I have finally came to the conclusion that there might very well be insanity in my family.
People who are aware that I used to be a registered Democrat often ask me if I’ve lost many friends once I became such an ardent Conservative. The truth is I don’t think I lost any. I suspect that most of them, including the most liberal, feel that I’ve been a tad eccentric all along, and that my political conversion is just one more thing they have chosen to overlook.
I’m sure that some of my chums think I’m a reactionary boor when I suggest that Ted Kennedy is proof positive that the good die young or that the Dixie Chicks look and sound like the kids from Village of the Damned grown up. But they seem to understand and accept that nobody’s perfect.
The most serious breach took place with my middle-aged niece, Susan. We had always gotten along well until I began writing about politics. She simply couldn’t bear to read my stuff. I guess her concern was that my right-wing rants suggested to her the very real possibility that there might be insanity in the family.
A couple of years ago, my wife and I drove up from L.A. while my niece and her family drove down from the Bay area to spend a weekend together in Carmel. Even though the 2004 election was looming on the horizon, Susan and I vowed to avoid discussing politics.
Once, when just he and I were walking back from the tennis court, her 12-year-old son reported that they’d held a mock election in his sixth grade classroom. Even though I knew that they lived in one of those chi-chi white wine and Brie communities north of San Francisco, I was a bit surprised when he reported that Kerry had garnered 27 votes, Nader got two, and Bush got only one. The lad proudly announced that he’d voted for Kerry. Big surprise! I told him that, political preference aside, I predicted big things for the kid who’d gone for Bush. When he asked why, I told him it proved he was willing to buck peer pressure and to spit, figuratively of course, in the teacher’s eye. (Heck, these days, you can’t even expect that kind of moxie in a college student almost twice that kid’s age.)
In any case, Susan and I managed to get through the entire weekend, neatly sidestepping all sorts of potential landmines, until a few minutes before our departure. We were all having a last cup of complimentary coffee in the hotel lobby. Because the place was owned by Doris Day, the walls were decorated with her movie posters. The one directly in front of my wife was for The Winning Team, the movie bio of Grover Cleveland Alexander, which happened to co-star Ms. Day and Ronald Reagan.
Because we live not too far away from the Reagan Museum and were very aware of the throngs that had been drawn to pay their respects to the recently deceased ex-president, my wife innocently mentioned what an impressive send-off he’d received from a grateful nation.
My niece replied, “Nothing more than President Carter will receive.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Before I’d even thought about it, I found myself saying, “Are you kidding? It’s bad enough that Carter was the worst president I can recall, with a legacy that includes ceding Iran to the Ayatollah Khomeini; bungling the hostage rescue; a 21% inflation rate and 10% unemployment; but, not one to rest on his laurels, he then became the worst ex-president in history.”
Between clenched teeth, my niece asked me what basis I had for that remark. I told her that, unlike every other ex-president, he hasn’t stopped meddling in foreign affairs since leaving office. What’s more, he accepted a Nobel Peace Prize even though the head of the awards committee admitted that it was intended as an insult to President Bush. Carter is so besotted with himself that he will go anywhere he can count on being treated royally, and it doesn’t matter in the least that those who love him the most are Castro, Chavez and anyone who hates Israel as much as he does. Speaking of which, he was Yasser Arafat’s greatest fan. He even insisted on attending Arafat’s funeral, not, like a normal person, to make certain the butcher was actually dead, but to pay his respects.”
In response to which, my niece informed me, “Jimmy Carter is a saint.”
Until that very moment, I had always thought that when people said that something had so astonished them that their jaw dropped to the floor it was just an expression. In my case, I had to get down on my knees and use both hands to pick it up.
All the way back to Los Angeles, I replayed the conversation in my head, and I finally came to the conclusion that there might very well be insanity in the family.
“Jimmy Carter is a saint.”
If that isn’t about typical of the kind of thought-provoking commentary we’ve come to expect from liberals.
On the bright side, your conversion proves that insanity is curable, and there may be hope for your niece yet.
“… I finally came to the conclusion that there might very well be insanity in the family.”
There is. In mine too; and most of them are convinced it’s me.
We have to remember the liberal disease is not some cynical fakery. It is deep felt conviction; with them believing as strongly Carter is a saint as we believe he was a disaster. Double-ditto for Clinton. For their part, they look at either Bush the way we regard Carter and Clinton (or rather, the way they think we do). They are only slightly more respectful of Reagan. It does not seem to matter they have no logical basis for their animus. Rather, it seems more a matter of ‘needing’ someone to malign as much as they believe we malign theirs … a simple, childish tit-for-tat.
