Why A Conservative

Today folks I would like to discuss the topic of conservatism. I have been asked on several occasions why I am a conservative. I would like to address this topic by way of explaining my own personal beliefs. It seems as though all bloggers do a post like this at one point or another; therefore, I believe it is time for me to do the same.

I am a fiscal conservative first, a social conservative second. I would first like to define why I am a fiscal conservative. Fiscal conservatism is the belief that budgets should be maintained, and that money should not be wasted. In the context of the government, a fiscal conservative is one who believes in following the budget set for the government. In addition, a fiscal conservative tends to believe in taking the least amount of money away from hard-working Americans as possible, and that government spending should be directed in the most efficient way.

Fiscal conservatism requires several basic beliefs in order to work. Fiscal conservatism by its nature does not strive for a bloated government. This is obvious because fiscal conservatives do not want to steal money from the hard-working public to fund a bloated and inefficient government.

This is tied to the capitalistic ideal that the public, not the government, knows how best to spend their hard-earned money. A small government and public trust then are the two largest pillars in the mind of a fiscal conservative.

I am a die-hard fiscal conservative. To me, there is nothing more important in government than keeping politicians away from our freedoms. We must limit their ability to restrict our freedoms. The easiest way to do that is to keep the government out of institutions that it does not belong in for the most part, such as the business realm, education, and health care. Therefore, it is only natural for me to be a fiscal conservative. Small government means small interference into the workings of the public arena.

Of course, there are others reasons for why I am a fiscal conservative. The government seems to think that it can shake the money tree of the economy endlessly in the form of taxes. This of course is simply not true, which can be obviously seen in the off-shoring phenomenon that we are experiencing (especially, may I add, in non-fiscal conservative states for the most part). The government, in many ways, is simply a leech on the economy; though many times it claims to be the one keeping the economy alive.

The second major conservative school of thought is the social conservative side. This side, while not nearly as powerful as the fiscal conservative school of thought, is nonetheless an influential ideal in the conservative movement.

Social conservatism is the idea that many of our past morals and traditions must be maintained in order for society to function. Many of these ideals are based off of Judeo-Christian values that were much more prevalent in the world at one time.

The largest of these tenants are the belief in the sanctity of life. This tends to be associated with abortion and euthanasia. The social conservative believes that life begins at conception. To most, however, it is not moral to terminate life unless that person is a threat to society.

Therefore to the social conservative, it is amoral to kill babies before they are born (and after they are born for that matter), the elderly, the disabled, etc. Life is valuable regardless of what circumstances you are in or where you may find yourself. While most social conservatives draw the line at the higher level wrongs such as rape and murder, some take it a step farther and believe it is wrong to kill anyone for any reason.

Though it has not been the in the public eye for a long period, another point of interest for social conservatives is gay marriage. To the social conservative, gay marriage is wrong because they believe it violates the institution of marriage. While the source for marriage is debated, most believe it to be from God (I will stay with Christianity/Judaism/Islam for this topic). Therefore, since God has called marriage to be between one man and one woman, gay marriage violates a core value of most social conservatives.

In addition, there are many other ideas that most social conservatives follow, however I will not get into those here because they are smaller issues that need not be discussed in this brief summary.

I am a social conservative, though not to a large degree. The sanctity of life is paramount to me. While I am undecided as to where life begins (I don’t know if it’s at conception or not), I believe it is not up to humans to decide if a defenseless human should be allowed to live or not. This therefore makes me pro-life, both in the sense of abortion and euthanasia. I believe it is wrong to kill babies, for they have no way to defend themselves, a luxury even our most hated and vile public enemies have. To me, death on demand is wrong. I do not believe humans have to right to take their own lives, thus I cannot be in favor or euthanasia in any form.

The death penalty is something I am in favor of because I believe there comes a point where someone must be put to death if they are harming other humans. While many liberals do not seem to understand why, I believe this goes under the category of the sanctity of life. If someone is taking a life for the wrong reasons, it is correct and necessary to stop that attack – the death penalty does a good job with this.

