Thursday, February 24, 2005
As one of a handful of Bay Area conservative columnists, I'm
no stranger to pushing buttons. Indeed, I welcome feedback from readers, whether
positive or negative. I find the interplay stimulating, but I am often bemused
by the stereotypical assumptions made by my critics on the left. It's not enough
to simply disagree with my views; I have to be twisted into a conservative
caricature that apparently makes opponents feel superior. They seem not to have
considered that it's possible to put forward different approaches to various
societal problems and not be the devil incarnate.
But in some ways I understand where this perspective comes
from, because I once shared it. I was raised in liberal Marin County, and my
first name (which garners more comments than anything else) is a direct product
of the hippie generation. Growing up, I bought into the prevailing liberal
wisdom of my surroundings because I didn't know anything else. I wrote off all
Republicans as ignorant, intolerant yahoos. It didn't matter that I knew none
personally; it was simply de rigueur to look down on such people. The fact that
I was being a bigot never occurred to me, because I was certain that I inhabited
the moral high ground.
Having been indoctrinated in the postcolonialist,
self-loathing school of multiculturalism, I thought America was the root of all
evil in the world. Its democratic form of government and capitalist economic
system was nothing more than a machine in which citizens were forced to be cogs.
I put aside the nagging question of why so many people all over the world risk
their lives to come to the United States. Freedom of speech, religious freedom,
women's rights, gay rights (yes, even without same-sex marriage), social and
economic mobility, relative racial harmony and democracy itself were all taken
for granted in my narrow, insulated world view.
So, what happened to change all that? In a nutshell, 9/11.
The terrorist attacks on this country were not only an act of war but also a
crime against humanity. It seemed glaringly obvious to me at the time, and it
still does today. But the reaction of my former comrades on the left bespoke a
different perspective. The day after the attacks, I dragged myself into work,
still in a state of shock, and the first thing I heard was one of my co-workers
bellowing triumphantly, "Bush got his war!" There was little sympathy for the
victims of this horrific attack, only an irrational hatred for their own
country.
As I spent months grieving the losses, others around me
wrapped themselves in the comfortable shell of cynicism and acted as if nothing
had changed. I soon began to recognize in them an inability to view America or
its people as victims, born of years of indoctrination in which we were always
presented as the bad guys.
Never mind that every country in the world acts in its own
self-interest, forms alliances with unsavory countries -- some of which change
later -- and are forced to act militarily at times. America was singled out as
the sole guilty party on the globe. I, on the other hand, for the first time in
my life, had come to truly appreciate my country and all that it encompassed, as
well as the bravery and sacrifices of those who fight to protect it.
Thoroughly disgusted by the behavior of those on the left, I
began to look elsewhere for support. To my astonishment, I found that the only
voices that seemed to me to be intellectually and morally honest were on the
right. Suddenly, I was listening to conservative talk-show hosts on the radio
and reading conservative columnists, and they were making sense. When I actually
met conservatives, I discovered that they did not at all embody the stereotypes
with which I'd been inculcated as a liberal.
Although my initial agreement with voices on the right
centered on the war on terrorism, I began to find myself in concurrence with
other aspects of conservative political philosophy as well. Smaller government,
traditional societal structures, respect and reverence for life, the importance
of family, personal responsibility, national unity over identity politics and
the benefits of living in a meritocracy all became important to me. In truth, it
turns out I was already conservative on many of these subjects but had never
been willing to admit as much.
In my search for like-minded individuals, I also gravitated
toward the religiously observant. This was somewhat revolutionary, considering
my former liberal discomfort with religious folk, but I found myself in
agreement on a number of issues. When it came to support for Israel, Orthodox
Jews and Christian Zionists were natural allies. As the left rained down vicious
attacks on Israel, commentators on the right (with the exception of Pat Buchanan
and his ilk) became staunch supporters of the nation. The fact that I'm not a
particularly religious person myself had little bearing on this political
relationship, for it's entirely possible to be secular and not be antireligious.
Unlike the secular fundamentalists who make it their mission in life to destroy
all vestiges of America's Judeo-Christian heritage, I have come to value this
legacy.
