"Our rash faults make trivial price of serious things we have/Not knowing them until we know their grave..." -- Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well.

How true it is that the frailties of human nature often cause us not just to ignore the most important gifts we have been given but to do so with such stubborn persistence that we recognize our deadly foolishness only when it is too late.

With respect to the tragedy sure to occur when we trivialize or downright ignore precious gifts bequeathed to us by God or our forebears, the purpose here is to focus on an election that calls conservatives to serve as leaders in preserving the gift America's Founders breathed into life with the Spirit of '76.

In this critically important election, therefore, the first demand made of conservatives is that they courageously, meticulously, and effectively maintain a focus on principles.

To shed light on the profound nature of what is at stake regarding those principles, one could offer up a lengthy commentary about grave problems liberal ideologues have created over decades (at times with help from false and lying Republicans) and which Chicago Machine liberal Obama has mightily aggravated.

For instance:

▪ the continually diminishing power of America's "We the People"

▪ the unsustainable growth of the power and money sucking federal government

▪ the inexorable decline of the middle class and the rise of the entitlement class

▪ the virulently metastasizing malignancy that is the "empathic" liberal judicial oligarchy

▪ the distorted, false, and faltering economy built on the perversions of "free" trade; cheap money; rampaging debt; unregulated, perniciously huge, casino style, FDIC insured banks; and an "America Last" energy policy.

But a long commentary is not necessary, for the only thing that needs to be said about the country's desperate need for Emerson's "triumph of principles" in the coming election is this:

If the laws enacted, policies instituted, appointments made, money spent, debt accumulated, and national vision set forth over the past three years by the most liberal, most divisive president ever to occupy the Oval Office don't convince conservatives of the profound responsibility they bear to lead a principled charge against a man and a party devoted to destroying the gift that is America of the Jeffersonian ideal, then that ideal is destined to continue on the path to its grave.

Next, if conservatives are truly serious about removing Barack Obama from office, they must acknowledge the demand that requires them to present a united front.

Yet a number of conservatives aren't just attacking their fellows with words and images that are evocative of the wild rants a disgusted public associates with a Howard Dean or Michael Moore, they are ironically providing invaluable help to professionals who specialize in devising Obama's strategies and campaign ads.

Apparently forgetting that eternal vigilance and persistent involvement by individual citizens is the price of liberty no matter who controls Congress or the presidency, other conservatives speak as if they will join this fight with the same fervor exhibited by America's Patriots only if the candidate they support wins the Republican nomination.

It's possible such conservatives believe it's worth losing now to "get 'em in '16." If they do, this observation by financial expert John Mauldin alone ought to change their minds:

"If the US does not make a choice as to how to get its deficit under control in 2013, the political realities are that it will not happen until 2015, at best, and more likely 2017. By then we will be in a situation that looks like today's Italy at best (if it's 2015) and Greece at worst (if we wait till 2017)."

Finally, there is this demand, one whose details conservative leaders (especially the eventual Republican nominee) must observe with special care.

In substance and tone, especially on the emotionally charged issues of Social Security and Medicare, conservatives must take particular care not to permit pride to suck them into imitating Obama's behavior.

After all, regarding Social Security, the public is rightfully angry not only that the insatiable hog called Washington has spent the more than $2 trillion (yes, more than two trillion dollars) workers and employers overpaid in Social Security taxes but also that Obama and his fellow big spending Democrats regularly and blatantly lie that the money actually exists in a mythical, insulting, ironically named "Social Security Trust Fund."

With respect to Medicare, an angry public remembers all too well that Obama exhibited a frightening megalomaniacal arrogance when he urged a Democratic Congress to overhaul the nation's entire healthcare system not just in two short months but with an attitude of the people's will be damned.

Moreover, the public will never forget how Obama displayed the foul expediency characteristic of the worst kind of centralized power loving elitist when he proposed paying a good amount of the cost of "Obamacare" with not a penny from specific cuts in Washington's bloated, multi-trillion dollar bureaucracy but $500 billion from undefined "savings" in Medicare costs.

The most important demands made by this most serious election having been brought to light, only this question remains for conservatives:

Will we heed them with full force as we fight to keep the genuine American Dream alive, or will we permit "our rash faults [to] make trivial price" of the greatest political, social, and economic gift ever bequeathed to a people, thereby sending it to its grave.