Under the pretence of taking care of them

"If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper, 1802

When conservatives object to programs run by the government, especially "social" programs, we are often painted as mean and selfish by liberals. The idea that we could possibly be against a program designed to help people that lost their job, women with children, or people that have worked until age 65 seems to be proof that our hearts are hard and we don't care about others. I suppose that some conservatives are mean and selfish people, just like some liberals are, but not all of us, there is another reason for our position.

Really, there are two main reasons conservatives are generally against many government programs; they are out of scope for the responsibilities of the federal government and they don't work. Before I go into more detail on these, let me share something about my perspective. I have been there and seen it myself. I have been a liberal. The quote often attributed to Churchill, "If you're not Liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not Conservative when you're 35, you have no brain." comes to mind. It is one thing to have a passion to help those in need and another to act on that passion with reckless abandon ignoring the rights of one group in an attempt to restore them to another.

Seeking Fairness

Our federal government has never been responsible for "fairness". Fairness is a liberal PC term meaning so many things that I can't even attempt a definition. This makes it great for politicians wanting to spin either the compassion of their proposed legislation or the callousness of those opposing it. The problem is, without a definition we can't evaluate fairness. Likewise, when we infuse the identity of a bill with "fairness" later evaluation that may reveal anything negative is declared fabricated lies of the mean people of special interest. This is often when you hear all the stories of the oppressed (like this sickening example). There is no right to fairness in this world, and liberals can't create it no matter how many other rights of ours they sacrifice on the PC alter. We should love each other and we should help each other, these are things that the federal government can't do for us. When the Fed tries to do these things, they tax us to support their efforts, taking from those who can (and should) do it better, to fund government operations that can't (and shouldn't) do it.

Government Efficiency - Oxymoron

There is also the argument that because conservatives don't want the federal government to do all these things for us that we are for the "status quo". This bi-polar argument just doesn't work, we can disagree with liberal ideas without proposing an alternative government solution. The solution is usually to keep government out of things and let us take care of each other. Liberals will of course claim this will not work, enter more sad stories of the oppressed, and go back to the "conservatives don't care" attack. The truth is that the government does a few things well, but many others not well at all. Health-Care, Welfare, and Social Security are great examples of this. The thing about those big government solutions, they sure do get a lot of loyalty (and votes) from the entitlement crowd.

Good News and Bad News

The Good news is that the solution is simple, not easy, but simple. We need to reduce the size, scope, and authority or the federal government. There may be some other issues to tackle, like term limits, but if we focus on reducing the Federal government we can fix the vast majority of issues this country is having.

The bad news is that this will take generations to accomplish. Life is not like TV, we don't solve all problems in 20 minutes with two commercial breaks. The issues we face today are born on thousands of bad choices over decades (if not the past century), choices that are contrary to the principles that this country was founded on. These principles gave this nation the tremendous success it has enjoyed, and made it a beacon to people around the world seeking liberty, and thereby, prosperity. The passion for the freedom to seek opportunity, take risks, and earn a better life for us and our children has been replaced by the lie that the government is responsible for insuring our life style is high, our risk is non-existent, and our children will have to pay for it all. Entitlement is the leech sucking out the life blood of liberty, and we will have to burn it off before we can regain our strength.

The solution will require a fundamental shift in ideologies, from entitlement values to opportunity values. We will have to reverse the methods of lowering the ceiling (taking from those who risked to take advantage of opportunity) in an effort to raise the floor (redistributing to those unwilling to take risk to pursue opportunity). The burden of making this shift falls on conservatives. The first thing conservatives need to do is understand their own conservative principles and how they apply to government. As the teachers it is incumbent on us to thoroughly understand before we endeavor to enlighten others. We need not be more intelligent, eloquent, or charismatic than those we share our ideas with. We need only to understand the basic conservative principles that our nation was founded on, employing them in our personal choices, and demanding the same of those who represent us. We need to calmly, but passionately, engage our neighbors, coworkers, and family members discussing issues based on how these principles will work. We must have a grassroots effort to change the hearts and minds of this nation, and let the legislation to correct our mistakes rise up out of this new understanding of liberty.

So where do we start? We start with ourselves, every one of us, learning the foundational conservative principles that are our tools. I do not say this arrogantly, because I need to do the same. I will follow-up with resources that I have found, and hope that you will share yours as well.