The epiphany that I’m truly conservative occurred a little over a month ago while I was emailing with a friend. I had just returned from a Society of Professional Journalists convention in Las Vegas. My friend asked how my trip was and said that she had never been there, but thought it might be a fun place to visit.
It is, I replied, one of my least favorite places in the world (OK, of the places in the world that I’ve been). I had lived there for a couple of years in the ‘80s while working at a Las Vegas newspaper and have been back a few times since – on business. It doesn’t offer anything that I consider fun. So far as I’m concerned Vegas was bad enough twenty-five years ago and has only gotten worse since. So I unloaded on my friend.
“It is so fake and artificial and ultra-promotional of everything I dislike –gambling, smoke-filled hotels (altho they've made some strides to clean that up), drinking, prostitution, girlie shows, total debasement of women. Everything to obscene excess. You can't walk anywhere w/o guys shoving girlie cards in people's faces – a dozen or more of these guys every block wearing "Girls! Girls! Girls! Direct to you!" t-shirts. I'm way too conservative for all of that. I'm also way too jaded, cynical and judgmental about, not only the scene and the tourists who revel in it, but the hypocrisy of the über-religious and pious residents who are supported directly and indirectly by that Caligula-esque-fueled economy. But don’t get me started!”
The shocker was when I wrote, “I’m way too conservative for all of that.” It just flowed from my fingertips into the keyboard and onto my computer screen without any conscious thought from me. I sat and stared at what was staring back at me. Did I just write that? Surely I couldn’t mean it. But it had erupted so spontaneously. When my friend reads it, I thought, she will either snort with disbelief or think I've tipped off my trolley. I’m pretty sure she votes Republican, but have never talked politics with her because I value our friendship above trying to make political points or win any political debates.
That's when the epiphany hit.
It’s true, I realized. I am conservative in so many ways. Certainly in the ways that repulse me about Las Vegas. I don’t gamble and never have, despite living in places like Vegas where gambling is so ubiquitous. The spirits, wine and beer industry would go out of business if everyone drank as little as I do. I dress rather modestly and cringe at all the cleavage spilling out of the TV and off of movie screens. I feel relentless outrage over the double-standard, denigration, subjugation, misogyny, repression and belittling of females in today’s society and culture. (Some might consider that a “liberal” viewpoint, but it’s not. Those who engage in such behavior are very liberally discriminating against women and girls and doing so is certainly not a truly conservative value.)
Although I followed my Eisenhower-Republican parents’ political persuasion for the first decade or so after I married and got out into the world, with the passage of time, being a conservative has been increasingly antithetical to how I view myself politically.
On occasion, with the ongoing political polarization in this country, I have protested that some of the positions and ideology being espoused by political conservatives is anything but conservative in the pure sense of the word. But I had never incorporated that idea into my own identity.
But the more I thought about my reply to my friend’s email, the more I realized that I, in truth, am conservative and those who identify as political conservatives are, in reality, pretty liberal in many respects.
I’m on Twitter @jerrianneh
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