My Political Manifesto

They fell down, and the world went numb.

It’s strange when you grow up with so much going on. The Chinese have their infamously mis-translated quote about growing up in “interesting times,” and for most of my life I had been blessedly able to avoid that curse. But those ubiquitous planes, those no-longer towers made life interesting, much like the Holocaust made Europe “interesting” sixty years ago.

This was all after the fact, though. Before all the excitement, my life was the product of a political dichotomy that too often plagues the over-informed. Or, rather, those with delusions of knowledge. When I was little, I had been pegged as gifted, and although unaware such a peg would fit, I nevertheless accepted the title. It’s a nice feeling, being singled out for something good. Also, how else could I explain how emotionally disturbed I was? Insomnia and nightmares, hallucinations and daymares.

Sensitive, I believe they called it. They did tests to find answers, but I was never privy to the actual results. Odd, crying, and alone, I wondered why I wasn’t a normal kid, all the while never considering myself abnormal. Yet there I was, absorbing facts without context, formulas without theory. As most precocious youth are wont to do, I disseminated my knowledge with aplomb, startling (or amusing – you can never be quite sure with adults) those around me. More often than no, it wasn’t “How do you know that?” but “Why do you know that?” Because it was fascinating. And, because the delight of thinking you “know” is a powerful narcotic. Huge ego and low self-esteem is an odd combination, and yet it somehow found a home in me. It was unsettling and appealing.

That’s how politics struck me – not as in that’s how I perceived politics, but how I was brought into that world. In my first, great moment with politics, I was a seven-year-old trying to choose between Bush and Dukakis. Never mind the fact that I had no idea why I would take on such an endeavor: it was simply something we were doing in our second-grade class. Sure, I vaguely comprehended the importance of the President. He was the big guy, the most important man in the country. As far as I knew, he created the laws and ran the government. As far as I knew, Reagan was a great man, and Bush or Dukakis would be the next great man. The more I think about it, second-grade is probably the perfect moment to enter politics, because the decisions are arbitrary, much like how elections seem to work today.

For some reason, I took a flyer on Bush. It might have had something to do with my parents’ politics, but if so, the message must have came to me subliminally. I can’t recall my parents being excessively or overtly political during that election – or really any election throughout my childhood – so I have a feeling it was more a matter of having to make a choice and going with Bush. Far more likely than my parents influence was the fact that my best friend at the time – a boy significantly more “gifted” than myself – found his allegiance sitting with Dukakis. Well, as we were not only friends but friendly rivals, my opposition to the Governor from Massachusetts seemed inevitable.

Besides, I had read Bush’s lips and was pretty sure “no new taxes” was a good thing, even at the age of seven.

Is that how one becomes political? Is that how one sets their flag on Right or the Left? I remember my decision to root for the Yankees was directly tied to my older brother’s belief in the Mets. But are politics and sports the same thing? Can one simply flip a coin and adhere to a platform, like choosing a sports team to support. It seems ridiculous.

Four years later, though, my mind more developed (sixth grade!) and my understanding slightly improved, I was once again barking “Bush!” What’s the economy to a sixth-grader? “Recession” is a buzz-word you hear in passing and although you know it is a negative, compared to the subtle patriotism, the ingrained respect for the Presidency, there was no contest. How could it be? At that age, when questioning authority is still at odds with a conservative Catholic upbringing, wasn’t the man who stopped Saddam Hussein worth much more than a governor from a state whose chief industry is poultry farming? It was around this time that I could see a pattern emerging and my decisions, if not consciously Republican, were certainly find themselves pointing in that direction.

As I grew older and information came – and was understood – more readily, my politics definitely coalesced to the point where I didn’t think it would be possible for me to not identify as Republican. Foremost in this was probably the emergence of my father’s political opinions. As I got more interested in the process and policy, dinner-table discussions brought out a pragmatic Republican: a card-carrying NRA member who wanted little government interference in daily affairs, lower taxes, and a social welfare program based on need but doled out for merit. As a young person, despite the apparent trappings of a Long Island suburbanite, I could still realize that we were a working-class, lower middle-class family. Both my parents didn’t go to college – not for lack of opportunity or ability, but rather for the desire to begin a family.

