FROM BEVERLY HILLS TO THE GHETTO AND BACK
How in hell does a Beverly Hills raised, son of a movie producer, true blue Democrat who was raised in a Republican free zone end up as an advocate for the conservative movement? I was suckled on the liberal teat from cradle through law school. Dinner table discussions were often heated but ‘Republican’ and ‘conservative’ were considered four-letter words. It wasn’t that my parents were very political but Jews needed to obey what was deemed Jewish doctrine. As a young reform rabbi told me many years later, “Jewish values are Democratic values”. Left leaning Jews have politicized religion for a long time. As such ‘Republican’ and ’conservative’ were words rarely uttered in the household. When those words did cross someone’s lips the tone was condescending and derogatory. I recall only two occasions when my nutritionally pure liberal Jewish diet was violated with trayf (Yiddish for un-kosher). Just so you get it, pork is to kosher as conservative is to Jewish for about 80% of Jews.
There was an odd creature that occupied a tiny corner of my west side neighborhood. My best friends mother was hold onto your pants, a female Jewish Republican. If the EPA had been around and spotted her roaming the neighborhood she would have been placed on the endangered species list and her home quarantined. She was as rare as a hillbilly at the Brown Derby. As such, I looked at her as nothing more than a curiosity. My mind was securely closed.
Then when I was about fourteen I encountered an even more perplexing creature. I found him spending time in an odd habitat. He resided part time in the temple of left wing bias, the public broadcasting channel, PBS. He was so articulate and so smart that I had no idea what he was talking about. How could a conservative be so smart? Without a dictionary I was left hopelessly ignorant. His name? William Buckley. I really had no fact based or intellectual basis to evaluate his performance but he seemed to win every debate and outclass everyone he interviewed. You don’t have to be an expert in mixed martial arts to figure out when a combatant is pummeling his opposition. I had a suspicion that this is a guy I should try to decipher someday. Little did I know what the future would have in store for me.
Without going into a great deal of detail, there are a number of experiences that contributed to transforming this proud true-blue west-side Jewish liberal into an informed free thinking, free market, liberty loving, limited government, big national defense conservative.
Decades of carefully crafted myopia were corrected to 20/20 clarity by way of a number of real world experiences that had a head on collision with my liberal mindset. My orderly little world was about to be invaded with the clutter of a mind exposed to a diversity of opinions. It turned out that the world did not look at all like I had conceived it to be. What follows are some of the experiences that helped me find the combination that opened the padlock that had secured my closed mind for so many years. The door to fact and reason had been cracked open.
At 27 with shoulder length hair and an anti-business predisposition I found myself in the meat processing business in inner city Baltimore. A cold, dirty and super competitive commodity business was suddenly my work place. The business was located smack dab in the middle of the wreckage left in the wake of the Great Society. Block after block of boarded up row houses, graffiti the landscape of choice, decaying subsidized high rises, men roaming the streets day and night and an obscene murder rate. This was just the tip of an iceberg poking its head through the cracked pothole laden concrete courtesy of wrong headed “poverty programs”. I was working in a world crafted by the handy work of well meaning liberals. This world did not comport with my good old Beverly Hills liberal mentality no matter how many times I clicked my heels hoping I’d be transported back to my comfortable ignorance. There was no going home. The stark reality of that thin blue line manned by the police preserving a semblance of civilization in a world of chaos was all too vivid to ignore. A decade in my Baltimore classroom proved to be far more valuable then all those classrooms and expense that earned me a B.A. and J.D.
Once out of Baltimore, back in a paradise called San Diego, I had my next major political epiphany. It revolved around raising two kids. My doubts about the importance of religiously based values were challenged like never before. Suddenly the innocence of my children became a priority. I had always loved kids. I realized that a big part of my love of little ones was the joy of being around uncorrupted little humans. The purity of their enthusiasm, unbridled optimism, honesty and lack of cynicism was a gift from God. Prematurely robbing them of that joy was sinful. I began to realize that popular culture was working to do just that.
Damned if it wasn’t those same liberals, this time in Hollywood and New York, in charge of a deluge of corruption raining down on kids. The entertainers on T.V., in the movies and on the music scene were working their artistic-asses off to rob as many little ones of as much innocence as possible. Standards were confused with censorship. God forbid if they actually set their own standards or demanded a product that required creativity as opposed to vulgarity rapped in eye-popping ear piercing sensory trauma. The only way to preserve the kids innocence for at least a bit longer was by doing my best to drench them in traditional values. Yep, those traditional Judeo-Christian values that were so ridiculed in popular culture had become my new best friends. My struggles with faith melted away as I comprehended the critical role of religious values in child rearing.
First I saw how the left had screwed with poor people and now with kids. Well-meaning in the first instance and pseudo artistic license in the second. They seemed oblivious to the damage they had wrought on society. They shined in the glow of their self-esteem because their motives were pure.
