Fringe Conservative

I figured a good way to start this blog was with what is likely the only cordial word I will ever say to the current administration. I happen to be one of those Americans who has had a strong dislike for politics and up till this point in time has attempted to keep my head shoved into the ground as much as possible focusing on my two passions in life; software development and my family. While I always considered myself more in the center (i.e. not ulta-conservative as my parents were , I tended to vote party lines as a Republican. I lived under the false impression that ideas such as capitalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, states rights, and freedom where inherent in our culture and way in life and that the framework set up by our founders (i.e. the Constitution) would always ensure that.

However in what has seemed like a blink of the eye I have turned around and seen that:

• Our government has accrued close to 12 trillion in national debt
• We are paying at least 320 billion per year in just interest, tripling what it takes to say fund the education system and homeland security (60 billion and 42 billion respectively)
• We have an elected president that not only associates himself with a known terrorist (Bill Ayers) and hate speaker (Jeremiah Wright), but feels compelled to point what he believes to be the wrongs of my country everywhere he goes.
• Our once considered neutral media has become highly partisan and many “independent journalists” are clearly in bed with (and in some cases hired) into the current administration.
• We once again have a federal government attempting to force Universal Health Care down our throats, through nothing else than all out fear and deception.
• We have political driven organizations throughout the country (many of them such as Acorn receive federal funding) that are apt to bullying citizens for purposes that go against the concepts our country was founded on.
• Many of my more liberal friends are able to easily look past this and feel that I should be content with paying higher taxes and giving up my families freedoms in-order to serve a “greater good” (e.g. making sure there families are guaranteed health care and that there homes and cars are bailed out if necessary) or some-ones idea of a “greater good.

Yes, in retrospect I can see that my lack of perspective before was deeply flawed, blind to the obvious, and to a large extent self-serving. However, I have been given the opportunity to wake up and help change the current destructive course of our country. It is this awakening, as described by Katy Abram in her speech to senator Arlin Spector, that I actually thank Obama and his extremism for. For if McCain had been elected I fear that myself like many others would have kept our heads in the ground, allowing the current trend towards a large “progressive” federal government to continue unmeasured and unconstrained.

The old adage that there are no guarantees in life except death and taxes does indeed still hold and I realize now that we are not necessarily guaranteed those things that many of us consider inalienable rights. It does and will take work to maintain them. Like many American’s I have recently been reminded of the famous quote from Benjamin Franklin in reply to a woman’s inquiry to the type of government that the founders had created, ” A Republic, if you can keep it.” And I for one plan on keeping it!