How Long Does It Take to Shift All the Way from Left to Right?
Over the weekend I published the first in an ongoing series of book blog posts by me here at PJ Lifestyle: 23 Books for Counterculture Conservatives, Tea Party Occultists, and Capitalist Wizards.
This more than 17,000-word, free, online ebook features six sections of books on a variety of subjects: autobiographies, history, polemics, American exceptionalism, media, and science. (And included throughout are various YouTube videos and custom photos of relevant excerpts.)
The three autobiographies that begin this series each tell a different variation of a story familiar to many PJ readers: the liberal “mugged by reality” reemerging after disappointment as a more tough-minded conservative who recognizes the world’s evil and can call it by name. (Victor Davis Hanson refers to this as the tragic view.)
In reflecting on these narratives, one point often goes unsaid: the journey from Left to Right usually takes awhile — years, sometimes even decades. PJM CEO Roger L. Simon’s Turning Right at Hollywood and Vine, the late Andrew Breitbart’s Righteous Indignation, and leading occult author James Wasserman’s In the Center of the Fire each show as much for men traveling very different careers. For all three the journey out of so-called liberalism required many difficult realizations and personal struggles with both private life experiences and the big national stories.
When one’s ideology fails, a new process of searching for answers begins. The experience resembles a fish out of water flailing about on the shore. One flop forward, another scared slide backwards toward the progressive ocean.
I resisted accepting the “conservative” and “right-wing” labels for years; my own transition from Chomsky reader and Nation subscriber during college in 2005 to conservative new media editor in 2012 came in baby steps. I drifted from the hard left wing of the Democratic Party circa 2006 to the (imagined-in-my-own-head) Centrist Liberal wing of the Democrats by 2008. (Thank two and a half years of pay-the-bills-type jobs while developing my freelance writing career for those small gains.) I then flopped over to a disillusioned, independent “New Centrism” (my own term years before “No Labels”) as Obama came into office and his hard leftism emerged. (What was a radical like Van Jones doing in a “post-ideological” administration? Stanley Kurtz would answer that question.)
Initially I empathized with the polite, “center-right” David Frum/David Brooks-style “sophisticated” conservative circa Fall 2009. During 2010 and 2011 the ideological shift continued into more aggressive Tea Party and anti-jihad positions, though my “social liberalism” still remained. Only in the last year — as I’ve returned to a belief in God and grown certain in my need to someday become a father — does it feel like I’ve come all the way to the Right, thus inspiring an unashamed identification with social conservatism and family values. (That I still support state-level legislation favoring gay marriage for the kind of socially conservative, every-human-being-on-the-face-of-the-earth-needs-to-endeavor-to-get-married reasons that Jonathan Rauch argues in his book can remain an ongoing debate for another day…)
Does this kind of gradual journey sound familiar to anybody else?
Part I: Autobiographies
1. In The Center of the Fire by James Wasserman
Original Publication Date: June 15, 2012
Official Description:
In this daring exposé by a survivor of a unique era in the New York occult scene, James Wasserman, a longtime proponent of the teachings of Aleister Crowley, brings us into a world of candlelit temples, burning incense, and sonorous invocations. The author also shares an intimate look at the New York Underground of the 1970s and introduces us to the company of such avant-garde luminaries as Alejandro Jodorowsky, Harry Smith, and Angus MacLise. A stone’s throw away from the Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol’s Factory, William Burroughs’ “bunker,” and the legendary Chelsea Hotel was a scene far more esoteric than perhaps even they could have imagined.
When James Wasserman joined the O.T.O. in 1976, there were fewer than a dozen members. Today the Order numbers over 4,000 members in 50 countries and has been responsible for a series of ground-breaking publications of Crowley’s works.
The author founded New York City’s TAHUTI Lodge in 1979. He chronicles its early history and provides a window into the heyday of the Manhattan esoteric community. He also breaks his decades of silence concerning one of the most seminal events in the development of the modern Thelemic movement — detailing his role in the 1976 magical battle between Marcelo Motta and Grady McMurtry. Long slandered for his effort to heal the temporary breach between the Orders of A.’.A.’. and O.T.O., James Wasserman sets the record straight. And, he meticulously chronicles the copyright contest over the Crowley literary estate–of which he was an important participant.
This is also a saga with a very human tableau filled with tender romance, passionate friendships, an abiding spiritual hunger, danger, passion, and ecstasy. It also explores several hidden magical byways including the rituals of Voodoo, Tibetan Buddhism, and Sufism. Finally we are given a bird’s eye view of the 1960s hippie culture and its excesses of sex and drugs, and rock n roll–along with the personal transformations and penalties such a lifestyle brought forth.
Reconstructed from personal memories, magical diaries, multiple interviews, court transcripts, witness depositions, trial evidence, and extensive correspondence, this book elucidates a hitherto misreported and ill-understood nexus of modern magical history. It also shares tales of a mythical moment in American life as seen through the eyes of an enthusiastic participant in the hip culture of the day.
Why Counterculture Conservatives Should Read It:
James Wasserman’s memoir accomplishes an elegant feat by juggling three narrative threads: A) his own personal transformation from socialist hippie drug addict in the late ’60s to gun-toting, libertarian family man and influential elder statesman of a new religion, B) the legal and personal battles surrounding Aleister Crowley’s copyrights and the leadership of the Ordo Templi Orientis – the same emotional intensity that inspires one to build religious movements also pushes others to tear them apart, C) the professional transformation from clerk at Weiser’s bookstore to acclaimed book designer, author, and talking head in Discovery and History channel documentaries. These three threads of course connect with our three CounterCon movements.
