Posted on 06/19/2006 1:04:17 PM PDT by fanfan
I used to be a liberal. I was in one of the first "open" classrooms growing up in very progressive Great Neck, New York, in the 1960s. In 1971, when I was 11, I wrote vitriolic letters to President Nixon demanding an end to the Vietnam War. My first vote, in 1980, was for Independent John Anderson, followed by Mondale, Dukakis, and Clinton-Gore. I read Thomas Friedman in the NY Times and tried to "understand" the "root causes" of the "despair" he said the Palestinians felt that drove them to blow up innocent Israelis. I wasn't an overtly political person - I just never veered from the liberal zeitgeist of the community in which I was raised.
But when I was about 27, in the late 1980s, cracks in my liberal worldview began to appear. It started with an uproar from the Left when Tipper Gore had the audacity to suggest a label on certain CDs to warn parents of lyrics that were clearly inappropriate for young people. Her suggestion was simple common sense and I was surprised by the furor it caused from the likes of Frank Zappa (and others) who felt their freedoms were being encroached upon. It was my first introduction into the entitled, selfish and irresponsible thinking I now associate with the Left.
In 1989, I remember questioning whether Democrat David Dinkins was the best choice for Mayor of New York City (where I lived) over Rudy Giuliani. After all, Dinkins' biggest claim to fame was as a city clerk in the Marriage License Bureau while Giuliani, as a United States District Attorney, had just de-fanged the mob. But, racial "healing" was the issue of the day, Dinkins won, and the city went straight downhill. When Giuliani beat Dinkins in a rematch four years later - Surprise! - the crime rate plummeted, tourism boomed, Times Square came alive not with pimps but with commerce. Since 1993, the overwhelmingly liberal electorate in New York City has voted for Republicans for Mayor. Yet, to this day, many of my liberal friends refer to the decisive and effective Giuliani as a Nazi, even as they stroll their children through neighborhoods he cleaned up.
After moving to Los Angeles in the early 90s, I watched from the roof of my apartment building as the city burned after the Rodney King verdicts were handed down. I thought what those four cops did to King was shameful. But I didn't hear an uproar from my friends on the Left when rioters rampaged through the city's streets, stealing, looting, and destroying property in the name of "no justice, no peace." And it was impossible not to notice the hypocrisy when prominent Hollywood liberals, who had hosted anti-NRA fundraisers at their homes a week before the riots were standing in line at shooting ranges the week after it.
I watched carefully as Anita Hill testified during Clarence Thomas's Supreme Court nomination hearing, claiming Thomas - once head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission - sexually harassed her after she rebuffed his invitations to date him. At the time, I rooted, as did all my friends, for Miss Hill, hoping that her testimony would result in Thomas not getting confirmed. In retrospect, I'm ashamed that I was ever on the "side" of people who so viciously demonized a decent, qualified person like Judge Thomas, whether you agree with his judicial philosophy or not. Condoleezza Rice, during eligibility hearings for both National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, also had to deal with rude people like Barbara Boxer, who seemed not to be able to fathom that a black American could embrace conservatism.
I voted for Al Gore in 2000. When he lost, I was disappointed, mostly in my fellow Democrats for thinking that the election had been "stolen" and in having forgotten their American history. The Electoral College has elected three other Presidents in our history: John Quincy Adams in1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, and Benjamin Harrison in1888. The rush to judgment by the now conspiracy consumed Left put me off. Where, I asked, were all the "disenfranchised" black voters who would have given Gore a victory in Florida? No one could produce a single name. And how exactly were the voting machines in Ohio "rigged" in 2004? I now refer to the Democrats as the Grassy Knoll party.
Still, I approached the 2004 primaries with an open mind. I was still a Democrat, still hoping that leaders like Sam Nunn and Scoop Jackson would emerge, still fantasizing that Democrats could constitute a party of truly progressive social thinkers with tough backbones who would reappear after 9/11.
