It is now time for conservatives to stand up and be counted. Not to rub the liberals’ collective noses in their defeat, but to look at them as enemies who have been rebuffed and would turn on us at a moment’s notice, striking with the venom of a rattlesnake. We just must not give them the chance. The wounds of the election will fade, in spite of liberal attempts to prolong the agony and de-legitimize Bush.

The hesitation is over. We can now proceed with the formation of a new administration, conduct a rational foreign policy, revitalize the military, lower taxes and increase the respect of our country among the rest of the nations. It will not happen overnight. It will not happen at all if the liberals can gum it up. And they will try. It would be foolish for Bush to extend the hand of friendship to the liberals. He would not get his hand back. Neither should he scorn them or use harsh vindictive language against them, as it would be natural to do. The only way to win a liberal over to the conservative values is to win their respect. When they see our programs working and they are powerless to confound them, they will at least stop yelling and screaming so loudly.

It has been said many times before, but it really is a battle for the hearts and minds of men and women. It is a battle against social engineering, hedonism, and the 'what's in it for me' attitude. It is a battle to recognize right and wrong and to be judgmental where these things are clearly defined. An example: the Supreme Court has been criticized for not counting every ballot, even though the ballots had been counted and rejected by machine. The liberals wanted them hand-counted with the counters themselves deciding what the intent of the voter was, rather than having a standard which would have been uniform for all of Florida's 67 counties. The entire world could hear the faulty reasoning of Mr. Boies (Gore attorney), and knew from the testimony that it is unreasonable to have one table of vote counters using different protocols for tallying votes than another table in the same room, much less in a different county or precinct. We would have been ashamed of our court if this inequality were not recognized.

So we now must pick up the pieces. We must hope for some cooperation from the liberals, and not be disappointed when it doesn't come. We must struggle on with our programs, and hope the 'Blue Dog' conservative Democrats join us. But we must not back up an inch or share power with our enemies. We do not, as the liberals seem to say, need to apologize for winning.