Conservatives are Wimps

I live in Connecticut.  It is a Progressive, Liberal, welfare state that until a few decades ago was prosperous and Conservative.  Connecticut used to build world class machinery, lead the world in the insurance industry, and serve as the arsenal of Democracy.  Nowadays we in Connecticut can’t even put together finger nail clippers.

What happened?  It seems too many seemingly rational people took the easy road out and moved to greener pastures.

There are far too many former Conservative Connecticut Yankees out West and in the South.  Texas and Florida seem to be prime destinations.

Why does it seem that Conservatives get tired of fighting for their principles and simply move to a more rational environment?  When will it be time to draw a line in the sand and consider retaking our state and freeing ourselves from the tyranny surrounding us?  

Traitors Among Us?

When I was a kid, people and organizations which opposed our founding principles as described in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, were considered traitors by the general public.  They were looked down on and not much respected.  In our country’s founding documents personal freedom was the rule, not a massive, central government which acts against the natural instincts and conditions of men. 

Our administrative and judicial leaders in Washington as well as those in many states and localities no longer abide by the ideals which made the United States the land of choice for a majority of the world’s population. These leaders consider our Constitution as a meaningless and obsolete document.  If anything, too many of our leaders subscribe to the notion of remaking our country’s governance into a clone of some inferior foreign land most people on this planet would rather flee.

Too many of our leaders are traitors to the country they were sworn to uphold and defend. 

Less Freedom?

While in Egypt this year, January 30 to be precise, Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg was asked what she thought of Egypt modeling its new Constitution on the one used by the US. 

Ruth Bader Ginsberg suggested that Egypt not model itself after what she called the dusty and obsolete US Constitution, but after either South Africa’s or Canada’s Constitutions.  Her reasoning was that the Federal Government in the U.S. does not have enough powers while the South African and Canadian models do. 

In short, she prefers less individual freedom, unlike what our US Constitution was intended to grant us.

  

The Little, Old Black Lady who Changed My Thinking

Many people complain about the wealth of the Catholic Church.  They argue that the Catholic Church is hypocritical because it would prefer to gather immense wealth rather than help the poor.

In the 1960’s I was a student at CUA, the Catholic University of America in Washington DC.  The Basilica of the Immaculate Conception is adjacent to the CUA campus.  The Basilica’s lowest level has the names of thousands of donors who helped pay for its construction.  The names are literally plated in gold.  The entire building exudes wealth.  I was appalled because across Wisconsin Avenue where the Basilica sits, there were residential neighborhoods along 7^th and 8^th Streets which were the poorest I had ever encountered.  The contrast was disturbing.  ‘How can so much wealth sit amongst so much poverty?’ was the question in my mind.   

I noticed an elderly black lady who daily trudged from the poverty of 8^th Street to the splendor of the Basilica.  Given my disgust with the Catholic Church for being so insensitive to the poor, I approached her one day and asked why she was so drawn to the Basilica.

She answered, ’I may only give a penny, but it is all I have and I give it as a token of my Faith in my Lord.  I want my Lord to have the finest house in the land.’

It was then that I saw the wealth of the Catholic Church in a different light and I am eternally grateful to this little, old lady.  God bless her! 

Does One Size Fit All?

Kierkegaard, a philosopher of the Victorian era, said that all cultures are not equal in their development.  What he meant was that during his lifetime there were people living in stone age cultures with stone age governments and societies, such as the aborigines in Australia.  However, there were also industrialized societies with  Democratic or Parliamentarian governments such as in Great Britain and most of Europe.  Most cultures at the time were somewhere in between.  That cultural reality is not much different in 2012, over a hundred years later.

I had a problem with former President Bush’s method of spreading Democracy.  His concept did not appear to be in sync with most of Iraq’s political traditions.   Iraq’s culture is very different than that of the US. After observing the history of the region, other than Israel, all countries in the area seem to prefer either dictatorships, tribal or one-party rule types of government.

I disagree with President Obama’s political vision for the US on a similar conceptual level.  Whereas President Bush wanted to lift Iraq forward towards democracy, President Obama wants our country to regress to an inferior, primitive type of Progressive/Socialist dictatorship form of government.  It doesn't fit.