Small government and less tax. Hardly an original theory, and the basic backbone of any conservative policy. If government is smaller, there is less to pay for. If there is less to pay for, we don't need to be as heavily taxed.

I don't care if my coffee is free-trade. I care that it's good, and that I can afford to buy more than one cup a week. If I'm being charged $7 for a cuppa joe, then you won't be seeing me in your charity-disguised-as-a-coffee-shop very often. Make something affordable and more people will consume it. If there are more consumers, more product gets sold. If more product is sold, everybody wins. what looks like slave wages to us in the spoiled West might be life-saving industrial wages to an impoverished country. Yay free enterprise!

Down with special interest groups! Back in the day, orphans and the poor were looked after by privately funded charities. Were there abuses and corruption? You bet. Is there abuse and corruption under government administration? More than we can keep track of. By letting the government put its finger into the pie of charity and welfare, we have not gained - we have lost. Government will never make do with one person doing a job when they can tax us for twenty people. Give charity back to the churches and philanthropists.

Integration, integration, integration. This doesn't just apply to immigrants, either. Let's refer back to the expensive special interest groups. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union, your work here is done (but at least they're private groups, as opposed to a government cash drain). Thank you for doing such a good job that you have made yourselves obsolete - a goal to be proud of, indeed. Now take a bow and disappear. Whatever happens to black (North) America from now on, the responsibility rests soley with black America. It ain't whitey's fault anymore. Sure, there will still be bigots, but there will never again be what once was. Blacks have been given every opportunity to pull themselves up out of the ghetto and become something. They now have role models unlike any they have ever had - some of them in the highest levels of government. Colin Powel was replaced by Condoleeze Rice, who grew up poor in Alabama in the thick of the equality struggle. She took the opportunities that were presented to her. Does young black America identify with her? No. Who do they choose as role models? Tupac and Snoop Dog. So be it. They've made a choice. Many of these young people have chosen to become criminals, and they will be incarcerated and executed far in excess of anyone else in America - not because of racial bias, but because of the choices of a race. And they've gone and spoiled it for the good ones, who will be looked at with suspicion. The NAACP helped give them a choice, but they can't force their hands. Here in Canada we are kowtowed by the power of the powow. We have thousands of people working in all levels of government who serve no other purpose than to hold the hands of, and write fat checks to, our dwindling aboriginal population. They have been nanny-ed into being completely incapable of looking out for their own individal interests, and not since smallpox hit our shores have they been so bad off. They are given billions of dollars every year to promote... nothing. There is no relevant industry, no skill base. The world has moved on, and they have been paid to sit on the sidelines. The only thing they have in their favor is choice. They could choose to leave their impoverished reservations, get proper educations, and join the rat race with the rest of us. But by doing that, they would lose big. They would lose their tax-free status. They would lose their welfare checks and the ability to sit around doing nothing while their families and communities rot away. They would lose the ability to wallow in pity while extorting guilt money from you and I. In exchange for what? Well, how about a little self respect, for starters? Sure, they got shafted when the settlers came. They were dealt a bad hand. A lot of us get dealt bad hands. And we're given the same opportunity to make a choice: live in the past, or move on and make a future for yourself. Nobody's culture is at risk by putting on a suit and visiting a job center.

Follow your conceince. Your real concenice - not just the one you want people to identify you with. My conscience once told me - when I was broke and nearly homeless - that selling tail was less degrading than applying for welfare. I could make enough money to pay the bills while I looked for a real job. I was young and pretty (and giving it away anyway). It wasn't a career, but it was something I could control. I had no vices like drugs or alcohol or abusive men that could keep me low. I was registered with the top agency in town - known for taking good care of their girls. So I "worked" on and off, for a few months, till I could get off my back and onto my feet. My friends pooh-poohed my choice, but as long as I was healthy and capable, it was better than going on the dole. For me, anyway. It left me with a higher degree of self respect than I would have gained from standing in line at the welfare office with the teenage mothers and drug addicts. I saw myself as entrepreneurial. It never bothered my conscience, and I had no qualms when I faced myself in the bathroom mirror. It's not for everyone, and I don't advocate it to those who feel repulsion in their own consciences toward it, but it was in line with the guiding voice inside me. Better a whore than a loser, it told me. That's why when I hear the left screaming about throwing money at social injustices, blah, blah, and seeing the able-bodied yell on the steps of Queen's Park for higher welfare payments, I shake my head. There but for the grace of a pretty face go I. A pretty face, and a little gumption.

My mother's family was made up of both Aboriginals (paternally) and welfare sponges (maternally). Ironically, my Micmac grandfather was the hardest working of the bunch - fishing in the summer and logging in the spring and fall. Most of his offspring live off the taxes that you and I pay, in the country he fought for in WWI. That is the "ghetto" I came from, and I vowed that I would never be like that. Many of my cousins (my own generation) made the same vow. My cousin was the owner of the successful agency I worked for. Looks like laziness skipped a generation.

Many of you on both sides of the divide will tell me that I should be ashamed. It was my closest liberal friends who had pooh-poohed me. It is my church that will condemn me to hell. Do I feel any guilt? No. Not for that, anyway.

What makes me feel guilty? What wakes me up in the middle of the night, wondering about the choices I've made? Four planes, three buildings, nearly 3,000 people, and $40,ooo I loaned to my boss 10 years ago and never got back. Is there a connection? Late at night, when I can't sleep, I imagine the most horrible things. About my boss's father, who travelled several times each year to Saudi Arabia. Did he take that money with him? Why? What was it spent on? Where is he now? Was it just bad business that kept my boss from ever paying me? Or something more sinister. Who was the Afghani that worked with us, with the startling blue eyes and the scars on his body, from knife wounds and bullet holes? Why was I too stupid to ask myself these questions then, when I could have stopped myself? Am I just imagining things, making things up in my head because I'm angry with a man who stole $40,ooo and took major advantage of a 19 year old orphan who was in love with him? And who can I call to put these fears to rest?

So there you have a brief and abridged insight into Right Girl, and some of the questions you may have asked, including why I'm so hard on welfare and the Religion of Peace. It is that which we fear most in ourselves that we come to hate in others.

You also know why I can't ever run for office!!