Since I brought it up, I will talk briefly about gay marriage. This issue is one of the few issues I break with the social conservatives. I am pro-gay marriage. I desire for it to be legalized nationally. I am not pro-gay marriage, however, for the typical reasons. While I am neutral as to whether or not the gay lifestyle is correct, I do believe that the idea of denying the right to marry is a dangerous precedent to set.

Simply put, if the government can deny the right to marriage, a right I believe it should not be allowed to grant of deny in the first place, what else could the government deny? Perhaps they will deny the right for Christians to marry, or Jews to marry (anti-Semitism is on the rise in the elite circles of liberalism). In the future, what else could the government deny? The right for certain people to own guns, the right for people to buy food without government issues identification devices?

I believe giving the government the right to deny some rights will begin a slide that will end with American’s losing all their rights. Therefore, though it goes against nearly all my social conservative friends, I am pro-gay marriage on the basis of protecting my future.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is (in addition to being an obscenely large article) a brief summary of what in general is a fiscal conservative and a social conservative. Of course many people are both fiscally and socially conservative, some are only fiscally conservative, some are only socially conservative, some are certain degrees of both. Many of you who are reading this might completely disagree with my take on the two points of view in the conservative movement (oh well). However, that is a brief summary of what I believe the two points of view are, and where I stand in general in the political spectrum.

They're Coming Out!

September 21st was a day that liberals should have praised. A demographic that does not get much representation was able to express their views, to the dismay of the ruling class that has been oppressing them for years.

Unfortunately, this demographic is vehemently despised by the liberals, who claim to stand up for the rights of all (read liberal) people. This demographic is best known by the name conservative college students. The day was the first National Conservative Coming Out Day. And this event occurred on over 30 campuses, including Indiana State University, Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, and Cornell University just to name a few.

Why should we have such a day on college campuses, the centers of tolerance and openness in the world? Because universities (for the most part) are not quite as tolerant as one might expect. In fact, universities are some of the most intolerant, closed-minded, dogmatic institutions in the world (seconded only by the liberal blogosphere in fact).

The president of the Indiana State College Republicans, Jonathan Moore, said "coming out" day was important because conservative students often feel outnumbered and intimidated (I wonder how such tolerant people like liberals could come across that way?). But don’t take my word for it (although you know should); just listen to what others had to say:

"National Conservative Coming Out Day was an excellent opportunity to show the Michigan State University campus that there are conservatives on campus and we are proud of who we are," said Justine Ivanoff.

"Many students are afraid to identify themselves as conservative on campus because the political environment is so hostile to conservative ideas," said national CLP director Steve Stockman in a press release. "Conservative students are often intimidated by the documented liberal bias of professors and administrators."

Odd isn’t it that we never hear from the media about how the views of conservative students in our universities are never heard, but we do hear about how hard it is for liberal students to get their views heard in the Republic of Boulder, Colorado (for those of you outside of the Republic of Boulder, that town is around 90% MoveOn.org liberal).

And yet people claim there is no liberal biased media, that universities are centers of free speech, and the usual menu of liberal slogans.

A Liberal Dream!

The redistribution of wealth is a way to create equality in America. If we were to tax the rich to take away their obscenely large pocketbooks, and give the money to the poor, we would not have three classes in America. Instead of having the rich, the middle class, and the poor, we would have the universal middle class. Right?

Not quite. In theory, it works. In theory, it would probably be a wonderful scheme for our nation and world. But in reality, the idea of wealth redistribution is far from achievable.

This idea is a staple of liberal thought though. But, here is an idea. Let’s try it just for grins. And I know the perfect place to experiment with wealth redistribution.

I’m looking at college right now for next year. Colleges, even government run institutions, are quite expensive. However, I’m looking at going to a private college, Colorado Christian University (for a degree in finance). Therefore, I am quite aware of the high costs of some institutions.

