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I was waiting for my food at a restaurant early Monday morning when one of the employees came over to the counter to talk with me.

“I need to apologize to you for how I acted the other day,” she said quietly.

I was surprised, but I knew exactly what she was talking about. The last time I had seen her, she had been pretty rude. About five minutes after the place was supposed to be open that previous day — and after a couple of orders had been filled at the drive-through — I knocked on the drive-through window to let someone know the doors were still locked.

She was annoyed and she made that obvious. She and the other employees hadn’t gotten everything done before opening. There was stress or tension going on. She angrily blamed someone else at one point. She snapped at me a couple of times — as though I was somehow responsible.

I wasn’t happy about it, but I didn’t make a big deal about it. I just left and silently groused about how I had been treated.

And now — two days later — she was apologizing in a way that made it clear that she was sincere. She had clearly been bothered by the way she had acted.

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I used to be certain.

Not just confident or comfortable, but certain in the way only a young person can be when handed a complete system and told it explains everything. I had been taught a theology that divided the world neatly into what was true and what was false. It came with answers for every question that mattered and, more importantly, it came with the assumption that those answers were final.

I didn’t question it. Why would I? It was what I had been given. It felt like truth because it felt like home.

When I listen to people argue about theology now, I often recognize something uncomfortably familiar. I hear the same tone of certainty I once had. I see people defending systems they didn’t build but have fully embraced. They assume their conclusions are objectively true and everything else is objectively wrong.

I understand that mindset because I once lived there.

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What does it mean to be a real conservative in America today? For rational people, it has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with personal values and personal choices. It has to do with the voluntary decisions of individuals and families and communities.

The things in America which are worth conserving were built on the social values that I still believe in. Personal morality. Voluntary choice. Individual responsibility. The Protestant work ethic. Trust in neighbors. Strong families. Giving and charity.

Those are not political issues. Those are personal choices that individuals, families and communities voluntarily lived out over many years as they built this country.

There were plenty of poor choices, too. There were plenty of evil and selfish people who were part of the story. But without conservative social values at the core of families and communities, the best parts of America never would have existed.

The morally powerful nation which grew on this continent from a mixture of ethnic and national origins came together in spite of politicians, not because of them. Everything that was good about America came from the bottom up — from those with conservative personal values.

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