So I became what's now commonly known as a "9/11 Republican."
Living in a time of war, disenchanted with the left and disappointed with the
obstructionism and lack of vision of the Democratic Party, I threw in my hat
with the only party that seemed to be offering solutions, rather than simply
tearing away at our country. I went from voting for Ralph Nader in 2000 to
proudly casting my ballot for George W. Bush in 2004. This doesn't necessarily
mean that I agree with Bush on every issue, but there is enough common ground to
support his party overall. In the wake of this political transformation, I
discovered that I was not alone. It turned out that there are other 9/11
Republicans out there, both in the Bay Area and beyond, and they have been
coming out of the woodwork.
Like many a political convert, I took it on myself to openly
oppose the politics of those with which I once shared world views. Beyond
writing, I put myself on the front lines of this ideological battle by taking
part in counterprotests at the antiwar rallies leading up to the war in Iraq.
This turned out to be a further wake-up call, because it was there that I
encountered more intolerance than ever before in my life. Holding
pro-Iraq-liberation signs and American flags, I was spat on, called names,
intimidated, threatened, attacked, cursed and, on a good day, simply argued
with. It was clear that any deviation from the prevailing leftist groupthink of
the Bay Area was considered a threat to be eliminated as quickly as possible.
It was at such protests that I also had my first real brushes
with anti-Semitism. The anti-Israel sentiment on the left -- inexorably linked
to anti-Americanism -- ran high at these events and boiled over into Jew hatred
on more than one occasion. The pro-Palestinian sympathies of the left had led to
a bizarre commingling of pacifism, Communism and Arab nationalism. So it was not
uncommon to see kaffiyeh-clad college students chanting Hamas slogans, graying
hippies wearing "Intifada" T-shirts, Che Guevera backpacks, and signs equating
Zionism with Nazism, all against a backdrop of peace, patchouli and tie-dye.
Being unapologetically pro-Israel, I was called every name in
the book, from "Zionist pig" to "Zionist scum," and was once told that those
with European origins such as myself couldn't really be Jewish. In the end, the
blatant anti-Semitism on the left, even among Jews, only strengthened my
political transformation. I was, in effect, radicalized by the radicals.
But more than anything, it was the left's hypocrisy when it
came to the war on terrorism that made me turn rightward after 9/11. I remember,
back in my liberal days, being fiercely opposed to the Taliban and its brutal
treatment of women. Even then, I felt that Afghanistan should immediately be
liberated, as Malcolm X once said in another context, by any means necessary.
But when it came time, it turned out that the left was mostly opposed to such
liberation, whether of the Afghan people or of the Iraqis (especially if America
and a Republican president were at the helm).
Indeed, liberals had become strangely conservative in their
fierce attachment to the status quo. In contrast, the much-maligned
neoconservatives (among whose ranks I count myself) and Bush had become the
"radicals," bringing freedom and democracy to the despotic Middle East. Is it
any wonder that in such a topsy-turvy world, I found myself in agreement with
those I'd formerly denounced?
The war on terrorism is nothing more than the great struggle
of our time, and, like the earlier ones against fascism and totalitarianism, we
ignore it at our peril. Whether or not one accepts that we are engaged in a war,
our enemies have declared it so. It took the horrors of 9/11 to awaken me to
this reality, but for others, such lessons remain unlearned. For me, it was
self-evident that in Islamic terrorism, America had found a nihilistic threat
that sought to wipe out not only Western civilization but also civilization
itself.
The Islamists have been clear all along about their plans to
form an Islamic caliphate and inhabit the entire world with burqas, stonings,
amputations, honor killings and a lack of religious and political freedom.
Whether or not to oppose such a movement should have been a no-brainer,
especially for self-proclaimed "progressives." Instead, they have extended their
misguided sympathies to tyrants and terrorists.
In the end, history will be the judge, and each of us will
have to think about what legacy we wish to leave to future generations. If
there's one thing I've learned since 9/11, it's that it's never too late to
alter one's place in the great scheme of things.
Cinnamon Stillwell is a Bay Area writer.
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