How I Became A Conservative

It’s funny how we almost always assume the people we know and/or like are the same as we are. We believe they think the same as we do, share the same beliefs as we do, and we’re a little taken aback when we find out they don’t.

Over the years, many of my friends from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (where I graduated high school) have been shocked to find out that I am a political conservative, which is funny to me because I thought that everyone knew it. I was once paid the compliment from a very liberal friend “If you were any more conservative you’d be a damned rock.”

I often wonder what goes through my liberal friends’ minds when they come to the realization that I don’t think like they do about political issues. Do I lose their respect? Is their opinion of me diminished in some way? Does it color everything I say in their eyes? Do I become easier to dismiss? Am I automatically lumped in with the other people they consider crazy like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck?

But beyond that, when I think about my friends from Billerica, it occurs to me that I might not be nearly as conservative and certainly not as well versed in conservatism if it hadn’t been for my time in the Commonwealth.

I will be honest. I never thought much about politics until I moved to Mass. Reagan had just ended his term as President and GHW Bush had just begun his when I arrived in Billerica. I had no idea that Mike Dukakis had been governor of the commonwealth, nor did I know of the attachment so many people had to the man. Where I came from, Georgia, no one even registered Dukakis on their radar unless the word “idiot” was muttered under their breath. Politics had been a no brainer for me, Reagan was it. There were no questions.

So I moved to Mass in the latter part of my 8th grade year. One of the first people I met was Larry Frost, the liberal lion. His family had voted for Dukakis and he was proud of it. Larry would lecture me about the evils of George Bush and the glory that was Mike Dukakis. It was like talking to someone from Mars for me. Even in California I hadn’t known anyone who was as liberal as Larry. Or at least I hadn’t noticed them.

I have to admit, Larry made me think. I suddenly was being challenged by Larry (and a few others) to explain my penchant for liking Republicans.

Then Tiananmen Square happened. There was talk of a walk out. People were going to protest what was happening in Red China. Oh the excitement! Oh the thrill of sticking it to the man! This would show the adults we meant business! We would NOT tolerate oppression!

It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard.

I really became suspicious when I found out that some of the leaders were the biggest goof-offs in school who couldn’t have cared less what was going on in the next room much less in China. Then I remembered that about a week before the “walk out” rumors started going around the Marshall Middle School, an episode of “The Wonder Years” came on where Fred Savage leaves a classroom to go to the bathroom and inadvertently triggers the “walk out” protesting the Vietnam War. To this day, I believe that this is where the “protestors” got their idea.

At any rate, I refused to walk out, whether the whole school left or not. I was not going to join a group of “Wonder Years” wannabes. To his great credit, Larry said he wouldn’t either.

That afternoon after putting the “kibosh” on the walkout, the faculty called an assembly. So the whole 8th grade went in the auditorium and got lectured about the proper channels for such things. We were encouraged to write our congressmen and tell them how we felt. Congress would help if we really felt that strongly about it. They asked for questions and comments. A few hands were raised and a few questions asked about how to contact congress and that sort of thing.

I couldn’t resist, I stood up and told the principal and superintendent “You keep telling us to write our congressmen about it, but to my knowledge our congress doesn’t have the power to do anything to China. And even if they did, they’d just sit around on their butts until every student in Tiananmen Square had been run over by tanks.” (I distinctly remember toying with the use of the word ASS instead of butt just to see what would happen, but refrained.)

I got quite a lot of looks. Actually, it felt like the whole auditorium turned around in unison to look at me. Then everyone started clapping and whistling and et cetera. Everyone that is, except the faculty and administration, who immediately asked Ms Olson my name. From that day forward I was a marked man at Marshall Middle School who could do nothing right in the eyes of the Principal and Vice. I lay as low as possible for the remainder of the year, till I moved on to High School.

In High School I had my next run in with liberals. It was the Gulf War. Older (sophomores, juniors?) Hippie chicks were wearing shirts saying “no blood for oil” and “No WAR in the Middle East”. Being a military kid I had an interest in the goings on over there. I used to get into arguments with one Hippie chick in particular. We had study hall together. She would tell me we were a war mongering imperialist nation whose only concern for Kuwait was oil. I would tell her to keep driving her ‘76 Impala getting 10 gas stations to the mile while lecturing me on how oil was not worth going to war over.

From her I learned, by the way, that when you point out people’s hypocrisies to them, they don’t like it. She said she never wanted to talk to me again. I pointed out how open minded that was of her to exclude talking to someone because they disagree with her. She said I drove her insane.

A few years went by of only occasionally arguing with people about politics. In 1992 I was not 18, so I couldn’t vote in the election, but if I had it would have been for Perot. I had to say that people had a point about Bush, yet I still was not comfortable with pulling for Clinton.
Then came graduation and I lost touch with a lot of people from High School. I read more, listened more and talked less for many years. I took an “argument” class taught by a card carrying member of the American Communist Party. I was shouted down by the professor and his converted students, me and a guy named Tim were the only two holdouts who refused to join the party. He told us we’d flunk if our final paper was on “Communism vs. Capitalism” so I naturally wrote about Ayn Rand’s version of Capitalism “Objectivism” or capitalism on steroids. I made an A-.

The only other significant political argument I got into in the 1990’s was with my future wife, who while in college was a liberal. (She has since converted.) We argued about Clinton, education, economics and Elian Gonzales.

In 2000 I really got into politics. I was excited for a change. I was passionate that Gore should not win. I was foaming at the mouth and said so. I got one friend so mad at me he didn’t want me to send another political item to him ever again. I vowed I wouldn’t, and to this day, I haven’t.

Then September 11th happened, and I got back up on my soapbox beating the drums for a war well executed. I wrote an essay called “War! What is it good for?” in favor of war in general and the Afghan war in particular. I got an email from my first girlfriend who said she questioned why we had ever dated in the first place since we were so diametrically opposed politically. I told her it was because she was brilliant and hot, but she never responded to that.

Today, in my office I am the “go to” conservative. Whenever someone wants to talk politics they come to me. Whenever they want to shut down one of our liberal co-workers, they come to me. I am the guy my liberal colleagues won’t engage if they don’t have to do so. I sort of feel like Darth Vader a little bit. It gives me a warm feeling inside.

All of these experiences are what has sharpened my conservativeness. I have been forced to think critically about my opinions and thoughts for years and it has given me a focus that I believe very few people have. Most people, after a few minutes, give up talking politics. Not me. I love it. I love the exchange. I love to challenge other people’s opinions and even more to be challenged. I love to reconsider an opinion, turn it over and see if it still holds true. It makes me a better thinker and a better conservative.

And I like it that way.