The Patriot Post® · A Columnist's Manifesto

One of the many things that confounds me about liberals is how united they are in their opinions and in recognizing the perfection of their various heroes. I find such unity of thought mind-boggling, and more than a little scary.

On occasion, even though I’m a proud conservative – and at times because I am a proud conservative – I have taken such people as George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Ann Coulter, John McCain, Bill O'Reilly, Newt Gingrich, Dick Morris, Sean Hannity and even my friend Michael Medved, to task for one thing or another. But when have you ever heard the likes of Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Frank Rich, Rachel Maddow, Leslie Marshall, Ellis Henican, Paul Krugman or Maureen Dowd, utter or write a single critical word about the Obamas, the Clintons, John Kerry, Al Gore, Jerry Brown, Harry Reid, Charles Schumer, Maxine Waters, Pat Leahy, Rahm Emanuel, Anthony Weiner or even that easiest and most obvious of targets, the Wicked Witch of the West, herself, Nancy Pelosi?

Also, have you noticed that whenever conservatives criticize loony lefties such as Michael Moore, Jon Stewart, David Letterman, Bill Maher or Joy Behar, for their political bias, they claim to be nothing more than comedians. Taking pot shots at politicians, they insist, is their stock in trade. But if that were the case, wouldn’t they occasionally ridicule Democrats? And wouldn’t they at least occasionally be funnier on purpose than Barney Frank, Barbara Boxer and Henry Waxman, are without even trying and without the assistance of a writing staff?

I used to compare liberals to lemmings, but in one area at least, it’s conservatives who seem to share the little rodents’ proclivity for playing follow the leader off the edge of a cliff. I refer to the fortunes they squander sending their offspring off to be indoctrinated on America’s college campuses. It’s a shame that Hillsdale can’t accommodate a million or so freshmen every semester. Still, any conservative who sends his kids off to Harvard, Berkeley or Columbia, should be charged with child abuse.

In the old days, the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, North Korea and North Vietnam, all conspired to make a science of brainwashing its citizens. But at least those poor victims weren’t voluntarily spending their life savings for the privilege of having their brains or those of their children washed and spun dry by the commissars.

As Harry Stein reported in his brilliant book, “I Can’t Believe I’m Sitting Next to a Republican,” in America’s leading colleges and universities, at least 80% of the liberal arts faculty members are left-wingers. The ratio of leftist professors at UCLA is 16-1; at Brown, it’s 18-1; and at Cornell, it’s 26-1. They don’t call it liberal arts for nothing.

In 2004, Stein’s research found that for every dollar donated to Bush’s campaign, Harvard professors gave $31 to Kerry. At MIT, the ratio was $43-1, while at Princeton, the margin was an incredible $300-1. And I can guarantee you that in 2008, when the Messiah was atop the ticket, the gap was even greater.

It makes me wonder how conservative professors can bear getting up in the morning when they know they will be marginalized, even ostracized, by the overwhelming majority of their narrow-minded colleagues.

In my own life, my conservatism has led to the severing of a fair number of long-standing relationships. Early on, I felt some remorse over allowing politics to end what I had regarded as friendships. But I quickly got over it. After all, politics isn’t simply a matter of voting for a (D) or an ® every four years. It involves values, principles, ethics, patriotism and even logic.

A friendship that isn’t based on mutual respect doesn’t even qualify as friendship. It would be like calling a one-night stand a romance. At most, it’s the shallowest of relationships, mainly consisting of 10 or 20 or 40 years of chatting about TV, football and the weather.

After all, when you vehemently disagree about education, same-sex marriages, popular culture, race relations, religion, abortion, the Arab-Israeli conflict, affirmative action, Islam, the expansion of the federal government, taxes, the 2nd Amendment, open borders, socialism and American foreign policy, is there any point in my pretending that I really care what you have to say about Lindsay Lohan or who you think is going to wind up as this season’s American Idol?