What would happen, however, if Harvard decided to redistribute some of its obscenely fat pocketbook to help Colorado Christian University (CCU) bring down its tuition costs? That would be nice. Since CCU is not as wealthy as Harvard, it only seems “liberal” to bring Harvard’s wealth down and CCU’s wealth up so as to make the two colleges equal in abilities.

But why stop there? Why don’t we have all the colleges in America do this? Let’s have all the wealthy colleges donate their funds to the “less fortunate” colleges in America so that EVERYONE is equal. I mean, isn’t equality a liberal ideal?

Let’s not stop there. Why should some colleges get government funding and others not? That is “class warfare” right there against the public and private institutions. Everyone should be equal. So, it’s only fair to either give ALL colleges in America state funding, or have no college in America funded by the government.

When you think about it, you have to wonder where the liberals have been. There is a type of “class warfare” in academia between the rich and poor colleges, the state and private colleges. We must bring those barriers down! We must make all the colleges equal so no one has an advantage against the other. It’s so liberal; I wonder why liberals haven’t thought about it already.

God is Dead

God is dead. God is inferior to our modern day intelligence. God is obsolete. God is a figment of weak-minded people’s imagination. God is a crutch. God is dead.

Liberalism has embraced these ideas. It is evident from all points of view that they have. Isn’t it odd that there are some liberals who, for reasons unknown (probably political calculations), do not quite embrace this idea?

Case in point: In a recent piece by Dr. Paul Kengor, we see that 2008 presidential candidate Hillary RODHAM Clinton had an interesting quote:

In her book It Takes A Village, Hillary Rodham Clinton insisted that “nothing in the First Amendment converts our public schools into religion-free zones, or requires all religious expression to be left behind at the schoolhouse door.” Those words are actually her husband’s, as are these, which she also quoted approvingly: “[R]eligion is too important in our history and our heritage for us to keep it out of our schools.”

And her husband too? What is wrong with these people? Don’t they know the Democratic Party is the party of the ACLU, of the separation of church and state, of political correctness (which forbids God in the American vocabulary), and the party of restricting the freedom to express religious views?

Of course, Dr. Kengor provides us with a stunning parallel from one of the fathers of the modern conservative movement, President Ronald Reagan.

“Can it really be true that the First Amendment can permit Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen to march on public property, advocate the extermination of people of the Jewish faith and the subjugation of blacks, while the same amendment forbids our children from saying a prayer in school?”

Isn’t that terrible, that RODHAM and Reagan would agree on something? It just goes to show you that perhaps some of the smarter people in the Democratic Party know that the constant bashing of religious freedom is not the best thing that the Democratic Party could be doing right now.

Of course, whether or not RODHAM is making a political calculation is another debate. Before I end though, I would just like to reverberate something Dr. Kengor said at the end of his article. He said that it is vitally important that we acknowledge God. Why? In America, our wise founding fathers said that we have unalienable rights provided by God. If that is true, no one can take those rights away from us.

If it is not, who gave us those rights? The government did. So, if the government likes the idea, the government can take away our rights. Interesting thought, isn’t it. If God didn’t give us our unalienable rights, then we have no right to keep our rights if someone says we can’t. Food for thought.

Your favorite iPod 20GB, Macintosh OS X, and iLife fan!!!

Free Market vs. NASA

Does anyone remember what the plans for space exploration were originally? I was not born at that time, but being very knowledgeable, I know what the plans were.

A Mars mission was on tap for the early 1980s, and an entire infrastructure was planned for near-Earth space, tasked with constructing spacecraft, facilitating private industry, and supporting genuine settlement.

What do we have now? Shuttles that barely work, a space station that is too small to live in, and the Russians now dominate space (at least it’s not the Soviets, but liberals would have loved it if it had been them).

Who are we to blame for this lack of vision that is now present within NASA? Richard Nixon, for one. We also mustn’t forget the Democrats who controlled the government in those days.

