When I was trying to figure out who I was politically, a long-time conservative friend of the family told me, "When your government gets really out of control (and it will), you will know because your personal freedoms will be the first to suffer. You will see restrictive intrusive laws, abandonment of Constitutional principles and spending like there is no tomorrow. The people doing it will NOT be conservatives."

Here we are today where looking around we see an unprecedented assault on personal freedoms, a none-too-subtle attack on the word and spirit of the Constitution and runaway spending unmatched in history. The people directly responsible for all this say they are conservatives, but are they? Are they focused on conservative issues? Do we see them arguing for tax simplification? Are they doing anything to control federal spending? Has government gotten smaller or less restrictive under their watch? Do I need to keep asking?

The people running this country (the Bush administration and the religious right wing of the Republican Party) are NOT conservatives. I didn't truly believe I would see it happening in my lifetime. I was proud to be a Republican because I believed the Republican Party carried the banner of conservative ideology. I became a Republican understanding that we are the protectors of conservative ideas. Now I look around and I ask, "What has happened? What went wrong? We got the majority and it all fell apart. Are conservative ideals a flawed futility?"

We know the answer, don't we? We (conservatives) didn't get the majority! Religious right-wing Republicans got the majority. Pretending to be conservatives, they swept the Country (almost) and have pressed their ideology into government. There is nothing wrong with conservative ideas and politics. What is wrong is that today's self-proclaimed conservatives have abandoned conservative principles and taken the Republican Party with them. Republican politics have become anything but conservative.
What Ideals?

* Small government
* Personal freedom
* Fiscal responsibility
* Defending America
* States' rights
* Limited federal powers
* Freedom from religious intolerance
* The spirit of the Constitution