Liberal to Conservative: I call it my Damascus Experience after the scales falling from Paul’s eyes when he reached Damascus, and he followed Jesus rather than persecuting Christians.
I grew up in public housing in New York City. My dad was in New York City cop. I went to the Stony Brook University and I graduated from Boston College Law School. Before the age off 23 I don't believe I ever met someone who was a Republican or who espoused free market principles. After law school I became a law professor and taught a course in federal regulation of industry. My starting assumption for the course was that industry was predatory, rapacious and brutal and needed the strong hand of federal government regulation in order to provide a decent work experience for labor.
I used the book Monopoly Makers by Mark Green, a protege of Ralph Nader and contrasted it with Milton Friedman's new book Free to Choose which was also a PBS series. My epiphany thus happened in 1980. As I compared the two frameworks, I realized that both Green and Friedman agreed that government power in the hands of regulators was often used to benefit the corporations that were the intended targets of the initial policy. Green recommended stronger regulation and better regulators. Milton Friedman famously said that he would believe in better regulation when you could show him a cat that could bark. Friedman believed that only exposure to the free market would discipline corporations to be fair to labor. By the end of course I had firmly become a Milton Friedman acolyte.
Ronald Reagan was elected president that year and I joined his administration as a market oriented energy analyst. I worked for 12 years to complete a revolution in natural gas regulation from a strongly state dominated system of price controls to a common carrier system for pipelines that would allow competition at both ends of the pipeline. Both the Ford and Carter administrations believed that we were running out of natural gas and passed laws that seem idiotic today. A group of us that advocated for natural gas competition could never have imagined that natural gas would blossom 40 years later into a tool of international politics and dominate the generation of electricity.
But if you believe that the civil rights movement led to a "band-aid" for problems internally solvable in the black community, as a segregated racial and cultural community("The civil rights movement starts out as we want equal membership in the polity. But it becomes a systematized cover, I'm going to argue, for deficiencies that are discernible within black American society, which only we could correct.") why are you appealing for political reform to the same political process for a solution under political unrest pressures and foreign threats far less than the polity faced in the 1960s for Black Civil Rights? Civil Rights Racially legislation outlaws both segregated racial discrimination as well as segregated racially targeted measures of advancement. If a rising tide, as Pres. Kennedy once said, raises all boats, it cannot only lift the smallest boats. Another approach to the problem is needed.
But if you believe that the civil rights movement led to a "band-aid" for problems internally solvable in the black community, as a segregated racial and cultural community("The civil rights movement starts out as we want equal membership in the polity. But it becomes a systematized cover, I'm going to argue, for deficiencies that are discernible within black American society, which only we could correct.") why are you appealing for political reform to the same political process for a solution under political unrest pressures and foreign threats far less than the polity faced in the 1960s for Black Civil Rights? Civil Rights Racially legislation outlaws both segregated racial discrimination as well as segregated racially targeted measures of advancement. If a rising tide, as Pres. Kennedy once said, raises all boats, it cannot only lift the smallest boats. Another approach to the problem is needed.
I'm still figuring out where I land on a conservative meter because at 67, I still don't identify in that way to myself. Glenn has prodded we readers to address our conservative journey and my attraction to those views, because of TGS, feels rooted in the common sense conversation between John and Glenn. Anything common sense rings my loudest midwestern upbringing bells, which is a comfort. I have regretted not taking latin or economic courses during the concentrated education phase of my life, and I do have 'Economics for Dummies' on my list of library books to tackle, so my plan is to keep learning more about conservative concepts, as delineated through economic principles.
Personal experiences with the toxic woke culture of Seattle, which landed in my world about seven years ago, and seeing that small business interests, which I serve, are willingly sacrificed by egotistic and self serving performance artist activists, has chilled my blood. Shooting yourself in the foot is unwise, and that is what I see in Seattle, as run by the activists, doing repeatedly. Our new Mayor is starting to call out the nonsense of our City Council.
