[I am a conservative, Independent and proud of it!]

The way I see it, conservatives are failing to speak up, and the squeaky wheel is the only one being heard.

Worse … those voices are loud.

That’s why so many changes have happened since the beginning of our country … not because everybody wants it, but because the loudest people stand up and beg for ‘whatever it is’ enough to wear down everyone else. Our country is changing from what we were created, to something that scares me. For me and for my children and my future grand children and beyond that. This isn’t a time to think about today … it’s a time to think about 10, 20 and 50 years from now.

Today, I’m standing on my soapbox. If you comment on my post without having read everything in it, stating your political opinion or how ‘wrong’ I am, I will delete your comment, because … well … that’s my rule and I’m stating it up front.

So let’s begin.

Think about the parent-child relationship. How many whines does it take for you to give in to your kid? One? Ten? A hundred? Unfortunately, I, too, am subject to this problem and in this, our country is, too. I don’t expect us all to agree. We never will. That’s not how life is supposed to work. What we all seem to be forgetting is that The United State of America was founded on a set of rules that are being more and more eroded every day.

You know what those rules are called, right? If not, you shouldn’t have a say or even a vote. Ooh, that’ll get some backs up. But think about it … if I didn’t know the rules of driving my car and I got into the driver’s seat, should I be allowed to even roll it out of the driveway?

To vote, you should know the rules.

Are our candidates for President following THE RULES? Is our current President?

You see … I’ve been watching the GOP debates and the press and news media coverage. I’ve read articles and talked about what I’ve seen/heard/read with other people. I’ve seen the Twitter posts and the Facebook messages about how the GOP candidates all suck for various reasons and our president is the most awesome guy in the world. To quote Seth and Amy and Saturday Night Live … “Really? Really?”

The more I watch, the more I get angry. Angry at my country, at the snobbish ways our country works, at the greed that seems to come with the political agenda of so many of our elected ‘officials’.

Have we forgotten where how this country started? We the people …. and under God … Yes … that’s where. And with a set of RULES. Again, if you don’t know what these are, read on, or ask a friend. Better yet, Google it because if you plan to vote, you should KNOW what you’re voting for or against.

The problem is so many people are letting the media dictate the future instead of educating themselves and making up their own minds. They flood Facebook and Twitter with cartoons of inaccurate information (democratic and republicans alike) and tell everyone to ‘pass it on’ as if it’s the right information and when called out on it, they don’t take it down or change their story. Because they don’t know. Because they don’t know the rules. Because they don’t know how to measure someone’s ‘worth’ as a leader because they have nothing to measure them by.

BUT THEY DO! We allllll do!

I made a vow once. To marry my husband, to be with him til death do us part. We don’t have to do that with our politicians. But so many of them aren’t keeping the vow they did make, with hands on the bible, and by following the rules.

I don’t care whether you’ll vote democratic or republican or if you’re an Independent voter. I am an Independent. Vote based on education of the facts. I look at history and the present. I look at what someone has done, how they have changed and what they say now.

And I measure that person against the rules. Against the foundation. Against what the creators of this country meant it to be.

When I manage a project, if someone on my team fails, *I* fail. If I can’t take the heat of that failure, I should not have been in the position I was in. It’s as simple as that.

As the leader of our country, our President is the one that will get the blame, should take the blame and should always, always, always be judged against the rules.

Here is where you say, “But Congress doesn’t let him!”

Don’t give me that. He’s the leader. As leader, he gets to take the blame. I agree Congress sucks, too because so many of THEM were elected without a measure against ‘the rules’.

This isn’t a game, though. Unlike when we were children, we shouldn’t be trying to change the game in our favor by adjusting the rules. We should be using the rules and principles to guide our lives, to govern our country and our states, our municipalities and counties, our cities and towns.

Those rules are our constitution. The Bill of Rights. Personally, I think we should go back to just those 10.

We’ve had them for a long time.

Here is where you say, “Well, old doesn’t mean it applies to today.”

I beg to differ. Our constitution — that Bill of Rights is the building block of our country. It supports us. It is the foundation. Without the foundation, the walls will fall, the roof will collapse and everything will come crumbling down.

How would you play Red Rover or Tic Tac Toe without rules? You’d fail. I’d fail. Rules aren’t there to take away freedoms. They are there so we all know what everyone’s freedoms are. EVERYONE’S.

If you take out a rule, the foundation will crumble. Just like a Coke can. Your entire weight can stand on an empty can if it has no indentions in the casing. If you ping it in the middle so there is a little dent and you try to stand on it, it will crush under your weight.

And if you don’t like the rules, what should you do? Change them? No. It’s like turning 18 and wanting to move out of your parent’s home. If the rules no longer suit you, you’ll have to find a place that does. But the rules didn’t change in your parent’s house. They remained. You just found a new place to make up your own rules … governed still by the over-arching ones that govern us all.

We need to rule by the rules, live by the rules and if we don’t like it, we don’t damage the foundation. We either ‘accept’ or move on.

So there. I’ve spoken. Enough said.