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This rant was written by Michael Carpenter on the Well, and reprinted here with his kind permission.
I am probably the biggest Bush-hater in this forum.
But I did not grow up in Marin County on a diet of wheat germ and organic vegetables.
I grew up in Oklahoma and the south. I live a mile from where I was born. I started shooting guns when I was about seven, and had them around until I was out of high school. I was never a good shot, and I didn't care that much about them, but they were around. I had close family active in the Klan from 1963 until about '69 or '70.
My religious background is Presbyterian and Southern Baptist.
So while I am not now a social conservative by any means, I know the dynamic and the language.
The reason I don't like Bush is I'm pretty sure I see him and his kind for what they are, and most of my neighbors don't. Neither do most of
you, if I'm right.
But here's the thing other liberals aren't getting, and I think it's because most of them don't have the benefit of my background: the America we thought might happen in 30 or 40 years, given we what we saw as a worst-case scenario, is probably here now.
And if you're a liberal, you'd better get used to it, because it's not going away, and you're not going to be able to live in it -- I mean literally not be able to live in it -- unless you make some significant personal changes.
And part of the reason liberals don't get what's going on is because they don't use the same language as social conservatives, and when they
do use the same language, the meaning and context is so different that no communication actually takes place.
When conservatives say, "We're sick of being mocked by the Eastern liberal elite," a lot of liberals say to themselves 'I don't remember ever mocking anyone. What are they talking about?'
This is because, the word 'mock' has two different meanings, and each side doesn't get that the other side doesn't mean the same thing.
To a liberal, 'mocking' conservatives means something like the Ned Flanders character on 'The Simpsons.' They don't get the importance social conservatives place on conformity, and that liberals can mock conservatives just by not having the same clothing, posture and speech patterns.
When the Club for Growth denounced Howard Dean as 'latte-drinking, Volvo-driving liberal from Vermont', a lot of liberals snickered at the hyperbole, not realizing (as the Club for Growth did), that issues of what one drinks and what one drives and where one lives or was born are gravely serious matters here, and that very few people in the target audience who saw that ad considered it over the top.
Someone posted here that Matt Lauer and Katie Couric displayed their liberal slant by wearing black on November 3. To a liberal, that sounds silly. Surely it's coincidence.
To a conservative, that sounds entirely plausible. If Matt Lauer isn't a liberal, after all, why is he always wearing those east coast suits? Why can't he wear an honest gray sport coat, with an American flag on the lapel? Why is he wearing Levis on those road trips and not Wranglers (how many of you actually knew that in the middle America,
there's a significant difference, and that more people probably wear Wranglers than Levis?)
Someone else posted that it seemed like if you had a southern accent, Democrats treat you like you're stupid. To a liberal Democrat, this makes no sense. Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and John Edwards all have or had southern or southwestern accents.
I can't recall a single instance of someone I knew to be a Democrat treating someone else like they were stupid because of a southern accent. But that's only how I see it. They way a conservative sees it is, "If you don't think my southern accent is stupid, then why don't you have one, too?"
In another topic, someone posted a list of things that had 'gone wrong' on Bush's watch. All totally correct, from a liberal perspective... and totally irrelevant.
Liberals don't understand what 'faith-based' means. They think it means that churches are somehow involved, and maybe there's a kindly Episcopal or Catholic priest in the mix somewhere.
They don't know that "faith-based" literally means "faith-based", and that what social conservatives believe is based entirely on what social conservatives believe. Is it a closed loop? Yes. And George Bush is one of the few people who can get a message into that loop.
(Among conservatives who can't get messages into that loop, by the way, is Ann Coulter. I don't know a single social conservative who pays
any attention to her. But look at her. She looks just like the elite liberals she claims to despise. How can you trust her? Part of the reason she's so shrill is because she's trying to find a way to actually get some traction with the audience she's trying to sell to.)
Liberals can throw their version of 'facts' about the mideast or anything else on the table from now until doomsday, and it will have no persuasive effect whatsoever.
Because in the case of President Bush, what he says is true because he's the one who said it.
The validity of the position stems from the perceived moral authority of the person holding the position, and what liberals would call 'facts' flow from there, not the other way around.
So, for example, if Bush says there were WMD in Iraq, there were WMD in Iraq. End of discussion. There's no point in arguing that no one found them, or that the experts say there were none. Those are opinions, but they are not the position of the moral authority.
When we talk about healing, and talk about coming together, or when we talk about 'reframing the issues,' here's what liberals have to do:
stop being liberal. Be exactly like them. Work at it.
I wrote a couple of graphs here about what that entails, then realized the explanation itself, although accurate, sounded kind of liberal, and I couldn't figure out how to do it in an a way conservatives would not take exception to.
But look at Tom DeLay. I mean, find a picture of him with Google and actually look at him. He is an almost textbook example of how social conservatives think a man should look. Trent Lott is another good example.
Here's something else social conservatives use to spot the true believers from the posers -- the use of the word 'Jesus,' True believers -- and I'm talking social conservatives, remember, not Christians -- don't use euphemisms like 'maker,' 'Divine creator,' 'personal faith,' and so on. It's 'Jesus.' Don't say it like a TV evangelist, but don't say it in a flat tone like you would say 'Roger' or 'David,' either.
Sound silly? It's not to them. Social conservatives say they don't do nuance, but I guaran-damn-tee ya they do, and every election year, liberals and moderates shoot themselves in the foot with this.
Also remember that social conservatism is discipline-based, obedience-based, punishment-based and vengeance-based. Don't tell me that's not consistent with Christianity - I didn't make the rules, I'm just telling you what they are.
When social conservatives talk about healing and coming together, they mean kicking your sorry liberal asses.
There's not going to be any compromise on this from the other side. You cannot separate conformity from conservatism, any more than you can separate the spots from a leopard.