I've experienced folks dedicated to being closed in conversation, who won't look you in the eye when speaking to you, and it is a deeply disturbing and new experience to me. The increase in righteous behaviors among the young, who seem to relish hanging the back and forth exchange of human interaction out to dry, leaves me wondering where our culture is failing at a policy level. Enter conservatism.
I have been a lifelong Conservative, firmly committed to the genius (and rigorous study of alternative political systems) of The Founders and their skepticism regarding human nature.
I have always found it unbearably naive to trust to our better angels when making law and policy; greed is the singular reliable driver of human conduct. Therefore, laws and policy decisions should advantage society by harnessing and managing greed, not by supposing generosity and sacrifice will spring forth.
Economists from Smith, to Hayek and von Mises, and on to Friedman, have to informed and guided my thoughts on trade, money, and economics, as have Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and others informed and guided my thoughts on government.
Those who seek power in government will say and do nearly anything to secure and keep power; regardless of their efforts (including spending) actually helping anyone, or even causing more harm than good. Waste and abuse will always follow government spending; bureaucracies are, in the end, only really interested in their own survival (and the preservation of salaries, benefits, pensions, and power and prerogatives). No bureaucracy will ever knowingly solve the problem in its charter, as if it did it would lose its raison d'etre. The biggest challenge to a political system is a) to enable a government to be able to do those things that must be done (infrastructure, defense, justice...) while b) restraining its political actors from acting on their many defects of character and taking more power and wealth than the system can sustain.
The Tragedy of the Commons applies in all cases in which resources are shared - roads, bridges, schools... - as that which is owned by everyone is often "owned" by no one. It is human nature to treat that which is "free" as having no value, so people routinely treat that which is provided by government as free (even as politicians tell them it is free or someone else is paying for it [which is a lie]). Criminals do not necessarily behave better if they are punished less; corporations will not reliably be better citizens if they are supervised less. In both cases, consistency over time and administrations coupled with equal treatment under the law are necessary for preserving government's credibility and channeling behavior.
When the mob is organized with political passions, violence ultimately breaks out. When society's reaction is greatly influenced by naivete, as with the BLM/antifa riots of 2020 or the riot at the Capitol Building in 2021, dramatically outsized harms are done for inadequate reasons.
In short, politicians, bureaucrats, and the people (when acting as a mob) cannot be trusted to deliver freedom, liberty, opportunity, and safety for individuals pursuing self-interest to secure the best lives they can for themselves and their families. To that end, government must be restrained by constitutionalism and the institutions of government, superseding any or all individuals or parties. Very, very few matters are so urgent their resolution cannot wait for more time and study; if left to their natural course, many once-perceived "problems" are overcome by events, and either are resolved or cease to be relevant.
I came to conservatism by studying history. When American history is viewed in the broad spectrum of world history, conservatism came very naturally to me. Our history is unique, and in comparison to virtually every nation in the world, overwhelmingly positive. At the risk of sounding simplistic, a nation whose young men willingly stormed Omaha Beach, at great cost in human lives, drove me to examine our past from the perspective of its influence on the sweeping progression of human history. My conservatism emerged from this -- and I say this as a member of a family that is overwhelmingly liberal, and has been for several generations.
I used to vote left until I had 10 hours of driving to do a week and started listening to talk radio to pass the time. The lies and manipulations from the left are just too large to ignore. I would listen to the radio and then watch MSNBC when I got home. The right was far more accurate when telling the news. The left are not capable of even debating policy anymore.
Im a Hispanic Conservative. My parents were Brazero immigrants to the the farmlands of the American Southwest. I am a retired Army Officer. I hold two Masters degrees, speak three languages and I'm very well travelled. My primary, middle and high schools are on a Native American reservation and my conservative journey may have started there when I experienced racism not from whites but from native Americans. Later in my many travels, and combined with my love of History, anthropology. archeology, geography et.al, I saw and understood the world and human nature for what it is.