In describing the ideological and biographical aspect of Wasserman’s memoir, a good comparison is to PJ Media columnist Ron Radosh and his memoir Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left. Radosh and Wasserman played comparable roles in their respective movements of the New Left and Thelema, each acting as movement historian and subtle observer of behind-the-scenes events and the larger-than-life, legendary personalities.
And both made their journey from left to right one step at a time over the course of many decades. For Wasserman disillusionment from the organized left came in the late ’60s while working in Washington, D.C., on civil rights and antiwar issues. (He realized that the leaders of the movement admitted they didn’t care if the communists won in Vietnam — or that communism was even a bad thing.) But this just knocked him into more than a decade of wandering around the 1970s New York occult scene. It wouldn’t be until decades later when several life events would deliver the rightward kicks needed for him to eventually come out vocally as an advocate of political liberty. The one that I’ll emphasize here: during the mid-’80s Wasserman decided to purchase a gun to protect himself from some of the crazier individuals in the darker corners of the occult underground. He realized that he bore the responsibility to protect his family and that he could not rely on anyone else.
It’s one thing to live a happy little counterculture existence prancing around in a circle, casting spells and dropping LSD. But the reality is there are evil people out there who don’t want us to have this freedom. If we want to live as counterculturalists then conserving our liberty means having a bigger gun than the other guy, the skill to hit him when we fire, and the courage to pull the trigger before he does. And of course this same principle applies whether the bully is a thug wanting your wallet or a despot enriching uranium.
Why Tea Party Occultists Should Read It:
Aleister Crowley — the founder of Wasserman’s religion of Thelema and the most influential occultist of the 20th century — has a really bad reputation. Much of this is his own fault but his enemies did a smear job on him that makes today’s mainstream media look as benign as internet comment trolls. Even still today most of the time when mentioning Crowley’s name in an article someone will show up in the comments to insist that he was a child molester and Satanist who drank blood and performed human sacrifice. (Roger L. Simon mentioned the connection between Crowley and Walter Duranty in his speech opening the Duranty awards — subjects to be explored in more depth in future editions of this list as I do more research.)
This has its benefits for a young religion; it’s much better if the founder is a jerk who’s very difficult to like. That way the ideas and spiritual teachings have to fall or stand on their own and you’re less likely to idolize the founder and emulate his life.
“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” remains the most well known tenet of Crowley’s system of Thelema and most widely misinterpreted. Those who just “dabble” in Occultism as a kind of revolt against the “establishment” Judeo-Christian tradition think that it means “Do whatever you want is the only law you have to live by because you’re a superman better than everyone else. So you can cheat and party and live the life of a hedonist.” (That certainly sounds to be the Duranty reading of it.) People just assume that because Crowley lived as a libertine for periods of his life that sexual promiscuity, drug abuse, racism, Satanism, and anti-Christian rhetoric were natural outgrowths of the religion he founded.
But that’s not the case. And you see it in the lives of people like Wasserman who find God and make themselves better people through nontraditional religious practices. Thelema isn’t a license to be an evil person. The operative word most misinterpreted is “WILL” and it translates the command more like this: “Find your True Will and then pursue performing it with all of your being.” How does one find his True Will? What does that even mean?
The answer is more mundane than those with the Crowley “Great Beast” caricature in their head may suspect. Crowley wrote in Magick Without Tears:
It should never be forgotten for a single moment that the central and essential work of the Magician is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Once he has achieved this he must of course be left entirely in the hands of that Angel, who can be invariably and inevitably relied upon to lead him to the further great step—crossing of the Abyss and the attainment of the grade of Master of the Temple.
True Will = The Will of God, or God’s plan for you on this earth, which we can find out through invoking angels to tell us and then transform us into the people God wants us to be.
Those thinking that the world of the occult is an escape from the Judeo-Christian tradition are in for a shock should they delve deeper. The reality is that Crowley-influenced occultism relies heavily on Jewish and Christian traditions. Don’t believe me? Wasserman’s previous book, The Temple of Solomon: From Ancient Israel to Secret Societies, featured later on the list, spends almost 400 pages making the argument.
What this means is that it’s time for occultists and those of “alternative” spirituality to recognize that they too are a part of America’s Judeo-Christian heritage — and have a responsibility to participate in defending it from the genocidal antisemites who want to conquer us all. We’re all Jews. Anyone who regards the Bible as a net positive for humanity, worth defending — regardless of their specific beliefs about the meaning of the words written in it — counts as a Jew. And everyone who struggles with God is Israel.
Why Capitalist Wizards Should Read It:
Also tucked into Wasserman’s memoir the reader finds the inspiring story of his multifaceted career in book designing, publishing, writing, and editing. Wasserman played a vital role in the publication of much of Crowley’s work today, perhaps of most importance being Crowley’s Thoth Tarot deck in 1977, for which he also wrote the instructions. (This is my favorite Tarot deck.) Wasserman also produced a stunning edition of The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day. The books he designed have an elegant, authoritative quality to them. Spring for the hardback of In the Center of the Fire instead of the Kindle edition.
