Why, exactly, am I conservative?

After a number of issues popped up on the news recently. I started to wonder why I'm a conservative. After all, most liberal positions on the issues have no bearing on me and my family at all. In fact, we benefit from many of them.

Fortunately or unfortunately, nearly every liberal policy ultimately hurts the very people they're designed to help. Frankly, these people deserve the consequences for their own stupidity. Hey, the school of hard knocks is where most of my eduction came from.

Nonetheless, if you want to look at why income distribution continues to widen (aka why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer) in this country, consider the following............


Crime

I'm a balls to the wall conservative on crime. But really. Why? When liberals let criminals go, they're not moving back to my nice Redville enclave. Most are going back to the cities where they can victimize people who don't have the ability to move to a safe neighborhood.

Why should I care if another person in the 'hood gets shot by some clown who should be behind bars?

Taxes

Why should I care if taxes go up? As I've said repeatedly on this blog. Consider that rich people pay no taxes. Ultimately, the only people who pay taxes are the people who can't pass along the costs to someone else.

When my software costs go up, so do my fees. The same is true of taxes. I still make money. The only person who takes in the shorts, is the guy who can't pass the tab to the guy behind him because there isn't anyone behind him.

Over reaching regulation

Do I want children drinking polluted water and breathing polluted air? Probably not since I'm drinking out of the same water supply and breathing the same air.

But I remember the good old days when we use to burn LEADED fuel in cars. Now we can't even produce it in Missouri because the emission might end up in Albany.

If you want a zero polluted environment, you'll have to ban all manufacturing in this country and the good paying jobs that goes with that. Actually, that's not even true since horse shit and human waste would line the streets and rivers like it did in 1910 creating much more hideous public health issues than pollutants kick out today.

So if you want poor people to rise out of poverty, you're going to have to deal with some element of pollution. But why should I care if auto, tires and computers are built out of the country? I've got mine already.


Schools

I'm for people having a choice about where their kids can go to school. But why should I care if poor people don't have the ability to choose the schools that work for their children?

I don't have any kids and if I did, I could afford to send them to private schools or move to a community with good schools.

That gives me and my kids a big advantage over kids forced to go to government sponsored cesspools.

Social Security/Pension Reform

I'm a proponent of reforming Social Security, Medicare and Public Pensions. Again, why? Afterall, I'm 50 years old. Chances are pretty good that these programs will be available to me for most, if not all, of my senior years.

Why should I care if these programs suck the economic life out of the young people who will have to pay for my benefit?

Obamacare

Why should I be opposed to Obamacare, the most egregious transfer of wealth from the young to the old in this country's history?

20 year old males pay higher auto insurance rates because they pose a higher driving risk. But 28 year old, perfectly healthy, males pay more........... because?

Thank you very much Mr./Ms 28 year old. I may pay for your birth control but you get to pay for my knee replacement.

It's a swap I'll take time and time again.

Student Loans

I'm against the student loan program. Why? Because all the student loan program has done is give a blank check to schools to keep ripping off kids who believe that a college education has become the end all, be all, to economic prosperity.

Why do I care if the programs are giant redistribution programs taking money from lower middle class and middle class kids and giving it to college professors and bureaucrats?

Let's just say that I've got my education and never had to sleep one night in my parent's basement after graduation. What's different today?

Minimum wage

I'm against the minimum wage hike. Why? First, because anything that creates barriers for new workers to get into the employment pipeline hurts them, not me.

Secondly, artificially increasing prices on the cost of production creates inflation. Who gets hurt more from inflation? Hint. It's not Donald Trump.

Easy Money

All Big Ben and the Bernake's have done the past couple of decades is create easy money and easy lending policies that created our giant ass home price bubble and subsequent burst.

Has it ever dawned on anyone that in the past three years, the stock market has kicked ass all the while worker's wages have deflated? You can thank big Ben and the Obama Treasury that have helped my 401k but done nothing for middle class job prospects.

In addition, we are totally insulated from another real estate bust since our mortgage is about seven years from being paid off and we're not moving anytime soon.

And even if we did, we've got the flexibility to absorb a downturn in the market. Something most young families didn't have when the foreclosure genie came a calling.


Social programs

You know who gets the most benefit from the food stamp, subsidized housing and other government programs? Try Archer Daniels Midland, landlords, convenience store owners et al.

It's a basic supply and demand exercise. Give people more money, they drive up the prices for basic needs. It's like a giant company store.

I have a client who is flat out getting rich from Section 8 housing. He buys distressed properties for about $10,000, spend about $10k in renovations rents them out for the tidy some of $850/month thanks to the government. He gets his money back in two years.

And then he pays me a lot of money to handle all the tax returns for those properties.

Is this a great country or what?

The bottom line is that as part of being a conservative is that we have to save liberals from themselves. It's really not that much different than a parent/child relationship. You don't let a kid sit and watch TV all day, eat donuts, not go to school because your life experience tells you that long term, it's not good for the kids and you'll pay the price for having them sleep in your basement when they should be out in the world starting their own families and starting the cycle over again.

So why am I a conservative? Because I don't want the country who provided me with so much to turn into Detroit who provides no one with anything.