My economic enlightenment came during my senior year when I took a class in the history of economic thought, culminating with essays by Friedman, Hayek and Sowell. I did my paper on Sowell's opus 'The Economics and Politics of Race', and like him, became disillusioned with the government's inefficiency and momentum toward growing bureaucracies when I took a job at one of the Federal agencies in DC. I still read Sowell!
I'm not sure what I am, but the struggle to self classify in American politics is real. The American founding was marinated in "liberal" enlightenment thinking, which terrified the Burkean continental conservatives.
But now, hundreds of years down the line, the strain of conservatism that appeals to me is that which seeks to preserve the liberal revolution of America's founding. I'm trying to "conserve" the Enlightenment, not social hierarchies or the continuance of the Peerage (as some of the neo-reactionary types seem eager to do).
So that's the quandary. Am I a liberal conservative? A conservative liberal? Whatever the label, I want to keep that spark of human liberty glowing for another few centuries.
I'm an old fart. Just plain weird. Pretty uneducated but I *do* like to read. My situation is similar, in a lotta aspects, to other conservatives here. Just compressed.
I voted Democrat since McGovern in 72. I think for the same reason most people vote for candidates. I voted for the party that I believe best suited how I wanna regard myself when I look in the mirror. As Wally defined elsewhere, I'd like to think I hold "a view characterized by open mindednesses; tolerance for deviations from the norm; willingness to try new solutions, compassion and sensitivity, especially to the less fortunate."
I voted for Bush 43 because I didn't like the way The Press was 90 or 95% Democrats, but claimed they were covering the election impartially. Saw it wasn't the case. Kept with him in '04. My family thought I was insane to vote that way, but I'm not sure I would-a preferred Gore to get the country back on its feet again after 9/11. Gore probably would-a called some committee together to analyze the situation.
Went back with Obama. Wasn't real happy with him because he didn't get much of any legislation *done,* but voted for him again in '12 in spite-a that. I voted for HRC. Would-a voted for anybody who wasn't Trump, but I was still going down the party line. Same with Biden. Won't make that mistake again.
I'll try to be briefer. The change came because I've looked at reparations from five angles, from practicality to morality, and it's lousy in all the ways I can figure. I told Sisters I would work against reparations coming about. But even if I'd known VP Harris was in favor of them, I might-a still voted against Trump. I went through another change by finally getting rid-a some severe depression, so I started looking at things from a new POV (Point Of View) in a number of respects.
The trigger was reading about CRT from an articles by M. Bari Weiss and Professor McWhorter. Immediately I saw CRT for the evil it is. And started taking interest in, and really *looking* at, the news for first time.
Saw the media for what it was, which is an arm of the Democrat Party. Saw Biden issued a couple Executive Orders on day one which showed he was Woke to the core. The thing that broke the camel’s back was when Biden’s staff coordinating with School Board Association to get the DOJ to declare parents, who were upset by the Woke evil, as domestic *terrorists.* Some things I can’t forgive. It’ll be a while IF (or when) I vote D again.
Read a few books by Dr. Sowell. I'm not sure which of these came first, but I started turning pretty hard away from the Ds. Read books on various subjects, at first a lotta things by conservative Black authors. Over time, I guess I would call myself a Conservative now. Along the lines of Professor Loury.
I'm not a Republican. The MAGA crowd are the real RINOs. They have no respect for the Republican Party nor the Congresscritters in it. (I can agree with their criticism to an *extent* tho, so there is that.) The MAGA folks just want Trump to win, along with his acolytes. They don’t care much about having enough Rs to *pass legislation.* They want MAGA to take over the country, and think if they hate the Ds as much as the Ds hate them, in the end the country will see the sense in the kinds of things they favor.
My views have been, and still are, very fluid. As I read more and learn more, my views change *slightly.* I was as shocked as anybody how I began to see my views align with Conservatives of many stripes.
I'm leery of the R Party because of MAGA, and the fact that the Rs have made a career, for a while now, outta just being *against* everything the Ds have wanted. It was useful to say "STOP!" in the old days. Country needs a lot more than that now, AFAIK. And the Rs, as a party, are just so *STUPID!* For attaching themselves to Trump and paying his legal bills. For, essentially, having no *plan* to get the electorate to see them in a positive light. At least, as far as I can see.
