Mothers Day Thoughts from a Conservative Son to His Liberal Mom

The writer as a budding, young conservative, during his youth filled with happiness, in large part due to his liberal mother.

Today is a day where sons and daughters throughout the world make up for the other 364 days where we either give our Moms sleepless nights of worry and indigestion for our recklessness and general ambivalence. It also gives us a chance to reflect on the impact our mothers have in our lives, our personalities and all that we are. On this Mothers Day I share the thoughts of a ultra-conservative son who is everything he is because of the love, care and wisdom provided him by his equally liberal Mom.

Growing up, we were about as close to the real-life unit depicted in the 1980's television series Family Ties as it comes. My beautiful mother, a flower-child of the 60's (who Meredith Baxter could not hold a candle to) and I in the "Alex P Keaton" role as the rebellious right-wing child of the Reagan revolution. I can recall many an evening that our living room transformed itself into a virtual town hall meeting where the tempers flared and the decibel levels got to the point where one could only imagine what our neighbors thought.

But these debates/arguments shaped me in more ways that I can express. Not only did they prepare me for a life of political battle, but with such a talented and brilliant opponent to spar with all those years, made me quite formidable the arena, as once you've gone toe-to-toe in political pugilism with my mother, all other foes seem amateur in comparison.

But she taught me so much more than just mere verbal combat, most of all she taught to me to think. She taught me to question my preconceived notions and taught me that there was more than one perspective that had validity. She also taught me the most important lesson I've carried with me throughout my life; that someone with whom I disagreed with politically nearly 100% of the time was also someone that I respected, admired, counted on and loved as much as anything in the world. When I get to the point of frustration and borderline hatred of our progressive opponents in the present day, I think back to this lesson, waking me up to the fact that before we are conservatives and liberals, we are countrymen.

She also shaped my particular form of conservatism. My mother was a true liberal. I say that because as I survey the modern political landscape, I seriously question if many such people still exist in America. My mother taught me the value of tolerance, compassion and that the purpose of political activism was to better the lives of our fellow countrymen, and the world we are so interdependent on. Ironically enough, it was these lesson taught by my Mom that reinforced my conviction that smaller government and one closer to the people was a far superior mechanism to achieve these goals.

In my early childhood, we bounced around for a while and had some very lean, but always happy, years but eventually settled in El Monte, CA. For the better part of my first 7 years, my mother held dual duty, raising me as a single mother. As she re-married, to an incredible man who is my father, the term "step" having no practical application in my heart, we found ourselves a whole family, this being sealed and consecrated in blood by virtue of the birth of my brother a couple years later.

El Monte is a lower and working class suburb of Los Angeles and hold for me so many dear memories. But it also provided me the opportunity to gauge the vast gulf between the words and heartfelt emotions of my mothers liberalism and its practical application by a Democratic political machine. While the city itself, at the time, had its share of Republican office holders (albeit in non-partisan elections), many of the neighborhoods bore the sad impact of the "Great Society" social welfare programs that held the hope and promise of liberals like my mother, but resulted in multi-generational misery by destroying self-determination and ambition, all to enrich the power and wealth of Democrat lawmakers and the bureaucracy responsible for this power.

I witnessed first-hand how the system trapped people in a lifestyle of settling for mere survival in that overtime this way of life became accepted and that the recipient of state benevolence began to believe this was the pinnacle of what they deserved out of life. I also saw it grow and spread, like a virus, from "that one lady and her kids" who the neighbors would whisper about to a larger and larger segment of the community, first to the point where there was no longer any shame to being on the "dole" to the point where it was in many ways considered something people were "entitled" to, as a weapon of social justice. I saw that this application of state charity destroyed initiative and ruined far more lives than it "saved."

None of this was remotely close to the lessons given by my bleeding-heart liberal mother. The same liberal who forced my brother and myself (against our youthful will) to spend out Thanksgiving afternoons working the counters in downtown Los Angeles, dispensing plates of food to the homeless. This same liberal, and agnostic at times bordering atheistic, mother who nonetheless found it important to do what she had to do to stretch our budget to afford me the opportunity to attend parochial schools, both Lutheran and Catholic. The mother who spent hours clipping coupons and even taking on odd-jobs so that we could enjoy some of the extras in life that I took for granted in the selfishness of my youth.

