Letter #50: why I am no whiz kid but a conservative; part uno

Dear everyone,

Throughout my life some of the people I have admired have been liberals like the Reverend Martin Luther King, Senator Bobby Kennedy, Ambassador R. Sargent Shriver, Representative Morris Udall, President Carter and even President Johnson. Conservatives have also stood the test of time, particularly Senator Barry Goldwater, President Ford (though more moderate), Senator Robert Dole, Senator Charles Grassley and, more recently, President George W. Bush.

Before I explain the foundation of my Republicanism, there are a few admissions I should make in the interest of intellectual integrity.

1. For eighty percent of my waking life, I have been a Democrat. Perhaps conservatives like me are those who considered themselves liberal at one time but have shifted over a generation.
2. Only with great sadness did I let go of the Great Society of President Johnson. Yes, I grew to detest the national pain imposed by the foolish and immoral war in Viêt Nam and believed it de-railed the Great Society, in my mind a noble attempt by a world leader to re-assess its aims and try to attain a truly just society. Its failure remains heavy but fail the Great Society did, and badly.
3. I much prefer the company of liberals. True liberals, not preening progressives out for a P.R. snow-job to prop up a flagging self-absorption, see the possibility of things and often do ask why things are not better, though they should be.
4. Nevertheless, I admire true conservatives for their labouring under an intellectual burden of proof when that should lie with the liberals or other advocates for change. As a cousin-by-marriage aptly pointed out, “preening anythings” are thorough-going thorns in the flesh.
5. There are many Republicans whose company I really do not relish. These tasteless traditionalists, often newly privileged thanks to a society that used to be more open and mobile, exude the attitude of “I have mine and forget you” (with another ‘F’ word in place of ‘forget’). These people are not conservatives, simply craven in their self-centered avarice.
6. For my dark side, I am often a coward and almost always a hypocrite, at least to some degree. Sincerity is a hard-won virtue for those with an open mind, self-doubt and more than a half-century on the planet…and who lack the independent means to ignore that complicated necessity of a public persona.
7. For me, at least, I would rather be a hypocrite with principles often sullied than an amiable conniver without a conscience.
8. My politics has remained rather stable over the years but a few litmus-test social issues, combined with a view that I have a duty to join one of the two parties, places me as an odd-ball in G.O.P. Ironically, the feeling is roughly the same as being an odd-ball on the Democratic side.
9. Boiling down the reams of blistering rhetoric and bilious bloviation, the one ‘sort-of’ archetypal difference between liberals and conservatives is that Democrats most often think with their hearts while Republicans feel with their heads.
10. For me, I follow Dr King’s timeless dream and ever-timely counsel that people are best judged by the content of their characters, not the colors of their skin, the levels of their educations, the relative magnetism of their personalities.
11. While I often criticize the United States of America, I dearly love her, with all that I have in my hamstrung heart, middling mind, sullied soul, quavering character and limited years left in life. Obviously, I am far below the giants of our common past but that fact does not exempt me from caring for my country as they did.
12. Lastly, in any society, ‘Great’ or otherwise, based on mutual respect, the rule of law and natural rights endowed by “Our Creator” – in short, one that strives toward being a just society – the highest form of tolerance has to be mercy in which the greatest justice lies in forgiveness and democratic spirits persevere through compassion.

My next letter will describe briefly the theoretical construct of my personal politics and why it lies with the Republican Party along with a brief summary of the most basic litmus-test preferences I hold and why. Lastly will follow with a note on the one candidate I believe can credibly challenge President Obama, the latter being a better man than most with a high character and unquestioned integrity.

Above all, liberal or conservative, I would ask you to take a moment to step back and wonder where the world would be today had there been no America (warts and all) in it. And, please try to imagine an America without a Franklin, Washington, Irving, Lincoln, Dewey, Roosevelt, King, Ford or many others throughout her enviable history.