Every nation has a unifying factor. For most nations, the unification is around a common heritage and culture. Here in America, we were founded not on our common heritage and ancestors, but unified around a common idea of freedom and liberty. Being Italian has to do with who your ancestors were. Being American has to do with believing in Freedom and Liberty.
That’s really what Conservatism is all about. It’s about conserving the freedom and liberty that our Founding Fathers intended for this great nation.
Conservatism is messy. That’s often times why the left flat-out rejects it. They want a uniform system in place that gets the results that they want. On the other hand, conservatives want freedom and liberty, but that’s unpredictable. You never know what might happen. Some of the results might be negative. But that’s the price that we pay for the freedom we enjoy.
We believe that the government is not supposed to make life easy for us. It’s supposed to stay out of the way and protect our liberties. We then take personal responsibility for ourselves, and if we fail to succeed, that’s on us and us alone. It’s not the government’s fault that people aren’t making a lot of money. The government’s job is to allow the space for each of us to figure out how to make something of ourselves. It’s NOT the government’s job to make something of us.
That’s why the American Dream is a tough sell in modern times. The problem is that American’s have been brainwashed from childhood by the leftist education system that they are entitled to success. This has happened because of not keeping score in youth sports leagues. This has happened because of focusing on self-esteem more than success. This has happened because parents don’t allow their children to fail because they want them to be “happy.”
Maybe we don’t need our children to always be happy. Maybe we need to allow them to fail so that they can learn from their mistakes.
Maybe the government doesn’t need to always come in with the solution. Maybe we need to allow Americans to fail so that they can learn from their mistakes and have the motivation to succeed. That’s the American way.
It may be a tough sell. But it’s the only way that we can have the freedom to truly be successful. If we want to save our country, we need to get government out of our lives, allow us to fail in the short-term so that we can succeed in the long-run. I’m willing to take that risk. Are you?
