Regarding more current events, if we work hard, think hard, and stay the best, we can't lose. Our civilization will remain one which earns its greatness by permitting its people to live to the fullest; A civilization which, further, the decent people of oppressive systems will desire and endeavor to emulate, to their benefit as well as to ours (worthy economic competition and ethical trade partners are a boon to a good civilization).
If we freak out at the fact that the world isn't and can't be perfect, and as a result decide to deny reality and embrace either utopianism or a death wish (or both, see DU), we'll start chipping away at the cultural sanity that helped give us those joys and achievements we have had, and the cultural sanity that gives hope to people in more oppressive parts of the world.
We Americans have, for the most part, a cultural formula for being a strong, dynamic, creative, robust, lasting society. Important parts of that formula include : meritocracy, rational thought, free speech, scientific and technological progress, proper families, real education (not socialist fluff), a constitutional democratic republic, hefty defense investment, and an armed populace, free market economics, etc. Let's keep following that formula.
Me personally? Mid-20s, student, married, female. Originally from the Midwest. I have been a conservative since grade school, started learning about politics during the '88 election of G.H.W. Bush.
Clinton era helped me see just how bankrupt and vampiristic the "left" really was; same era, the Contract with America and Rush (used to watch his old tv show late on school nights) gave me some hope that we'd get back on track in the future.
High school through college to now, I've been changing my ideas a bit as I come to realize, more and more, that much of what I once took as being irreducibly bad or irreducibly good actually has pragmatic reasons for being bad or good. I've also developed a libertarian streak. I'm not religious, but I do believe very strongly in right and wrong, and the idea that morals and liberty are absolutely necessary to allow human beings to reach their full creative and personal potential.
Major concerns of mine, from childhood on, include the idea that we should understand the workings of traditional aspects of society before fiddling with them, to ensure that more harm isn't caused by the fiddling (for example, traditional family structure). I believe that taking this approach is useful for helping to undersand our world, and for working out the proper, precise changes that may be good to make on occasion, without getting unintended negative side effects. Another concern long-standing concern of mine is always checking oneself. I grew up learning about slavery, and later, the holocaust. I figured that I was just as human as the people behind such horrors, and I wanted to be vigilant and cautious to never, ever, end up a dupe supporting such evil. It has been hard mental work, very uncomfortable at times, as when questioning cherished presumptions. However, I see the cost of not doing it. Going with what is comfortable or simple, turnes people into unwitting agents of cruelty or stagnation or other evils. I fear thinking I am doing right when I am really doing wrong, and that motivates me; understanding in detail the nature of the path I'm on, and real evidence that it is right, or else changing that path to conform with what evidence shows is right, is what brings me the joy and inner harmony that I think most religous people on FR (and elsewhere) associate with religion.
Screen name is from a character you might remember if you watched cartoons in the '80s:
