Our nation is in political gridlock, and the Conservatives in the Republican Party are to blame. The nation is near perfectly divided; cleaved into two schools: Progressive and Conservative. The Progressives advocate the supremacy of the state as the protector and regulator of prosperity, ensuring the equality of outcome. The Conservatives advocate the sovereignty of the individual, limiting the power of the state and ensuring the equality of opportunity.

I am a conservative, but not by choice. I am a conservative because of failure. As a young entrepreneur I was confident in my abilities and could clearly see my future filled with opportunity and success. My theory was that my ventures would be profitable and my abilities would easily be commensurate to the tasks ahead, but reality has little regard for theory. My naive expectations collided with the true requirements of the real world. I failed to appreciate the magnitude of the work required, the scope of the tasks at hand, the depth of talent needed, and the volume of cash consumed to build an enterprise.

Failure stalked me. With every act and decision I could feel its presence and more than once it had me in its grasp to pull me to the ground. But with each setback comes the opportunity to advance. The hard lessons of failure become gifts of wisdom. What had been wishful optimism was forged into a determination to succeed. The hard lessons learned through errors and mistakes flank the path to prosperity. In this way, failure breeds success.

Success rarely finds the foolish, the ignorant or the lazy. Success finds those that have earned it through hard work, personal responsibility, self-reliance and honorable behavior. The joy, pride and respect that accompany success are much sweeter for the toil and sweat required. As Thomas Paine observed: "What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: 'tis dearness only that gives everything its value."

Conservatives understand these simple truths, not because they have decided to be Conservatives and this thinking is "Conservative dogma" but because they have well learned the lessons of failure and success and have arrived at the truth through experience. This truth is manifest as 'American Exceptionalism' the simple idea that people should be allowed to succeed to the limits of their own enterprise. The corollary is that we must also be allowed to fail. One cannot win if there is no possibility of losing.

Liberals either have not fully experienced or reject the lessons of reality and cling to the theory that you can prevent people from failing without simultaneously preventing them from reaching their full potential. It is no coincidence that inexperience and liberalism are characteristics of youth. It is no surprise that the comfortable warrens of university campuses allow liberalism to flourish. It is expected that the entertainment industry which is full of people who pretend to be others, telling stories that are not true, about places that do not exist and things that did not happen would cling to liberal theory rather than grasp actual reality.

Progressive liberals understand that liberals naturally mature into Conservatives when given unfettered contact with reality. To maintain a majority, and thereby control, Progressives have campaigned to retard the maturation of liberals by replacing enlightenment with schooling, self-reliance with dependence and knowledge with propaganda. These tactics are effective at building a political base of voters who receive benefits from the state. However, they are also unsustainable as they rely on a shrinking productive minority to support a growing consuming majority. History shows us that economic ruin has been the fate every time this has been tried.

Citing "fairness" and "social justice", Progressives push policies that disadvantage a minority to the advantage of their political base. Following the example of felon "Slick Willie" Sutton, who robbed banks "because that is where the money is," progressives confiscate capital from the minority most efficient at creating it, "because that is where the money is." As corn is both harvest and seed to the farmer, capital is both product and fuel for the entrepreneur. Confiscate the capital creating fuel to pay off political debts and you will have less prosperity for all.

Conservative Republicans are now being set up as the scapegoat for the soon to be realized failures of Progressive economic policies. Conservative Republicans know from experience and reason that tax and spend, socialist redistribution policies eventually hurt all citizens. Knowing this, Conservatives fight against these retrograde policies but have been unable to reverse them. As a result the negative effects have been muted while the Progressives are quick to blame any failure on the Conservative's interdiction. The public is unable to clearly see the negative effects of the Progressive policies and accepts the propaganda as truth.

Progressives and their parrots in the liberal media continue the propaganda indoctrination onslaught preaching greed, avarice and class warfare. It is clear that no amount of Conservative rhetoric will illuminate the problem because those that need enlightenment have no context for understanding. We are speaking a language they have not yet learned. Our education system is near worthless when it comes to teaching the principles that advance prosperity so if we want to educate our way out of this we would first have to fix the education system then educate a generation of citizens..... Not likely in your lifetime, or mine, or our children's.

Of course there is a fast and very effective way to teach a lasting lesson. We may warn or lecture about danger, but those are just words that can be ignored by foolish ears. You can tell any child the stove is hot but they will never full appreciate the warning until they find out for themselves. If Conservatives truly believe in personal responsibility then they must allow those in the majority to enjoy the true consequences of their choices. All we have to do is stop fighting and let the kids touch the hot stove.

A group of Republicans in the house would need to announce that "We Republicans KNOW that Obama's policies will lead to economic pain for the poor and middle class. However, elections have consequences and the majority of Americans want the path Obama has chosen. The President will own the consequences and he cannot blame others for giving him what he specifically asked."

It must be a small group, just enough to give the Democrats the needed votes so that most Republicans can say "I didn't vote for that legislation". Higher taxes, Obamacare, carbon tax, bring it on. Let the population feel the full weight of these policies. Not a slow boil, but ALL IN and NOW. The President has moved the goal posts to $1.6T in new taxes. Let him have it.

This would be a bold move by a few with visionary leadership and certainty in their convictions. The economic pain would be significant but short lived and would demonstrate the folly of Keynesian economics. The public outcry would be intense and in 2014 there will be enough Conservatives elected to fix the problem. The newly elected would look to those who demonstrated leadership.

Progressivism would be repudiated for a generation. They would have to change their name, again ... probably something like "Justice Party."

Meanwhile in Idaho, we must work to preserve the policies that promote prosperity and offer a stark 'existence proof' counterpoint to the Federal Government and states like California.

It was Thomas Paine who said "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." To which I would add "and because I know how to re-build it."

Brent Regan is a Kootenai County resident.