political commentary

hat causes a person to change from a liberal into a conservative? Carol Brown says for her it was a gradual process and was not due to lengthy, heavy-handed lectures. I happen to be rather fond of lengthy, heavy-handed lectures, having written quite a few myself, but what she probably means is those articles in which the writer runs out of ideas, gets nervous, and starts perspiring, which causes their Caps Lock key to short out and get stuck.

So instead of saying something like “Recent tax increases appear somewhat unjustified given current fiscal restraints” it comes out sounding more like the writer dropped a cinder block on his or her toe and is hopping around on one foot while typing.

“Recent TAX INCREASES appear somewhat unjustified given curre OW OW OW OH GOD THAT REALLY HURTS! nt fiscal restraints!”

Be that as it may, here are the factors that started me on the path to the Dark Side:

• A recognition that leftism is philosophically inconsistent. How is there justice if some groups receive favored treatment and others don't? How is it not racist to hire people just because they're black? How is it not sexist to raise someone's salary just because they're a female?
  
  
• A realization it was the Left, not the Right, that wanted to dictate everything I said, did, ate, smoked, and drank, whether I had to wear a seat belt, and a zillion other things that I would just get pissed off and START USING ALL CAPS if I tried to list them.
  
  
• Articles in various news magazines ridiculing political correctness.
  
  
• Watching TV shows like All In The Family which portrayed conservatives as bigoted and stupid.

In case you're too young to remember All In The Family, it consisted mainly of a series of situations designed to give the writers a chance to put words into the mouth of actor Carroll O'Connor so they could express their political opinions. I first saw it as a kid visiting a friend. His parents were watching, and every time Archie Bunker would say something stupid they would laugh hysterically. What struck me was how phony and hateful their laughter sounded. I vowed never to be like them. Kids don't like being told who to hate, and rebel against it.

I've since learned that Bunker became sort of a folk hero among some people. I preferred Sledge Hammer myself. But in those days I was mainly apolitical. The final trigger happened when I was driving to work one day. My route took me past an abortion clinic, where one man was always standing on the corner with a sign that said “Babies killed here.” Not yelling, not saying anything, no all caps, just standing there all by himself with his sign.

This was back when abortion opponents were shooting doctors, probably the dumbest thing anybody ever did, and at first I thought of this guy as just an unemployed anti-abortion nut. But then it struck me: even nuts have a nutritious protein-rich center. So what if they're bitter Klingons with twangy accents? It is irrelevant. I was forced to ask: What do I really believe?

Thus started my long slide into the world of the right-wing libertarian NRA-carrying running phallogocentric dog capitalist pig oppressors, or RWLRNRACRPDCPOs for short.

As many others have pointed out, libs are motivated mainly by fear. Fear is how they keep blacks on the “plantation”— by constantly telling them that we RWLRNRACRPDCPOs hate them and are going to shoot them with our assault rifles, or that we are “going to put y'all back in chains” as THE DUMBEST VICE PRESIDENT EVER said ....

Sorry, little problem with my keyboard there. Libs are terrified of us. That's why we see so much vituperation coming from them. In their minds it's a reasonable response because they feel weak and they're scared to death. So they want men with badges and armored personnel carriers, M16s, grenades, and battering rams to keep them safe. (As for their dogs, well, they can always buy another one.)

The qualities liberals fear are the ones they hate in themselves. They fear that they might become (or already be) closed-minded and intolerant, so they project those qualities onto others and direct hatred toward them. We become the reification of whatever they hate in their own character. It doesn't work, because a golden rule in psychology is that we become what we hate. When what you really hate is part of yourself, hating it only makes it stronger.

But ordinary libs are a little different. What they are afraid of most of all is losing social status. That, not their fear of firearms and bibles, is why they hate rednecks and conservatives. They believe those groups have low social status. They don't necessarily disagree with them, but they're terrified of losing social status, so they adjust their views to match those of whoever seems to be on top, and they participate in exclusion rituals like calling their opponents racist or homophobic or whatever the ingroup's daily shibboleth happens to be.

Fear of what the answer might do to their social status is what prevents liberals from asking themselves the question: What do I really believe? If they do ask it, their craving for status leads them answer not with the truth, but with what they think others want them to believe.

Get on a grand jury some time, as I did, and you'll discover that this has a devastating impact on how justice is carried out. Jurors will indict anybody for anything in order to gain the approval of the DA. That's one reason why there are so many ham sandwiches rotting in prison. Yes, some of this is about fear and control, but mostly it's because jury members crave affirmation from authority figures. It is scary to watch it in action.

To a kid social status is the most important thing in the world because it determines whether they get a hot date or stay at home eating potato chips watching Saturday Night Live. This is why most of the name-calling comes from college-age kids and people who identify with them.

So, how to convert these libs? The best way is to keep up the ridicule. Ridicule is a way of asserting that you have higher social status than your opponent, and that they are the outgroup.

The great William F. Buckley, despite his flaws, proved that conservatives will always win the argument when it's presented on intellectual grounds. That's why libs try to keep us away from the college campus. They know we are smarter and more knowledgeable, especially about the real world, and kids have an intrinsic need to learn about that. If they let us on campus, they'd end up selling French fries for a living.

Our strongest weapon, though, is our love of freedom. Love of freedom is contagious. Even libs, deep down, somewhere down in their frightened little granola-eating, tree-hugging souls, want to be free. If they can be tricked into asking themselves what they really believe, lots of them might realize that they've been imperialist running-dog capitalist patriarchal phallogocentric oppressors all along.