You might be a conservative

As promised, here’s my idea of what you have to believe to consider yourself a conservative.

You might be a conservative if …

• You believe that advancing freedom and democracy—and our country’s own economic interests—aren’t mutually exclusive or otherwise “evil” concepts.

• You have a bumper sticker that reads, “Smith and Wesson, the ultimate in feminine protection.”

• You believe people who spend more time denouncing greedy cable television companies than improving their job skills probably vote Democrat.

• You’d like a liberal to explain why they don’t include the AFL-CIO, Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club, the National Education Association and George Soros when they denounce special interests and big money.

• You believe the death penalty is about punishment, not deterrence.

• You see the irony in Burning Man participants paying $300 a head to prance around the desert espousing art and expression while renouncing capitalism.

• You believe removing despotic regimes from power is a good thing. (And perhaps Syria, Iran or North Korea should be next.)

• You own an SUV and don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks about your SUV or what Jesus would drive.

• You believe diplomacy is only effective when backed by superior firepower and the will to use it.

• The only groups of people truly deserving of help—and taxpayer dollars—are children, the mentally ill, the physically and developmentally disabled and anyone with a genetic medical condition.

• You believe any sanctimonious, self-absorbed ingrate found protesting the military or desecrating the U.S. flag should be stripped of their citizenship and deported—because such actions are patently obscene.

• You pay too much in taxes.

• You might consider listening to anything Democrats have to say when they finally find that welfare Mom who became successful using their little socialist programs.

• You refuse to take any group seriously that marches in pride parades dressed like a carnival sideshow.

• You believe Ronald Reagan deserves more credit for winning the Cold War than Mikhail Gorbachev does for losing it.

• You believe that before Oprah and Brad Pitt lecture the rest of us about helping the poor and downtrodden with their insipid charities, they should stop buying $50,000 designer dresses and $2 million engagement rings.

• Given a choice, you prefer 10,000 dead foreigners to one dead U.S. Marine.

• You believe that if artists can’t earn a living without government subsidies, perhaps they should find another occupation.

• An AR-15 actually is the best choice for hunting purposes.

• You care more about the rights of small-business owners than convicted felons.

• You believe that if socialized medicine was preferable, Canadians wouldn’t come to the United States for medical care.

• You believe Darwin and religion are reconcilable concepts.

• The thought of all your law-abiding neighbors being armed is comforting.

• You believe environmentalists should shut the hell up and let oil companies drill in ANWR, the Gulf of Mexico or off Ted Kennedy’s veranda.

•You believe freedom is not an imposition.

• You’d like a liberal to explain why the USA PATRIOT Act was such a bad idea, when every pious, loud-mouth, Democrat Senator—save one—voted for it?

• You finished high school, got a job, and got married before you had kids. And you’re damned proud of it.

• And finally, you believe that if God wasn’t a Republican, it would have been the Ten Suggestions rather than the Ten Commandments.

Comments are welcome. Insults and epithets will be cheerfully ignored.