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Archive As one of a handful of Bay Area conservative columnists, I'm no stranger to pushing buttons. Indeed, I welcome feedback from readers, whether pos itive or negative. I find the interplay stimulating, but I am often bemu sed by the stereotypical assumptions made by my critics on the left. 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 dif ferent approaches to various societal problems and not be the devil inca rnate. 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 nam e (which garners more comments than anything else) is a direct product o f the hippie generation. Growing up, I bought into the prevailing libera l wisdom of my surroundings because I didn't know anything else. I wrote off all Republicans as ignorant, intolerant yahoos. 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 wor ld. 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, relig ious freedom, women's rights, gay rights (yes, even without same-sex mar riage), social and economic mobility, relative racial harmony and democr acy itself were all taken for granted in my narrow, insulated world view . The terrorist attacks on this country were not only an act of war but also a crime aga inst humanity. It seemed glaringly obvious to me at the time, and it sti ll does today. But the reaction of my former comrades on the left bespok e a different perspective. The day after the attacks, I dragged myself i nto 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 irratio nal hatred for their own country. As I spent months grieving the losses, others around me wrapped themselve s in the comfortable shell of cynicism and acted as if nothing had chang ed. I soon began to recognize in them an inability to view America or it s people as victims, born of years of indoctrination in which we were al ways 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 t o protect it. Thoroughly disgusted by the behavior of those on the left, I began to loo k elsewhere for support. To my astonishment, I found that the only voice s 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. W hen 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 wa r on terrorism, I began to find myself in concurrence with other aspects of conservative political philosophy as well. Smaller government, tradi tional societal structures, respect and reverence for life, the importan ce of family, personal responsibility, national unity over identity poli tics 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 re ligiously observant. This was somewhat revolutionary, considering my for mer liberal discomfort with religious folk, but I found myself in agreem ent 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 exceptio n 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 wh o make it their mission in life to destroy all vestiges of America's Jud eo-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 obstr uctionism 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 si mply 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 p olitical transformation, I discovered that I was not alone. It turned ou t 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 p olitics 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 tha t I encountered more intolerance than ever before in my life. Holding pr o-Iraq-liberation signs and American flags, I was spat on, called names, intimidated, threatened, attacked, cursed and, on a good day, simply ar gued with. It was clear that any deviation from the prevailing leftist g roupthink of the Bay Area was considered a threat to be eliminated as qu ickly as possible. It was at such protests that I also had my first real brushes with anti-S emitism. The anti-Israel sentiment on the left -- inexorably linked to a nti-Americanism -- ran high at these events and boiled over into Jew hat red on more than one occasion. The pro-Palestinian sympathies of the lef t had led to a bizarre commingling of pacifism, Communism and Arab natio nalism. So it was not uncommon to see kaffiyeh-clad college students cha nting Hamas slogans, graying hippies wearing "Intifada" T-shirts, Che Gu evera backpacks, and signs equating Zionism with Nazism, all against a b ackdrop of peace, patchouli and tie-dye. Being unapologetically pro-Israel, I was called every name in the book, f rom "Zionist pig" to "Zionist scum," and was once told that those with E uropean origins such as myself couldn't really be Jewish. In the end, th e blatant anti-Semitism on the left, even among Jews, only strengthened my political transformation. But more than anything, it was the left's hypocrisy when it came to the w ar 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 bruta l treatment of women. Even then, I felt that Afghanistan should immediat ely be liberated, as Malcolm X once said in another context, by any mean s necessary. But when it came time, it turned out that the left was most ly opposed to such liberation, whether of the Afghan people or of the Ir aqis (especially if America and a Republican president were at the helm) . Indeed, liberals had become strangely conservative in their fierce attach ment to the status quo. In contrast, the much-maligned neoc...
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