LEARN TO TAKE A PUNCH:

I just saw ROCKY BALBOA last night and I was really struck by a scene where Rocky tells his son the facts of life after his son complains to him about living in his father’s big shadow.

I am paraphrasing– my memory is not the best – but basically Rocky tells his son that the measure of a person is not how hard you can hit, but how hard you can take a punch and keep going when life hits you, because nothing can ever hit you as hard as life. And when life does hit you – when a loved one dies or you are having financial troubles or the dream you have been pursuing for years seems further away than ever – a person has to keep going despite the pain and effort. You keep going and do not other people or even circumstances for your problems – like living in a famous father’s big shadow – because you will never amount to anything if you do that.

Conservatives who are still reeling from last year’s elections could learn a lesson from what Rocky told his son.

Before the Republican majority began its twelve-year run in Congress, conservatives eagerly supported and fought for their ideas against liberals. We communicated over talk radio and through direct-mail and over the Internet using emails and websites. We supported conservative political groups. We were energized with our guys in the minority because we believed in our ideas and were willing to fight for them.

Twelve years later, we are backing the minority in Congress and have a "compassionate conservative" President in Washington. Taxes are lower, but government is much bigger, spending is at an all-time high, and the Republican Party – the home for most conservatives – has made it clear through its leadership and actions that it has little or no interest in conservative ideas.

Conservatism never got much of a chance, despite our support of the majority party in Washington D.C. and in most state governments for twelve years. That is a heck of a punch, and from what I have been hearing and reading from conservatives, most of us have not gotten over it yet.

Well … man up!

Do you still believe in conservatism? Do you still believe in the greatness of America and the ideas of our founding fathers?

Then do what you did before 1994 and should have been doing over the past twelve years.

Keep fighting for your ideas.

Do not stop. Never stop.

And do not blame others for our problems. Yes, many of the politicians we voted into power let us down, but the fact is that the main reason the Democrats are now the majority is that a good number of Republicans voted them into power because those Republicans became fed up with the politicians who let them down.

Way to go.

Republican voters could have held their politicians feet to the fire, but we have little to no influence with the Democrats now in power. And can you honestly say things are better now than they would have been in the Republican majority was still in power?

But things are the way they are. Fine. These things do not diminish the rightness of conservatism. We have taken the punch. Now the time has come to get back up and keep fighting.

DEMOCRAT'S BLIND FAITH IN THEIR POWER:

 Just a stray thought that has been buzzing around my bonnet the past few days.

Communication science as well as history teaches that people who have been in power for a long time often develop a sense that they deserve to be in power and always will be in power. The Communist rulers in the former U.S.S.R. had it. The British Parliament had it before the American Revolution. The Catholic Church had it before the Protestant Reformation. The Romans had it before the rise of Christianity.

Today many members of the Democratic Party believe that power is theirs by right. They had it for forty years up until 1994, and now they have it back and have no intention of getting it back. (BTW: Don’t you love how the old guard in America’s Pravda Media kept asking how the Democrats could regain their power from 1994 until the last election, and now since that election they keep asking how the Democrats can hold on to their power? When are they going to get around to asking the Republicans any questions?)

This is an important point when it comes to how Democrats face the War on Terror.

Democrats do not see the threat of terrorism as a powerful enough to bring down Western governments, America most of all. After all, it is the proper order of things for Democrats to rule in America, and there is nothing that Republicans, conservatives, or a bunch of terrorists can do to change it.

The fact that the people who hold the reigns of power in Congress have this attitude frightens me very very much.