A Brooklyn Conservative in Blue State New York

A friend of mine was surprised when I told her that I was a conservative. I asked her why she was surprised. She said “Well, you seemed intelligent; I just assumed you were liberal.” Sometimes I hide the dirty secret of my conservatism. Living in New York, it can be easier that way. I’m passionate about my beliefs, however, and sometimes I just can’t contain myself.

If I say nothing while my core beliefs are being trashed right before my eyes, I feel as if I am going to explode. If I say something, I’ll get into an argument and I’ll feel bad for starting an argument, for being the outcast in this world of left leaning lunacy. Usually, when I can’t take the liberal onslaught and am forced to respond, it’s in a situation where there are two, three or four people arguing against me. This causes me to have to raise my voice to be heard. The spit starts flying out as I go on the attack and act like the Cro-Magnon man that the left believes us conservatives to be.

It’s really so much easier to be a liberal. You could say “Of course I’m for universal health care. What kind of person would want sick people to be without care?” This is so easy! You don’t have to look at facts or details. If I get sick or lose my job, I could say, “I deserve to be taken care of because I wanted to take care of other people who could have been in the same situation.” I would never have to worry about being blamed for anything because I wouldn’t strive for anything. If I cheated on my wife, I could say that I never said that having an affair was wrong. If I got addicted to drugs, I could say “It’s not my fault; we’re all victims of an unfair system.”

We conservatives are victims of our own standards. When it was revealed that Bill Bennett, who had written books about virtue and family values, had a gambling problem, the left was all over the story, using the H-word “hypocrisy” over and over again; the same with Rush Limbaugh when it was revealed he had a drug problem.

Conservatives never said that they, or anyone else, needed to walk on water. If it is hypocritical to strive for something and fail, what is it when one strives for nothing and succeeds? The philosophy of the left is evident in both personal matters and in larger, governmental and economic concerns. Striving for success, failing and learning from failure is the basis of a Free Market economic system. In a true free market system, a person takes a chance, gets the rewards for success and the blame for failure. Socialist systems, on the other hand, strive for nothing more than the maintenance of the society, not for creating anything better. And when a conservative gets caught doing something wrong, well, contrary to the stereotypes of the left, we conservatives like to have fun! Sometimes, like all human beings, we make mistakes. The left wants us to behave as if we were the robots that they believe us to be.

Whether it is striving for personal success, success in business, success in family life, or anything else, the conservative mind does not see failure as hypocritical, it sees failure as an essential part of the process of making the most of who you are as a person in all facets of life. The left, in judging conservatives, tends to judge them based on their standards, not with the standards that conservatives use in judging themselves.

Conservatives take responsibility for their mistakes and learn from them. A conservative who talks about family values is not hypocritical when he makes a mistake. He is a person who is striving for something greater. The mistake or the hypocrisy is not in failing to achieve your own standards, the real hypocrisy is to not have any standards, or anything worth striving for in the first place.

When I try to debate points such as this with liberals, I get blank stares. They are like children who just repeat something over and over again. My nephew, when he was about six years old, once came to me and said “Hey Howie, you know what?” To which I said “What?” “Chicken Butt!” he said, and then laughed hysterically, which made me laugh as well. Two seconds later he said, “Hey Howie, you know what?” To which I said “Tell me”. And he said “NO NO NO! You know what?” “What?” I said. And he said “Chicken Butt!” -- And then laughed hysterically once again. Somewhere around the 45th time he said the joke I had to figure a way out of it. This, by the way, is what it’s like arguing with a liberal.

Liberals will bring up points that have nothing to do with the debate and then act as if they have just declared a major “gotcha” moment. The “Chicken Hawk” argument is a good example. If someone needs to hire an accountant, it is not necessary that the person have worked, himself, as an accountant. If a person calls the police for help, it is not necessary that the person would have had to, at one time, work for the police department. Liberals, incapable of winning a debate on issues, try to cut it off with personal attacks.

As to the “Chicken Hawk” argument, if a person who never served in the military tried to tell the military what strategy to use, how to use troops, technology and equipment, then there would be a legitimate case to be made. However, whether or not the country, in defense of its borders and safety of its people, has a need to use the military is something that any person (whether having served in the military or not) has a right, even an obligation, to speak up about. The alternative would be to have a military dictatorship. Does the left ever think of the logical consequences of their arguments?

As to logical arguments, I was talking to a liberal once about the benefits of drilling for oil in Alaska. She argued that we change the environment by our drilling for oil. I countered by saying that the Alaska pipeline has actually turned out to be beneficial to the environment, as well as to humanity. The caribou population has grown and has thrived around the pipeline because the heat generated by the pipeline attracts animals. The caribou gather around the pipeline, which in turn, helps not only the caribou but other animals that prey on the increased population of caribou. Rather than see the benefit of this win-win situation, my friend said “You see! That’s what I mean; we’ve messed with the natural order of things!” I said “But they’ve INCREASED!!” “It doesn’t matter!” she said. How do you argue against this?

Sometimes, we conservatives can use the liberal biases to our advantage. I have a conservative friend in New York (one of two – not one of two conservative friends, one of the two other conservatives that live in New York) who is a baker. She entered a cupcake baking contest on July 4th. She thought of putting tiny American flags on the cupcakes. Being that this is New York, however, she thought better of it and put peace signs on the cupcakes. She won the contest. We’ll never know if she won because of the peace signs vs. the American flags. The cupcakes are amazing and may have won anyway. The point is that instinctively, she knew that to this crowd, the American flag would have been an impediment to winning and that is truly a shame.

What does one do, when the liberal assumes he is speaking to a comrade in arms? Another friend was listening to a client go on and on about the evils of the Bush administration, the evils of Cheney, Halliburton, Abu Ghraib and on and on and on. Finally she couldn’t take it anymore and said “I voted for Bush!” The reply was “You couldn’t have voted for Bush, you’re a photographer!” Liberals, who pride themselves on their progressiveness, their openness, their acceptance of others not like them, are not only the most intolerant people I’ve ever met, but the most hypocritical of all!

The left prides itself on diversity but the diversity they talk to is superficial diversity. Real diversity is diversity of thought and opinion and they do not tolerate it. These are people who love to shock and stun others with their openness and creativity but they, in turn, are truly shocked and come out with some of the most inane statements when they hear anything in disagreement with their liberal dogma.