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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (60125)	6/19/2007 12:11:53 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Why I Turned Right: Part 1 by Nathanael Blake In Conservative Booknotes The Right Angle @ HumanEvents.com Liberalism, which is the default political outlook in polite society (or among the professional and managerial elite that passes for it nowadays), has little use for introspection. It is assumed: government programs to help the poor are right and effective; abortion is distasteful but necessary, the UN is a morally respectable institution; affirmative action is beneficial; etc... It is taken for granted that intelligent people of good will are liberal on the issues of the day. A conservative who is neither stupid nor malevolent is an object of some interest and incredulity. Why I Turned Right is a collection of political autobiographies by some of these curiosities. With conservative leaders like Rich Lowry and David Brooks contributing, this would be an important work on the history of the conservative movement, if nothing else. But it contains entertaining, personable accounts that do much to explain the conservative mind; it would hardly be possible to compose an account of how one became a leading conservative writer without explaining something of conservatism. Because this is a collection, I’ll review it in pieces over the next week or so. The first installment consists of the introduction by editor Mary Eberstadt, and the contributions by P. J. O’Rourke and Richard Starr. Eberstadt provides all that one could wish in an introduction, including a brief discussion of her own turn right. I found one passage particularly resonant. In it she described how, amidst the epistemological uncertainty universities seek to induce in their students (at least as regards certain areas of morality), she concluded that “whatever else may be true or false, knowable or unknowable, this abortion thing just can’t be right.” Amen. Among the great moral contributions of Christianity to the Western heritage is the belief that all human life has value and is sacred, for man was made in the image of God. O’Rourke’s essay is, as his reputation would suggest, quite humorous, and illustrates how responsibility inclines people toward conservatism. Youth and the sexual revolution swept him leftward, the reality of being a responsible father sealed his return to conservatism. “I became a conservative at 11:50 PM on December4, 1997, the way many people become conservatives. My wife gave birth…I used to consider erotic preferences a matter of laissez faire. Then I realized, if my children think homosexuality is acceptable, it could lead them to think something really troubling—that sex is acceptable.” O’Rourke might have enjoyed loose hippie chicks when he was 20, but the thought of his daughters turning into one horrifies him. Age and responsibility have provided perspective sorely lacking when he was a young man intent on his own gratification. Richard Starr’s story is not as dramatic as others in this collection, but it isn’t atypical of conservative thinkers. He came from conservative roots, and Carter’s disastrous presidency repulsed him. His transformation was to an intellectual understanding of the right, and the tale is well-told. David Brooks will be leading off the next section. humanevents.com conservativebookclub.com