The important piece to grasp here is the role of writing as it relates to Wasserman’s spirituality and politics. When he founded a new OTO lodge in New York City the name he selected was TAHUTI. Likewise his memoir today is published by Ibis Press. TAHUTI, also known by his Greek name Thoth, was the Egyptian god of the scribes, the inventor of magic, writing, science, peacemaking, and a central figure among the Western occult tradition:
When we spend our entire lives breathing air, how often do we stop and think about the atmosphere we’re stuffing into our lungs? Do we even remember that there’s stuff called air surrounding us? And having always lived in text-based, book-based societies, can we comprehend what it would be like to live in a world without the written word as the common bridge between minds?
Writing is both a technology and a process for analyzing the world; and upon it sits in delicate balance Western civilization’s liberty-based religious culture, political system, and wealth-generating economic engine. Now with his memoir Wasserman can look back and see the truth of this occult theory as he manifested it over the course of his own life: Through the acts of writing and publishing the world can be transformed. Cast a spell and you can shape the world as you Will.
Through the memoir of another counterculture conservative publisher, lost too soon, we see a concrete example of how to implement this principle to address our dire political situation today…
2. Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World! by Andrew Breitbart
Publication Date: April 15, 2011
Official Description:
Known for his network of conservative websites that draws millions of readers everyday, Andrew Breitbart has one main goal: to make sure the “liberally biased” major news outlets in this country cover all aspects of a story fairly. Breitbart is convinced that too many national stories are slanted by the news media in an unfair way.In Righteous Indignation, Breitbart talks about the key issues that Americans face, how he has aligned himself with the Tea Party, and how one needs to deal with the liberal news world head on. Along the way, he details his early years, working with Matt Drudge, The Huffington Post, and so on, and how Breitbart developed his unique style of launching key websites to help get the word out to conservatives all over. A rollicking and controversial read, Breitbart will certainly raise your blood pressure, one way or another.
Why Counterculture Conservatives Should Read It:
I reviewed Righteous Indignation here and wrote about the death of Andrew Breitbart here (focusing on his vital contributions to living counterculture conservatism here.) For the purpose of this list, the aspect of Breitbart’s memoir worth emphasizing is his precise targeting of the enemy. In the chapter “Breakthrough” he provides a succinct summary of…
The Cultural Marxist
For counterculture conservatives the culture is a method for the individual to make himself and his family better people. The task of making a better world begins with the self. Cultural Marxists pursue the opposite: every aspect of culture and every institution must be hijacked and subverted to make other people better by enlightening them to the truths of socialism. Archetypal example and theoretician: Antonio Gramsci.
They too believed that through hijacking the writing of culture, one could transform the world. And they were right. Here’s Breitbart explaining, the section on Cultural Marxism begins at about 3:40…
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Cultural Marxists devoted decades to slowly infiltrating the publishing industry. But they did not anticipate the role technology plays in transforming culture.
Conservatives don’t have to worry about retaking the cultural institutions that Marxists conquered. We’re perfectly capable of magically building our own replacements, as PJ Media’s CEO revealed in his memoir, republished last year as Turning Right at Hollywood and Vine...
3. Turning Right at Hollywood and Vine: The Perils of Coming Out Conservative in Tinseltown by Roger L. Simon
Republication Date: February 8, 2011 (First published in 2008 as Blacklisting Myself)
Official Description:
An Academy Award–nominated screenwriter and a mystery novelist, Roger L. Simon is the only American writer to pull off the amazing trick of being profiled positively in both Mother Jones and National Review in one lifetime. The stunning story of his political odyssey is told in this memoir, where Simon recounts his migration from financier of the Black Panther Breakfast Program to pioneer blogosphere mogul beloved by the right as a 9/11 Democrat. But Simon is beholden to neither right nor left in this tale of Hollywood chic run a muck, as he talks out of school about his adventures with, among many others, Richard Pryor, Warren Beatty, Timothy Leary, Richard Dreyfuss, Woody Allen, and Julian Semyonov, the Soviet Union’s version of Robert Ludlum and also a KGB colonel who tempted Simon to join the KGB himself. Among the topics covered along the way:Is there a new blacklist in Hollywood, this one targeting conservatives?
Simon’s red-carpet tours of the People’s Republic of China, Cuba, and the Soviet Union with Hollywood screenwriters and famous mystery novelists.
Why Al Gore’s documentary on global warming didn’t deserve the Oscar on artistic grounds alone; and why the Academy’s voting system is so corrupt.And, as they say, there is much, much more besides.
Why Counterculture Conservatives Should Read It:
When I reviewed Roger L. Simon’s memoir for Big Hollywood in July of 2011 I emphasized this quote as my favorite. It serves as another definition of “Counterculture Conservative”:
What I am left with is a collection of ideas with which I have dabbled throughout my life, never fully discarding any of them, even though some are completely contradictory of others. I regard Marxism, Freudianism, libertarianism, laissez-faire capitalism, Zen Buddhism, Quaker pacifism, neoconservatism, neoliberalism, that whole galaxy of isms, as arrows in a quiver to be drawn at will, depending on the adversary or the necessities of the situation. That may sound dangerously close to yet another ism—cultural relativism—but I assure you it is not. I do think there is almost always a good and evil, a right and wrong—although often you have to look closely—and the relativist view of the world is at best lazy and at worst a stalking horse for fascism. Those arrows in my quiver are no more than an arsenal for helping me find that elusive truth. And perhaps for taking action. Sometimes one is not enough. Sometimes I don’t need or want any of them.