Next up was life in an academically superior public school district dominated by a one-sided politicized point of view. School had a point of view detached from education. Reading, writing and arithmetic were supplemented with social engineering. Civics was replaced with cultural diversity. National gratitude gave way to guilt. I had to provide balance at home and often be the outlier among parents.
These are some of the experiences that helped me cut that sinuous emotional tether to the partisan presentation of the world that dominated my life for almost 40 years. Finally I was able to read books by conservative authors and journalists with an open mind. I actually read for content instead of trying to prove a point. I could analyze events more objectively. I had become a survivor of the closing of the American mind.
Now at 63 I have concluded that the best way to move more Americans, especially young people, in a conservative direction is by nurturing their appreciation for America. Conservative political values will flow more smoothly and with longer lasting results when they are sourced to gratitude rather than political ideology.
We live in a nation unique in human history. Despite all its blemishes, and there are many of great significance, we are blessed beyond measure. It is not by accident that millions continue to risk life and limb to come to America. America is the freest, most prosperous, least bigoted and most opportunity producing nation on earth. We have an obligation to be sure our kids know these truths.
Our founding principles and the men who put those principles on our national roadmaps, our Constitution and Declaration of Independence, have left us a profoundly precious and fragile legacy. Precious because it is rare and fragile because it can so easily be lost. To paraphrase President Reagan, each generation has an obligation to teach the origins of our liberty or it will be lost.
If America is judged based on a utopian vision, as so many liberals tend to do, she will always fall short. If she is judged against the history of all nations, the conservative approach, she will be seen as that shining city on a hill. Therein lies the great divide.
We have an obligation to pass along the values and principles of the American miracle through education at home, in school and in the virtual world (this blog). If that job is done properly it will engender an understanding that produces gratitude for American exceptionalism. If taught correctly it will plant the seeds of respect, support and humility, not arrogance or jingoism. Understanding American exceptionalism does not diminish respect for other nations or cultures. It merely acknowledges truth. Truth is neither political nor bigoted.
People whose gratitude is based on an accurate presentation of American history will more likely lean toward tradition and therefore in a rightward direction. This more rightward movement includes liberals in the tradition of pre-1968 liberalism. I have little hope of ever moving true leftist progressives to the right. They are committed to a theology based on a faith that can rarely be breached. Progressive’s faith is as powerful as any orthodox religious belief. It is rooted in emotion.
Gratitude is a thread I hope will run through much of what appears on my blog. If every issue and political conversation is seen through a lens of clear-eyed gratitude, I believe we will be on the road to a less divided and more secure nation. And the bonus will be a happier citizenry.
God bless America and God bless everyone who chooses to join in a civil and hopefully on occasion light-hearted, conversation at AMERICAN GRATITUDE.
Michael, per usual your statement here is lucid, truthful, and–most of all–filled with affection for the American people and those abroad. It gives reality to your gratitude. I very much enjoy your comments at the history book club. You are the least ideological person in the group in that you are sensitive to how our conservative message is best presented to fence-sitters. Wording matters. It must not scold to the non-believers, but invite them to think about and maybe join our cause. In a paraphrase from the NT, you ask listeners to “taste and see that that our words are good.”
Thanks again for your good work, this blog, and also for the fine music during this time of Chanukkah and Christmas.
Jerry
I find this a very thought-provoking essay. Wish I had a printed copy but am leery of trying to print it to my copier for fear of getting way too much extra material spewing out onto my “office” carpet. I have a love/hate relationship with my computer, and technology in general.
My Norwegian immigrant grandfather (maternal) became a machinist in Duluth, Minn., working for the railroad that hauled coal from the Mesabi Range. He was a blue-collar common laborer, self-educated, who became involved in the incipient labor movement. Politically he became a life-long Democrat, probably leaning toward Socialism. On my paternal side both father and grandfather were well-educated Patent Attorneys. My father, a life-long Republican.
I grew up a loved, maybe “spoiled”, only child, graduating from Pomona College with a B.A. in Liberal Arts in 1947- no major subject required at that time! Took classes in English, Comparative Lit., Philosophy, Art, Music, French, Western Civ, a basic Biology and a “Survey Physics”. Except for having few men on campus due to W.W. II, It was a pleasant time of meeting new ideas and new people, forming friendships with a group of women which proved lasting.
Had to take some Education units at Occidental College the summer after graduation in order to get an Emergency Credentiall at the Elementary level. Loved the minimal teaching that I did, but two pregnancies intervened, and I opted for stay-at-home Mom.
All of this background just to point out the lack of any Political Science, Economics, and deeper delving into History which might have helped me develop political convictions of my own. Can’t feel committed to either of the choices we seem to have. I’m registered as “Independent”.
‘Nuff said now…..I’ll quit.
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