political writing is hard when all you know is that condoleeza needs a facial expression coach.

Damn jack and his essay contest!

Okay, here's the topic: In regard to United States politics, define "right-wing" and name at least two prominent right wing politicians and what makes them "right wing."

Examples? I need to listen to more than "This American Life" to do this! But here's the rough rough draft so far. Someone help me. Any political peeps in the house?



I think no essay should exclude the opinions of the writer first and foremost. Even facts lean toward the bias of the writer. You need only listen to the facts on FOX and then the facts on NPR to see a glaring distinction between a “right fact” and a “left fact.” So here is me. I am an exceptionally left of center atheist. I get most of my politics from “South Park” and whatever my father doesn’t agree with usually sounds pretty good to me. You may want to stop reading right here, but I assure you the ending is not at all what you’d expect.

As you can likely already tell, I am not politically minded, so I had to do some research to find my two right wing political examples. And my bias led me to the strangest places. I discovered the Dutch right wing politician, Pim Fortuyn, who was an openly gay sociology professor. He was accused of being racist and inflammatory and definitely a radical against Holland’s currently liberal government system. If he could have done good for the country and their problems with immigration will never be known as he was assassinated in 2002. So I realized American conservatives were a little different than their foreign counterparts. My initial temptation was to talk about our President and my governor (Schwarzenneger), but then I started to really look into the definition of “right wing” and found myself at a fascinating crossroads in my ideology. Right wing is not at all what I thought.

So here’s the definition I found in the dictionary: a political or theological orientation advocating the preservation of the best in society and opposing radical changes. Okay, from this liberal’s point of view, no conservative is doing the former, and I think putting your boys on the frontline is a radical change. So this definition isn’t going to work.

Then I did what an ignorant person does. I went online. If this research was going to end up anything like that scarlet cake recipe I tried last year, I was in big trouble. But lo and behold, I found a terrific definition from a man who calls himself Beckett on freepublic.com, He says he borrowed from John Kekes' “The Case for Conservatism.” In short, conservatism is based on four components: skepticism, pluralism, traditionalism, and pessimism. Conservatives carry the skepticism that requires proven reasons for action. Conservative pluralism argues that a society cannot maximize all good things all at once. The example after 9/11 would be the trade-off between privacy and security. Conservatives are traditionalists. Not only is the conservative view to stay true to tradition. As Beckett (or maybe Kekes through Beckett) beautifully puts it, “Where the well of tradition runs dry, human impoverishment inexorably follows. What’s the worth of choice if choice is all there is?” The final component of conservative political morality is pessimism in human nature -that with the angel the brute must run beside, and that brute is worthy of close inspection.

With this definition, I was afraid that I had identified myself completely wrong. I am a conservative. I am a skeptic in my views. In fact, I am such a skeptic that the overwhelming proof that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq made me wary of actually watching my country act upon it. Pluralism, well, I think no political ideology, and definitely no debate, can succeed without the reality of pluralism. Even an economist understands that truth. Tradition creates community. I believe without it, we would die in our autonomy. Even hippies had communes. Even hippies incorporated traditions: eastern philosophy, shared role models, drugs. And finally pessimism. Well, I don’t watch “Curb Your Enthusiasm” without some relation to the skeptic. And ask me my views on welfare and you will see Archie Bunker surface. The whole thing is scammers scamming scammers. But that’s a whole other article that I hope to title “How Our Welfare Department Works Like a Strip Club.”

What does this mean? Was it only my interpretation of this definition that made me conservative? Or did I hit upon an amazing discovery? Could it be that our modern day conservatives have strayed from their goals and become themselves, liberals. Our President jumps into a war against the wishes of a large portion of the globe and does it to combat “evil” people and to enlighten a whole other country with our traditions, even if it might squash theirs. Isn’t this government working against the ideology of conservatism by not rewriting (or maybe the better word is tailoring) anti-trust laws? Is it working with our traditions to allow the last decade’s glut of mergers, takeovers and outsourcing to continue on and create such a radical shift in our economy? Most of these actions have worked out terribly. Are we afraid of looking for proven reasons before action? Isn’t it all very much against the tradition of the American Dream and -as any small business owner will attest- against the traditional pursuit of life and property?

So then, with this definition, what is the true right wing platform? Christianity is an American tradition. The nuclear family is an American tradition. Open immigration laws seems like a conservative platform because Lady Liberty said so. I’m going to at least assume it’s been a two century old goal.

Newt Gingrich told NPR in 2004 that this was the most diverse republican party -the broadest coalition - since Teddy Roosevelt. Basically, he was saying that moderation is the new pink for the GOP. If this is so, why is the left up in arms so much about this supposed moderate government group? Where are the moderates? Because as far as I can tell, they are the true conservatives.

Let’s take a look at some people we might see running in 2008 and maybe we'll see this conservative Republican...

Newt? Arnold? Condaleeza? Which ones??