i have a confession to make:

i was a boy conservative.

i had a subscription to national review.

i was a member of the republican national committee.

i owned (both!) rush limbaugh books.

as a senior in high school, i wrote 20+ page papers defending both richard nixon and ronald reagan.

in retrospect, i put it down to two factors: contrarianism and jealousy. i never had a real "rebellion" as a teenager; instead, my diffident dissidence went down strange avenues, manifesting itself, in a family of democrats, in actions like contributing money to the rnc.

also, there was bill clinton, the president of my teenage years. the parents of a girl i had a terrible crush on were classmates of clinton's at georgetown; she had met it several times and, in turn, had a terrible crush on him.

[an aside: i'm starting to form a crackpot theory. conservatives love george w. bush as much as they hated bill clinton. one could put it down to the latter's way w/ the ladies--but ronald reagan, the conservative icon, was no slouch in the matinee idol department. difference, though: reagan was in his dotage, and in a pre-viagra era; clinton wants to fuck your wife (yes! your wife!) i'm sure freud could make something of this.]

so, i was a conservative, but not w/ the best of intentions (ah, no jokes; that's my department). according to politicalcompass.org, i'm -6.13 economic (left) and -2.92 social (libertarian), aligning me exactly w/ gandhi; according to okcupid, i'm 68% socially permissive (liberal), 33% economically permissive (liberal). which seems to contradict political compass--unsurprisingly, i like it that way.

posted by fred [link] 7:41 PM 0 comments -----