I was wrong. The Left got nuttier, more extreme, less contributory to the public debate, more obsessed with their nemesis Bush - and it drove me further away. What Democrat could support Al Gore's '04 choice for President, Howard Dean, when Dean didn't dismiss the suggestion that George W. Bush had something to do with the 9/11 attacks? Or when the second most powerful Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin, thought our behavior at the detention center in Guantanamo was equivalent to Bergen Belsen and the Soviet gulags? Or when Senator Kennedy equated the unfortunate but small incident at Abu Ghraib with Saddam's 40-year record of mass murder, rape rooms, and mass graves saying, "Saddam's torture chambers have reopened under new management, U.S. management"? What Democrat could not applaud the fact that President had, in fact, kept us safe for what's going on 5 years? What Democrat - even those who opposed the decision to go into Iraq - wouldn't applaud the fact that tens of millions of previously brutalized people had the hope of freedom before them?
What made me leave the Left for good and embrace the Right were their respective reactions to 9/11. While The New York Times doubted that we could succeed in Afghanistan because the Soviets in the '80s hadn't, George W. Bush went directly after the Taliban and Al Qaeda and crushed them in short order. Although many on the Left claim to have backed the President's actions, the self-doubt leading up to it, crystallized my view of the Left as weak and terminally lacking in confidence.
I supported President Bush's hard line against the father of modern terrorism, Yasir Arafat, remembering that Bush's predecessor hosted Arafat at the White House 13 times, more often than any other world leader. I applauded Bush's unequivocal support for Israel, which every day faced (and faces) suicide attacks against its people. But I was most disappointed with liberal Jews who don't understand that their very existence is rooted in Israel's existence and that George W. Bush has been the best friend that Israel has ever had. But because they are less Jewish than they are liberal, they didn't reward Bush with their vote in 2004.
Finally, I supported President Bush's decision to oust Saddam and make possible the only democracy (other than Israel) in this crucial region of the Middle East. Post 9/11, we had to figure out a way to lessen the chances of more 9/11s. Democracy is a weapon in that war. If people are free to build businesses, buy homes, send their children to schools, pursue upward mobility, live their lives without fear, read newspapers of every opinion, vote for their leaders, resolve differences with debate and not bombs, they will have no reason to want to harm us.
In response, the Left offered bumper-sticker-type arguments like, Bush lied and thousands died. But Bush never lied. He, like Clinton and Gore and Kerry and the U.N. and the British and French and Israeli intelligence services affirmed that Saddam's WMD were a vital threat - a threat, that post- 9/11, could not stand. An overwhelming number of Democrats voted for the war - but now the Left says they were "scared" into their votes by Bush. What does it say about Democrats if the "dummy" they think Bush is can scare them so easily?
Iraq is the "Normandy" of the War on Terror. The hope, once Iraq and Afghanistan are more stable, is that the nearly 70 million people in Iran will look at those countires (on it's left and right borders) and say: "Why do these people get to vote, send their women to school, and buy Nikes and we don't?" - and then topple their Mullah's dictatorial regime. The President understands the big picture -- that if the U.S. doesn't help to remake that volatile region, we will face a nuclear version of 9/11 within the next two or five or 10 years. He is simply being realistic in his outlook and responsible in his actions. Iraq is succeeding, slowly but surely, but that's not a sexy enough story to lead the news with: the relatively small amount of casualities are. Don't forget, we occupied Germany and Japan for seven years and we still have troops there, more than 60 years after World War II ended.
And what have the Democrats contributed to the war effort since 9/11? Democrat Sen. Russ Feingold has suggested censuring our president; Former President and Vice President Bill Clinton and Al Gore, while visiting foreign countries, have blasted President Bush - acts of unconscionable irresponsibility; Democrat Rep. John Murtha, has invoked a cut-and-run policy in Iraq, supported by Democrat Senate Minority leader Harry Reid and Democrat House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi. Do they think the Middle East and the World would be safer if we had cut and run, as Murtha's plan wanted us to do? Under that plan, our troops would have been out of Iraq by May 18th and al-Zarqawi wouldn't be dead, but pulling the strings in an Iraqi civil war. With these kinds of ideas and behaviors, I just don't trust Democrats when it comes to our national security.
