I did not go to work today, I had taken the day off in anticipation of winning election coverage and maybe some hanging chads drama. Instead I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. I was horribly sad last night and today, and slept a good part of the day. That's what my family does with depression, we sleep. Now, after being awake for several hours and gaining some perspective, I am angry. And tomorrow I will go back to work and deal with my day. However, I work with some people who have beliefs contrary to mine and I do not want to have this discussion with them. So I wrote it instead.
I'm just tired of trying to explain my views to people who do not take the time to get fully informed.
It is so hard to explain to someone who is not willing to look past the main stream media reporting, what the difference is between the left and the right in this country. The left does not have the market cornered on compassion. The right is not racist or pro-wealthy. There is just a fundamental difference in how we want to deal with the monumental issues at hand.
People who are not willing to look at what brought the country to financial free fall in 2008 and only want to blame Bush, will not be willing to listen to how conservative principles could have prevented what happened. President Bush tried 17 times to address issues with Freddie and Fannie but the left stopped him. Yet when the crash came, it was his fault.
You give a man a fish and he eats for a day. You teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime. Even Yellowstone Park warns people not to feed the bears as they will lose the ability to feed themselves. Why is it so hard to take that lesson and apply it to people as well - and to realize that if we help people TOO much, they lose their resourcefulness and willingness to try everything before looking for government assistance?
Who should we be taking care of with our tax dollars? In my view we should take care of our elderly, our veterans, and our disabled. I have no problem with temporary assistance for the unemployed too. But should my taxes go to propping up someone who has been unemployed for over 2 years? No. Because that is a person who is not willing to take 2 part time paper hat jobs until he finds the good job he wants. That is not a person who cannot find a job at all - it is a person who cannot find the job he wants - and I am not responsible for that.
We have made it entirely too comfortable for people to be on government assistance, to the point where people think that because their circumstance makes things difficult for them, the government owes them a roof over their heads and food on their tables. What happened to the fierce pride of Americans who would do anything they could before they would ever accept a handout?
Liberals happened. Oh - we shouldn't make these people feel bad, we shouldn't hurt their feelings and act like there is a stigma attached to needing help. Except that "caring" attitude also removed the stigma from people taking help when they didn't really need it. And it contributed to a whole generation of people growing up that believe they are entitled to things simply because they exist. They ARE. And everyone gets a trophy.
But that is only a small part of the differences between left and right. The right believes that the founders intended for our government to remain small, to be there to protect our nation, not to run it. The left believes government should take care of us, not just protect us. But that belief contributes to growing government, out of control spending, and loss of personal liberty. Everything you give government the power to do, takes power away from you as an individual.
I would have considered myself a liberal once, until I started to realize what it really means. Liberalism is supposed to be about tolerance, but tolerance to the point of suppressing things like religion, the free practice of which we are guaranteed by our constitution. Tolerance of any idea unless it is a conservative value, at which point whatever it is - is deemed hateful or hate speech or racist and will not be tolerated. Gay marriage? Sure! Unwed motherhood? Why not? Atheism represented at Christmas? Hell yes! A nativity scene on public property? AN ABOMINATION! Don't test on animals, let a whole farm community's irrigation water run dry to save a 2 inch fish, spray paint fur coats, don't execute murderers, but please - do not take away a woman's right to kill her baby!
Americas values are upside down. Its direction is wrong and goals are UN-American. We are not Europe. We expect to work for what we get and hope to retire in our early 60's because we worked hard enough and planned well enough to do it, not because the government has promised to take care of us. And when we do not get what we want we work harder, we do not protest and resort to violence.
The right believes in creating an environment that is friendly to business, less regulations and lower taxes, so companies want to stay here in the U.S. and hire American workers and pay them a good wage. A good business environment creates more jobs. More jobs means more people working and when there are more people working there is more money flowing into the government coffers. There is no need to raise taxes when there are enough people working. When there are more people sitting in the wagon than those pulling it, THAT is what is not fair.
The left believes in punishing those who are successful by forcing them to give more of their wealth to the less fortunate. In point of fact, conservatives give more to charity on their own than liberals ever do. True. But they want to choose who and what they contribute to. Being forced to give more money to the government takes away from that giving, and the money is never spent wisely. Look at Solyndra .. and thousand dollar toilet seats or whatever that was .. the government cannot spend your money better than you can. But the left believes they can. And doggone it they will force you to believe it too. The left wants equality by force, the right wants equality by creating the right environment to let it happen naturally.
Look at the cities and states in the country that are doing well and look who is running them. Wisconsin - a republican governor who has balanced the budget and avoided laying off workers at the same time. Illinois - business is leaving in droves, taxes are through the roof and unemployment is high - democrats have run the state and especially the city of Chicago for decades. Indiana - doing better than most states during the recession - republican governor. Ohio - in the last 2 years the budget has been balanced and the economy is turning around. Because of Obama? NO! Because of republican governor John Kasich. Look at Detroit - run by democrats for years and years and years. The point is, democrat ideas are not fiscally sound. They want all these programs but have no way to pay for them except by raising taxes. People seem to forget that government makes no money of it's own, it comes from us. Republicans are traditionally the grownups in the room who are holding back their democrat teenagers - reminding them they have to pay for what they want to buy.
So .. it's not that conservatives favor the rich - that's just what the left throws at them when like a child that isn't getting their own way they stamp their feet and cry "it's not fair!" No, it's not fair. The world and life is not fair. Never has been. But everybody has the ability to work and to succeed and very few people actually need to be taken care of. And like the parent who is unpopular when they have to lay down the law with their kids - conservatives are not winning a popularity contest. Good thing they aren't looking to.
Lets address the breakdown of the American family, the war against religion - specifically Christianity, the intolerance of conservative values .. wait - I hear we're almost a minority now - maybe the left will start to hear us now!
And one more thing to this already disjointed post. At work the other day I was listening to John Gibson on Fox Radio while doing some work on my laptop. I mentioned to my boss about the non-union workers who were turned away in New Jersey after the hurricane because they would not join the union. His response was "where did you hear that? Anywhere other than Fox?" I was insulted. I went online and did a Google search for the story. I picked the first news site that came up and it happened to be NBC news. I turned my laptop around and showed it to him. I asked whether that would prove it to him and he made some comment about - you know, Fox isn't always .. and he let that comment hang out there.
My answer is this - I read NBC news, ABC, and CNN, USA Today, AP Mobile, as well as Fox. Sometimes I read news from UK sites as well, and skip around to see how different outlets are covering the same stories. Where does the idea that Fox lies come from? Because they are the only news source that does not favor the left? That makes what they say and write untrue? Wouldn't someone who wanted to be well informed and well rounded in terms of information want to look at all the sources? Fox News has the highest ratings in cable news. There is a reason for that. But even as a Fox fan I do not rely only on Fox for my information. And since Fox is the only news outlet that does not lean left - you are not informed if you do not include it in your news gathering. So do not imply that I am some kind of right wing crazy because I get my news from Fox. I am not always very articulate about my views, but I AM better informed than someone who only goes to the mainstream media outlets for their news. Period.
Just sayin'.
Wow this is long. Sorry.
