Do you remember the good old days? For this conservative, it was the 50s and 60s.
Every moment felt safe - no locking of the doors.
TV was fun - no vulgarity or indecency.
Government was controlled - taxes were reasonable.
Wouldn't it be nice to be there again? We can have a bit of that, but we can't have it tomorrow! One of the greatest tasks before us is to cut our government down, in size, in power, in its encroachment into our lives.
Conservatives don't want just a smaller government, they want a small government.
The opportunity to begin this process appears right before them.
Liberals are no longer talking about spending increases; the discussion of everyone now is about how much spending to cut.
The heartbeat of all true conservatives is a big spending decrease, leading to a balanced budget.
They can get that, but they can't get it right now, and they may not actually want it too quickly.
Drastic changes often bring unforeseen consequences which are not usually pleasant.
Immediate drastic cuts to the nation's budget would send shock waves throughout our country.
The most keenly felt effect would probably be the massive unemployment among federal workers, which inevitably comes with downsizing.
The federal payroll is out of control and bloated, that is true, but it is staffed by people whose lives are as deserving as anyone else's.
If whole departments were eliminated, or even drastically cut back, where would these people go to continue their lives? We shouldn't blame them for the recklessness of politicians.
In contrast, a gradual downsizing of government would provide time to integrate federal workers back into the private sector.
Another massive shock to society with quick and drastic cuts would be in how people feel about the loss of services.
Like it or not, Americans have grown very accustomed to all of the "goodies" the federal government provides.
A certain way to turn people against the conservative movement is to quickly cut off the services people are used to having.
In contrast, a gradual removal tastes better to the palate.
Independents have gone to the conservative side recently in impressive numbers.
But their move is tentative, at best.
With the kinds of arguments liberals would surely make with sharp and deep budget cuts, losing the support of independents would almost certainly occur.
Remember, the reason they have gone to the conservative side was because of the massive liberal overreach of the last two years.
They can just as quickly leave if conservatives grab too big and too quickly.
Conservatives need to make independents a permanent part of their voting block.
Conservatives may gag to say these words, but they are necessary ones and here they are: learn a lesson from the liberals, who over a century of time took whatever small steps were in front of them to lead this country toward their socialist goal.
Conservatives need to put together a long-term plan of creating a small and limited government which lives with modest means.
They need to take steps only large enough as are acceptable at the time which move them toward their goal, while always maintaining the support of a majority of Americans.
The budget battle before us will be a good test to see how well conservatives can do.
Accepting $30 billion in cuts now, instead of demanding $60 billion and threatening primary challenges, can make the next battle much more winnable.
The next battle, 2012's budget, will be a much more important one, anyway.