Politics

I am politically conservative with a very strong Libertarian bent, and this is how I became that way...  My greatest influence was my father who was a United States Marine and he served in the last few months of WWII in the pacific theater.  He had a limited education and only made it to the sixth grade. He joined the corps when he was 16.  He was a child of the great depression and one of eleven children.  He was raised in a Irish Catholic home, he was a Teamster and he had extremely high moral and ethical standards for a person of limited education; he did his best to teach me right from wrong, and he always expected the best from me.  My father worked hard his whole life and he never received a dime from anyone, and he never ever complained. He walked to work in a snow storm once, about six miles, with a broken leg in a cast and he was the only guy to show up that day. I grew up in a strict home with a picture of Pope Paul and of John Kennedy on the wall, we never knew who to genuflect to first. We went to Mass every Sunday and said the Rosary every Thursday night. Flash forward, I am now eighteen years old.  All my life I was told that I had to be self dependent and I am responsible for my own actions, no one owes me anything. Jimmy Carter is running for president and he is saying stuff and I'm not really paying attention but I live in an area that is heavily democratic, in fact there are no republicans. My dad is a democrat, my mother, my grandmother and everyone who I know is a democrat and they all hate republicans, but I ask why? So, who do I vote for? Jimmy Carter.  Now, I start to work, pay taxes, and I really start to pay attention to politics.  Some of the stuff does not match up to what I was taught; in fact it is 90 degrees out of phase.  My dad is a democrat, but he does not talk the way I'm hearing liberal democrats talk.  My grandmother is a democrat and she tells me that "these new democrats" are full of shit.  I love to hunt, democrats want stronger restrictions on guns, and this drives me further to the right.  The church tells me that abortion is wrong, they want abortions.  On and on, the stuff that I learned is a complete 90 degree turn from what they are saying, I listen to Jimmy Carter and he is full of shit.  I listen to Ronald Reagan and what he says moves me.  It stirs my heart and it makes me think I can do what I want and I can be what I want, there are no limitations, it is up to me, the government is not my daddy.  I start to read everything I can get my hands on.  I read the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.  I read Thomas Jefferson, the Federalist Papers, Thomas Paine, I read the Magna Carta and I think, I think about what I have read a lot. Even though it would be easier for me to be a liberal democrat, I cannot do this for I am far too gone, the genie is out of the bottle and I do not believe the lies any longer. The liberal lies are withering away with the disinfectant of knowledge.  I find out too much, and I am no longer just being fed garbage, I am awake. I find out the truth and I am thinking for myself.  I am not a republican.  I am a conservative and there is a difference.