It's About The Individual

In my early adult years I like many of my pears I didn't pay much attention or display much interest in the political system or its effects on my well being or status in life. I was what I was suppose to be based on my surrounding environment. I was a liberal that thought fairness was a virtue and not a crutch.

Through my working adult life I began to take notice of this word fairness and the profound impact that it would have on me. Let me begin with the fact my upbringing was in an environment that you worked hard for your family's well being, the motto was family first you second. In what ever capacity that I found my self I worked very hard to succeed at it so that my family would always be taken care of. In one of my experiences in the corporate world I became part of bonus system that I thought would reward me for my positive results only to find out that " Fairness" would supersede actual results. There were two of us in the same level of responsibility for similar operations within the company. At the end of the year my operations went from a bottom line loss to bottom line profits. My counterpart on the other hand showed a considerable improvement in the bottom line loss but no profits. We were given the same amount of bonus money. Till this day I can not understand how anyone can give bonus when there is no profits. This incident made me look to myself and what was happening around me.

What I began to notice is that you the individual was no longer as important as you as part of a team and its parts. When did the individual become less important than the team? How did this emphasis come into be ? Don't get me wrong team work has its place especially in the family, but each member of a family is an individual with his own abilities and attributes that are completely different from someone else.

This distinction between individual and the collective made me realize the difference between conservatism and liberalism. Conservatism is about you the individual, what makes you special and what you have to offer to society as a whole. Liberalism is all about trying to level the playing field, everyone is part of a collective group with no winners and no losers .

Lets look at society as a whole , it is made up of a group of individuals with it's tie to nationality, ethnic origins, or simply with marked territory. There are individuals in each society that find themselves compelled to lead those others that are content on following. Whenever, you get leaders, that get caught up in there own self aggrandizement and they loose site of the collective body. They use them for a means to an end, which is the allure of power over others. These I will call the elite Liberals they simply have forgotten where they have come from. Don't get me wrong there are so called conservatives that are caught up in this same spell, power has a way of corrupting those with the best of intentions. How does society identify those individuals that have lost there purpose but are only in it for themselves?

The United States of America Society which is one of the worlds youngest and most prosperous societies on the face of the earth has in place the mechanisms to allow the individual to identify and correct whatever society warrants . The Constitution and The Bill of Rights are such documents when followed as intended gives the individual all that he or she needs to make the required decisions that will benefits society as a whole, as long as we never forget that "It's About The Individual"