My Pledge

My Pledge

I am willing to compromise on anything that moves us down the line towards more individual freedom through less government.

I will not wallow in my defeats, nor stay over long at the victory celebration.

I will look beyond hatred and see the “shining Hill” towards which I strive.

I will continue to keep on moving on.

I will remember the little engine that could.

In this crowed political issues environment we are sometimes overwhelmed by the sheer volume of “causes” for which people have become ideologues. As a person of either side of the political spectrum we are inundated by “urgent” messages and causes which need immediate attention.

We have become a nation of Chicken Littles.

I am a conservative so I’ll talk about conservative issues. Right to Life, Right to Work, Constitutional Gov., Right to Bear Arms and the list goes on and on. The same holds true I’m sure on the other side of the Left Right Teeter-Totter.

What the Left has come to grips with in the past at least is that compromising on everything except their core belief is OK as long as what they are compromising on takes them a little further down the yellow brick road toward Socialism. Over the course of the last half century their persistence has paid off for them.

Too bad it was and is the rest of us who have had to pay for their success.

Too bad we on the Right don’t start to learn from their successes and our failures.
It is enlightening to see however that the Left too has started to shun compromise. This is apparent with the ideologues on the Left who are calling out Obama as a compromiser in such areas as our wars, and economic problems. In other words for not taking their causes further down the road. Perhaps there is a chance for us on the Right to take up the slack and start our own march down our own Yellow Brick Road.

Here is a link to an article by Quin Hillyer in CFIF called “What the Non-Political World Understands”
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http://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/1126-what-the-non-political-world-understands
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When I look back for a time when the economy was booming (excluding war time) I see that divided government run by non-ideologues worked. I’m talking about the Clinton/Gingrich time. It was not only the Republican House that came up with the ideas but it was the Democrat President who worked with them to make it happen.

The difference between now and then lies in the Presidency. President Clinton while leaning pretty far to the Left was no ideologue; he was a governor and knew the art of compromise. Today we have as President Barak Obama whose previous job and claim to fame was as a community organizer. He organized the ideologues, he was the head ideologue.

President Obama is far less capable of compromise than Bill Clinton was.

Bringing it down to our State’s level in Mi. and from the other side of the political divide we have the perfect example of this “small step” method. I’m talking about Right to Work. Randy Richardville the Michigan Senate Majority Leader while not supporting “Right to Work” law across the board did say he is supporting Right to Work for Teachers. The article below explains the Senate leader’s desire for right to work for teachers and how it came about. The article is in Bloomberg Businessweek off the associated press; it is written by Kathy Barks Hoffman.
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http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9PLA7AG0.htm
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Through this example we start to see the downside of ideologues with the general public. We see how ideologues on one side can create a backlash from those who are not ideologues.(the vast majority of Americans). The Senate Majority Leader I would say is acting out of anger and frustration towards the MEA which has up till now been unwilling to compromise and has “gone to war” with those who see the issues it likes differently. Whether this goes anywhere he has pushed a conservative issues on down the road. Dare I say “He Has Had Enough”?

I can understand the backlash against the bullying tactics of the MEA having seen them first hand in their protesting of my Rep. Jon Bumstead and the recall against Paul Scott on the other side of the state. The MEA and their methods are what got me off my butt and in a car driving across the state with two others to go door to door for Rep. Scott.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe strongly and am willing to do whatever it takes to make smaller government a reality. I just believe that if we get caught up in the ideological one mindedness we will become lost in the forest of our own making. If we take up the same tactics we will create the same type of backlash.

We must continue to hold firm to our core beliefs, yet willing to take progress for what it is. Simply progress. As conservatives we must be willing to let the people judge us by our actions not just by what we say. We must be willing to be persistent in our efforts and willing to always look ahead and not wallow in our defeats, but rather celebrate our victories. Above all we must always be willing to keep moving on.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative