I was born into a Democrat household. My father was a truck driving teamster who later became a patronage state worker and Democrat precinct man. I was a Young Democrat and attended both state and national conventions into my 20’s. So how is that I am today a self-labeled “staunch conservative”? Is it, as my father said, because I have a few bucks in my pocket?
I studied international political and comparative economic systems in college in the 70’s. One of my economic professors was a communist. We had many sessions both in and out of the classroom where we would discuss the worth of communism and capitalism. He was of the mindset that ordinary people are incapable of the delivering goods and services in the most efficient manner. I countered that human nature insists that no person(s) controls the life of another human and that freedom is at the heart of capitalism. As I write this, I still find that capitalism is all about freedom and little to do about efficiency.
While the new waves of “progressives” harbor thoughts of reining in individual freedom in return for some utopian outcome, they will learn that the human spirit dries up when throttled. Efforts to tell citizens of the freest country the world has ever known, that you MUST (fill in the blank) will eventually be met with resistance of the kind seen in previous violent actions. We humans thrive on self-worth yet easily fall prey to the path of least resistance. Getting handouts like “free income” devalue the person and will only lead to self-loathing. The individual will become a possession of the state.
I am a conservative because I want to fail on my own. I want the euphoria of having made my way through a struggle to a successful outcome. I need to have challenges that give me the opportunity to excel. That is what being a human is all about. Long before there were government organizations, there were individuals who made their way. They may have been very inefficient but they survived. I too can survive on my own, thank you very much. So I am a conservative and I believe that the less a government governs, the better off I am.
Current Day Publius 
I was influenced by two men and two experiences.
1. My 12th grade Government teacher was a jolly and intelligent man who referred to Democrats as ‘Dummycrats’. That made an impression.
2. Later I worked shoulder to shoulder as a mill mechanic who opined, ‘I think welfare spoils a man.’
3. At one time I tried to look for a job at the California unemployment office (then the ‘HRD’) All of the posted jobs for which I might have been qualified required that I have dark skin. That one hurt.
4. When I started preparing tax returns for a living, I saw that the income tax is assessed disproportionately paid by the higher earners in our country. Moreover, the highly taxed are denied government benefits that are freely available to those who pay low tax or no tax at all. Not fair.
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