When conservatives relate the tale of how they came to embrace the political principles they now hold, they often include a period of their lives (typically in college) when they were anything but conservative. Some were moderately liberal, some more socialistic, and a few (like the guys over at Power Line) were outright radical Marxists.
They usually explain this away as result of the idealism of youth and may even cite the famous quote, which may or may not have been uttered by Churchill:
Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.
I must have been short a ticker growing up because from as young as I can remember I leaned to the right.
My first political memory was the 1976 election when I was all of eight. On the school bus shortly before the election I can recall explaining to a friend that I could never vote for some peanut farmer from Georgia. Why being a legume harvester from a state in the Deep South disqualified a man for the presidency was probably quite beyond my comprehension at the time, but certainly history would prove my instincts to be correct.
In 1978 (the year of the infamous "Minnesota Massacre") I remember querying my Dad about whom he was going to pull the lever for and then informing him that he shouldn't vote that way because his candidates were not pro-life. The kind of thing you pick up onwhen you attend a Catholic grade school I guess.
1980 was a glorious year in politics for me. I wore my Reagan button to school for months before the election and even participated with a friend in a Republican phone bank prior to the election asking prospective voters which way they were leaning and getting them to the polls. The Reagan years were dawning and I couldn't be happier.
In high school I continued to hold steadfast to my conservative views. I engaged my economics teacher in a furious debate because I refused to accept his proposition that all economics is a zero sum game. In 1984, I protested an appearance by Geraldine Ferraro in Minneapolis and had one of first experiences with the open minded, tolerant leftists who clamor about how much they support "dissent."
Most of the crowd was hard-core feminists and they were none too happy to see a sixteen-year-old boy decked out in Reagan-Bush regalia. I was with a group of children from a family that I occasionally baby-sat for and they held pro-life signs at the gathering. An angry woman accused me of exploiting the children for political purposes. Exploiting children for political purposes? Talk about irony. That's one of the most dog-eared pages in the left's playbook.
I also wrote a couple of opinion piece for my school newspaper, a matter that I'll return to in a moment.
College didn't change my worldview either. Of course to be fair I'd don't know how much liberal idealism there was to contend with on the campus on the University of North Dakota in the late 80's. I did get into a heated discussion with a professor who was fixated on the notion that Richard Nixon was responsible for the US involvement in Vietnam because his "Red baiting" in the '50s created a climate where LBJ was afraid to be appear soft on Communism. For this guy it was all Nixon's fault. I imagine we're creating a future generation of profs right now who will blame it all on GW down the road.
But for the most part the campus was not a hot bed of leftist activism. Oh sure there were the usual suspects protesting US involvement in El Salvador, rights for the homeless, etc. but I don't think most of the student body was all that receptive to their views. During my freshman year Reagan paid a visit to the school and he received a very warm welcome. I attended the speech and it was quite memorable to see the Gipper in person.
So I never had a liberal period in my political life. My views have become more nuanced, and more precise over time, but the core beliefs have remained the same. I was reminded of that the other day when I came across an opinion piece I wrote for my high school newspaper after the 1986 US attack on Libya .
Keep in mind that I was seventeen when I wrote this and we didn't have any fancy smancy Internet to help us do research. We had to go to the library and read periodicals and pay ten cents to copy pages we needed. We also apparently didn't have much of an editor at the high school newspaper since my writing is riddled with grammatical errors. But in the interests of complete accuracy I have not changed anything (Lord knows I was tempted) from the original that appeared in May 1986:
The US decision to launch a preemptive strike against terrorist facilities and military installations in Libya was one that should have been made long ago.
Militarily, politically, and morally the choice was a correct one. By launching the attack the US has finally made it known to the world that we are sick and tired of getting pushed around by a bunch of cowardly bullies who must kill innocent women and children to get attention. No longer will we allow our civilians and military personnel who are overseas to die without the county or countries responsible paying some price.
A few facts of the attack should be cleared up before people start to blame the US for a terrorist act. The first thing people should realize is that most of the damage inflicted on civilian areas in Libya was not caused by US bombs but rather by stray Libyan missiles.
When the attack was taking place the Libyans fired dozens of surface to air missiles at the US planes. Almost all of these missiles missed the planes and fell on Libyan homes and exploded. So when you watch the news and see civilians dead and wounded don't blame the US. This is just one of several examples of biased and distorted press coverage of the strike. Instead of showing the world what a truly sick animal Khadafy truly is, they choose to portray him as a misunderstood leader and his country as an innocent victim of US aggression.
The attack on Libya has reaped several rewards for the US. Besides sending a stern warning about US resolve to combat terrorism, the raid also had military value by hitting the centers of Libyan terrorist activities and important military bases. The US has hopefully stalled planned terrorist strikes against Americans. The only problem with the military side of the attack was that it wasn't strong enough. With the full power of the 6th Fleet at his disposal the President was too easy on Khadafy by sending in a few dozen planes.
If the US is forced to retaliate again one would hope that a little more muscle would be flexed.
One of the most troubling aspects of the aftermath of the attack has been the reaction of our "allies." Out of all the European countries that we pour billions of dollars and thousands of young men into only one would even give us the slightest support. Margaret Thatcher, current British prime minister, should be given our thanks for Britain's decision to allow the US to use airbases in the UK.
The rest of our "allies" however, deserve nothing but contempt. The worst example of taking from us but giving nothing in return was France's disgusting behavior. The French seem to have a short memory. After we saved them in two world wars and helped to rebuild their country, they thank us by refusing us permission to fly over their country.
This is believed to be the reason that we lost a plane in the raid.
From now on if our allies are too wimpy to support us then why are they considered our friends? It's just too bad the whole French embassy wasn't destroyed in the attack.
Urging a stronger hand in the fight against terrorism, criticizing biased reporting, commending our loyal British allies, and ripping the French? Some things have changed a lot in seventeen years. Others not much at all.
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