All-in-all, I'd like to see a third party. Know how impossible that is. Know Yang is nothing more than a pretender. Know I may not live long enough to see it happen. Will likely vote R, except for Trump, things being like they are now. That’s the long and the short of it. (Mainly long... ;-)
Loury despairs of liberal race-based social programs that fail many African Americans ‘because the Chinese are coming….” But MIT’s Urban Institute once led by former Boston State Senator Mel King led to affirmative action programs in graduate engineering programs such as its aeronautics program and encouragement of high school inventors among urban public schools. In fact, political labels do not show us any direct connection between competing groups. Whether a community is Republican, Conservative, or Democratic and Liberal has little relevance to its position in social achievement or failure. The strongest most reliable indicator of a group’s claim to large store of human capital over generations is the presence and pervasiveness of social and cultural institutions,including one of the most important often missed by economists like Prof. Loury: religious institutions, such as Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples of Faith.Whether one is looking at immigrants, middle-class households, or inter-generational social and economic mobility, the presence of community based religious practice and support for religions seems to correspond to low crime rates, stable two-parent families, low unemployment, high rate of home ownership, and generational family escape from poverty. No better examples than the last two-centuries of immigrant family success in becoming successful Americans than the religious institutional history of the rise of American Jews, Irish Catholics, and, yes, such sects as the Black Muslims. The meritocratic fallacy of Loury and other neoconservatives and even liberals is to attribute comparative success of different communities as caused solely by individual hard work according to standardized test rankings. In fact the comparative group test rankings of pupils reflect the communitiy institutions in their lives more than the kind of parenting they receive or do not receive in their development.
I graduated from college in 1990 with a degree in Criminal Justice in Texas. 1991 watched Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings and decided then I would NEVER vote Democrat. The hypocrisy continues today.
Many thank for the kind words.
Liberal to Conservative: I call it my Damascus Experience after the scales falling from Paul’s eyes when he reached Damascus, and he followed Jesus rather than persecuting Christians.
I grew up in public housing in New York City. My dad was in New York City cop. I went to the Stony Brook University and I graduated from Boston College Law School. Before the age off 23 I don't believe I ever met someone who was a Republican or who espoused free market principles. After law school I became a law professor and taught a course in federal regulation of industry. My starting assumption for the course was that industry was predatory, rapacious and brutal and needed the strong hand of federal government regulation in order to provide a decent work experience for labor.
I used the book Monopoly Makers by Mark Green, a protege of Ralph Nader and contrasted it with Milton Friedman's new book Free to Choose which was also a PBS series. My epiphany thus happened in 1980. As I compared the two frameworks, I realized that both Green and Friedman agreed that government power in the hands of regulators was often used to benefit the corporations that were the intended targets of the initial policy. Green recommended stronger regulation and better regulators. Milton Friedman famously said that he would believe in better regulation when you could show him a cat that could bark. Friedman believed that only exposure to the free market would discipline corporations to be fair to labor. By the end of course I had firmly become a Milton Friedman acolyte.
Ronald Reagan was elected president that year and I joined his administration as a market oriented energy analyst. I worked for 12 years to complete a revolution in natural gas regulation from a strongly state dominated system of price controls to a common carrier system for pipelines that would allow competition at both ends of the pipeline. Both the Ford and Carter administrations believed that we were running out of natural gas and passed laws that seem idiotic today. A group of us that advocated for natural gas competition could never have imagined that natural gas would blossom 40 years later into a tool of international politics and dominate the generation of electricity.
But if you believe that the civil rights movement led to a "band-aid" for problems internally solvable in the black community, as a segregated racial and cultural community("The civil rights movement starts out as we want equal membership in the polity. But it becomes a systematized cover, I'm going to argue, for deficiencies that are discernible within black American society, which only we could correct.") why are you appealing for political reform to the same political process for a solution under political unrest pressures and foreign threats far less than the polity faced in the 1960s for Black Civil Rights? Civil Rights Racially legislation outlaws both segregated racial discrimination as well as segregated racially targeted measures of advancement. If a rising tide, as Pres. Kennedy once said, raises all boats, it cannot only lift the smallest boats. Another approach to the problem is needed.
