By Marjory Holder

I didn’t start life as a Democrat. Instead, I followed my parents very much like any young elephant.

Three things happened to change that.

The first happened in 1968 at a meeting of the Young Republicans where a good friend of mine suggested we raid the local Democratic headquarters and steal a pile of their election material to throw it away. I don’t know if the others went ahead with the plan, but I refused, and that was the end of the active phase of my membership in the GOP.

I did, however, continue to vote Republican for a while.

For one thing, fiscal responsibility has always appealed to me. I keep my own checkbook balanced and I think the federal government should, too.

I also liked the Clean Air and Water Acts and the creation of the EPA, which happened under Nixon. But the corruption of that Administration (some members of which have contributed to the most troublesome behavior of this current Bush Administration) brought it down. And as the years passed and moderate Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller and Gerald Ford died off, I didn’t so much leave the Republican Party as the Republican Party left me.

And along the way, I grew up. I became the person I wanted to be and, frankly, the person my parents raised me to be.

I come from hard-working, middle class people. My mom raised four kids on a shoe-string while Dad worked six-and-a-half days a week building a business. They believed in taking care of their family, taking care of God’s creation, and giving back to the community - especially helping folks who were less fortunate. It’s the Biblical injunction about loving our neighbors and caring ‘‘for the least of these’’.

That means I reject the politics of divisiveness and greed. For example...

I realize it’s odd, but I don’t much mind paying taxes. I drive on tax-paid roads; my kids go to tax-paid schools; my meat and veggies are inspected by tax-paid inspectors; my savings are insured by the feds; my son-in-law’s paycheck in the Army is paid for by my taxes; and I wouldn’t be making so good a living if I lived in any other country. So I figure I owe. The funny thing is, I think people who make even more than I do owe, too. But those at the top of the income scale are the least likely to pay their fair share under President Bush’s tax cuts.

I don’t mind a certain amount of regulation. I breathe air, and so do my kids. I like rules against dumping mercury and other pollutants into the air and water. I also know that creating better technology to clean up the air and water means more and better-paying American jobs.

I also appreciate regulation against contaminated food and medicine; incompetent doctors and engineers; and monopolies (after all, competition is the soul of capitalism).

But I do not appreciate the federal government coming in and demanding that local schools test, test, test our kids, without providing any funding to improve the actual education the kids are receiving (as with "No Child Left Behind").

I believe in hard work and personal responsibility. But I also know that anyone can fall on hard times - folks get sick, breadwinners get laid off, families may have to choose between paying for heating oil or food. There needs to be a Safety Net. And not just for multibillion-dollar Wall Street companies, but for families too.

I do not believe in pre-emptive war. Defense, YES! Go find bin Laden in Afghanistan. But don’t decide to topple a dictator we dislike (and used to support and give weapons to) just because his country’s sitting on an oil field your buddies want.

And never descend to the depravity of torture. I thank God that Germany subscribed to the Geneva Conventions and my dad came home as a WW II P.O.W. in one piece. We have no standing to demand the same humane treatment for our troops serving today.

And I’m still a fiscal conservative. The last seven years have brought a disastrous federal deficit. It is a deficit that weakens the dollar (making everything we buy more expensive) and puts my children’s future at risk.

Reasonable taxes, appropriate regulation of business and the environment, good schools, the "Safety Net", and fiscal responsibility. That’s why I’m a Democrat.

Marjory Holder is a vice chair of the Watauga County Democratic Party.