First Post -- Welcome (probably no one but me!)

There are several hopes I have for my blog, aside from self-indulgent self-expression. One is that issues other than politics are addressed thoughtfully. Another is that politics is addressed without rancor. I will endeavor not to demonize the "left" or the "right"--the blue staters or the red staters, but to point my criticism, when I have it, more directly where it belongs. I don't like it when I hear a woman say "men are ____" as though we're all the same. I don't like it when I hear a man generalize about women. I wish I had enough intimate experience with women to be able to speak with authority in generalities, but I don't! Neither do I know enough "left wing wackos" or "right wing facists" to speak in generalities about them. I do know that there's a lot of grey.

I have evolved (I know, some would say devolved, but it's my blog!) from being a liberal with Marxist leanings in college, to being fairly conservative. The conservatism is pretty recent, actually. I voted for Clinton twice. Here's what happened to my thinking politically, in case it helps in figuring me out.

I grew up in Minnesota and was a huge fan of Hubert Humphrey. Being a Democrat was a matter of pride for me, because my father was a Democrat. My father was also an entrepreneur. When I went to college I took a PoliSci course from this maniac Marxist who was incredibly interesting. I'd never heard capitalism dragged over the coals like that before. And, what he was saying made a certain kind of sense, in a utopian sort of way. Damn-it, we SHOULD all share the wealth!!! I took every class that professor taught, and became quite argumentative with my bourgeoisie father. Drove him crazy, no doubt. After all, the guy was an entrepreneur who had invented a product to solve a problem in an industry, and put himself on the line to create a company around it. That company at that point was employing 40 people at good wages, had made profits for its shareholders, and was paying taxes into the coffers of the community, state, and nation. But, my newly learned theories of how my dad was exploiting his workers because the only value added to his products was the sweat of the worker's brows... Well... I sort of forgot that there were a lot of things that went into the creation of the product that were beyond the worker's labor.

Marxism began to really lose its appeal because I started looking at the raging success of the communist governments around the world. Um... they weren't HAVING raging successes. They were having breadlines. They had unhappy looking people. They had lousy infrastructure. It occurred to me that central planning was a horrible way to run an economy, because there are so many uncontrollable variables that nothing but the chaos of a free market can find a way to produce all that is needed. For that, and other reasons, I recognized that Marxism didn't really work. Great theory. Not very workable, particularly not in the places it was tried! Plus, I must say that it appeared that what was supposed to be a very loving, parental state that took care of the citizenry and allowed for them to grow and express the highest in themselves seemed to look alot like repressive totalitarianism. Again... Marxism lost its appeal. It didn't work and it was obvious to any honest observer that it didn't.

I did remain a liberal Democrat, though, as I said, right through Clinton's second term. Then something happened. I started to ask myself about how effective "big government" programs were. It seemed to me that the schools were an ongoing mess... and it was also apparent that the schools were basically run by liberal Democrats. It was, and remains, a largely Democrat run bureaucracy. And, it's really bad at doing what it's truly intended to do.

Welfare was incredibly well intentioned, but the result was an a large and disfunctional culture that was supported by a large and disfunctional bureaucracy.

Basically, the more I looked at my liberalism, the more it seemed that the idealism of it did not translate into effective programs that made life better. What DID seem to work, however, was people with a particular combination of freedom, creativity, and motivation lifting themselves up, and inevitably dragging a lot of people with them. In other words, I suddenly started appreciating what my dad had done. I basically started looking at what works, and what doesn't work. (This is distinguished from looking at what utopian thought sounds good, and not caring that it doesn't function as theorized in the real world.) For example, my early naive thought that wealth should be evenly distributed was beautiful as an ideal, however, where the rubber met the road, people that had no incentive to create, to excel, to dream, and to work simply don't create, excel, dream or work. What do you suppose the difference would be in the number of Patents applied for in the U.S. versus the number that would have been applied for (if they had such a thing) in the old U.S.S.R., or in China, for any 10 year time span? Also, I realized that capitalism works. Yes, there can be abuses, but overall, it's really kind of a miracle.

