I am a Republican because...in the 90's, my single mother worked 3 jobs, sometimes 4, and had the opportunity to work as much as she wanted and, thus, provide the lifestyle she wanted for herself and her children. This was made possible by Ronald Reagan (fundamentally changed America) and John Engler (unemployment was down to the lowest point ever under his leadership: 3%). These two leaders defied the establishment Left, reduced the burden of government, and freed all Americans to be as productive and wealthy as they wanted to. While Reagan's federal plans took longer to implement and longer to fade, Engler's were more direct and closer to home, making them quicker to effect change. In my life I have witnessed the success of these plans and their model of 'Opportunity + Freedom = Prosperity = Liberty;' I have also watched as the Left and their ideas infected both parties and have brought this nation, the one that accomplished so much in my childhood and prospered as no other nation in history, to its knees before the world.
The combined destruction wrought by the economic policies of Bill Clinton, Jennifer Granholm, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama is a terrible crime against the people of this nation and my state. Clinton's policies, held off to an extent by Newt Gingrich and his allies in Congress, inevitably have altered, and in the altering, tangled, the economic framework that brought our people so much liberty in the past.
Now, Michigan rots in its longest and gravest economic depression ever. Detroit, once the crown jewel of the republic, sits with 44.8% of its citizens unemployed. Of our state as a whole, more than one out of five people do not have a job. Two million, two hundred and ninety thousand of our neighbors, family members, friends, and former coworkers have been thrown into personal indignity by a government-run, government-decided, government-dominated system that does not work.
When we do find hours, we grab them and change our schedules and activities around them. It really is a fundamental change from the reality my mother raised my brother and I in through the 1990's. In the business she owns now, she's had to cut six jobs, six livelihoods, during this 'still-fragile recovery.' Our new reality makes us beholden to scarce work and, thus, less free to pursue our own interests. This government-altered reality seems to hunt down liberty and exterminate it wherever it can be found.
Instead of being enabled through opportunity and freedom provided by free markets, the elimination and over-regulation of those markets disables us and makes into pawns, bottom feeders, regardless of our level of income. While we run into trouble with our mortgages, property taxes, car payments, college bills, and utility charges, our elected 'leaders' continue to spend and spend and spend and spend, pursuing personal and political goals. They, then, seek to repeat the mistakes of the past and 'help' the economy by distracting us with a nice new paved road or train rides to Disney Land. Historical changes for the absolute worse just like this one repeatedly display the challenge for conservative leadership, a challenge met only somewhat by conservative leaders during the times of Engler and Reagan.
Conservatives have to find and nominate leaders who can build systems that are self-terminating when they've outlived their respect for liberty, but are sustainable in spite of the Left's attempts to bend them to their own devices. That's up to every one of us to ensure these systems get put in place for every one of our 513,000 elected offices. I, a lonesome blogger, dare you to prove your commitment to our principles and ensure that this kind of real change happens in your community. We can bring back that level of opportunity, freedom, prosperity, and liberty that both you and I have experienced in the past. It wont be easy, but think of the daily struggle of our troops who preserve this simple opportunity for us: we ought to do right by them and seize the day.
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