Recently I met up in Las Vegas with a dear friend of 35 years, whom I’d not seen in 15 years. As long-lost friends do, we spent time catching up. In the course of our discussions I brought up politics, as that’s generally one of the first places my mind wanders, and I boldly asked her about her registered Party affiliation.
Since we both grew up in the 1960’s and 70’s it came as no surprise to me that my friend stated she used to be Democrat (weren’t we all), but upon doing an internet search some years ago as to what the Democrat Party platform is, she found it distasteful and not at all what she believed in. Naturally she re-registered as a Republican. But over the years, my friend, as have many of us, found herself disgusted with the Republican Party as well; it was becoming difficult to determine the difference between them.
After I explained the values of the Republican Party; small federal government, self-responsibility, and state autonomy, my friend quipped that it must be a very new philosophy because those don’t appear to be the values of the Republican Party as she’s experienced them over the years.
It is sad, but true, that many of our elected representatives at state and federal levels have supped from the trough of entitlement. I’ve even spoken out, in previous columns, about how some of our “conservative” candidates have the same entitlement mentality regarding voter and Party support, without demonstrating the commitment, attitude, or knowledge I believe is required to earn that support.
While reading a personal development book, just prior to sitting down to write this, I came across a parable that I believe nicely sums up what the Republican value is supposed to be. It also demonstrates the fault in the (il)logic of the socialist Democrat philosophy bombarding us daily.
The parable, known as the Parable of Talents, is a story about a wealthy entrepreneur who gathered his three servants together before he left town, bestowing upon each servant a number of talents. Apparently in those days, a talent was worth several years wages. The entrepreneur told the servants to look after the talents while he was gone.
One of the servants was given five talents, the second was given two, and the third was given one. The first servant went into town with his five talents and managed to turn his five into 10. The second servant went to the marketplace also and turned his two talents into four. The third servant, being a very cautious man, buried his one talent in the ground for safekeeping.
When the entrepreneur returned, he gathered together the three servants to follow up with them on what they did with their talents. The first proudly gave his employer the original five talents plus the additional five. The second servant also proudly gave his employer the two talents he’d been given plus the two he gained. They were both given kudos by the entrepreneur.
Then the third servant gave back his one talent, stating he buried it out of fear of losing it. The entrepreneur took the one talent away from the third servant and gave it to the first, who had turned his five talents into 10.
Democrats will not be happy with the ending of the story, because it seems unfair to the third servant; but according to author Jim Rohn, whose book, The Five Major Pieces of the Life Puzzle, presented the parable as a life lesson, “…life is not designed to give rewards in proportion to our level of need; it gives them in proportion to our level of deserve.” Rohn explains that the moral of the parable is that ‘whatever life has handed us, it is our responsibility to do something with what we have been given.’
Politically, the moral is that government (what little there should be), and representatives of the people, should be creating an environment that supports self-responsibility and encourages creativity, hard work, and self-reliance. Republicans used to, and are supposed to, believe in that.
That means when a major corporation, such as General Motors, is unable to effectively increase their talents (profits) through the company’s own efforts; it should be left to fail, not be given handouts. This applies to banks, FannieMae, FreddieMac, and all of We the People.
Let’s repeat the life lesson again; “…life is not designed to give rewards in proportion to our level of need; it gives them in proportion to our level of deserve.” So if you live outside your means, it is no one’s responsibility to save you. If you are a company that cannot sustain itself, it is not our job to bail you out.
And if you are a politician, who believes it’s acceptable to trade the Constitution for free overseas trips, a private aircraft, or the right to be forgiven for shirking your responsibilities as an elected official in order to pander to your own ego and/or libido – think again. You don’t!
While we may all need help from time to time; that is what family, friends, and faith are for. Government is not for supporting the needs of anyone; it is for empowering those who are willing to work hard to create for themselves and others, and for protecting us from those who would rob us of our freedoms. Sadly, the Republican Party has become filled with politicians who would join forces with those on the far Left in robbing us of what we work so hard for.
According to the GOP website, Republicans believe:
- You can be what you are, and become what you are capable of becoming
- Small government is a better government for the people
- You know what to do with your money better than government
- Free markets keep people free
- Our Armed Forces defend and protect our democracy (which should state our Republic, but there you see Republicans dipping into the poison Kool-Aid. Perhaps you could call us a Representative Democracy, but we were founded as a Republic).
I am not surprised that my friend has had difficulty in differentiating the Republicans from the Democrats. For many candidates who successfully become public servants, their oaths and promises seem to be forgotten once the official oath is sworn. For others with good intentions, they start out strong and then succumb to the pressures of lobbyists and compromise.
There is an ancient warrior saying, “It is better to aim the spear at the moon and strike the eagle, than to aim at the eagle and strike only a rock.” Thanks to the on-going assault on our sensibilities by Liberals and bought-out/sold-out Republicans, we as a nation seem to be aiming only for the rock, unconcerned because of the promises of entitlement offered to us by those who have chosen to use their stature as our elected officials to divide us by class and ideology instead of truly representing the best of us as a nation of freedom and unalienable rights.
If we are to reclaim the exceptionalism of these United States of America, then we must take responsibility for developing systems of success — personal, educational, and entrepreneurial. We face great challenges and must apply great discipline to overcoming them.
As Rohn writes in The Five Pieces to the Life Puzzle, “We cannot rule the city until we can rule our spirit. We cannot rule the nation until we can rule ourselves.”
(Sara Michele Crusade is a freelance writer and photographer whose work has been published in the U.S. and Germany. She is a veteran of the U.S. Army, and holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology. Email Sara at conservativecrusade@yahoo.com.)
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