“I do think there is almost always a good and evil” = the single most important idea a human being needs to have in their head in order to survive in the real world.
Roger continues to challenge himself religiously and intellectually, as this must-read recent post shows: Why I Fasted on Yom Kippur for the First Time in Twenty… or Is It Thirty… Years
Why Capitalist Wizards Should Read It:
In September I celebrated my one year anniversary of editing full time for PJ Media. Since starting I’ve tried to learn as much as possible from my wiser, more experienced editorial colleagues, especially Roger. Questions on my mind as I pondered my primary task of expanding and growing our readership: What already made PJM successful? What formula did Roger concoct up in his writing office up in the Hollywood Hills that had drawn me and so many others to the publication in the first place? Because it seemed that all that needed to be done was unlock this formula, pinpoint the aspects of PJM that worked and bring them out more to new audiences. But what was the spell?
The answer stares out on every page of Turning Right at Hollywood and Vine. From writing award-winning novels to Oscar-nominated screenplays on to leading PJM to popularity and influence in the blogosphere today, Roger accomplished it all through diligently developing his mastery of the writer’s craft. The secret to creating wealth, value, and a life of happiness: dedicate yourself to becoming great at something and then practice it every day. Then just continue to grow and evolve your skill for a continually changing world.
In future editions of this list I’ll include a section discussing some of the books and techniques Roger recommends for improving as a writer.
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Having considered three histories of individuals we now turn to the broader historical narrative of the development of Western civilization…
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Click here to continue with Part II, History: The Temple of Solomon and the Foundations of Western Civilization
I have no idea. FWIW, my transition, such as it is, went from a presumption of liberalism to – something else, over my freshman and sophomore years back in the early 1970s. The thing is, the world was changing then, too, the USSR failing, the US political parties realigning, Nixon being ejected from office, the unctuousness of the left growing beyond all bounds. Not to go all egocentric about it, but I stood still and the universe shifted left. And I hear this often enough, it’s not my unique perception.
I came of age during the same era and I think you are right. I can remember in the late 70s coming to the opinion the Democrats had shifted from being about fairness and equality to being about getting more for their supporters. As someone said, all movements go from being noble causes to being businesses to being rackets. I jumped off the bus when the noble causes became businesses.
Thomas Sowell put it another way: If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago and a racist today.
I grew up in late 60′s through 70′s, but this can be a path many go on and it’s always great to see how someone thinks critically and for themself. David obviously has read much, and he shows he has given much thinking toward everything he has seen, heard, read, and even thought. That gives me hope for our future.
It may not seem new to those of us who are older, but this new generation has moved into comatose self-centered carelessness that David has proven he is not. He decided to read, search, research, listen, question. I wish more young people were like David. This essay does however give me hope that many more out there are choosing to think rather than be indoctrinated.
And david has us all talking. So bravo David!
My journey to Conservatism was the birth canal.
I am 75 years old and I have never understood any of the philosophy of Liberalism in any manner. To me it is the ultimate of stupidity.
I was raised in the logging country of Northern California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. My life was in the wilds of the mountains and hunting and fishing was my daily activities as a child. I got my first firearma at the age of five, a pistol and a rifle the next fall, a .22 caliber Remington 16 magazine pump.
As a child I was taught by my father and two uncles to be independent and sure of my decisions because I was going to have to live with them.’
There were no Churches where I was raised and God was never mentioned that I can remember. School was a sometimes deal due to deep snow in the five months of winter so home schooling was a necessity part of every year.
Life was an adventure and a never ending learning experience, perfect for growing children. Skiing in the winter, swimming in the river in the summer and total freedom to wander and explore… Wonderful…..
David, perhaps I don’t understand… Crowley misunderstood?
When Crowley crucifies a frog in a magikal rite to mock Jesus, hmmm, misunderstood. When Crowley has sex with young boys to smash the norms of the oppression of Judeo/Christian values, and to work power in sex magic…misunderstood. The father figure/spiritual mentor of Jack Whiteside Parsons…misunderstood. Crowley’s ever growing drug addiction to live up to the “Due as thy wilt is the whole of the law”…misunderstood.
I respectfully disagree.
Yes, I guess with all these books on occultism, I should pay attention and say, I agree with you. If you seriously look at books on occultism, you are still lost.
Now as a hobby, along with comic books and science fiction, historical novels and boddice-rippers, there they are. And one can get into an interesting analysis of their psychological, social, and scientific origins.
I have a small collection of different translations of the Tao te Ching. I have a couple of books on astrology (Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs – great at parties), and a couple of others on occultism and magic, many branched from reading HP Lovecraft for the first time many moons ago.
But seriously? No.
I followed the same path as you from 2006-2012, but it sounds like you are not a cultural conservative yet and don’t understand the basic principles of cultural tradition. Since you’re an occultist, I recommend a crash course in Julius Evola.
when another comes into the Light, it is truely cause for rejoycing in Heaven and earth. welcome also to the never ending struggle to be in the world but not of it. be sure and have lots of children, dad to be, we need them. God’s speed to you and yours. peace.
You should read David Horowitz’s book, describing his move from red diaper baby to conservative. It was riveting. You are not alone.
