Following is my recent reply to a liberal on a blog that veered toward the fundamental differences between liberals and conservatives. I got a little fired up and I look forward to your feedback.

Blink wrote, "I find your assumption that low income people don't already work hard appalling"

I find it appalling and offensive that you lump people into a category that you apparently assume they will never be able to escape from.  I, like many, many others started out baling hay in the summers, washing dishes at the local supper club, and flipping burgers on the weekends throughout high school.  I guess you could say I was poor but I didn't know it because I wasn't wallowing in self pity and looking to "compassionate" people like you for handouts.  I worked hard at those jobs so I could go to college where I worked as a security guard during the evenings after attending class and studying through the day.

After college I continued to work hard to fine tune my skills moving from one position to the next.  Each one a half step up the ladder of success to where I am today and I'm not through learning and excelling yet.  Had I chosen to accept handouts I may never have worked hard to learn the skills that I have today.  On those few occasions when I couldn't make ends meet during my journey I was blessed to have friends and family who were willing to offer assistance and more importantly advice.

It truly sickens me that so many Americans are willing to take short cuts and rob themselves of the blessings of hard work and earned experience.  It sickens me even more that liberals like yourself are so willing to use people as political tools to promote your own agenda by deceiving them into thinking that handouts are a good thing.

The American Dream used to mean having the personal freedom to make our own choices in life that help us to earn experience and knowledge to get us to the lifestyle that we want.  Now, I fear the dream is dying and being replaced with a selfish attitude of confiscating from those who have climbed the ladder of success in order to control those who haven't in return for un-earned handouts.  Americans should never be content to merely survive as you suggest but rather excel at everything they do in order to reach their fullest potential and teach their children to reach even further when it is their turn.

This outlines the fundamental differences of opinion between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives believe in the traditional values that helped make our nation great including the willingness to work hard to earn experience and prosperity.  Liberals would rather focus on the needs of others and confiscate the wealth of the prosperous in order to meet those needs without requiring them to be earned.  Those policies, as witnessed in today's economy, are short-lived and lead to disaster because the prosperous will eventually stop in order to avoid being punished for their success.