Did that one decision radically change how I was to perceive the political situation in our country? My father was too young to worry too much about being drafted into Vietnam, so his was the first generation who almost universally lived without war-experience. A generation that was learning that high school no longer guaranteed a great job; that college was slowly making itself known as a way to reach middle class – if not upper classes – that produced results much quicker than simple hard work. It wasn’t that one couldn’t find work, or even a good job, out of high school, but the world was definitely moving progressively towards a college-based work-force, coinciding quite nicely with the export of manufacturing jobs in favor of a service-based economy.

College also exposed the sons and daughters of the World War II and Korean War veterans to an experience almost universally dedicated to a liberal education. College had long been an “out” for those against the war, and many professors were active in establishing minds that id not simply adhere to a status quo: the government was not placed on a pedestal; the First Amendment was regaining its primacy. (Please realize that I am not denigrating those who went to college instead of war – or feel I’m suggesting that all students went to college to avoid the war. This is just a common conception of the time period by those of my generation, for good or for ill).

If this meant opportunity for those exposed to that mindset, it also was an exposure to a guilt-complex so inherent in liberal policies: Why should we retain our wealth when others go without? Yes, we worked hard, but do our efforts equate to being well-off, when others are in poverty?

This is a noble sentiment, but it seems to be a natural off-shoot of a specific lifestyle. Take, for example, the other side of the coin: The working class man who feels he has done what was necessary to achieve what he has. Through labor, through the Puritan work-ethic, he has been able to carve out a slice of the American dream. Who, then, is the government to tell me I have to give my money to someone who hasn’t worked as hard? Nothing was handed to me, and now you want me to give away my efforts, to the detriment of my own family?

Is that greed? Or is that a logical rationale? Is it cold and compassionless, as it seems Conservatives are so often called?

These are excellent and valid questions. I would have to think race certainly plays its role – you get a job at the factory (or these days, office) where you old man worked, because they think his good traits run true. It probably just so happens being white led to that situation in the first place. I would also say that starting-social status also plays a role. Poor people aren’t necessarily poor because they don’t work hard; they are poor because of a confluence of factors that all add to a lack of opportunity and inability to find a way out.

But try explaining that to someone who went from working two crap jobs so that he could support his family. To him, there is a pride in his ability, as well as the idea that, Hey, if I can do it, can’t everyone? This may seem illogical, but I’m sure you can name at least one person you know like this: a self-made man or someone who lifted himself up by his bootstraps.

Does that a conservative make? While I’m not convinced it’s the only factor, I’m fairly certain it was that philosophy which aided my affiliation with the Right.

But then I went to college. And I found myself in a situation where as much as it pained me to listen to, I heard the liberalism nonetheless. The anti-Bush rhetoric. The anti-American sentiment. The anti-Imperialist project. It seriously irked me. For starters, I was at a public university. I also found it ironic to be asked to approach things like literature and history objectively when clearly what I was hearing was not. As this progressed, I found myself being that guy who questioned professors – and amazingly learned something because of it.

As I started to really get into politics (the end of high school; beginning of college), I had always found myself arguing with my friends on their decidedly liberal ideas. In that manner, I thought it was obvious that I was conservative. But when I started to grapple with my professors (who, for all their “faults” politically, were incredibly smart), I started to understand that maybe it wasn’t so much that I was conservative, but rather that I was predisposed to want to challenge concrete opinions. And that’s when I realized: politics are opinions. Again, a simple idea, but one I don’t think too many of us are consciously aware of. We see politics as a black-and-white thing, and that was bothersome. It wasn’t that my friends were arguing for liberal policies, but that they were positive that said policies were absolute.