A truly extraordinary book. Very moving in parts, and wonderfully written and expressed.
In their respective books, both David Mamet and Thomas Sowell also provide insight into their personal transformations from left to right.
I second the motion that Horowitz’s “Radical Son” be high on anyone’s list of great transformations. He really takes you along on his journey.
It depends on how thoroughly you were mugged by reality.
Of course, you must first be able to recognize the difference between reality and a Talking Point Strawman. Then you must either have the courage to accept that you were a blithering idiot or be a coward and reach for the comforting familiar lies of leftism. And that’s the source of rage on the left – they know they’re wrong, they know they’re lying, they know they’re cowards, and they know we know they’re lying craven cowards but to openly admit it is just a bridge too far.
I would say that I have gone the whole thing, from raised very conservitive, rebeling culturing a long term meth addiction that ate all the years from 20 until 31. In getting clean I relised that many of my beleifs were rooted in wishful or utopian thinking and began my travel away from hard left to center. I had no faith, nor did I want it either. The change for me came when I discovered that the utopian dream is wonderful and completely unworkable, due to humans running it with all of our faults, greed (why socialism fails every time, it wants to fight human nature vs conscripting it in other models ie capitalism.)and desire for power. As I had children I embraced the right and for many years was quite happy. After watching my party do the same thing the left did with spending, budgets and no real work on ‘core’ values when they had power during Bush, when we had the house senate and excutive. I was deeply troubled, and offended. I have now become what I term a consevitive libertarian now. To me the right and left are the same (power brokers, money men, shaddy deals, ect) I should be the typical left voter, dirt poor, no health coverage, and a body destroyed by drugs and bad choices. However the smiles of the left remind of times when life was about to get very real, very fast. I have no hope left for myself, thats ok, because it is about what the future will be for my children, I would rather die poor with my children free then with personal comfort for me with my children bound.
This is one of David’s best. He keeps topping himself! So glad he has written this into E-book format and hope to see this go to E-book, because his work should be in books as well as columns.
Rock on David! This is fabulous! Passing it on to everyone!
People just assume that because Crowley lived as a libertine for periods of his life that sexual promiscuity, drug abuse, racism, Satanism, and anti-Christian rhetoric were natural outgrowths of the religion he founded.
Those silly people drawing such a conclusion.
I need to answer the question posed in the title before even reading this.
Overnight.
I know this for a fact. I did it.
“Does this kind of gradual journey sound familiar to anybody else?” Yes. In fact, almost exactly the same. I was say though that my transformation came “slowly and suddenly” to steal a line from Max Frisch. I was mugged by reality after several years of living in socialist and “social democratic” countries. I ultimately moved abroad because I believed socialism was a better choice. Of course, it took me years to reconcile what I believed with my “lying eyes.” In fact, I do not really know when I came to this side. I think it started a year after starting my own business or so, when I could see how much I was paying in taxes and how my 80 hour work weeks were funding someone else’s ability to avoid work entirely. I resented it, and eventually that resentment led me to re-evaluate certain assumptions about a “fair” distribution of wealth and the success of means tested welfare programmes. Before I knew it, I was so far to the right that I make the tea party look like pinkos.
David,
Good stuff, and I hope you make the journey further without supporting a redefinition of society’s most sound unit, marriage.
There has never been a single definition of marriage. The word “marriage” is just a word. There are all kinds of marriages that exist that may or may not be good. Polygamous marriages for example, are still marriages. I will still rail against them as primitive, evil, institutions but we can still use the word “marriage” to describe such unions. And will acknowledge such a man as having multiple wives.
The American nuclear family does not get a monopoly for the word “marriage.” We shouldn’t be arguing about what is or isn’t a marriage. We should be arguing over what is or isn’t a GOOD marriage.
Of course one could use the word “marriage” to describe something, as in, “he was married to his work”, but we should never change the true definition of marriage, which is forever explained here, for your further research. Just looking at the anatomy of a man and woman should tell you something, no?
New King James Version (NKJV)
Genesis 1:27
So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Genesis 2:24
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
1 Corinthians 7:2
Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.
Leviticus 18:22
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.
Romans 1: 24-27
24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
And from Jesus’ lips to our ears:
Mark 10:6-9
6 But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
My transition was easy and pleasant: I read Ayn Rand.
Ditto, here.
I continue to read. Latest is Viable Morals by Tara Smith. A life devoted toward long term happiness–what Aristotle called eudemonia–is probably what most of the cultists are looking for. The more I read Rand & students of Rand, the more I realize this is her greatest contribution–providing a moral philosophy that offers guideposts for achieving a flourishing life.
I like the quivers analogy. I have followed a similar path as these writers and while I’ve left the left, I also realize that no one has all the answers and that pendulums must swing both ways. To everything there is a season.
Turn, turn, turn.
And boy am I hopeful (and glad) that Leftism season is coming to a close, and perhaps the dawn of a Conservative season is upon us.
When I started this journey, I told startled friends that when one is falling over to the left, leaning right to regain your balance was the only intelligent option. Finally, one does not realize the insanity of the modern left until one starts disagreeing with them. Even ever so slightly.
Even ever so slightly… look at Joseph Lieberman, a dedicated leftist and hard working foot soldier for the progressives (albeit too much inclined to treat political opponents as decent folks with whom he disagrees on some topics). You’d think he’d be an ornament of the Democrats in the Senate?
