I am a lifelong conservative, but it seems that in today's world that has a negative connotation to it thanks to social media censorship and the mainstream media bashing what this is every chance they get. However, this is not about bigotry, anti-feminism, and keeping minorities down that all types of media will want you to believe. Being a conservative is all about personal responsibility and as much lack of government control over your personal life as possible. Some of the issues with being a conservative are that our own elected representatives seem to have forgotten what this means and push for more government spending, more government regulations, and more government control it seems with every chance they get. Being in Congress means certainly doing what it takes at the right moment to keep your constituents happy right before election day, but it also seems to mean securing your own financial gain with donors and lobbyists. It is time to fight the urge to be like these politicians and follow the principles and ideas that come along with being a conservative itself.
Personal responsibility. The government owes you nothing in terms of goods and services. The only thing we require from the government is the protection of our civil rights and liberties that the Founding Fathers established. We live in a world now where people do not just want the government to pay for the things that they want; they flat out demand it. Our government collects several trillion dollars in taxes each year and then spends several trillion dollars on goods and services like defense, Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, etc. Shockingly the government spends more than we pay them in taxes, creating quite a sizable budget deficit. Yet, even today more and more people including several in our own government want the government to pay for more things like healthcare for all, college tuition, and several other items as well. Where will this additional money come from? The answer is the other thing people hate the most, taxes and more taxes. When will individuals take personal responsibility to pay for their own lives and the things they want? Take college for example. Yes, it is expensive to go to some schools and we take out loans to go for them. I personally took out loans for my bachelor's and masters degrees, but I knew full well the responsibility was to pay them back and looked into programs where I could pay them back. I knew the rules going in and I knew my options to pay back these loans when I took them. Why should the government erase these loans or pay off these loans that I as an individual took knowing full well what was expected of me? In my opinion, they should not because I have the personal responsibility to pay them back since I personally took the loans.
Lack of government control in your personal life. Yes, we need rules and laws as a society; I am not here to tell you that the government should go away so we can do what we want when we want, how we want. However, our government is directly and indirectly too involved in our personal lives. Our social contract dictates that we the people give up some freedoms in return for security. The pure freedoms that we give up are things like, don't hit people (assault), don't steal people's stuff (theft) and don't kill people (murder). These are tenants and rules that I think most decent people would agree with. However, our government seems to want to be involved with everything we do as human beings. From things like straw rules, soda taxes, and former requirement to have healthcare of you get to pay a fine, the government dips its grubby fingers into everything we do as humans because they want to tax it and create a revenue stream from it. Even marriage is regulated and taxed by the government since in any state you have to pay a fee just to get a license that says you are legally married to someone. The government does not just want a slice of the pie that is required to operate the United States, they want more and more and more. This is where it is up to us to tell our government enough is enough and to stay out of our personal business.
I am not here to tell people what to believe politically, but I am here to implore people to question your government. The government treats us the same. They impact us the same way in terms of taxes, fees, and regulations. Conservatives are not the monsters the media tells you that we are; we are simply people that want the government to back off, leave us alone as long as we are acting within the law, and to govern this nation while focusing on protecting the security of we the people. It is up to all of us to hold government accountable for their actions and to ensure that they stop prying into our personal lives as individuals. Only we can make this happen.