But it is not quite as much of a political matter as you might think, though politics always finds a way to get its hands into arenas where it shouldn’t be (both Republicans and Democrats do this).

No, it is the same thing that happened in New Orleans, it is the same thing that happens when you go to the DMV, and it is the same thing that happens when you try and get an answer from the IRS – you run into bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy is a necessary evil that, like inflation, must be kept in check. Bureaucracy is, I believe, an inevitable side effect of a larger government. As anyone knows, bureaucracy creates paperwork, regulations, burdens, unnecessary red-tape, paperwork, inefficiency, paperwork, and paperwork. Bureaucracy is what keeps government from working efficiently.

Bureaucracy is what killed the space exploration dreams of the 60s. Fortunately (actually, unfortunately for socialists), the government is not our provider (or at least to hard working Americans it is not). The free-market comes close though. And the free market has finally set its eyes on space.

Virgin Atlantic has formed a new division, Virgin Galactic, which has plans for regular service to space by 2007. Space Adventures has plans to send passengers to the moon and orbit the space body. NASA has plans to work on their shuttles so that they can finally go to space!

Though these space “tourist” rides are extraordinarily expensive, people are buying tickets. As with everything, the price will come down as more people become interested in commercial space flights.

Just think, it cost billions of dollars for NASA to send folks to the moon, but it only costs millions to send folks to the moon when the private sector does it. And the private sector makes money because of these tours, unlike NASA.

Your favorite 17-year-old Rocky Mountain snowboarder and political guru,
Caleb

Big Money

The far Left wing of the Democratic Party is quite out-of-touch with reality. The far Left wing is convinced of many things that are just not true. Some of these include: everyone in the military is forced to be there, the public schools are right-wing conservative brainwashing centers, and the mainstream media is unbiased or right leaning.

Today I would like to focus in on the mainstream media. This entity includes, but is not limited to, The New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS, and the usual suspects.

Now, this is all fine and good. I believe BOTH sides should be able to speak their minds (if the Left embraced that idea, we would probably not be in the brutal name calling situation that we find ourselves in). That is why, unlike the Left, I don’t want CNN to be shut down (although the far Left wing wants FOX News shut down).

But, it appears there might be a genuine threat on the horizon. The guy who looks out for the poor, billionaire George Soros, is up to his dirty tricks again. A group of at least 80 wealthy Democrat supporters each pledged to put up at least $200,000 a year for five years that will raise $200 million dollars to invest in "a network of think tanks and advocacy groups."

Now, whenever you have a team of George Soros, big money, and Democrats, you are going to have a threat to freedom. Anyone who is at least somewhat open-minded knows that Democrats don’t care about the freedom of the press. They care instead about controlling the press.

The big problem with Democrats is they don’t understand who they are. I have surmised, over the last two years of watching politics, that the Democrats don’t understand what they are. They honestly believe that they are moderates. They are the moderates, the far Left wing is slightly left, and anyone right of the Democrat from Arizona, John McCain, is a conservative extremist. Therefore, when they see that some of the media (such as radio and FOX News) are not far left wing (or moderate in their eyes), they cry out in agony at the “conservative extremist” message that is being sent out.

That is why obscenely wealthy George Soros, who obviously has nothing better to spend his obscenely fat pocketbook on, is going to “buy” liberal think tanks. Will he succeed? Probably. Will he win in the end? I doubt it, because his liberal think tanks are going to be nothing more than MoveOn.org clones, which are part of the losing far Left wing of the Democratic Party.

Your favorite 17-year-old political guru and (or so Anna and Mitch think) American Eagle Outfitters enthusiast,

Caleb

Price Caps

The great state of Hawaii, a state where I once lived, is on its way to creating an energy crisis that will rival the Energy Crisis of the 1970s.

Hawaii has decided to enforce a cap on the wholesale price of gas, a move they believe will help curb the rising price of fuel.