I am probably the biggest Bush-hater in this forum.
But I did not grow up in Marin County on a diet of wheat germ and organic vegetables.
I grew up in Oklahoma and the south. I live a mile from where I was born. I started shooting guns when I was about seven, and had them around until I was out of high school. I was never a good shot, and I didn't care that much about them, but they were around. I had close family active in the Klan from 1963 until about '69 or '70.
My religious background is Presbyterian and Southern Baptist.
So while I am not now a social conservative by any means, I know the dynamic and the language.
The reason I don't like Bush is I'm pretty sure I see him and his kind for what they are, and most of my neighbors don't. Neither do most of
you, if I'm right.
But here's the thing other liberals aren't getting, and I think it's because most of them don't have the benefit of my background: the America we thought might happen in 30 or 40 years, given we what we saw as a worst-case scenario, is probably here now.
And if you're a liberal, you'd better get used to it, because it's not going away, and you're not going to be able to live in it -- I mean literally not be able to live in it -- unless you make some significant personal changes.
And part of the reason liberals don't get what's going on is because they don't use the same language as social conservatives, and when they
do use the same language, the meaning and context is so different that no communication actually takes place.
When conservatives say, "We're sick of being mocked by the Eastern liberal elite," a lot of liberals say to themselves 'I don't remember ever mocking anyone. What are they talking about?'
This is because, the word 'mock' has two different meanings, and each side doesn't get that the other side doesn't mean the same thing.
To a liberal, 'mocking' conservatives means something like the Ned Flanders character on 'The Simpsons.' They don't get the importance social conservatives place on conformity, and that liberals can mock conservatives just by not having the same clothing, posture and speech patterns.
When the Club for Growth denounced Howard Dean as 'latte-drinking, Volvo-driving liberal from Vermont', a lot of liberals snickered at the hyperbole, not realizing (as the Club for Growth did), that issues of what one drinks and what one drives and where one lives or was born are gravely serious matters here, and that very few people in the target audience who saw that ad considered it over the top.
Someone posted here that Matt Lauer and Katie Couric displayed their liberal slant by wearing black on November 3. To a liberal, that sounds silly. Surely it's coincidence.
To a conservative, that sounds entirely plausible. If Matt Lauer isn't a liberal, after all, why is he always wearing those east coast suits? Why can't he wear an honest gray sport coat, with an American flag on the lapel? Why is he wearing Levis on those road trips and not Wranglers (how many of you actually knew that in the middle America,
there's a significant difference, and that more people probably wear Wranglers than Levis?)
Someone else posted that it seemed like if you had a southern accent, Democrats treat you like you're stupid. To a liberal Democrat, this makes no sense. Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and John Edwards all have or had southern or southwestern accents.
I can't recall a single instance of someone I knew to be a Democrat treating someone else like they were stupid because of a southern accent. But that's only how I see it. They way a conservative sees it is, "If you don't think my southern accent is stupid, then why don't you have one, too?"
In another topic, someone posted a list of things that had 'gone wrong' on Bush's watch. All totally correct, from a liberal perspective... and totally irrelevant.
Liberals don't understand what 'faith-based' means. They think it means that churches are somehow involved, and maybe there's a kindly Episcopal or Catholic priest in the mix somewhere.
They don't know that "faith-based" literally means "faith-based", and that what social conservatives believe is based entirely on what social conservatives believe. Is it a closed loop? Yes. And George Bush is one of the few people who can get a message into that loop.
(Among conservatives who can't get messages into that loop, by the way, is Ann Coulter. I don't know a single social conservative who pays
any attention to her. But look at her. She looks just like the elite liberals she claims to despise. How can you trust her? Part of the reason she's so shrill is because she's trying to find a way to actually get some traction with the audience she's trying to sell to.)
Liberals can throw their version of 'facts' about the mideast or anything else on the table from now until doomsday, and it will have no persuasive effect whatsoever.
Because in the case of President Bush, what he says is true because he's the one who said it.
The validity of the position stems from the perceived moral authority of the person holding the position, and what liberals would call 'facts' flow from there, not the other way around.
So, for example, if Bush says there were WMD in Iraq, there were WMD in Iraq. End of discussion. There's no point in arguing that no one found them, or that the experts say there were none. Those are opinions, but they are not the position of the moral authority.
When we talk about healing, and talk about coming together, or when we talk about 'reframing the issues,' here's what liberals have to do:
stop being liberal. Be exactly like them. Work at it.
I wrote a couple of graphs here about what that entails, then realized the explanation itself, although accurate, sounded kind of liberal, and I couldn't figure out how to do it in an a way conservatives would not take exception to.
But look at Tom DeLay. I mean, find a picture of him with Google and actually look at him. He is an almost textbook example of how social conservatives think a man should look. Trent Lott is another good example.
Here's something else social conservatives use to spot the true believers from the posers -- the use of the word 'Jesus,' True believers -- and I'm talking social conservatives, remember, not Christians -- don't use euphemisms like 'maker,' 'Divine creator,' 'personal faith,' and so on. It's 'Jesus.' Don't say it like a TV evangelist, but don't say it in a flat tone like you would say 'Roger' or 'David,' either.
Sound silly? It's not to them. Social conservatives say they don't do nuance, but I guaran-damn-tee ya they do, and every election year, liberals and moderates shoot themselves in the foot with this.
Also remember that social conservatism is discipline-based, obedience-based, punishment-based and vengeance-based. Don't tell me that's not consistent with Christianity - I didn't make the rules, I'm just telling you what they are.
When social conservatives talk about healing and coming together, they mean kicking your sorry liberal asses.
There's not going to be any compromise on this from the other side. You cannot separate conformity from conservatism, any more than you can separate the spots from a leopard.