But if you believe that the civil rights movement led to a "band-aid" for problems internally solvable in the black community, as a segregated racial and cultural community("The civil rights movement starts out as we want equal membership in the polity. But it becomes a systematized cover, I'm going to argue, for deficiencies that are discernible within black American society, which only we could correct.") why are you appealing for political reform to the same political process for a solution under political unrest pressures and foreign threats far less than the polity faced in the 1960s for Black Civil Rights? Civil Rights Racially legislation outlaws both segregated racial discrimination as well as segregated racially targeted measures of advancement. If a rising tide, as Pres. Kennedy once said, raises all boats, it cannot only lift the smallest boats. Another approach to the problem is needed.
I'm still figuring out where I land on a conservative meter because at 67, I still don't identify in that way to myself. Glenn has prodded we readers to address our conservative journey and my attraction to those views, because of TGS, feels rooted in the common sense conversation between John and Glenn. Anything common sense rings my loudest midwestern upbringing bells, which is a comfort. I have regretted not taking latin or economic courses during the concentrated education phase of my life, and I do have 'Economics for Dummies' on my list of library books to tackle, so my plan is to keep learning more about conservative concepts, as delineated through economic principles.
Personal experiences with the toxic woke culture of Seattle, which landed in my world about seven years ago, and seeing that small business interests, which I serve, are willingly sacrificed by egotistic and self serving performance artist activists, has chilled my blood. Shooting yourself in the foot is unwise, and that is what I see in Seattle, as run by the activists, doing repeatedly. Our new Mayor is starting to call out the nonsense of our City Council.
I've experienced folks dedicated to being closed in conversation, who won't look you in the eye when speaking to you, and it is a deeply disturbing and new experience to me. The increase in righteous behaviors among the young, who seem to relish hanging the back and forth exchange of human interaction out to dry, leaves me wondering where our culture is failing at a policy level. Enter conservatism.
I have been a lifelong Conservative, firmly committed to the genius (and rigorous study of alternative political systems) of The Founders and their skepticism regarding human nature.
I have always found it unbearably naive to trust to our better angels when making law and policy; greed is the singular reliable driver of human conduct. Therefore, laws and policy decisions should advantage society by harnessing and managing greed, not by supposing generosity and sacrifice will spring forth.
Economists from Smith, to Hayek and von Mises, and on to Friedman, have to informed and guided my thoughts on trade, money, and economics, as have Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and others informed and guided my thoughts on government.
Those who seek power in government will say and do nearly anything to secure and keep power; regardless of their efforts (including spending) actually helping anyone, or even causing more harm than good. Waste and abuse will always follow government spending; bureaucracies are, in the end, only really interested in their own survival (and the preservation of salaries, benefits, pensions, and power and prerogatives). No bureaucracy will ever knowingly solve the problem in its charter, as if it did it would lose its raison d'etre. The biggest challenge to a political system is a) to enable a government to be able to do those things that must be done (infrastructure, defense, justice...) while b) restraining its political actors from acting on their many defects of character and taking more power and wealth than the system can sustain.
The Tragedy of the Commons applies in all cases in which resources are shared - roads, bridges, schools... - as that which is owned by everyone is often "owned" by no one. It is human nature to treat that which is "free" as having no value, so people routinely treat that which is provided by government as free (even as politicians tell them it is free or someone else is paying for it [which is a lie]). Criminals do not necessarily behave better if they are punished less; corporations will not reliably be better citizens if they are supervised less. In both cases, consistency over time and administrations coupled with equal treatment under the law are necessary for preserving government's credibility and channeling behavior.
When the mob is organized with political passions, violence ultimately breaks out. When society's reaction is greatly influenced by naivete, as with the BLM/antifa riots of 2020 or the riot at the Capitol Building in 2021, dramatically outsized harms are done for inadequate reasons.
