It's good to be Conservative.

I hope I can get my feelings into something somewhat meaningful. I just had a rather inspirational time at the Evergreen Leadership Conference. It reminded me what I see in conservatives that makes me identify as one myself, even though that doesn't always make me popular among my facebook connections, friends/acquaintances, and/or schoolmates.

• First, I love this country. The history book I'm reading "A History of the American People" by Paul Johnson spans the period from the first boats on the sand of the new world to near the end of Clinton's presidency in 1997. I'm not far into it yet, but even at page 231 I can see that the United States was started differently than any other nation before or since. The men were going off of what they disliked about the Kings, Parliament, and European life in general and trying to make things DIFFERENT in the new world. Conservatives respect that the U.S. is different. They want to love and respect what this country is and the ideals it was founded on and stands for. They want to CONSERVE what our founding fathers wrote and what millions of men and woman have fought and died for.

• Next, I want us to be strong and respected in the world. We accomplish that not only by giving our aid when people are in need of medications, food, clean water, clothing, or refuge, but often by stepping in to stop oppression. This gets us called "the world's police" by those on the Left or by those who don't like being stopped from doing what they are doing...but ultimately, is it not the job of good people to preserve the human rights of others? Think playground and 1st grade...it's really being "the playground police" when a big strong teenager stops another teenager from beating up a 1st grader? Should we really just look away when injustices are happening around the world? Or does our involvement stop at being the world's doctors, food/water providers, and sending American relief workers into the mess to do their best to help? We are also strong and respected when we stand up for what is right and in our best interests, even if it means that other big nations aren't going to like it. It means we protect our people and our allies and don't let nations bully us and don't sit by as they threaten and lie. Respected doesn't mean LIKED/LOVED. Conservatives understand that better than the opposition, I believe.
  

• We should conduct our business, our personal lives, and our politics with morality and according to what is best for the country (not government). Perhaps this is where conservatives (or the Republican Party specifically) has lost its way. We've fallen into the same horrible business planning (over spending and waste), the moral depravity (sexual scandals or lying), and meaningless personal attacks as the opposition. We used to be a party that did not think religion was something to be feared and removed.

• We occasionally have clarity, good ideas, and progression instead of just opposition! We just need to get good plans and be able to share those openly with people. We need to go to the youth, minorities and just lay it out. We don't have to sugar coat it, we don't need to dumb it down. We just need strategy and a way to share it with people so they can think about it.

~ Conservative Minority