I'm a conservative. My conservative views stem largely from my belief that the single most fortuitous thing that has ever or will ever happen to me is that I was born in the United States of America.

Not because ours is the most prosperous nation on Earth (although it could be argued that it is), not because we're the most compassionate nation (again, the case could be made that we are), not because we're the strongest or fairest (we are) but because we are the most free.

The simple blind luck of being conceived and born in this nation gave me — and you — a leg up over most of the world's population.

And I'm grateful.

But freedom is a two-edged sword. With the freedom to succeed comes the freedom to fail miserably. Free people perform on life's high-wire with no safety net. When they fall, they get hurt.

Many in society don't accept this duality. They want freedom, but they want security more. They want opportunity for all, but they often assume those who succeed somehow do so at others' expense.

So they push for laws to keep everyone safe and secure and "more equal" in outcomes rather than opportunities.

That's unfortunate.

We need look no further than the current crisis on Wall Street to see how this plays out in the real world.

In a free society, free residents would pursue credit from free lenders who would base their decision on whether or not to approve a mortgage on the free-market notion that a borrower must have the ability to repay.

That's capitalism. Not everyone gets a home, because not everyone can afford a mortgage. That's not cruel or immoral. It's economic reality.

The upside is, those who have homes, typically, can afford them. They eventually pay down the debt or, often, by the time they're retired, they pay it off and now own a nice nest egg as well as a home.

But a few years back some politicians and government bureaucrats decided that not enough people were benefiting from the security of homeownership.

So they essentially forced financial institutions to make risky loans to folks who were not credit worthy — not because they were "bad people," but because they didn't have the income to cover the cost of a mortgage should the housing market dip in the inevitable ebb and flow of the economy.

Not only did previously unqualified borrowers get mortgages, but those who already had mortgages now were encouraged by lenders to get into the game.

I was one of the hordes who refinanced a mortgage, relinquishing some equity to pay off high-interest credit card debt. Many of these "refinancers" opted for adjustable-rate loans.

All that "easy credit" drove up demand for housing, which in turn, drove housing prices ever higher.

When the housing bubble finally burst, the mortgages secured by the falsely inflated housing market plunged in value. At the same time, many of those adjustable-rate "refis" came due and homeowners were faced with a much higher mortgage payment, a plummeting home value and a very soft market to sell the problem.

That giant pile of under-secured loans is what many people now fear threatens Wall Street's stability.

So what happens?

Everyone demands that government fix the problem.

Maybe Congress does need to pass some measure to protect this nation's financial system. But from what I've seen, those who favor the bailout bill want to subsidize homeowners for irresponsible loans and protect the lending institutions that made them.

At the same time they want to paint Wall Street as the bad guys in this mess so they can further regulate capitalism.

Remember, it was the government's regulating capitalism that created this mess in the first place.

And these same politicians are going to fix it?

I doubt it.

They are much more likely to create a $700 billion security blanket that only succeeds in making the free market less free.