Being Conservative

What does it mean to me to be conservative?

The meaning of this word in politics is changing almost daily. Here is what I believe.

The people can manage their money better than any government can. Big government taxes and spending should only occur when such spending will benefit a large group of Americans in need. This should only be done when the benefit is immediate, compelling, and not possible if the money is spent on an individual basis.

Government should be flexible, but firm at the same time. We need to reserve our hard-line politics for situations where 75% of the country actually does believe what you believe. The issue of Gay Marriage affects a very small portion of the country. There is no reason why the federal government should get involved with this issue. We do need to be flexible enough to allow it to happen, but we don't need to go hard-line for or against it.

Foreign Policy should read as such: If there is something happening in the world that might have a direct effect on the daily lives of American Citizens, we should get involved. If there is only a small chance, or if there is a war happening somewhere else, STAY OUT. If we want to offer humanitarian aid, it must only be offered if it is asked for. Interjecting our views on other countries has proven to be a big mistake, and we should focus our efforts on domestic issues.

Education should be taken out of politics. Period. Unless you are a parent of a child in a school, or unless you have an advanced degree in Education, STAY OUT OF THE SCHOOLS. Politicians are ill-equipped to rise to the challenge of Education policy. When allocating government funds, we should only provide enough oversight to ensure that the dollars allocated get spent at the ground level with good teacher salaries, moderate administrative salaries, and making sure that our schools have the best equipment and facilities in the world. Finally, stop all standardized testing. We need another way to rate our children's progress. Filling in bubbles on a sheet of paper is not enough. I don't pretend to know what the best way is, but I'm sure our educators can figure this one out.

Social Security should be more dynamic than it already is. The amount that we pay into Social Security should increase with inflation. Our senior citizens are valuable to this country, and we should never allow them to become "the dying poor".

With regard to Health Care, the idea of "for-profit" hospitals is appalling to me. All hospitals should be not-for-profit organizations. Exorbitant salaries for administrators just raise the price of healthcare. Don't get me wrong, people should be rewarded for the work they do, but it should be within reason. If you are running a hospital and making 300K/year or more, I'm talking about you.

That's about it. Any questions?

American Politics

In this last midterm election, I really tried to pay attention and get some cold facts out of all of the silly rhetoric. I have come to some disappointing conclusions.

1) Americans are fickle. They only see what they want to see today, and they have very little memory when it comes to history. This is best exemplified by the war issue. Do you remember how you felt on 9/11/2001? I was PISSED and ready to do whatever it took to prevent it from happening again. 90% of Americans felt the same way at that time. As the years passed, and now a mere 5 years later, so many Americans have forgotten about what happened. Some people even start developing theories that actually blame our own elected officials for the attack itself. This kind of lukewarm patriotism would never happen in the countries that we are fighting. Why are we this way?

2) Americans feel invincible. We have such lukewarm support for this war because 90% of Americans still feel perfectly safe in going about their daily lives. They still have the teenage mentality that "bad things won't happen to us". It's not our fault, though. Our president told us right after the attack that we should go about our daily lives and not live in fear. While it was a good statement to calm our feelings at the time, it worked a bit too well, and we have been lulled back into our comfortable place. The very place we were on 9/10/2001.

3) Americans really don't care about the rest of the world. Unless it has something to do with our daily routine, we generally don't care about it. We care about things when they come on the news. We donate money in the days and 4-5 months after a natural disaster, but after that, we move on to something else. Have you heard anything about New Orleans lately?

Don't get me wrong, I love this country and her people. I just wish that people would wake up and realize that they need to start holding grudges. We have been burned many times, and as soon as we see something else that we want, we forget about our national injury.