Editors’ note: Generally, as LU grows and adds new voices to the mix, the change occurs with little fanfare. Our newest contributor, however, comes with an introduction that was deemed worthy of inclusion and is, we feel, worth readers’ time to peruse.
When we invited Mike DeVine to the fold, it was on the strength of his articles at Examiner.com, where he expounds on law and politics. But his epiphany, as he calls it, struck a responsive chord among the editors.
There is a popular quotation, often (and wrongly) attributed to Winston Churchill, that reads, “If you’re not Liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not Conservative when you’re 35, you have no brain.” Regardless of who said it, there is some truth to the notion that in healthy individuals, the idealism of youth gives way to the wisdom of age. Obviously, this universal does not hold true for everyone, as evidenced by the current leader of the free world.
Whether you came to your beliefs early or acquired them through an epiphany of your own, please join us in welcoming Mike.
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The newest contributor here at Liberty Unyielding has been a Jacksonian Reaganite conservative (viz., one dedicated to preserving liberty) most all of his adult life, albeit a cowardly one in denial until his Summer of 2001 epiphany, after moving his gamecock roost from South Carolina to Stone Mountain of Georgia.
It is with great humility, or at least as much as an announcer of dawns in charge of hen houses can muster, that I accepted an invitation to crow here at LU. After two decades of defending the accused, gambling on soft-tissue neck injuries and Democratic Party activism, we accepted a corporate opportunity in Atlanta and met then-Rep. Cynthia McKinney and then-Sen. Max Cleland at the first party function I attended. The class-envy fueled anger I encountered so confirmed the conservatism produced by the ongoing reality mugging of life near the age of 40, that I could no longer deny my revulsion for what LBJs, Ted Kennedys and Al Gores had produced.
The rooster declared himself a conservative Republican and, thanks to the fear produced by 9/11 several months later and the relief that The Cowboy won Florida, was able to maintain my friendship with the liberal Democrat hen whose house we had adopted soon after our arrival in Hotlanta.
Looking back, it is clear that I lacked the courage to speak the economic, social and national security truths I believed while in my hometown where many lifelong friends would have deemed by conservative conversion as a betrayal. But beginning with the ridicule hurled at Reagan for accurately identifying the Soviet Empire as evil and the spectacular success of his supply-side economics; through the borking of Bork and Thomas; and ending with the partial birth abortion and global warming excesses of Clinton and Gore, our future conservative die was cast.
Inspired by the words of Scripture that “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:16 KJV), readers of DeVine Law Gamecock will find him a “side taker.” My side is the version of Liberty created by the Founding Fathers of the United States of America.
It’s all been damage control since Eve bit the apple and the United States is the worst version of it, except for all the others, by far. And only with an unyielding dedication to Liberty, private property rights, the Rule of Law and limited government can we restore and preserve the greatest hope of man on Earth.
Let the struggle continue here.
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
