The Reluctant Conservative

All my life, I’ve been in sort of a weird, in-between place in terms of politics. Except for a brief flirtation as a Limbaugh listener, when I was a fire-breather, I find myself in the position of being a reluctant conservative.

By that I mean that my political and religious convictions, as well as my own reading of history and understanding of current events, point me in a fairly conservative direction. I believe that government ought to be limited to a few essential functions and that it ought to do those few functions extremely well. I believe that human happiness is maximized—that more people will be more happy—if there is more freedom and less regulation in nearly everything. I have rarely had positive experiences at places like the Post Office or the DMV or other large government run beauracracies (new definition of Hell: trying to get process as a teacher by New York City’s Board of Education. Words don’t do justice to this onerous process…).

While I concede a lack of perfection and problems with traditional institutions, such as the free market, I don’t see how letting the same folks who run the DMV or the Post Office or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac organize health care or plan for our energy usage is a good idea.

At any rate, minus my few embarrassing years as a crusader, I’ve always been pretty embarrassed by the fiery extremist sorts—folks like Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh, etc. I’m embarrassed by the fact that my views basically are similar to their’s—minus the sarcasm and bombast. Essentially, my convictions match the talk show line up, but my temperament is more towards the NPR side of things.

This makes for some difficult moments. During the Bush administration, I had basically morphed into a sort of non-partisan pragmatist.

But now, I feel like our country is falling apart. Everything—and I mean pretty much everything—that I have ever loved and valued about the United States seems to be at least on the endangered list.

And, everyone with whom I am temperamentally simpatico seems to think that this is a good thing and wants to hasten the change.

This leaves me with the yahoos that sort of appall me. And what’s worse, as I watch the country lurch towards government rationed health care (Dad! Hurry up and get your treatment for your cancer while it’s still allowed!), the increasing assumption of extra- and anti-Constitutional powers (ex post facto laws? Bah! Who cares. AIG execs are jerks. We can do whatever we want. Don’t you know we won?), an open attempt to boost my energy costs by 30%, the silencing of political opposition and stifling of dissent, and many, many more slimy and destructive things, I am left with a scary thought: My gosh! What if the yahoos were right all along! What if all their slippery slope stuff that I sort of was embarrassed by is really true?
So, this blog is my attempt to sort of work through this stuff. And, because if life in our country is going to change, I at least want to be part of the conversation—even if nothing changes because of what I say.

On thing—since I work in a fairly liberal field, I am going to keep this anonymous for now, so if you know my name, please keep it between us.