Compassionate Conservative

My political background:

1. During college, I was very liberal and thought that the government needed to take care of us, from cradle to grave. Even though I am a white southerner, I marched in civil rights marches. 1st time I voted, I voted against Goldwater, i.e. voted for LBJ.

2. When I graduated from law school and went to work in the real world, I decided that when you give people things for nothing long enough, you take away their dignity and make them feel second class. I remained a political independent, but, in federal elections, I voted almost exclusively Republican. I considered my worst mistake politically was not voting for Goldwater. I still believed in freedom, but also believed that with freedom came responsibility. I became a strict constructionist of the U.S. Constitution. I believed in less government, especially at the federal level, and that any powers not specifically and clearly given to the federal government by the Constitution were meant to be "reserved to the states respectively, or to the people" (U.S. Const., Amendment 10).

3. Over time, I have remained true to my belief that welfare is bad. Rather than paying people who do nothing, the government should require that they earn their money, even if we have to create government programs to put them to work. Anyone other than those in school or disable, would not get paid if they don't work. For those with children or others to be taken care of, the government could put others to work to take care of those functions. I have not seen any grant to the federal government of the right to regulate abortion, murder, create a federal police force, or create thought crimes ("hate crimes"), etc. Those issues should be left to the people of the states, unless an amendment to the Constitution is properly adopted.

Today I think King George II has done more to destroy our freedoms than any politician in our history. I think the current Governor of GA is highly un-principled, even for a politician.

Having said that, I think most democrats do not believe in the principals set out by our founding fathers. Remember, the Constitution is a very simple set of guidelines that transcend what ever changes may have occurred since its adoption. Privacy is privacy, freedom is freedom, responsibility is responsibility, regardless of whether we send snail mail or e-mail.

My two top preferences for President - Gov. Huckabee or Sen. Edwards. Seem crazy? Both seem to believe in freedom from big government and the military industrial complex. While I disagree with some of the Governor's ideas, at least he submits that we should address them by formal amendment to the Constitution. I also disagree with some of the Senators ideas, but he calls it as it truly is about the military industrial complex.

I believe that the biggest current threat to us comes from the military industrial complex. The huge corporations care more about international profits than about protecting the citizens of the U.S. Anyone that thinks that the pharmaceutical industry, the insurance industry, the communications industry or the petroleum industry care about us for any reason than to separate us from our money is dead wrong!

A Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, warned us of the military industrial complex, and now King George II has done more to help that complex than any other recent president, even Bill Clinton. In fact I never though anyone could convince me the Bill Clinton was a good president, but compared to Bush, he was great.

Under Bush our debt has increased; we went to war based upon a representation that was known to be false at the time it was made; the only real winners in that war are a few large corporations. By pushing the "Patriot Act" he has destroyed a lot of our freedoms in the name of security. Benjamin Franklin also warned us that "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

I like much of what Ron Paul has to say, but I don't think we can just pull out of Iraq. While we should have spent our resources to finish the job in Afghanistan rather than going into Iraq, we now have a situation where we took a country with a good infrastructure and gave it almost total anarchy. I agree if we leave their, those that now want to destroy is will claim victory and follow us home.

The policy I would like to see:
1. Repeal the Patriot Act.
2. Appoint judges who will use the Constitution as a measuring stick rather than needing interpretation - who would overturn all cases that have given the federal government powers not specifically and clearly given it by the Constitution.
3. Spend all moneys needed to support and protect our soldiers.
4. Never send our young people into harms way unless it is to directly protect the U.S., and even then, not unless we are committed to using all of our resources to allow them to get the job done.
5. Admit that we have lost the "war on drugs" and make them legal, but under strict regulation. We cannot legislate morals - it has never worked. Drug money allows the bad guys to have better weapons and surveillance equipment than our cops.
6. Accept that the 2nd Amendment states that "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed ." Remember that when the Constitution was written, the emphasis was on the sovereignty of the "states," not on the power of the federal government. Each state was guaranteed the right to have a militia. Colonial militias were drawn from the body of adult male citizens of a colony (which became states). Therefore, each citizen of the state (originally only male, but now both genders) was guaranteed the right to bear arms to protect themselves and their state. Originally, the states recruited or drafted its citizens into their militia, appointed the officers, and trained their militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress (U.S. Constitution Article !, Sec. 8). The federal government could use a state's militia to supplement the Colonial Army in times of war. The Militia Act of 1903 divided what had been the militia into what it termed the "organized" militia, created from portions of the former state guards to become state National Guard units, and the "unorganized" militia comprised of all males from ages 17 to 45. All such citizens have the right to bear arms. It is those financed by the money created by selling illegal drugs that are behind most of the misuse of guns, not law abiding citizens.