The author is a conservative. If you look at the 'brochure' on conservatism, and you'd wonder who wouldn't want to be a conservative. All but most radical would agree that self-restraint is a virtue.

Self Restraint, Not Governmental Restraint

Barry Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative is a good read. Goldwater was a hawk and an extremist, but he also was an advocate of self-restraint and responsibility. He more then any other conservative that I can think of today and yesterday represented that. Likewise, some of the books by libertarians about self-restraint are good reading. These books spend a lot of time expounding the benifits of free-market extremism. Conservatism makes a lot of sense in our world, but free-markets to the extreme make no sense in a changing human world that demands pragmaticism.

Holding yourself back takes a lot of work. Most of us are successful at doing this to a certain point. Most people don't go out murdering people all day. Is this an issue of self-restraint or is it possible that the government's threat of punishment also keeps you from stealing, speeding and doing what ever you feel like? It's too bad people can't have more restaint. Turn on the television, and you'll see a mass-media with no restraint at all. Hours and hours of crap, violence and gore will fill your screen, along with lots of celebraties and other unimportant things. What you won't see is critical debate on today's most important issues.

Then there is littering. Of any human misbehavior, this is the one that bugs me the most. Do people who litter have no respect for private (and public) property? Is it that much harder to take your garbage back home for proper disposal?

Why Must Ideological Conservatives Be So Wasteful?

You declare yourself a conservative, and your a registered Republican. Let me get my gun out and shoot you. Oh, okay, may not. But, here is my problem with conservatives—they tend to blow off environmental issues and therefore tend to be wasteful and inefficient.

I absolutely hate being inefficient and waste. If there is a better way, why aren't we trying harder to maximize our value to society, by minimizing our costs to it? As an American citizens, I believe we all have the responsibility to work to build America into not just a great society, but the greatest society.

Recycling makes sense. Your making things more efficient, with a minimal costs to society in the long run. As an individual, all you have to place waste in the proper place, and pay a small amount of taxes (if even that—things like paper and aluminum recycling pay for themselves). The government takes care of the rest. So quit complaining.