New ideas on old themes

This blog posting comes from a response I got in an email from someone I really love. The divide here is I'm a conservative and he is a ??? I suspect he calls himself a 'progressive' or maybe a 'liberal' but I'm not really sure, however we have some fundamental disagreements on our government.

First he is in the President's camp on health care, and like all progressive/liberal's he thinks the government is the answer to the problem, single payer system, or at least government to run a piece of it to ensure competition. He is a firm believer in Global Warming and believes we should pass cap and trade. I don't know for sure on this point but I also don't believe he thinks that the illegal alien population is causing any problems in this country.

I am suspecting that given the chance to work in the Obama White House he would advocate for the fairness doctrine or something even more strict which would be a death knoll for free speech. He is a believer in gun rights, he believes everyone should have the right to have a single shot rifle, he says I taught him that if you couldn't kill what you were shooting at with one shot you didn't need to kill it anyway. He doesn't believe however that anyone needs a semi-auto of any kind, except the military. I'm confused here, he claims to be a history buff but in looking at history I see hundreds of millions of people murdered by tyrannical governments and he believes the government should take care of your every need.

The problem is here he wants conservatives to bring new ideas to the table instead of the same old tired don't tax me more, don't spend my money on social programs, you represent me not the other way around, etc… Well I guess we should come to the table with new ideas, but shouldn't the liberals/progressives do the same? New tax on carbon emissions, new tax on sodas, new tax on cigarettes, new tax on alcohol…and all of this for the common good. Look around it has been tried for hundreds of years and failed. So what now, we made the Republic work for 200 years we can make a Socialist government work too? Do we think our government officials are so un-corruptible that a socialist government would work better than the Republic did? I just don't get it, how can we make a country work when half of its population depends on the other half for subsistence?

I'm sorry son, I've failed you