Columnist.
There is an American tradition of voting not for the party, but "for the man." Unlike Europeans, who are more ideologically driven, Americans have prided themselves in assessing individuals of both parties, and then voting for the more personally impressive candidate. The European parliamentary system of government fosters ideological voting whereas the American political system does to a much lesser degree. With only two parties competing in American elections, each party has had to encompass a much wider spectrum of ideologies.
Next Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010 is not Election Day. It is Referendum Day. It may be commonplace for commentators to announce that every election is "the most important election in our lifetime" or something analogous. But having never said that of a presidential election, let alone an off-year election, this commentator cannot be accused of crying wolf when I say that this off-year election is not simply the most important of my lifetime. It is the most important since the Civil War.
After I became a Republican in the early 1990s -- in a recent column, I explained how emotionally difficult it is for a Democrat to vote Republican, let alone become one -- I concluded that I had left the dangerous party and joined the stupid party.
In a recent column, New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow wrote: "It's sometimes easy to lose sight of just how anomalous our (America's) religiosity is in the world. A Gallup report issued on Tuesday underscored just how out of line we are."
I am writing to you as a concerned and sympathetic American who is a Republican. My sentiments do not represent every American -- that would be impossible. But I believe the following represent most Americans.
All Americans, including conservatives, understand why any leftist would vote Democrat this year. The Democratic Party is now America's version of a European Social Democratic or even Green Party. In domestic policy, there is no significant difference between the American and European parties.
One of the most common self-assessments of the left is that conservatives rarely see nuances in moral questions, while liberals always do. That this is a false conceit can be demonstrated with regard to almost any position held by the left. There is no nuance in liberal positions on abortion, race-based affirmative action, capital punishment, embryonic stem cell research or just about any other social issue.
One unbridgeable divide between left and right is how each views alternatives to present-day America. Those on the left imagine an ideal society that has never existed, and therefore seek to "fundamentally transform" America. When liberals imagine an America fundamentally transformed, they envision it becoming a nearly utopian society in which there is no greed, no racism, no sexism, no inequality, no poverty and ultimately no unhappiness. Conservatives, on the other hand, look around at other societies and history and are certain that if America were fundamentally transformed, it would become just like those other societies. America would become a society of far less liberty, of ethically and morally inferior citizens and of much more unhappiness. And cruelty would increase exponentially around the world.
There was one thing more than any other that turned this New York, liberal, Jewish, Columbia University graduate student from modern liberalism. It was its use of moral equivalence to avoid confronting evil during the Cold War.
I recently wrote about leftists' hatred for conservatives as people, not merely for conservative ideas. Demonization of opponents is a fundamental characteristic of the left. It is not merely tactical; they believe people on the right are bad. (Here's a test: Ask someone on the left if active support of California Proposition 8 -- retaining the man-woman definition of marriage -- was an act of hate.)
Marriage is the building block of society. Changing its nature will therefore change society. Among other things, same-sex marriage means that because sex (now called "gender") no longer matters for society's most important institution, it no longer matters in general.
After 50 years of being inundated with stories of white racism, and being taught in college that in this white-dominated society, only a white can be a racist, the American public has been properly brainwashed into accepting the otherwise incredible: A black man murdered eight white people at his place of work because they were white, and the media story is about the murderer's alleged experiences of racism.
There's a lot of luck in life. The longer I live -- Aug. 2 was my birthday -- the more I come to realize how much of life is affected by luck. Let's begin with life itself. Whether one lives to 62 -- or to 92 (my father's age) -- and whether in health or in sickness is largely a matter of luck. I strongly believe in taking care of one's health, but for most people, living long and in good health is a matter of good luck. My wife's sister died of cancer at 35. The brother of my radio show's producer died of a brain tumor at 57. Friends of mine lost their son at the age of 13.
Perhaps the most telling of the recent revelations of the liberal/left Journolist, a list consisting of about 400 major liberal/left journalists, is the depth of their hatred of conservatives. That they would consult with one another in order to protect candidate and then President Obama and in order to hurt Republicans is unfortunate and ugly. But what is jolting is the hatred of conservatives, as exemplified by the e-mail from an NPR reporter expressing her wish to personally see Rush Limbaugh die a painful death -- and the apparent absence of any objection from the other liberal journalists.
If every school principal gave this speech at the beginning of the next school year, America would be a better place.
