© David Burton 2008

Maybe it’s time to remind my fellow Republicans just who some of their supporters and members are and what we are not.

First, I consider myself to be conservative.

NOTE: I said I’m conservative, not necessarily a conservative. Because of my conservative leanings, I normally support Republican candidates for office and Republican positions. I frequently back up my support with financial contributions, but most often to candidates that earn my support rather than to the local or national Republican Party.

BUT, there have been times when I’ve had to bite the bullet and vote Democratic. I twice voted for Bill Clinton because the Republican presidential candidates simply said and did nothing to get me excited enough to vote for them. Bush Sr. and Dole were bland, uninspiring and failed to do anything in their campaigns to lead me to believe that they were anything but tired old men.

I AM NOT A DEMOCRAT BECAUSE:

• I don’t believe in taxing the productive to support the unproductive.
• I don’t believe in a nanny state where the government takes care of everyone instead of individuals being responsible for themselves.
• I don’t support the preservation of utopian civil liberties at the expense of allowing terrorists and criminals to escape and repeat their crimes and atrocities.
• I don’t believe in a tax-and-spend philosophy.
• I don’t believe that Democrats understand the world-wide threat from fundamentalist Islam, or if they do, they don’t realize what it will take in the next decades to defeat this threat. Democrats simply have not faced up to the fact that radical Islamic fanatics have been at war with us for the past 3 decades and that this war will continue for generations.

• I believe in the least government possible.
• I believe in minimizing tax rates and that reduced income tax rates increase GDP growth, thereby generating the same or more revenue for the government from the lower tax rates on the extra growth.
• I believe in a strong national defense. I believe we have been at war with radical Islam for decades and will be for many years to come. I believe a strong national defense is essential to defeating this threat and to defending against other new threats in the world.
• I believe in supporting the capitalistic free-market system and the companies and businesses that produce the goods, services, and jobs that have made America the success that it has been for nearly two centuries.
• I believe in taking a hard line against terrorists and criminals. I support the death penalty. I believe in giving those who serve and protect us all the tools they need to defeat the terrorists and criminals.
• I believe that that making law is the province of the legislature and that judges should not "legislate from the bench."
• I support the idea of individuals being economically responsible for their own actions, decisions and consequences.
• I support welfare reform, which limits eligibility for welfare and encourages welfare recipients to find jobs.
• I believe that economic prosperity and environmental protection must advance together, that environmental regulations should be based on science, and that the government’s major role should be to provide market-based incentives to develop the technologies to meet environmental standards.
• I support school choice, charter schools and education vouchers.
• I support organized prayer in public schools.

• I am not a born again Christian Fundamentalist. In fact, I am not of the Christian faith.
• I support a woman’s right to abortion and I support the Roe vs. Wade decision of the Supreme Court.
• I am a “moderate conservative”. I lean to the right, but I am not a supporter of the extreme right wing.
• I do not march in lock step with the hard line conservatives of the party.
• I believe in defining marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman, but not by means of a constitutional amendment. I also believe in civil unions and the guarantee of the same benefits to gay couples as to heterosexual couples.
• I believe in supporting embryonic stem cell research.