In the end, I did receive a liberal education, but in the sense that I learned so much and in variety. With my friends, I was Conservative, but with my father, I was most certainly Liberal. Together, I was using the adherence of those around me to hone my own opinions (politics) to try to figure out which policies actually made sense. With my friends, I tried to point out that their notions about Red Staters were usually built around stereo-types – and generally false. I was amazed by how often supposedly open-minded people were so narrow in their ideas and use of generalizations. With my father (and brother), it was the opposite. I was perplexed by their adherence to policies that didn’t seem to mesh with the morals that he has always espoused. He isn’t cold or compassionless in any sense. But his politics are based on a rationality, a common-sense approach that indicates that big government doesn’t work.

Which is what I’ve always thought, myself. But I’ve learned that while on a whole it probably isn’t a good thing, large government can have positive effects, as long as kept reasonable (a requirement almost impossible to attain, I’ve noticed).

What I never thought, though, was that one should disrespect our elected leaders. Naïve, I know – and quite probably hypocritical, considering the way Republicans treated (and I might add, to a degree, rightly) Clinton – but I always had a strong aversion to the way people railed against Bush, Jr. It just seemed wrong to me that someone could actively take shots at the President of the United States. So when I recently read someone who compared Bush to Stalin, Hitler, and (ironically) Saddam, my immediate response was to scoff. But was I right?

I think, all-in-all, I was. And yet there are many similarities that are worth pointing out: a highly charismatic, almost ego-maniacally obsessed leader who ignores public opinion to run roughshod over civil liberties, both home and abroad. But he’s never engaged in an active campaign of genocide, and so, despite the similarities, I find it a little egregious to compare him (faults and all) with those three despicable people. This, in turn, makes me have to side with someone I don’t necessarily want to be associated with. As I recently pointed out to one of my friends: “Why do you make me have to defend these people?!”

I am certainly not (I’m not sure if I ever was, but I’d be willing to say “no longer”) a fan of Bush. I will say this: He sent Colin Powell to the U.N., and we all thought Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. However poorly he managed 9/11, however poorly he spoke (speaks) in public, as long as I thought he was telling the truth (and come on – it was Colin Powell!), I was willing to respect the office. It is only after-the-fact, where everything that emanated from that office was tainted, did my mind change. But the fact is: my mind changed. And it changed because the facts (literally) changed.

That’s what has been so frustrating, though (yes, the lies have been frustrating, but I’d say that’s a given). No, what has bothered me so much is that I’ve always felt I’m arguing against brick walls. Politics has become a faith for so many people, that to question their beliefs is not an intelligent discussion, but a personal affront. Just as Christians can not stand alternate theories about Jesus (or the dissemination of alternate gospels), both Liberals and Conservatives cling to their ideals with a zeal approaching dogma. You hear about a separation of church and state: well, for so many, the state is the church.

Am I a Conservative? Probably not. But I’m also certainly not a Liberal. I’m sure one could call me a moderate, but what would such a label mean? In the end, I hope that I can eschew these kinds of labels. Like most, I wish to be open-minded – although I know that most of my open-mindedness can only occur in hindsight. Shouldn’t that be the way, though? Doesn’t it make more sense to “sleep on it” or “let cooler minds prevail?” I think so. That’s why, if I had to label myself, I’d say I am a pragmatist. A realist. Because I like to explore the options, play Devil’s advocate, and then discuss solutions. To me, any other approach is the equivalent of dream-talking. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what our system was designed to do.

I began this essay talking about the Twin Towers. I’m going to end it with them too: Go beyond Ground Zero. I’m not saying forget the day – I would never (could never) suggest that. But we have allowed a single moment in time stagnate our society. Name a single major policy that has come about that isn’t tied to 9/11 in one way or the other. Moreover, consider that all the inaction is similarly tied in. If individual people can be narrow-minded in their person politics, and that’s harmful, then what is the result of a political system that has narrow-mindedly adhered to a single notion? If you allow me the hyperbole, our political parties have been co-opted by the terrorists. I’m not sure if that will open up any minds, but I do hope it will open some eyes.

Of course, I could be wrong.