Question+2

**Dave K:** On fiscal issues, my beliefs are largely results-based; I believe that low taxes and low government spending generally result in healthy economies that positively impact all classes. I believe that competition produces 'better mousetraps', especially in education. My belief in a strict interpretation of the law comes from the political theory that only legislators should make laws, that the power of the judiciary is in narrow interpretation. My social views are based largely in my faith, the belief that human life is immeasurably valuable, and in the history of human institutions. And, growing up in a conservative Southern household and in the Church has undoubtedly influenced my thinking.


 * Peter W:** One of my favorite Mark Twain quotations is “The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views; when he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.” In my youth, while studying the Civil Rights Movement in America, I couldn’t help but think how simple the truth was, that civil rights and civil liberties and equal protections must extend to all people. I struggled to understand how those people, just a few decades before, had such a hard time realizing this.

As we’ve moved further along, we’ve seen the gradual, but continual, expansion of rights and equal treatment. From women’s suffrage to desegregation, from ADA to the current advances of the GLBT community, we have seen how our society is strengthened by bringing people equal opportunities to participate in society. To me, if you recognize that something will one day become the norm and the new standard of morals, then any delay in making that moment happen now is just a lack of political courage. Once it was radical to fight for women or for civil rights. It’s my hope that one day, fighting for GLBT rights, universal healthcare, or a living wage will be seen as conservative.

The recent phenomenon of the anti-government tea party people, I hope, will be short-lived. Most of them have fallen into step with a line of thought that blames others for all problems: a big government, immigrants, regulators, etc. But they never seek to actually address the complex realities of the issues, they merely embrace the talking points fed to them. Far too many Republicans have sat idly by and encouraged outrageous language and misrepresentations of issues to permeate through to their constituents- all solely for the hope of gaining power in the fall elections. This anti-government rhetoric is dangerous because it is creating a group of people that know what government makes possible, and don’t want government to be successful in the tasks that only it can achieve.