer nation of virtue and valor.

I vote Republican, because the Republican Party represents the best of conservatism, and conservatism represents the best of America's hopes and dreams. The Republican Party still celebrates the spirit and ingenuity that created the airplane and the personal computer, that gave us television, rock n roll, and put a man on the moon. Our system of free enterprise has brought more people out of poverty, including immigrants from all around the world, than any other nation in the history of earth. We've been the most prosperous nation during the most prosperous century of mankind. We may face new challenges, but our story doesn't end here.

Now is not the time to abandon our principles, to limit freedom and restrict growth, to attempt to contain risks and regulate salaries and free markets, to bind ourselves from exploring new horizons for fear of the future. It's still morning in America. We can make the next century even greater than the last if we stay true to the vision of our founders. If we trust the individual. If we encourage our citizens to dream and dare to let our imaginations soar. If we work for each other, and not against one another. If we limit the scope of government for the greater hope of humanity. This is our cause. Not big government or government bailouts. But freedom, liberty, and opportunity for all.

There's a famous bell in Philadelphia with an inscription on it that says, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." That's why I'm a conservative. I want to spread liberty throughout the land. God bless America.

America's Spiritual Drought

After almost 70 days of 100 degree temperatures this summer with no substantial rain, Austin finds itself in a serious drought. Lake Travis has been reduced to a river running through a canyon and nearby creeks and springs that are always full of water have completely dried up. The soil is hard, barren, and cracked. It needs nourishment. But this is nothing compared to the spiritual drought our nation currently faces.

The American Dream is dying. It is being strangled and constrained by Big Government. And if we don't renew our commitment to the founding values that gave birth to this nation and 240 years of unbridled prosperity, we risk destroying it. A fertile economy needs fertile soil. That soil requires liberty and liberty requires opportunity, the opportunity for Americans to succeed or fail on the merits of their ideas. It requires private capital pouring into free markets instead of being seized and managed by the state. It requires limited government that is more accountable to the people (think globally, govern locally) and works for the people's best interests, not the best interests of bureaucrats and the politically elite.

Our forefathers didn't come here because America was the land of tranquil servitude, they didn't come here for the entitlements or welfare or union jobs or because America guaranteed success. No, they risked everything, including their lives, to sail to a foreign land that offered nothing but hard, rugged work and sacrifice. But it offered something else, something greater than personal profit. It offered independence and opportunity, a place where they could speak freely and worship freely, where they could escape the overbearing taxation and authoritarian rule of European monarchies. It offered a chance to start their own enterprises and dream bigger dreams than anyone ever imagined. These brave men and women risked everything for a promise. That promise was a better life for their families and their grandchildren and their grandchildren's children. In that, they succeeded.

Over the past decade, but especially over the past two years, we've done everything imaginable to wreck that promise and spit on their hard work. We've gone from a nation that celebrated the independent spirit to a nation that seeks to make more families than ever dependent on government. We've gone from a nation that did a poor job of overseeing certain aspects of the financial market, to a country bent on overregulating and intruding in everything; from the life-saving treatments doctors can offer their patients to the pay of private sector employees, from subsidizing inefficient energy to injecting cash into failing companies.

The path our current leaders have laid out for us is fraught with peril. It goes against the exact principles that America was founded on. A blip in our economy has been turned into a crisis of political opportunity for those who wish to change this nation forever (as White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel said, "Never let a crisis go to waste.") Rather than adjust for the terrain and steer the ship gently forward, they wish to change our course completely. They see a large, centrally planned government as the solution to all our problems, but the exact opposite is true. Big Government is the problem, and it is making our economy and our way of life progressively worse.

When a large, centrally planned government picks winners and losers, the only winners are special interests and lobbyists. When a large, centrally planned government attempts to control and ration resources, it rations and controls prosperity. When a large, centrally planned government prohibits risks, it stifles entrepreneurship. And when a large, centrally planned government tries to ensure not equal opportunity for all, but instead an equal outcome for every individual regardless of their decisions, it tramples on personal liberties.