In short, politicians, bureaucrats, and the people (when acting as a mob) cannot be trusted to deliver freedom, liberty, opportunity, and safety for individuals pursuing self-interest to secure the best lives they can for themselves and their families. To that end, government must be restrained by constitutionalism and the institutions of government, superseding any or all individuals or parties. Very, very few matters are so urgent their resolution cannot wait for more time and study; if left to their natural course, many once-perceived "problems" are overcome by events, and either are resolved or cease to be relevant.
I came to conservatism by studying history. When American history is viewed in the broad spectrum of world history, conservatism came very naturally to me. Our history is unique, and in comparison to virtually every nation in the world, overwhelmingly positive. At the risk of sounding simplistic, a nation whose young men willingly stormed Omaha Beach, at great cost in human lives, drove me to examine our past from the perspective of its influence on the sweeping progression of human history. My conservatism emerged from this -- and I say this as a member of a family that is overwhelmingly liberal, and has been for several generations.
Just watched the Clarence Thomas documentary. You share his values. Smart.
Just watched the Clarence Thomas documentary. You share his values. Smart.
I used to vote left until I had 10 hours of driving to do a week and started listening to talk radio to pass the time. The lies and manipulations from the left are just too large to ignore. I would listen to the radio and then watch MSNBC when I got home. The right was far more accurate when telling the news. The left are not capable of even debating policy anymore.
Im a Hispanic Conservative. My parents were Brazero immigrants to the the farmlands of the American Southwest. I am a retired Army Officer. I hold two Masters degrees, speak three languages and I'm very well travelled. My primary, middle and high schools are on a Native American reservation and my conservative journey may have started there when I experienced racism not from whites but from native Americans. Later in my many travels, and combined with my love of History, anthropology. archeology, geography et.al, I saw and understood the world and human nature for what it is.
My economic enlightenment came during my senior year when I took a class in the history of economic thought, culminating with essays by Friedman, Hayek and Sowell. I did my paper on Sowell's opus 'The Economics and Politics of Race', and like him, became disillusioned with the government's inefficiency and momentum toward growing bureaucracies when I took a job at one of the Federal agencies in DC. I still read Sowell!
I'm not sure what I am, but the struggle to self classify in American politics is real. The American founding was marinated in "liberal" enlightenment thinking, which terrified the Burkean continental conservatives.
But now, hundreds of years down the line, the strain of conservatism that appeals to me is that which seeks to preserve the liberal revolution of America's founding. I'm trying to "conserve" the Enlightenment, not social hierarchies or the continuance of the Peerage (as some of the neo-reactionary types seem eager to do).
So that's the quandary. Am I a liberal conservative? A conservative liberal? Whatever the label, I want to keep that spark of human liberty glowing for another few centuries.
I'm an old fart. Just plain weird. Pretty uneducated but I *do* like to read. My situation is similar, in a lotta aspects, to other conservatives here. Just compressed.
I voted Democrat since McGovern in 72. I think for the same reason most people vote for candidates. I voted for the party that I believe best suited how I wanna regard myself when I look in the mirror. As Wally defined elsewhere, I'd like to think I hold "a view characterized by open mindednesses; tolerance for deviations from the norm; willingness to try new solutions, compassion and sensitivity, especially to the less fortunate."
I voted for Bush 43 because I didn't like the way The Press was 90 or 95% Democrats, but claimed they were covering the election impartially. Saw it wasn't the case. Kept with him in '04. My family thought I was insane to vote that way, but I'm not sure I would-a preferred Gore to get the country back on its feet again after 9/11. Gore probably would-a called some committee together to analyze the situation.
Went back with Obama. Wasn't real happy with him because he didn't get much of any legislation *done,* but voted for him again in '12 in spite-a that. I voted for HRC. Would-a voted for anybody who wasn't Trump, but I was still going down the party line. Same with Biden. Won't make that mistake again.