As I ponder the things she did, and did without, for my brother and myself, I am not only humbled (and shamed) but found my conservatism shaped by these acts of love and selflessness. I learned that our fellow man needs our compassion and our assistance, but I also learned that personal (and family) salvation will only come through thrift and effort. And effort that I'm shamed to say I didn't always appreciate in my youth.

While I'm sure there are times my mother rues that the talents she passed on to me virtue of her incredible DNA and skills she taught me in our numerous kitchen-table debates have been unleashed as an unapologetic warrior for the right-wing, on this Mothers Day of 2014 I give thanks and gratitude to you, Mom, for all you've done to shape my life and views. While you pressed and challenged me, you allowed me to be me. You allowed me to pursue my political vision without judging me or shaming me into adopting your ideology.

This is something I can appreciate all-too well now, as your granddaughter hits the age of eight, where she is herself beginning to look at the larger world around her and developing her views. Should she begin to veer down an ideological path opposite of my own (God forbid), I can hope that I display the same tolerance as you, to let her be her but to challenge her make those views mean something and not simply knee-jerk reaction. To my liberal mother, who shaped my thoughts and conservatism more than she may realize, I want to thank you and tell you how much I love and value you, on this Mothers Day.

My parents never gave up their love for the Dem Party. My mother died at 85 still calling Republicans names. My father, to my great surprise, after being a loyal Dem all his life, called himself an independent shortly before he died at the age of 93.

Here's the thing. They were caught in a time warp. They still thought FDR was president, and the bankers and rich people, all Republicans, were still running the country. But they remained social conservatives to their last breaths. Now there are few Dems who are social conservatives.

Genuine liberals can be accorded a certain amount of respect, if like this man’s mother they have their opinion without attempting to crush dissent, smear opponents and try to define the ‘acceptable’ parameters of free speech and debate the way a lot of fascist ‘liberals’ do.

Listen here Bubba, you have a right to your opinion, but #1, don’t you ever dare say anything derogatory about my mother. #2, don’t you dare ever question my conservative bona-fides or my understanding of the dangers of progressive-Marxism. What I do with my site and my writing is my business and my method to fight a war that, in my opinion, with knee-jerk conservatism is one we will lose out of stubbornness and idiocy and be relegated to a world without liberty or self-determination. If you for one second read into my writings and confuse my outlook and strategy with any sympathy whatsoever for an ideology that is borne of wickedness and led by an evil our species has been prey to since the dawn of time, you either dont have the comprehension to recognize that foe or are in this simply for “the sport” and have no clue how to achieve victory. My goal is to aid in the eradication of the virus that is progressive-Marxism, in all its cute sounding names. This victory is not going to be won without new adherents and pulling those who have been in fact seduced by these demons to the point they cant see that wrong has been labeled as right, that that good is now portrayed as evil. There is a clear method to my madness. Disagree with me on particular policy issues, Ill be happy to debate those with you and consider seriously your viewpoint. But UNLESS you can cite a policy that you find disagreement with me on, dont you dare question my conservatism, one that I would argue runs deeper than yours. And dont you ever talk about my momma.

Beandog, you have a problem me, fine...lets go at it. You tell me exactly what policies or position you have a problem with that I advocate. I dare you to find one that is not “true conservatism”...in fact I double dare you. But calling out someone’s mother is the tactic of a leftist. I thought we were above that. Ive gotten tons of response to that article, from many fellow conservatives who can appreciate where Im coming from, and themselves grew up in a Democrat household. You started the ball rolling, Im simply responding to that..as any son would.

Again, I dare you to challenge my positions on any issue.

I believe that you entirely misconstrued my meaning. I thought your piece was very good. I was alluding to numerous threads in the past in which freepers have gone on at length about cutting off contact with parents, children and, it seems sometimes, the entire world, because they’re liberal. One guy here boasted that he would no longer help support a mentally handicapped relative because he had voted for Obama and he wanted to teach him a lesson. Your mother sounds like a lovely person.

Fair enough bro. And I appreciate that. We all, myself included, get riled up at times, and I was particularly in a foul mood at the time I saw your reply. We are all in the same fight, last thing I want to do is squabble among ourselves, we have bigger fish to fry. Appreciated.

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