I was raised in a very conservative, God-fearing, America-loving South Carolina home. My parents both grew up in the same town I live in now and Prosperity to me is a slice of Americana that everyone remembers and loves. I am the oldest of four and through the life struggles that we lived, my parents didn’t just talk conservative values. They lived them out in their example.
While liberal thought seems so contrary to the way liberals really live, our conservative values we grew up knowing and learning simply fit with common sense and decency.
I have heard that Winston Churchill said, “If you’re conservative at 20, you’re a cold-hearted SOB, but if you’re not by 40, you’re stupid…” Well, I just figured that I matured early, but was only just living out what my parents and life had demonstrated to me that worked!
I distinctly remember being a young ROTC cadet at Clemson just after Ronald Reagan was elected and being booed as I ran around campus. It was only 6-7 years after Vietnam and that defeat still resonated in the country’s heartbeat. I also remember President Jimmy Carter’s Misery Index and his message that seemed negative and gloomy. After only a few months of President Reagan’s positive message of “It’s morning in America again,” I remember the excitement of being cheered as we ran around Clemson’s campus. That made a big impression on me.
Reagan wasn’t saying that America was perfect, he was saying that we are special and free and the light of freedom for the world. As I grew up, the wisdom of my Mom and Dad’s traditional values proved true and I knew that I would live out those values as best I could and teach them to my children.