Not so – for the grievous sin of supporting the War on Terror he was read out of the movement, unseated as a Democrat in the primaries, rewon his seat as an Independent, and still caucuses with the Democrats despite his apostasy.
Modern liberalism is a very small tent and does not tolerate diversity of opinion. Step outside the boundaries on any issue and the hammer falls. My universe is large enough to contain all kinds of people, many or most of whom do not agree with me on any given topic. The universe of modern progressives is only large enough to contain themselves and a mirror. Anyone they encounter who does not match the image in the mirror does not fit.
Shifting all the way from the left to the right entails true conservatism. An embrace of absolute truth. A deep desire and commitment for God and His teachings. Not just talking the talk but walking the walk.
Obeying God is tantamount to being ‘right’ wing. Integrity and honor focused on realism. This is what our founding fathes knew to be true and this is what our republic was built on.
Self must be destroyed and the ego left behind as the best and greatest of all things in life come from that sacrifice.
I never went through a “transition”. Today other than perhaps being more thoughtful about how I discuss politics, and more nuanced how I present arguments to persuadable people, I am politically little different than I was in my early teens. Of course I had read Ann Rand’s books by then but other than developing a better understanding of enlightened self-interest she had little impact.
You see, although my parents were both, I wasn’t raised a conservative or a Republican. From a very early age, I and my siblings, were raised to think, to form opinions based on critical thinking, and to defend them. We were allowed to hold any opinion as long as we could defend it, and the dinner table was the forum to debate the events of the day. All were equal, all views could be and generally were challenged. The dinner table was a popular place for our classmates to garner a dinner invite because unlike their home, dinner at our house was entertaining. Dinner guest were expected to hold up their end of a discussion. Saying “well it’s just my opinion” was simply not a option. Each of us knew that sources would be challenged, and appeals to authority were dismissed out of hand. We were expected to think for ourselves and understand why we thought that way. Oh and changing our thinking when presented with a better supported and more cogent argument was encouraged. We also learned first principles and how they formed the basis of a free and civil society. We learned to argue from that foundation.
Coming from that background, college indoctrination never had a chance. Each of us was already used to defending our views against all comers and standing alone against many was baked into us. As was disassembling opposing arguments, highlighting their flaws, and crushing them. Being popular was far less important than defending views that protected individual freedom from suppression.
The old adage that if you are conservative when young you haven’t got a heart is cute but inaccurate. If you have a brain and bother to use it, my the time you are 13 it’s pretty obvious that liberalism is more about theft and suppression than about helping someone. Anyone with a heart is against that at any age.
My experience and opinion matches yours. There was never a time in my long life when I looked upon the liberal-leftists as anything but purveyors of malignant evil incarnate; never “misguided” or “well-meaning” or “confused”, but outright evil. I never could rationalize how any sentient person that wasn’t rotten to the core could be drawn to philosophies or religions, such as Marxism, Fascism, or Mohammadenism, that were responsible for the deaths of multi-millions (and still counting). If I could see the evil in such philosophies, even at a very early age, then so should everyone else. I am convinced that there is a special place in purgatory for the useful idiots who contributed in any way to the monstrous atrocities the liberal-leftists have perpetrated on mankind. If there is anything left to save in this world, it is due to those of us who never, ever, drank the Kool-Aid or bought the bulls**t that so many around us have swallowed hook, line, and sinker.
Conspicuously absent from this list — so far — is David Mamet’s liberal-to-conservative autobiography “The Secret Knowledge: On The Dismantling of the American Culture” (Sentinel Trade, 2012). I’m hoping future installments of this list will correct this key omission.
Oh don’t worry, it’s coming. That’s another one that I reviewed for Big Hollywood too: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2011/07/06/The-Hollywood-Revolt–Part-3–Boomer-David-Mamet-Discovers-The-Secret-Knowledge
My transformation from left to right was also gradual. I grew up in a liberal polity, Quebec, so of course was indoctrinated to believe conservatives were – what else? – simple-minded, red-neck racists. On moving as a 28 year old to a conservative region, Alberta, I wondered what it would be like to live amongst the frothing. Much to my surprise they were pretty normal, their nutbar politics aside.
The first germs of real transformation came 7 years later, when studying the arguments for and against the then proposed free trade agreement between Canada and the US. Our left wing political parties largely opposed it, based, I saw, on ideology and nationalism masquerading as economics. Conservatives generally supported the agreement, their reason based arguments making economic sense. Suddenly I was an economic conservative. Nonetheless, when a new truly conservative political party arose from Alberta to contest federal elections, I could only believe they and their leader were extremists. It amazed me when they won Western Canada in the next election, and it amazed me far more when they proved judicious, sober, philosophical and intelligent. Suddenly I internalized what had been creeping up on me for years to that point: the left had lied to me about conservatives and conservatism all my life. Just like that, the left was discredited. Now I was fully open fully to conservative ideas. Such as the realization that the left had been insidiously abandoning me. Single motherhood was just fine? Not a chance. I knew vividly how much I would have suffered growing up without my dad, no matter how truly wonderful was my mom. And I knew as a professional child counsellor that millions of years of evolution programmed the same abiding desire and need in every child to have parents of both genders. Which made wonder about other social lies the left was telling and the fiction behind their social engineering.