I'll try to be briefer. The change came because I've looked at reparations from five angles, from practicality to morality, and it's lousy in all the ways I can figure. I told Sisters I would work against reparations coming about. But even if I'd known VP Harris was in favor of them, I might-a still voted against Trump. I went through another change by finally getting rid-a some severe depression, so I started looking at things from a new POV (Point Of View) in a number of respects.
The trigger was reading about CRT from an articles by M. Bari Weiss and Professor McWhorter. Immediately I saw CRT for the evil it is. And started taking interest in, and really *looking* at, the news for first time.
Saw the media for what it was, which is an arm of the Democrat Party. Saw Biden issued a couple Executive Orders on day one which showed he was Woke to the core. The thing that broke the camel’s back was when Biden’s staff coordinating with School Board Association to get the DOJ to declare parents, who were upset by the Woke evil, as domestic *terrorists.* Some things I can’t forgive. It’ll be a while IF (or when) I vote D again.
Read a few books by Dr. Sowell. I'm not sure which of these came first, but I started turning pretty hard away from the Ds. Read books on various subjects, at first a lotta things by conservative Black authors. Over time, I guess I would call myself a Conservative now. Along the lines of Professor Loury.
I'm not a Republican. The MAGA crowd are the real RINOs. They have no respect for the Republican Party nor the Congresscritters in it. (I can agree with their criticism to an *extent* tho, so there is that.) The MAGA folks just want Trump to win, along with his acolytes. They don’t care much about having enough Rs to *pass legislation.* They want MAGA to take over the country, and think if they hate the Ds as much as the Ds hate them, in the end the country will see the sense in the kinds of things they favor.
My views have been, and still are, very fluid. As I read more and learn more, my views change *slightly.* I was as shocked as anybody how I began to see my views align with Conservatives of many stripes.
I'm leery of the R Party because of MAGA, and the fact that the Rs have made a career, for a while now, outta just being *against* everything the Ds have wanted. It was useful to say "STOP!" in the old days. Country needs a lot more than that now, AFAIK. And the Rs, as a party, are just so *STUPID!* For attaching themselves to Trump and paying his legal bills. For, essentially, having no *plan* to get the electorate to see them in a positive light. At least, as far as I can see.
All-in-all, I'd like to see a third party. Know how impossible that is. Know Yang is nothing more than a pretender. Know I may not live long enough to see it happen. Will likely vote R, except for Trump, things being like they are now. That’s the long and the short of it. (Mainly long... ;-)
"That's my story, and I'm stickin to it."
Loury despairs of liberal race-based social programs that fail many African Americans ‘because the Chinese are coming….” But MIT’s Urban Institute once led by former Boston State Senator Mel King led to affirmative action programs in graduate engineering programs such as its aeronautics program and encouragement of high school inventors among urban public schools. In fact, political labels do not show us any direct connection between competing groups. Whether a community is Republican, Conservative, or Democratic and Liberal has little relevance to its position in social achievement or failure. The strongest most reliable indicator of a group’s claim to large store of human capital over generations is the presence and pervasiveness of social and cultural institutions,including one of the most important often missed by economists like Prof. Loury: religious institutions, such as Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples of Faith.Whether one is looking at immigrants, middle-class households, or inter-generational social and economic mobility, the presence of community based religious practice and support for religions seems to correspond to low crime rates, stable two-parent families, low unemployment, high rate of home ownership, and generational family escape from poverty. No better examples than the last two-centuries of immigrant family success in becoming successful Americans than the religious institutional history of the rise of American Jews, Irish Catholics, and, yes, such sects as the Black Muslims. The meritocratic fallacy of Loury and other neoconservatives and even liberals is to attribute comparative success of different communities as caused solely by individual hard work according to standardized test rankings. In fact the comparative group test rankings of pupils reflect the communitiy institutions in their lives more than the kind of parenting they receive or do not receive in their development.
I graduated from college in 1990 with a degree in Criminal Justice in Texas. 1991 watched Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings and decided then I would NEVER vote Democrat. The hypocrisy continues today.