Now, that is all good and swell, for who likes these prices? I sure don’t. I mean, I have to drive “down the hill” (for those of you outside of Colorado, that means out of the Rocky Mountains and into the plains, or I my case, the Denver metro area) to get to my community college where I attend. That is a pain in the wallet.

Being knowledgeable about economics (I plan to be a business major when I enter college), I see Hawaii’s move as one that will usher in a new energy crisis for that state (and if other states follow, the entire country).

Why is a price cap on gas the wrong way to go about fixing the problem of high gas prices? Because price caps, by their very nature, act contrary to economic theory.

I am going to go through this topic very briefly (I once wrote a 10 page research paper on this very subject), so please contact me if you desire a more complete explanation (I only answer blog emails on Tuesday and Thursday by the way).

Price caps are a form of law that the government places on private companies. These laws dictate to companies (in this case, gas suppliers) how much they can sell their product for.

Let’s study an easy example. Let’s say gas prices in Colorado are $3.00 per gallon (actually, right now they are somewhere in the mid-$2.50 range). Let’s say the Democratic controlled Colorado State House and State Senate pass a law saying gas suppliers cannot sell their product for over $3.00 a gallon.

What will the reaction be of the supplier? The supplier of gasoline will see that he cannot, by law, sell gas for over $3.00 a gallon. Therefore, when the supplier buys gas, he will only buy as much as can be sold for under $3.00.

Since the gas station owner is only buying the amount of gas that can be sold for under $3.00, some gas that normally would have been bought by the gas station is now not being bought. Well, you might say, the free market will take care of that and buy the remaining supply. Wrong.

It is not a free market anymore, you see. As gas becomes more scarce, the price will go up over the $3.00 point. At that point, the gas cannot be legally bought because the pump is not allowed to sell it for that much.

What will the oil refinery do with the unsold gas that has not been bought? Initially, that gas will go to waste (or be given away to clear inventory that cannot be sold). But the refinery is not stupid. The refinery knows that it is producing TOO MUCH gas for the market (thanks to our good friends in the government) and will decide to not produce any more gas than can be sold.

What happened in the end then? The gas station has decided to not buy as much gas as it used to. Now, we have a gas shortage. The refinery has also decided to stop producing as much gas. Right there, we have an even larger gas shortage.

So, as you can see, the price cap didn’t do its job very well. Instead of just high gas prices, we have high gas prices AND a gas shortage. That is only half of the story.

What happened to the consumers? When the price cap hit, there was a shortage of gas at the station. People who need gas will (wisely) decide to go to the station early in the morning to get the gas they need so that the gas station will not be sold out when they really need gas. The only problem is that 100 other smart people thought about the same thing. Therefore, when they arrive at the station, there is a line, a LONG line (in this case, 100 people). The line will only get longer.

When people see lines, they will start to panic about the shortage. Now everyone is going to start getting in line for the gas that is going to run out. So now we have high gas prices, a shortage, and LONG lines at the gas stations. Seems to me that the government, in its infinite wisdom, didn’t solve a thing, but instead (as they nearly always do when they mess with economics) made the situation worse.

How will we fix this problem then? The free market always fixes its problems, right? Most of the time, it does, but this is not a free market, you will recall. It a government regulated market now. In theory, the situation will go on indefinitely unless someone eradicates the price caps.

But don’t take my word for it. Just look at what happened when Nixon put price caps on gas. It was one of the key contributors to the Energy Crisis of the 1970s. The problem is, if we are not careful, our situation could turn into a much worse energy crisis. I would suggest, then, that we not place price caps on gas. We may be headed to an energy crisis without price caps anyways, so let’s not make our situation even worse. Oh wait, Hawaii is about to fix that, and the whole country may soon follow.

Good One

Well, finally someone put Matt Lauer in his place. Mr. Lauer, from the Today Show, took a surprise vacation to Iraq not long ago. He had decided to investigate a very strange phenomena – high morale in Iraq among the U.S. military.

