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How I Became A
Conservative by Patricia
Neill How did a liberal feminist of many years standing become
a staunch conservative? I wish I could say it was the voice of God, booming at me
from the Heavens or burning my soul from a bush, telling me to get a clue, get right with
Him, and start making sense, but it wasn't. I wish I could say a marvelous and under-read book of
conservative philosophy, such as Richard M. Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences,
was the foundational work that changed my intellectual viewpoint and altered my life. But
that wasn't it. I wish I could say that what made me change my political
stripe so radically was good, solid, hearty debate on the internet and elsewhere over the
pros and cons of a conservative versus a liberal political perpective. But that wasn't it.
I wish I could say it was the influence of many friends,
acquaintances, and family members, but while I felt their inspiration, I was more inclined
to argue than to actually listen to what any conservative had to say. Their
influence came more to bear after I had already accepted that "right wing
conservative" did not mean "extremist" or "racist" or "armed
and dangerous" or any of the other tags liberals attempt to hang around our necks.
Influence wasn't it either. So what happened? What finally changed me into a conservative was a
book-long fit of giggles, snorts, guffaws, cackles, chortles, chuckles, titters and
downright howls. As silly as it sounds, it was 233 pages of some of the best laughs I'd
had in a long, long time. P.J. O'Rourke's brilliant Parliament of Whores: A Lone
Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government was the culprit, and I
still laugh to this day when I read it. O'Rourke is a gifted writer, and while he is not
H.L. Mencken, he sure is funny. And he has an absolutely delicious knack for puncturing
silly, self-satisified liberal balloons. In reading O'Rourke's descriptions of liberals
and the government I got to laughing so hard that some solid conservative ideas managed to
sneak into my head while I was busy falling off my chair and rolling on the floor. His
book is a whoosh of a read, and somehow in between unfeminine snorts and wild guffaws, my
outlook on politics and life simply *changed.* Keep in mind that I was one of the people O'Rourke is
talking about in the following passage, a description of the various people who came to a
demonstration on homelessness, and keep in mind as well how a certain note of funny common
sense underlies his pique: World Council of Churches sensible-shoe types who
have self- righteousness the way some people have bad breath Angry black poverty pests making a life and a living
off the misfortune of others Even angrier feminists doing their best to feminize
poverty before the blacks use it all up Earnest neophyte Marxists, eyes glazed from
dialectical epiphanies and hands grubby from littering the Mall with ill-Xeroxed tracts College bohos dressed in black to show how gloomy the
world is when you're a nineteen year-old rich kid Young would-be hippies dressed exactly like old
hippies used to dress (remarkable how behind the times the avant-garde has gotten) And some of those old hippies themselves, faded jeans
straining beneath increasing paunches, hair still tied into a ponytail in the back but
gone forever on the top Together these people constitute America's loudest
special interest (and the only true, permanent underclass)--the Perennially Indignant. As
always these days, they were joined by greedy celebrities who aren't contented with fame
and money and want a reputation for moral goodness, too. I don't know about you, but that line about the feminists
made me howl. Even though I still considered myself one at the time. Now, humor is a odd thing, and I'm sure not everyone will
find Mr. O'Rourke funny, but I thought he was a riot. And suddenly, all the things I'd
been thinking about for years: why liberal policies never seemed to work, my personal
struggle with the issue of abortion, random thoughts about how I disliked the moral
smugness that liberals evince when given the tiniest chance, the taxes that go up
unendingly only to then be spent by a profligate Congress on any whimsical, fool thing
they desire, the corruption that we were beginning to see then and today which threatens
to destroy our very institutions of government--all these began to make sense when I saw
them from P.J.'s point of view. As the opening quote from Horace says, "What stops a
man who can laugh from telling the truth?" What I have found is that when people are surprised into
laughter, thoughts they don't usually think can drill through the thick armor we call
skulls. And so it is: humor works, it is one of the wild human talents that simply cannot
be tamed, certainly not by something as boringly Soviet-Russian as political correctness. Contrary to much of what I've written here, I am a
serious person. Until, that is, something strikes me funny. Thank goodness, many things
do, for I consider laughter one of God's greatest boons. Laughter can make any heart
lighter of its worries, it can make the sane saner, the healthy healthier, and it can
heal. And Lordamighty--it can change a died-in-the-blood
liberal into a conservative. Ain't that a hoot? © Patricia Neill, 1997 Patricia Neill's full archives can be read by clicking here. |
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