And so then, after 38 years, I was finally fully deprogrammed, a free thinking conservative. How much I’ve enjoyed this liberation!
Welcome to Alberta.
My transition from Left-winger to conservative took about 5 years, 1991-1996…but it took another 5 years before I told anyone. I simply kept it to myself until 9/11/2001. It took 9/11 for me to come out into the open. Sad to say I’ve lost more than a few old friends because of it.
Paul’s taking it badly then?
Playwright David Mamet’s book “The Secret Knowledge” is another good read. Shelby Steele’s “White Guilt” played a role in David’s transformation to conservatism.
From what I have read about Crowley, he seemed to me more of con artist than someone who really believed in all that occult stuff he wrote about. He was like the guy in the salesmen in the old west hawking exlirs and tonmics that could cure anything. They knew stuff didn’t work, but he could earn living selling it because he knew could convince people it could cure anything.
And what have you read about him?
And to answer the question of the titled article: I was hit upside the head with “Atlas Shrugged”.
One day…..September 11, 2001.
Excellent post and really looking forward to following future postings.
A couple of observations that come to mind.
Like others here David Horowitz RADICAL SON helped me track a similar evolution. I was born late ’58 so I came of age in the cynical goo of liberalism triumphant post-Watergate – the height of ‘heroic jounalism’ a ala Woods/Stein.
What convinced me to embrace Reagan was the legacy of prosperity, but the ultimate rejection of progressivism came after experiencing the terrible personal toll living the nightmare presented. Following that prolonged decsent(better chonicled by Bret Ellis and Lou Reed than Jefferson or Madison) – religious conversion was pretty easy; exhausted to the point of numbness makes the leap into faith a bit more robotic than estatic.
In a general way I would say to David your generation is inheriting an evolving conservative cultural and intellectual infrustructure, for want of a better description, that really never exhisted in the early eighties for ours.
I also believe this is one of number of reasons why such an extroidinary person such as Breitbart could have such a dramatic impact in his all too brief time.
Horowtiz talks at length of how RAMPARTS became arguably the most authentic and therefore credible of the alternative presses – but the important point here is that there were hundreds of these types of publications just organically appearing all over the country – and – that there was a genuine (if misguided) argument that they, although decidedly leftist, represented a harkening back to founders like Tom Pane and other pampletteers.
And like Rock, they had a real cultural impact on that generation that lasted.
Likewise they helped make the personal and group connections that enabled a near complete takeover of Academia by the left – a takeover that already compounded what the New Deal/Great Society had done with government – (with Nixon – not unlike G.W. Bush – perpetuating large Washington-centric run-a-muck) – a takeover that has really yet to be dismantled…and which Obama represents a ‘surge’ if you will in the past 4 years.
During all of this what refuge did conservatives have besides Buckly’s magazine and a few editors at even smaller publications like Dissent and Commentary?
That is, until Reagan.
Instead, what young people embracing the principles today have is a wealth of cultural and intellectual institutions that have been encouraged and fostered if not founded by the warriors of prior generations – people like the Kochs and Phyllis Schlafly.
That post-Reagan legacy is what I am speaking to. Besides a few flickers of hope like Hillsdale College or Claremont Institute there was no AEI, Heritage, and no C-Span to act as a vital stage for Americans OF ANY STATUS, INCOME, HERITAGE OR RACE, to view and…EVEN PARTICIPATE.
Add to that the incredible people Reagan and other Republican administrations have brought – and – you get a better understanding why Obama and Biden have relied on cheap imitations of SNL snark to try and shill their non-specific brand of progressive tripe!
What I think made Andrew B. so devastaingly effective (and thus so loathed by the left) was that he acutely understood how new media and the internet was facilitating the ‘creative destruction’ now consuming not only Newspapers but the Music industry, the Film Industry, and which has certainly has been bleeding dry the publishing world….and as a result represented the kind of oppertunity to affect cultural change for conservatives much the same way liberals and progressives enjoyed in the 60′s and 70′s.
In part this prior barren landscape helps inform why there were so many tortured conversions prior to the 90′s. I think likewise the bounty of conservative institutions around today in part accounts for the number of vibrant young voices just now arriving.
(It might also help inform why even with a veto-proof majority the Obama/Pelosi adgenda got dispatched in a few years rather than the decades FDR enjoyed prior!)
I look forward to the excellent insights David S. has to say about all of this and much more – as one of these new voices.
Hopefully with Obama taking his sad act back to Chi-town as a bonus.
Well done David Swindle.
Exclusive: Spy agency seeks cyber-ops curriculum
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/22/us-usa-intelligence-education-idUSBRE84L12T20120522
Rand Paul ‘Nobody Spends Somebody Elses Money As Wisely As They Spend Their Own’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KYkfvfDqZag
Dave,
Marriage has never in any culture in the world, even in bigamous/polygamous ones, involved the definition of two members of the same sex. Therefor, to define it as such factually redefines marriage, and that is something that is rather obvious if you care about embracing the Christian faith. It is not about fair treatment, it is about including destructive behavior in a new definition of the unit that we want to build our culture upon.
Do gay people exist? Or is homosexuality a psychological disorder?
Debates about the merits of gay marriage come AFTER debates about whether gay people exist or whether confused psychologically disturbed people exist.
The controversy over gay marriage is easily resolved.