And so, as any reader of this article can well understand, it became impossible for me to relate to the modern Democrat Party which has tacked way too far to the left and is dominated by elites that don't like or trust the real people that make up most of the country.
Although I haven't always agreed with President Bush, I proudly voted for him in 2004 (the only one of the 4-winning Electoral College - elected Presidents to win re-election). And I now fully understand Ronald Reagan's statement, when he described why he switched from being a liberal to a conservative: "I didn't leave the party - It left me!"
I came along in 1948 and remember Ike in the 1950s. I thought he was the only president we'd ever had...
I actually bought the Tipper Gore book ("Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society") and when Al Gore ran for President back in 1988, to me he was Tipper's husband. If only it remained so.
In retrospect, the recording industry acts as if the PARENTAL GUIDANCE label is a blessing in disguise, claiming that every artist wanted to have one on their album cover because it boosted sales. I have yet to see an actual analysis of that claim, and it belies the fierce fight Zappa, Dee Snider, and even John Denver fought against the label.
bump
I would say you were politically precocious. Maybe your family had political discussions at the dinner table. Not all families are like that.
We were stationed in Japan, 1951-1961. Dad worked for the at the Army's Japan Procurement Agency.
A man of twenty and not of the liberal persuasuion hath no heart;
a man of forty and not of the conservative persuasion hath no head!
;)
I was disappointed by the lack of real debate in most classrooms. I learned real quick to keep my mouth shut whenever the radical lesbians started to make their ridiculous claims, as most professors agreed, or at least didn't allow interjection of opposing points of view. As well, I quickly learned that most of the professors (females mostly) would grade poorly, despite performance, for Conservative points of view, or any dissention from the radical left.
This is why I am very happy that Wells College is now co-ed. It was sad only because a single sex education can be beneficial in many respects, but most of the women's colleges are sadly overrun by radical liberalism...at least in the northeast that is. They wonder why their enrollments are down and they have to go co-ed. They are too stupid and stuck in their academia eutopia to see and understand the real world.
I'm glad to embrace my parents' political views and values, even though I never thought that I would. There were smarter than I ever knew.
I am 45. I was a kid that laid on the ground with the protesters when Kent State happened. I played one of the four dead in Ohio. As a 12 year old, I marched with the older kids to protest Vietnam. I drew peace signs and wrote "Impeach Nixon" all over my textbooks and notebooks. As I got older, I marched in NYC with radicals, protesting pretty much everything. In 1978, I went to Israel and participated in the Peace Now movement.
Then in 1980 I joined the Airforce. I have been a Conservative ever since.
bttt
Ping
GREAT POST!
Great letter; I hope it makes the 'e-mail' circuit; and those w/family, friends in our Liberal Bastions of 'Education' send this along as well. I can think of a few books I would like to stick this in. . .and drop. . .leave. . .at Starbucks. . .a car, with a Gore sticker or worse. . .Kerry. ..too good not to share.
I think this author is still a lefty, but at least he understands political correctness, threat of Islamic terror and his party's choice to support one and ignore the other.
bump for later read and Hey Sam ,hope all is well!!!
Everything is fine, woofie, I hope the same for you!
Then in 1980 I joined the Airforce. I have been a Conservative ever since.
I am the same age as you and the author of the piece. Your pre-enlistment experiences are much the same as mine. I went to college in 1978 and remained a leftist through the late 1980s. Then the fall of the Soviet Union, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the ongoing and mounting self-loathing and treachery of the Democrats, the election and administration of the Sinkmeister, and my own continued study of politics, economics, and public policy led me ever-rightward. There had been aspects of leftists all along that never sat well with me, but it took me a long time to break free. By 1997 I had for some time realized that I was no longer a leftist, but it was only after I started surfing the web, and in particular Jim Robinson's FreeRepublic, that I was able to really come to understand my previous wrongheadedness. I'm glad that the young people of today will not have to wander through the desert for as long as I did.
Excellent!
an excellent, bttt ping morale booster.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.