Commonsense conservative.

I found that the end of the Palin book was maybe better than the beginning that got me hooked. I found several passages, one that Victor shared on his Facebook page.

" I am a conservative because I deal with the world as it is- complicated and beautiful, tragic and hopeful. I am a conservative because I believe in the rights and the responsibilities and the inherent dignity of the individual."

" Commonsense conservatives deal w human nature as it is- with its unavoidable weaknesses and its potential for goodness. We see the world as it is- imperfect but filled w beauty. We hope for the best. We believe that people can change for the better, but we do not ignore history's lessons and waste time chasing Utopian dreams. We don't trust Utopian dreams from politicians."

While reading this particular section I noticed that she thinks like a mother and like a woman, but she is not naive. She closed her book with an incredible email that has been widely circulated.

In the email Dewey Whetsell describes the achievements of SP while in Alaska and how tenacious she was when it came to what she believed. He lists these achievements..asking as he goes if anyone else has accomplished such goals. His final paragraph discusses how she was dogged with ethics complaints after the election. This led to her ultimate resignation..to protect her family and those staff members who had stood beside her during the campaign. This is his final paragraph..

" By the way, she was content to return to Alaska after the national election and go to work but the haters would not let her. Now, these adolescent screechers are obviously not scuba divers. And no one ever told them what happens when you continually jab and pester a barracuda. Without warning, it will spin around and tear your face off. Shoulda known better."

History Repeats Itself.

In my current position (unemployed) this passage from the book I am reading- Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, struck a cord with me. Recently, I took a temporary job that lasted a week. Since, I took this week of work, I was refused unemployment for THREE weeks. This is why people on welfare or unemployment prefer not working over working, because ultimately they are punished in one way or another. Whether it be waiting hours upon hours on a representative who talks to you like you are dirt..only to provide you with a five minute response and tell you to be on your way. Or you are punished like me, without payment for three weeks because you worked one. This excerpt from the book is a great synopsis of how I feel.

"Jack Reagan (Ronald's father) did not wait to be asked by anyone to help people find work. It was within the meager budget given to him by the federal government to find jobs in the community that needed doing and match them to men who presented themselves before him each week. By working late into the night, Jack managed to distribute the few jobs on offer between the thousands of men so that each of them received a share of the small amount of money available and the scrap of self respect that job, however menial, represented."

" As the Roosevelt administration became better organized, the scale of government help increased and with it the unintended inequities of the welfare system. Jack Reagan soon found that men who took his jobs were refused full welfare relief payment because they were working. The men he helped had to join the back of the line for welfare payments and fill in endless forms, turning them from proud family men without jobs into anonymous case numbers to be lost in the system. As his son later pointed out, "In the meantime their families went hungry- all because they'd done a few days honest work."

I am not suggesting that my situation is as desperate, but I do know people whose situations are. If it is difficult for me to make it, I can't imagine adding children and a spouse to the mix.