I am a conservative.

My mom and dad are conservative and they raised four children in a conservative home. We all attended a Church of Christ in Grandview. My views were honed from close nuclear families that my father and mother befriended while attending that church throughout our childhood, with which we enjoyed life together on family vacations and many trips during the summer to Table Rock Lake in the '70s.

Our family and their families were innately honest, analytical and empathetic toward life and raising their children. I realized while attending the Church of Christ that God is a God of love.

If he is loving, then I should strive to be as loving as our Creator toward his creation. I strive toward many things, but I am not a perfect person. I wish I was a robot, but I am who I am. I am not prejudiced toward who you are, only prejudiced against those prejudiced against my beliefs.

I believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I believe in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.

Those are great moral compasses to lead you down a wonderful life on this planet. If those moralities need reformation, then I am speechless!

I also became acutely aware that life has land mines dotted along the way. Most of these are avoidable with which path we take in life. A chosen path can lead to a good life, and a wrongly chosen path can lead to a poor life.

My view is that we all should have the right to choose the path we take, but we must accept the consequences of a chosen path. Choosing the path that God created through his son Jesus Christ is the greatest and most forgiving path. It is easy and has very few poor consequences.

Thankfully it is a much easier path to follow in our great nation due to our Founding Fathers' foresight to be able to worship freely. I chose to worship God. If you choose to worship your _______ (fill in the blank), then by all means you have that right. I will not force my views on you as long as you don't force your views on me.

I want government to provide for the safety of this nation from outside nations wanting to attack us. Period. The states can handle the rest.

I believe in capitalism because it promotes the best of people. Those who use capitalism for criminal acts will soon be sent to jail.

I believe that taxes are becoming a burden on society and there should be a better system implemented as soon as possible.

The states should provide for education, which is reading, writing, arithmetic and the sciences. Period. Let the parents and life do the rest.

The modern-day misuse of the term conservative in the United State evokes a sinister connotation of a pro-American, Bible-thumping, evangelically organized movement that is bent on leading our nation to do what's right and be a just nation. This is totally right.

Conservatives believe the work ethic is strongest when you work to make a living for your family. I decry favoritism but believe in rewarding hard work. As a conservative, I believe in extreme individualism. In closing, I wonder how far a nation could go if only we could be guaranteed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Just a thought.

Stuart McCann lives in Springfield.