My desire, of course, is that every capitalist would operate with integrity. I'd want them thinking long term, as well as short term, so they would take into consideration that polluting is harmful and would stop. Unfortunately, there are people in high positions that lack wisdom, and I think there is a place for government regulation. There is also a place for a pro-active consumer! That's what makes capitalism great. It's also a great flaw of some liberal thinking. For example, "We have to stop driving vehicles that burn fossil fuels." YES! Very little disagreement with that. However, you can't just order people to stop driving their cars and SUVs. What you need to do is create a BETTER PRODUCT and sell it to the consumer. I promise, if someone came up with an extremely functional vehicle that gave people all the performance they want and it ran on soy bean oil, or on hydrogen (I don't care), not only would consumers buy it, but the automobile companies would see the potential and would start production ASAP. And no one can tell me that the oil companies wouldn't allow it. Who has the infrastructure to distribute the soy bean oil (or hydrogen) and the money to build (or convert) refineries for it? They could adapt and change their business model to meet whatever the consumer's demand is. The miracle of capitalism is that it can deal with so many variables. The dynamic forces of the market and of human creativity will come up with the answers that are needed. It's pretty amazing.

So, I noticed that my liberal ideals didn't translate very well into reality. My liberal ideals were impractical ideals. They weren't pragmatic in the sense that when exposed to the real world--real people and real conditions-- they didn't work. A recent example, but one that was very disheartening for someone who at one time believed extremely strongly in the U.N. as a current and future hope of the world, is the U.N.s performance regarding Iraq. My liberal, impractical ideal is that the august world body would look at the facts (and they really didn't need to look any farther than the fact that Saddam had violated resolution after resolution, including the original surrender document) and they'd support the U.S. Or... I'll even aim lower. I'd have hoped that there would be an honest debate. Not much to ask for, is it? Didn't happen. It turns out that some very important erstwhile allies had dealings with Saddam that precluded them dealing with the issues honestly. I had to admire George W. Bush standing before the U.N. and laying out the reality for them. Agree or disagree, it took both courage (at least of the political kind) and integrity. To paraphrase: "This is what needs to be done because of all of the violations of U.N. resolutions. Either you do it and retain your credibility, or we do it, and you lose your credibility." To quote from "The Outlaw Josey Wales": Bush's words "had iron." Had the nations that were doing all their backdoor dealings with Saddam despite who Saddam was and what Saddam stood for had a modicum of "iron" in their words, it truly is possible that the whole thing could've been done diplomatically. And don't even get me started about Rwanda, Sudan, or even the Balkins. My faith in the U.N. is shot. Although, I'd still like to believe that it would be possible to reshape and realign the U.N., or create a new international body, so that it could truly make a difference. But the ideal of the U.N. being important and credible, or even particularly good at anything, is long gone.

What I see in conservatism is basically that free people, left mostly to their own devices, do great things. Everywhere I see freedom, combined with responsibility, I seem to see things moving forward in a positive way. Everywhere I see a nanny-state taking responsibility, and calling the lack of need to be responsible "freedom", I see deterioration. The other thing I see from the free and responsible is happiness and lives that seem to have meaning.

I'm definitely NOT a religious fundamentalist, by the way. I know, people who praise conservatism are supposed to be. If you read my blog on a regular basis, you'll note that I can stack my out-of-the-mainstream spiritual views against anyones! I love Jesus! I believe in Jesus. I also love and believe in Buddha, Krishna, the wisdom of Native American religion, etc.

There are a lot of things about me that wouldn't fit the normal concept of "conservative". I guess my turning from being a liberal Democrat to a "conservative" is when I realized the difference between having irrational ideals that truly seemed wonderful, but produced nothing positive once confronted with reality, and having rational ideals that could achieve lofty goals, but took a more realistic route to the achievement.

That's a little about me. Kinda long for a first post... and no links. Sorry.