Being conservative is about courage. It's about courage and integrity in the individual. It's about faith in the individual to do the right thing as opposed to the line of thinking that expresses belief that we need the government to fix it all. When one believes the government is needed to fix it all, or that the government actually can, it is because the individual who believes this has lost belief in them self. They don't believe their own actions matter and they have no faith in their own choices to do right. Because they can't deal with these things in themselves they project it onto a large screen. They believe people in general are lazy and selfish. They believe people in general will always choose actions that will harm others. In the end it is all about believing in the worst in people. It is a pessimistic path and a personally irresponsible path. It is the path of the perpetual child that won't grow up and needs the parent always to tell them what they are allowed to do. It is a path that breeds contempt for those who have faith; faith in themselves and faith in others. It is also a path of mediocrity. If one succumbs to the fear of failure, one tries less; risks less to succeed. If one has attached shame to success, while feeling sorry for those who don't succeed is allowed to thwart one's own efforts, the result is mediocrity. The disconnect between cause and effect cannot be so apparent as it is in relation to long term results of such a belief system. It is a self-perpetuating belief in failure. It is a pessimistic outlook whose results are easy to see. Abortion rates are increasing, test scores in our schools have been on the decline, while prescription drugs to treat a myriad of mental disorders continue to increase. The mental health profession has become a booming business that continues to increase. Why?

The character, the backbone, the mental strength and coping skills built upon the risk of failure and actual experiences of failing are needed for human evolution. We are born with stress. It is the actual stress of our organism as the womb is expelling us that results in our birth. Our physical needs to feed and be touched propel us to learn how to communicate and to move; from bringing our fist to our mouths all the way to talking in complete sentences. How many times does the fist of the babe slam into its own eyeball and nose accidentally connecting with mouth before the pathway in the brain makes a deep enough groove that it becomes no accident but a deliberate action. When we remove the consequence of failure how do we evolve? In public schools across our nation children are subjected to bland general water painted definitions of success. It used to be that if a paper was handed in it was sent back to be corrected. Misspelled words, capitals and punctuation were elements of unacceptable work. For at least the last 15 years ( I have children that led me back into the halls of the public schools) incomplete and unacceptable work has been made acceptable; is right out there up on the wall in the hallway displayed alongside with other papers of varying degrees of acceptability. When a child is sent back to correct mistakes they learn a few things. They learn the proper way of writing, number one. They learn to pay attention to detail. They learn about failure and their brains learn how to improve. Our organism is designed to improve upon itself and its performance. On the little league team, the children ask, ‘Who won?” And they are told, “Everybody. We’re all winners.” The mantra changed from Hard Work Pays and Anything Worth Doing is Worth Doing Right to Just Try. You mean all I have to do is try? A+ for effort. The results of your efforts stopped mattering so much. Effort is very important, however, if we downplay or actually remove an unsatisfactory result, we remove the impetus to grow, change, to re-evaluate and do different. The safety net that prevents actual failure impedes the drive to succeed. What are the results to be expected when we remove the consequences of failure? What are the results to be expected when rewards for putting in an effort are the same as producing excellence? What are the results to be expected when you’ve spend hours practicing, and become a most excellent team player with excellent individual skills, catch that fly, swing that bat with all your might and knock it right out there, slide into home; but you can’t keep score? The reward for giving something your all used to be that feeling of satisfaction with the object of what you earned. And the process of risking failure, because it was still a possibility, and continuing to give it your all, engaged the whole you. You invested yourself. So when you got that A+ and you knew it was going in the hall, you finished feeling like you actually accomplished something. When everything goes up in the hall, it’s as good as nothing going up in the hall. When you don’t have the risk of failure, achieving means so much less. When achieving means so much less, our natural desire to grow dulls. We become soft and unable to deal with the ups and downs of life. We’re disengaged while experiencing an unconscious internal conflict between, oh here are those words, nurture and nature. It is a natural part of the human organism to continue getting better (read ‘evolve’). The systematic nurturing has been a thwarting of the inherent human programming. How much medication needs to be prescribed to address the depression that so much of us are in? Disengaged also means powerless. Powerless also means not responsible. And with no accountability, and no bottom (read failure), with all those safety nets, what do we have? We have kids who cannot compete, either because they have no umph or because they not educated and lacking creative problem solving skills (which, by the way, are developed more fully through failure), our children are growing up medicated, we have colleges complaining about the quality of the students coming out of the public schools (they’re missing not only info, but also self-direction), we have a global economy that we are not keeping up with, never mind leading.

We want to help people. Humans are compassionate. We don't like to see suffering or injustice. We aim to be fair. When good intentions go awry because we go overboard and don't stop, the liberal application of fairness results in what we have today. Affirmative Action legislation is a good example of good intentions gone awry. I don’t know one woman who would prefer to be hired because she is a woman rather than based on her own merits. And I just can’t imagine that a Black person would want to be hired based on the color of his/her skin. I would think that skill and knowledge would be a more preferred reason by the person being hired.

The results of continuously saving each other from failing has created a disengaged generation of victims who rest on their own powerlessness. Becoming lazy in spirit with matching government safety nets put in place results in less freedom for the people, on a myriad of levels. We see the state issuing laws to control every aspect of our lives, just about. I cannot bake a pie and sell it to my neighbor without paying for a government inspection. Licenses for all kinds of activities are being required.  In Maine the seeds to grow food you need to eat are taxable.

On another side of it, we have employers bemoaning the kind of workers they are seeing. “Can I have a raise? I showed up on time for a month.” The result of saving each other from failure is perfectly illustrated when just showing up is the expectation that our kids think is required to get anywhere.

What are the results to be expected from a disengaged populace? The distance between Us & Them is not supposed to be so great. The government was put in place to, in a nut shell, keep order; to allow us to be human beings, guaranteed Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, while causing the least damage to others guaranteed Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

The guarantee is not Happiness. It is the Pursuit that is guaranteed. The expectation in that line of our Constitution is that the individual needs to do something to get Happiness. The individual is guaranteed the freedom to pursue. Happiness is loosely translated as success. What it means to be successful depends on who is asking that question. When success was defined as home ownership and the “we are all winners” people decided to lower the expectations necessary to purchase a home, combined with a disengaged populace whose personal responsibility was lacking due to years of softened consequences and then huge government safety nets were put in place so the bottom disappeared, what precisely were the results to be expected?!

Oh, I know. It’s the greedy businesses. Let’s tax them. Gee, a ¼ of a million dollars is really too much money for a greedy business to have. Let’s take from the rich and give to the poor. Let’s spread the wealth around. That way the businesses can increase the cost of good and services. That way the people can’t buy as much. That way the businesses can lay people off. That way we can have more unemployed folks so we can increase the number of people who rely on the government. That way we’ll share the poverty and become a nation of oppressed poor people. What a great solution to a disengaged populace. Not a future I want anything to do with. No, thank you.

The Liberal Mind speaks worlds:

- we need the government to fix things
-our country is too big for the 9th and 10th amendment
-kids are going to have sex anyway so we should at least teach them how
-its not fair (whiny) that there are poor folks
-tax the rich!

I am conservative for a number of reasons. The conservatives are empowering; they believe in me. The Conservative Mind believes in itself. It has faith in its own ability to create opportunities, to solve problems, to impact its own life. It believes in the ability of others to do the same. The Conservative Mind is the eternal cheerleader whether you succeed or fail. It cheers you on. It rejoices in your success. It tells you to get up after you fall. It tells you to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and keep trucking. It has no qualms with lending a helping hand because it believes you want to let go of that hand. It believes in your natural inclination to want to walk on your own. It believes that you, too, have faith in yourself. The Conservative Mind believes in you. It believes you are powerful. It believes you have a conscience. It believes in your intelligence. It believes in your ability to evaluate your own life and make your own choices. The Conservative Mind believes in your inner strength. Because it does, it believes in your ability to handle the consequences of your own failed choices. It believes in your ability to learn, adapt, grow and become better.

The Liberal Mind believes that we need a parent to ensure boundaries, because, well, it doesn’t trust itself. The Conservative Mind is the parent who creates limited boundaries and evaluates the effects all the while expecting growth and evolving results. I am a conservative because I have faith in my own abilities and therefore I have faith in yours. The Liberal Mind believes in government. The Conservative Mind believes in you.