By It Honestly

How does one come to conservatism? In my case, logic dictates the rightness of the right. I witnessed the leftist perspective first hand with attempted indoctrination at the University School of Nashville, an experimental school, once connected to the Peabody College for teachers, which some years back merged with Vanderbilt University. The institution was so liberal that drug use and homosexuality were essentially advocated in a life skills class for thirteen to fifteen year olds. I attended this hotbed of preaching Darwin, Engels, and Marx from eighth through tenth grade, and it fostered the spirit opposite of the permissiveness and license being taught in me. To conform with mainstream society, be a Reaganite, and even preppy was to rebel against the hippie holdover culture that permeated USN. Even when it was against self-interest, I maintained conservative principles, campaigning against a state income tax in my home state of Tennessee even though it would have included an end to Tennessee's Hall Tax, a levy on unearned (interest and dividend income) on which my family has been taxed millions over the years. Fundamentally, only limited government with strict federalism, a system of free market capitalism, a strong national defense, and issues addressed and resolved locally where citizens have the most control is the form of governance that makes sense to me, the one that Obama is rapidly reversing.