Personally, I think Carter had some nice qualities and would have made a fine small town mayor (or better yet, a country store operator). He might have even made a decent (if less than outstanding) naval officer if he’d stayed in the service. He was a good man and sincere in his religion. He just had no business being President. As for meddling in our foreign affairs, it’s always sad when old men lose it. Unfortunately, Carter does not realize he’s lost it, and his followers egg him on as though he were not half gone to dementia. Imagine conservatives pretending Reagan had not lost it to Alzheimer’s and lauding him as astute as when he’d brought the Soviets to their knees. Fortunately, Reagan had more sense than that even in his dotage.
Many of us, who call ourselves conservative today, did not always. That was because liberalism was not nearly so far left as today. Liberals could often distinguish between what they’d like to see and what is feasible, between a slight stretching of principle to fit new categories and abandoning principle altogether, between a close version of reality and pure fantasy. So, many who are now conservative are so by virtue of having refused to go along in the general rush leftward. As Reagan said, “It is not so much I have left the Democrat Party as they have left me.”
I never called myself a liberal, perhaps, because, I never really considered where I fell in the spectrum. Sometimes, I was tempted to play the liberal; especially when young and in need of impressing some girl wearing flowers in her hair. I always knew, though, I believed in the principles on which my country is founded, suspected radicals of hyperbole to force others to their view, and always knew socialism to be an unmitigated disaster. If asked, I either told people I’m a libertarian (true) or an independent. Some of that was mental fence sitting so as not to offend (everyone thinks himself a libertarian and an independent, no matter how far they stray from liberty’s foundations). Back then, the stakes did not seem as high; or else my stake in it did not seem as threatened. Either way, I can no longer sit on the sidelines watching my freedom erode, evil permitted in the name of “fairness”, and my country trashed by all and sundry. I’d become part of the problem because I did not declare myself or act.
I have never been insane. I have never been either a glassy-eyed liberal or bile-filled extremist convinced my country is right no matter what. I simply recognize liberalism has lost its way and refused to go along. At first, I was tarred by liberal family and friends as a conservative, because I spoke out when I heard them speak nonsense. I tried convincing them I am merely a free-thinker, capable of thinking outside their or anyone’s box. Not good enough. Eventually, I concluded I really am a conservative because I am not merely one who reveres freedom; I am one who’s convinced liberals are blindly and blithely abolishing it.
The author failed to mention one other significant event of the Carter administration. It’s very first action no less. A campaign promise that was contentious even in theory, let alone to have actually been acted upon. The day after taking his inauguration oath of presidency, Carter pardoned all those who intentionally and knowing broke the law by evading the US military draft when called upon to active duty service. Most of these individuals ran from the US borders by way of Canada (or Mexico, though less welcoming). Canada refused to extradite these men back to the US for prosecution. The action by the new President to allow these approx. 100,000 back to the US free and clear of any subjugation to account for their unlawful actions, spoke loud and clear to every active, inactive, veteran US military man and their respective families. That message: any and all of the sacrifices, and life changing anguish they had endured was for naught. But for their own personal devotion to their country, they need not have served. What men were these that fled the country? Cowards? Yellow bellies? Freeloaders? What men were these that answered the call? Courageous? Heroic? Or, were they now considered to be foolish? Huh, go figure, after all this they didn’t have to go.
My father served in WW II in the Navy in the CB’s, his father was a GI stationed in France in WW I, and was even in Versailles when the treaty was signed. He lost a brother in that war. I am 48 years of age. Too young to have been draft eligible for Vietnam. However, both of my older brothers were. And both were in college in 1970. One never had his number drawn in the draft “birthday system”, the other did. He reported for duty. Luckily, he was assigned to an outfit in West Germany, (remember the cold war?) Stationed at various places in Europe for a couple years, he never saw Vietnam.
It was a strange time then. Dinner conversations were often difficult and painful. But ours was a patriotic family and we knew that if the call came, any of us would serve. Avoidance was not an option; however it was debated, frequently.. To have pardoned these men was wrong. The deserters/draft dodgers should not have been allowed back. There is a difference between actively “hunting them down” so as to throw them to the wolves, versus issuing a total unconditional pardon. And that difference would have been to leave them there, ostracized. Alone. Hardline? You betcha. Carter proved how bad a president he would become by the very first action he took.
Oh, there’s lots he didn’t mention and could have. I think that would only have distracted from Burt’s point however; that liberals can get a bit unhinged whenever challenged on their most beliefs, making it very difficult talking to them seriously. This is not a universal rule, but nearly so. It does not matter to liberals that he was an unmitigated disaster or that he single-handedly wrecked both our economy and standing in the world, it only matters he did the “right things” according to then prevailing liberal dogma.
I’ve known conservatives to get unhinged this way also, but they are more the exception than is the case with liberals. I believe there is a connection between this tendency to lose it and liberal causes. So many of them are couched in terms of emotion overriding logic that they must be magnet to those given to intense emotional response.