1. Get the government out of marriage.
2. Reform tax and inheritance laws so that single people and married people are treated the same.
Liberal means change. Conservative means keep things as they are. Our Founding Fathers were Classic Liberals because they upended the self-serving European feudal system where Kings, Princes and Bishops supposedly possessed a Divine right to the fruit of an individual’s labor. Modern Liberals have adopted the equally self-serving Marxist system where, as George Orwell noted, the Marxist “Priests of Power,” along with the government-dependent so-called proletariat class, possess a similar collectivist right to the fruit of an individual’s labor, supposedly to force (notice the word force) economic equality. Of course, in Orwellian fashion, the force required to engineer economic equality, by the nature of force it’s self, elevates a superior class of not-to-be-equalized Marxist equalizers, who, since they possess unrivaled force, and since they controll the people’s collectivized property, end up with the lion’ share of property, and thus, in Orwellian fashion, the end result is a worse form of economic inequality, similar to the state of affairs under Medieval Feudalism. Thus, Modern American Liberals have taken on the role of Medieval Kings, Princes and Bishops; in essence they are no different from the self-serving Medieval Conservatives. Modern American Conservatives have taken on the role of our Founding Fathers, defending the God-given right of individuals to the fruit of their own labor, and are thereby, in essence, Classic Liberals.
“Liberal means change. Conservative means keep things as they are.”
Quibble on that: It’s not the Founding Fathers who spread this philosophy among the people so much as the PURITAN FATHERS. Think Cotton Mather, John Winthrop, and their various contemporaries. And they were not ‘conservative’ in the sense of ‘keeping things as they are,’ they were conservative in the sense that ‘whenever we find ourselves with a difficult or unique civic question, we will consult the Bible for the answer.’ Given that there were many analogues between the Puritans and the Israelites, this often meant consulting the Old as well as the New Testament.
Since the Bible was universally read if not universally agreed-upon, the entire population’s moral stance was far better ideological ground for unity against tyranny than any that had come before it, whether it came as a “conservative” defense of Britain’s corrupt institutions or a “liberal” siren sing of the Revolutionary Man that tore France asunder a decade after our revolution.
It was neither boredom nor fear that built America. It was love of Truth, respect for the Bible, and a burning desire to see it put into practice in a country from the beginning. The Enlightenment philosophising merely justified a social structure that would allow people to put this into practice in their own families and communities (establishing a Central Religious Authority would ruin private virtue.)
It took about 2 years for me, although like love it gets better and stronger as time goes on.
I deeply identified with Brietbart’s book when he talked about talk radio. I came at it from the lady side though, by listening to Dr. Laura in the mid 90′s. I probably had no idea what cons/lib meant I just “knew” that Repubs were evil, something I had learned effortlessly through osmosis of the popular culture (grad ’91). I just thought it was a pretty entertaining show, but the first time she said “so you’re gonna kill your baby” to someone I was stunned. After listening to other calls in this vein I actually changed my view (something weak) to a belief (something strong)and I knew I was in big trouble. After then expanding beyond Talk of The Nation, Fresh Air and Dr. Laura, I was hooked on Micheal Medved and later Dennis Prager. My preference still tends toward the “turned” conservative, which is probably a lot of us, but sometimes they seem more passionate and less likely to turn back or become weak.
I spent my time at community college reading every back issue of Commentary that the library had and read a lot of books, “Radical Son” and “My Love Affair With America” being 2 favorites. Thomas Sowell polished it all to fine sheen with “A Conflict of Visions” and “The Quest for Cosmic Justice”.
I usually keep my opinions to myself (although I have election fever right now and slipped up a couple times on FB) and since I am a “crunchy” I blend right into the Seattle suburbs. I found that since I don’t have a degree and worked as a laborer until I had my first child certain people dismiss me, so I leave them alone in their little bubble. I would love to compare our stacks of nonfiction reading sometime though. Luckily there is a thing called the internet now so I don’t drive my husband* crazy.
*I “turned” him in about 1.5 years
I probably was never really a leftist, although in high school I was overcome with rage at the “unfairness” of the world and desperately wanted to understand why it was so and how to fix it.
Then I made a grave mistake – I read Karl Marx. Even as a high school senior I could see he had no clue what make people tick, what drove them and that his prescription was to crush everyone down into a homogenous paste of dead ambition. As described by its creator, Communism repelled me as a vile antihuman philosophy intended to suck all traces of liberty and individuality from life.
The death knell to any nascent progressivism I might have harbored was college. This was in the ’70′s and I got an up close and personal look at the gaggle of Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist-Trotskyist activists and their pettiness, stupidity, and sheer nauseating venality. Those people wanted nothing so much as total power,and their naked lust for a dictatorial state – for our own good, of course – was as horrifying as their haplessness and incompetence was amusing. A few years later when Monty Pythons Life of Brian was released I recognized them in the Jewish nationalists more concerned with purging the Judean Peoples’ Front from the movement than expelling the Romans. Funny, yes, but beyond that was the truth that those noble humanitarians would send millions of us (including me) to the camps if they could. Nobody who professes to love humanity but who hates human beings so much has any business in any position of authority.
These defections helped to explain why Norman Podhoretz describes liberals as monolingual, conservatives as bi-lingual. The conservative and libertarian ranks include numerous apostates and defectors. Turns from right to left can be counted on Captain Hook’s right hand.