I'll be the Judge of that...

As a conservative, I am completely used to my opinions not sitting well with a large segment of our country. Long before Republicans attained sizable political power, the obvious differences in both politcal and social beliefs became very apparent to me once I left home to enter the professional workforce. I saw that a large portion of my conservative tendencies came from my upbringing, and I instinctively knew that certain actions and attitudes did not...and would not...fly in my household. Respect for your elders, knowing the value of an education and the value of the money you earn...and learning to be judgmental regarding the moral consequences of bad behavior were lessons that were reinforced every single day.

That's right, I said judgmental.

We are taught from an early age that being "judgmental" is wrong or a sign of moral turpitude. When we are presented with an opportunity to demonstrate some independence, people who want to encourage our actions coax us along by saying "Go on, we trust your judgment." Yet, when presented with a situation where genuine moral conflicts that negatively effect either ourselves or others occur, we are bombarded with denouncements where the prevaricator of bad behavior attacks his accusers with demands that they "not be so judgmental".

Our society functions because, in large part, people are capable of taking care of themselves and making positive judgment calls in day to day affairs. That means they look at any situation, define limits for themselves, determine what is right and wrong and render value judgments based on the actions or inactions of the people around them. Those that do this are responsible human beings.

Despite it being part of our everyday life, liberals regard the mere mention of judgment or the making of firm, committed decisions based on a moral compass not as demonstrating restraint, consideration or maturity, but rather the product of intolerance and hate. Even California, a state that is as liberal left as it can possibly get, defeated gay marriage. Yet the moment people considered the consequences and decided to draw a line at giving homosexuals the right to marry, homosexuals immediately attacked and hurled racial and ethnic slurs at the black and Hispanic communities and compared Mormonism to Nazism, who's long-standing religious beliefs saw such a move as an abomination. Open-mindedness and tolerance towards the beliefs of others, as it seems, is only meant to be a one-way political street.

Experience is the greatest teacher. From our first forays into public life and interacting with others, people define boundaries and set limits for themselves and those around them. Invariably, conflicts occur, and it from our successes and failures that we gain confidence in ourselves and our abilities. Believing in yourself is more than just a frame of mind, it is a state attained through a long process of trial and error, self-examination and correction. That is the process of attaining maturity.

If maturity arises from experiences related to resolving conflict, learning from mistakes and making good choices, then consider what we have allowed the government sponsored teachers unions to do to our kids:

Children in our public school systems are now routinely insulated from having to make any of the decisions or deal with any of the problems people routinely encounter on the path to adulthood. Schools have created artificial "bully free" zones. Punishments or discipline can never involve shame or humiliation. Cheating has been reduced in most cases to a minor offense where the most the student has to worry about is the failing mark for the test they were caught cheating on. Teachers are not allowed to enforce discipline beyond asking nicely or handing out detentions. Homework is not nearly as difficult. The dress code is often lax. Let's also not forget the obvious - that educational standards for mathematics, science and history are among the lowest for industrialized nations.

All of these examples can be directly tied to a perverse culture that demeans and belittles value judgments and the people who make them, and subsequently seeks to insulate kids from the very experiences that will aid them into becoming responsible adults. Creating artificial bully-free zones discourages self-defense and people settling their own differences by promoting a false nation that your own protection and value is to be managed and determined by someone else. It also leave kids unprepared as to how to deal with difficult and unsavory people on their own. The lack of shame and humiliation on students who are punished for bad conduct comes from the morally relativistic idea that imposing harsher punishment produces and promotes more bad behavior. Cheating is treated as being passe because of the group-think mentality that promotes the idea that "everyone does it". Teachers cannot enforce strict discipline because schools are supposed to teach, not "tell how my kids are supposed to act!". Homework has become viewed as just another punishment that is leveraged as a tool to control kids. The dress code has been downplayed as just another prudish way of telling people what to do, with no redeeming value. Downplaying the value of mathematics, science and history has been done by teachers to make their jobs easier. All three of those subjects are bound by facts, not feelings. Since teachers are more at home with promoting relativistic ideas such as philosophy or debate over subjects where there is only one true correct answer, promoting those subjects is subtly discouraged. Is it any wonder that the moment you hand a teenager behind the register a few extra coins to make exact change, talk about science or use historical context to make a point...their eyes glaze over?

I remember when my father, who was beside himself over the average report card I brought home one semester, threw me into the truck and took me on a tour of depressed neighborhoods. I saw the run down houses, and often we would see able-bodied people sitting on their porches with beers in their hands, all of them slovenly dressed. He verbally laid into me harder than any other time in memory, and what sticks out the most was his descriptions of the people we passed by. He called some of them "bums", he used the word "lazy" a lot, and even referred to one unshaven guy running around in his wife-beater as an "animal". He said that people make bad decisions in life and have to pay a price for those mistakes. He then took me on a tour of some really nice houses, and bet me money that the people living there had good educations, worked hard and made good choices. At no time for either class of people did he ever use the word "luck" to describe the most likely cause of their fortunes.

Years later, I looked back at that day and realized that it was one of the most profound moments in my life. I saw it as a day where from that point on, I never looked at people or myself in the same fashion. I also realized that, by today's counter-culture standards - liberals would regard what my father did for me that day as barbaric and insensitive. As they would claim, my father would have had no right to call anyone a bum or lazy because he had never been a lazy bum. What that experience did was firmly cement two strikingly powerful ideas in my mind:

- My life is not the result of someone elses' responsibility or lack thereof.

- Value judgments are the bedrock of good decisions.

When liberals try to use the biblical phrase of "Judge not, lest ye be judged" often in a last ditch effort to diffuse the argument of conservatives they disagree with by trying to make appeals to their religious beliefs, they are intentionally leaving out the context of the warning. Using only Mathew 7:1 is entirely incomplete, as this passage is not speaking to not judging at all, but rather it is speaking to not judging others in an unfair light, or any other cheap and selfish way.

Being judgmental does not mean that one is unwilling or unable to hear another point of view or understand where an adversary stands on an issue. Being judgmental is the act of being able to make decisions based upon the perceived pros and cons associated with different choices, and based on that set of choices, make the one that has the most benefit and causes the least amount of harm to others. It is impossible to do the right thing for yourself and others without being able to dispassionately cut through watered-down notions of right and wrong by being firmly rooted in the truth about who you are.

I was never given a better gift, and I can think of no greater gift I could give to my children.