Mr. Lauer, braver than the average reporter since he (I have to admit) dared to leave his plush hotel and report what was actually going on in Iraq, met up with Captain Sherman Powell.

Matt Lauer quickly discovered that morale was indeed high in Iraq.

Perplexed (I’m sure), he continued, "Don't get me wrong, I think you're probably telling the truth, but there might be a lot of people at home wondering how that could be possible with the conditions you're facing and with the insurgent attacks you're facing. "

Captain Powell next responded to Matt Lauer with an answer that even I (in my infinite wisdom and knowledge) could not have done better, "Well sir, I'd tell you, if I got my news from the newspapers also I'd be pretty depressed as well!"

As any teenager would say, “Darnit Lauer, that sucks.”

I can only imagine the look on Lauer’s face. What an answer!

Now, let us take a tad bit closer of a look at this little exchange. First, I would like to point out something that Lauer said, “Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re probably telling the truth…” What is wrong with that sentence? Reporters, you see, think everyone who is not a liberal is always lying. Though he skated by it, Lauer almost called Powell a liar in that sentence. Now, as we all know, Powell must have been lying, for no soldier is his or her right mind would ever be proud of what they are doing in Iraq. I mean, how can they, Jane Fonda is not.

Powell stated what I have been saying (and most other conservatives) for a long time. Newspapers, especially the primary papers like The New York Times, Washington Post, etc, are biased so far to the left in most cases that they portray the War in Iraq with disgust. Therefore, when the soldiers take time out of their day to read those rags, they find that the way Iraq is presented is quite depressing.

Powell said it quite elegantly. And though I know Lauer will not change his position, the American people cannot help but notice what Captain Powell said.

Ambassador Bolton

Hello everyone, it’s Uncle Rico. I just finished downloading a new CD on my iPod and heard about John Bolton being nominated as the ambassador to the U.N. Right on! We need a strong leader to make drastic reforms at the United Nations, and a diplomat who will advance America’s interests too.

Upon hearing of Bolton’s appointment, I thought that the Liberals in the Congress had voted; then I realized that Congress was in recess. As it turns out, President Bush named John Bolton “to the post” on Monday, August 1, without Senate confirmation. Do not think President Bush is breaking constitutional rules. There have been many previous Presidents who have made recess appointments. There were 140 recess appointments in President Clinton’s two terms. Two hundred forty-three appointments recess appointments were made in President Reagan’s two terms. President John F. Kennedy (1961), President Dwight Eisenhower (1953), and President George Washington (1795) all made recess appointments. So do not make a claim that President Bush is the only President to do so.

It’s about time that Bolton was given the job. It’s been five months since Bolton was nominated. Some Liberals are taking this pretty hard after filibustering Bolton’s nomination. John Bolton had up to 55 Senate votes if an up or down vote count had been allowed to take place. As usual the Democrats brought false accusations against Bolton, a conservative who desires to advance America’s interests.

The Associated Press stated the Democrats thought Bolton lacked the diplomatic skills needed to advance America’s interests and improve America’s image abroad. Well, I, Uncle Rico believe the Senate Democrats have done more than their share of damaging America’s image but that is another topic.

Senator Kennedy said that the appointment was “shameful and irresponsible.” Senator Harry Reid said, “Bolton is flawed and weakened.” Senator Obama said that Bolton is a man who “bullies and undermines those who disagree with him.” There are those who do like President Bush’s move on making John Bolton the ambassador to the U.N. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist stated “The President did the right thing by sending Mr. Bolton to the U.N. He is a smart, principled and straightforward candidate, and will represent the President and America well on the world stage.” I could not have put it better myself Mr. Frist.

So in closing, Ambassador Bolton will make an excellent ambassador to the U.N. He will advance peace, liberty and human rights for all countries. He will promote American values and interests. It is my hope he will make drastic changes to the corrupted bureaucracy present at the UN. My steak is getting cold so until my next article, see ya.