By rights, I should be a Democrat. I come from immigrant stock. In fact, my father’s grandfather came here from Sweden and I have his trunk in my living room, complete with the address in Minnesota to which he was going painted on the front. My mother’s family came here just a generation earlier. My maternal grandmother was a staunch Democrat, dismayed that my parents, impressed by Dwight Eisenhower’s performance in WWII, should switch parties and “Like Ike” for president.
With my immigrant background, I would be welcome among the ranks of Democrats, especially because in many ways I do not fit their idea of middle America. I did not grow up on a farm. My mother was first a teacher, though later a stay-at-home mom who cared for her bed-ridden mother rather than place her in a home, and my father worked for the federal government. Very acceptable to the Democratic Party.
Then, although I did not attend a prestigious east or west coast college, I did obtain not one, but three degrees and taught at both the high school and college levels. Since I am so well-educated, they would assume that I must accept all of their dogma, thus fitting nicely into the Democratic Party.
Then, I have gone farther. I married another teacher, who taught elementary, middle school, high school, and college classes and is, if I may brag, quite intelligent. Together we have traveled the world from Israel and Thailand to twenty-two other countries in the world, mostly in Europe. We are, admittedly, cosmopolitan in that sense, so naturally we must understand the correctness of Democratic policies and support them unwaveringly.
Except, of course, that we are intelligent. And we think for ourselves. We know that the far left’s push for socialism in America is at best foolish and at worst insane. We know that socialism has destroyed every country in which it has been tried from Russia to Venezuela. And we know that inevitably, under socialism, as is now happening in our own country, opposing views are stifled and silenced. Here, they are being silenced through harassment and only occasional violence, but then the socialists have not yet taken full control. If they do, dissenting opinions will be silenced as they have been in the past, through death. . . millions of deaths.
I want clean air and clean water, but I want intelligent means used to obtain them that are the least invasive to the privacy of everyday citizens. Why? Because Americans have certain rights that the government cannot legally take from them because they are protected by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and I wish all laws and regulations to operate within those protected freedoms. Thus while industries such as fossil fuel plants should be encouraged to make their production as clean as possible and new energy sources should be explored, I find it ludicrous to force coal mines out of business and whine about the dangers of pipelines that have proven safer ways to transport oil and gas than trains. And to force wind and solar energy onto Americans is likewise ludicrous. Both use unsustainable minerals to construct them. Both kill birds and bats in alarmingly large numbers. Both are far more expensive than coal, nuclear energy, or gas and oil. Both provide only intermittent energy that can not be relied upon to provide the electrical needs of large cities. But this seems a “progressive” idea and so is blindly supported by Democrats, who ignore the attendant problems. That is why I am not a Democrat.
I believe in climate change, but I am not convinced that human behavior is the greatest force behind changes in temperature. In fact, I know that historically there have been great times of warming that benefitted rather than harmed the earth, which were then followed by extreme periods of cold such as the “little ice age” of the middle ages. I know from my research that the climate of the earth changes in a cyclical fashion, warming and cooling, and that in fact, the warming that we are told we are now experiencing is not nearly as great as we have been led to believe. Anecdotally, we had a cold winter, a cool spring, and now have what seems to be a hot summer, but which, in Edgar County is seeing temperatures in the upper 80s to mid 90s and now even the 70s. Within the last ten years we saw summers with the temperatures reaching over 100 degrees for days on end. Global warming? On the road to Armageddon? I don’t think so, and neither do a growing number of scientists who are bravely risking their jobs to voice their proof that the “climate change/Armageddon scenario” is false. Why do I say risk their jobs? Because, around the world as well as in America, many scientists have been fired for daring to voice objections to the climate change narrative. That old socialistic silencing again! That is why I am not a Democrat.
I believe that when the Declaration of Independence said that all men are created equal that is exactly what America stands for: The equal “opportunity” for every man and woman of any race to achieve all that he or she individually can. And I believe that the government should assure that opportunities are there, not for poorly educated blacks to be admitted to Ivy League colleges where they can not possibly succeed, but for all children to have an education that will allow them to learn all that they can so that intelligent, well-prepared black and native American students can compete on a level playing field with all other Americans for those coveted college slots. And I believe that all Americans should be paid equally for the jobs that they do, based upon their ability and merit, not upon a phony balancing act of the genders and races. And that is why I am not a Democrat.
Under current law, I believe that women who are faced with an unexpected pregnancy should have the right to make an informed choice whether to have the child or to abort it. Planned Parenthood refuses them that informed choice by not providing ultrasounds. Nine out of ten mothers who see the babies in their wombs choose to continue the pregnancy. Don’t they have the right to see and to know exactly what they are destroying with an abortion? I think so. And that is why I am not a Democrat.
I believe that people with opposing viewpoints should be able to discuss them without resorting to name calling and personal attacks. Conservatives and members of the administration should not be harassed or physically attacked as they innocently go about their daily lives. The media and members of the previous administration should not call the President of the United States Hitler or claim that his meeting with any foreign leader is the equivalent of 9/11 or Pearl Harbor or the Holocaust. To do so ignores the historical fact that virtually every modern president from FDR on has met with leaders of imperialistic and repressive regimes. And to compare the common diplomatic practice of a sitting president with 9/11, Pearl Harbor and the Holocaust diminishes the tragedy of those events and negates the importance of the innocent lives that were lost. But Democrats only remember history when it suits their political purposes. They tend to be hypocritical that way. And that is why I am not a Democrat.
I could be a Democrat. But I am not. I have never been one to follow the crowd just because everyone else was. I want to know the truth for myself. I want to make my own decisions. I won’t be told what I should believe, and trying to force a belief upon me will only make me more determined to find out for myself. We are mostly like that, we conservatives. We want to think for ourselves and make our own choices. And that is why liberals hate and fear us.