Speaking of criminals, conservatives believe in putting an end to illegal immigration. Although there are plenty of out-and-out criminals who sneak into our country, most illegal aliens are decent people at heart who come here to get jobs, but they still harm Americans. They don't respect our laws, they drive up costs for the rest of us by using our hospitals and schools for free, and they take jobs from American citizens and drive down their wages. God bless anybody who wants to work for a living, but this is America and in this country, if nowhere else in the world, Americans have to come first.

The same thing could be said about our energy policy: Americans have to come first and shouldn't have to pay higher costs at the pump because we won't drill ANWR. Conservatives also disagree with the Democrats pushing a gas tax increase and don't think Americans should have higher fuel bills so that we can sign onto some unworkable cap and trade scheme that places a huge burden on middle class families in order to deal with "man made" global warming, a proposition that is looking more dubious by the day.

Then there's Affirmative Action. Discriminating against anyone because of his color is wrong and even if Affirmative Action hasn't done as much damage as Jim Crow laws, it's every bit as vile, immoral, unconstitutional, and un-American as those laws were.

We also need to make sure that people can afford health care because if you don't have your health, how much does everything else matter? Liberals will tell you the solution to our health care problem is to put the same government that's responsible for the IRS, FEMA, and ICE in charge, but since when has the federal government ever made anything more efficient, cost effective, or responsive to customers? Conservatives believe in taking a different path. Instead of giving tax breaks to companies for health care, we believe that they should be given directly to individuals so that you don't lose your health care if you lose your job. We also believe in driving down the cost of health care with tort reform, streamlining the regulations that make bringing a new drug to market so slow and expensive, health care savings accounts, and in allowing health insurance companies from anywhere in America to compete for business in any state. Conservatives could make health care cheaper and better for the American people if only liberals weren't so hell-bent on getting health care under the control of the federal government.

Then there is a public school system which is being ruined by teachers’ unions whose first priority seems to be protecting bad teachers and whose last priority seems to be educating our children. We need to make it easier to fire bad teachers, we need merit pay for good teachers, and we need to allow parents trapped in failing schools to get vouchers so that they can send their children to the same sort of private schools that rich people do. We're already expending enough tax dollars per child to do that, but liberals would rather children be held back for life by a poor education than offend the teachers’ unions by supporting vouchers.

Moreover, if we want to make sure that we leave a better country to our children than we have today, we cannot ignore cultural issues or stand by idly while this country turns into a moral sewer. If America ceases to be a good nation, full of decent people, it will also inevitably cease to be a great nation.

That's why conservatives believe in sticking up for Christianity when it comes under assault. It's why we believe the Left should leave the Boy Scouts alone. It's why we think mothers killing their own children through abortion is wrong. It's why, even though it didn't turn out to be popular, we stuck up for life in the Terri Schiavo case. It's why we have no problem saying that marriage should be between a man and a woman and ideally, it should be for life.

America is a beacon of hope in a dark world and it got to be this way because of our people, not because of our government. The bulk of Americans have always been decent, hard working, ambitious, independent people and conservatism is a philosophy best suited to them.