The hopes and dreams of Americans don't rest in the hands of bureaucrats. The American Dream doesn't rely on the creation of a new czar or government agency. The American Dream rests in the freedom of the individual and the hands of the people. We got to where we are today because of these values, not despite them, and we did it without the interference of a huge, overbearing nanny state. America isn't great because of our government or because our government knows best. America is great, because we, the people, are the government.

Never in my lifetime has the government ignored the will of the people as much as it does today. Never in my lifetime has the leadership in Washington attempted to confiscate and control as much private wealth as this government has attempted to take over. Never in my lifetime has a president organized his own army of protesters to demonstrate against those who protest his policies. During this unspeakable process, I have watched the economy tank, businesses close, and investors and consumers pull their money out of the suddenly not-so-free markets. As a small business owner, I now face the difficult decision of closing my shop or trying to salvage something out of this wretched and hostile business environment.

The American economy can't recover until the American spirit recovers. The American spirit can't recover until we dare to dream again, to imagine the impossible. To imagine the impossible, we must remove the constraints that we constantly place on the individual and the entrepreneur. We must not just protect our freedoms, we must encourage them to flourish.

We must stop enabling an obese and unfettered government to take resources away from hard-working families and communities. We must stop collecting the high taxes that we confiscate from our most successful people and businesses, for these are often the same people that have the resources to bet on visionary ideas and invest in research and development. This is a nation that put a man on the moon and invented the airplane and the computer. These are amazing accomplishments that were once considered impossible, spurred by visionaries encouraged to take risks. Where are the dreamers that can spur this innovation tomorrow?

Today, the dreamers are hindered by an ideology that is more concerned with restricting and taking from successful enterprises than encouraging new ones. They are hampered by a bureaucracy that rewards dependency. The poison that keeps our spirit barren and our economic soil from being fertile is called progressivism. It is the most tempting, most abused, and misguided ideology in the world.

Progressivism preys on the human heart. It takes the compassion we feel for those less fortunate than ourselves and uses it against us, not by encouraging us to give but instead by encouraging us to take. It teaches people to covet, to not be generous with the fruits of their own labor, but to start counting and redistributing other people's wealth. As a result, an economy of abundance is turned into a nation of hoarders. People hang on to their possessions more dearly. They become greedy and the state becomes even greedier. After all, the state has been granted license to steal.

Progressivism encourages man to play God. It is an ideology that seeps in where spiritual fulfillment is weakest. It usurps religion and grants man the power to experiment socially with the lives of fellow human beings in order to "fix" perceived injustices. It removes choices, both moral and personal, along with their consequences, from the person. The state institution will see you through now. It steps on the rights of the individual in the name of the greater good. If one man's rights can be threatened, any man's rights can be threatened, and as a result no one's rights are protected except for tyrants.

It is this ideology that Barack Obama and the far left have chosen to inject into the bloodstream of our nation. Not because they mean harm, but because the chance to play God is too seductive. The road to hell is always paved with good intentions. That is why progressivism is the most dangerous type of tyranny that exists. It is as far from our founding documents and the Declaration of Independence as you can imagine. It hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried, and it will divide our nation. It will destroy the spirited work ethic that we hold so valuable. Even Democrats such as Franklin Deleanor Roosevelt warned against it's unintended consequences. "Continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber... a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit."

That was in 1935. Today, we find ourselves much further down the slippery slope of government dependence. After years of social engineering and endless entitlement programs, we are much closer to economic bankruptcy and moral disintegration than ever. We are in the midst of a huge spiritual drought. If ever there was a time to renew and restore our faith in free enterprise, fiscal responsibility, limited government, independence, and God, that time is now. Let freedom ring.

Raving Mad, Right-Wing Extremist's Shocking Protest Sign!

If it ain't broke, don't break it.

Now that's what I call patriotic. Beats comparisons to Hitler. And its enough food for thought to allow the statist/big government Democrat an opportunity to make a fool of themselves with a rebuttal. Just don't look for meaningful debate. Barney Frank and Obama have already given their stock answer, "Bush Did It!"

Yeah, flimsy. Too bad these are all government programs started by Democrats. How did Einstein define insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Of course, Obama thinks he's smarter than Einstein.

Hat tip: Charlie Foxtrot.