Dad and Me

One of my primary reasons for starting this Blog was to try to sort out why I have gone from being a good guy in terms of my politics to someone akin to an anti-Christ. At one time it was easy. I was a liberal.

My Father considered himself a conservative. He pretty much [1] believed in the same list. He did think that the federal government was too big and soaked up too much money for what it actually contributed to the efficient administration of those institutions. Prior to his death in 1980 I don't know that I was as convinced as I now am that he was right.

He had a simple idea. If things are not broke, don't fix them. He believed we should take our time making any change as we had more that an 80% chance of making things worse. He was very ambivalent about mucking about in other countries business.

He approved of our decision to go to the aide of the Vietnamese and was convinced that the domino theory was correct. He also was terrified that communism would come to dominate the world.

I did not disapprove of our decision to aide a friend. What I did object to was our blind eye to the corruption of the South Vietnamese government. I felt that the regime there was contributing more to the advance of communism than Ho Chi Minh. He was convinced of American military superiority and was often apoplectic over how Johnson and Nixon were conducting the war.

I felt we underestimated our opponents, had no clue as to how to effectively fight a guerilla war, and our administration (both Democrat and Republican) were arrogant towards the public they were supposed to be serving.

He was critical of those who left the country to avoid military service. I felt that if someone was being faced with being flung into that mess decided to give up his or her country that was their decision and fell under their constitutional right to privacy.

I probably generalized my ideas more about privacy to include the right of different countries to self determination of their form of government. I did not fear communism. In fact, I was always amused to hear a right wing nut say communism is a terrible awful failed system. My response was "what is your point?" I think you are correct. And that is the reason I don't fear it. Whenever I found out that our administration was in some other country stirring up things or messing around with propping up right wing nut dictators I was playing Spy vs. Spy and fantasizing about having real bombs to throw at the White House.

He was pretty pessimistic about changing the hearts and minds of any other American and that included me.

He was very leery of anyone who had "charisma". He did not have any good things to say about FDR. While he and my Mother were assisted with jobs from the CCC during the depression, Dad really felt that the social policies of FDR were beyond the scope of what the constitution granted to the Feds.

JFK had charisma in spades and my Dad felt that Kennedy was too reckless in his policies. He never liked him. He also felt that Democrat policies aided the reckless growth of the Feds more than the Republicans. He liked Nixon but did not approve of the way he conducted the war. I am not sure if he had lived he would have approved of Reagan because of his instinctive disapproval of charismatic people.

I on the other hand took instant dislike to Nixon. I agreed with Dad, that on the charisma scale Nixon rated a negative 97 but I also felt he was sincerely wrong about how to fight communism.

I really liked Ronald Reagan as the host of "Death Valley Days". But I did not think he was qualified to be President. I had this perhaps snobbish attitude that a President should be smarter than the average Joe. I always felt that Reagan was a "talking head" and I felt if I could just get close enough to him I would see the strings that other people were pulling.

At the time I was a supervisor in Seattle in a public assistance capacity. Food Stamps was a program that was in charge of. I can remember Reagan ranting about welfare leaches and cheats and how he was going to reform the system. The good citizens (most of them Boeing employees) of Seattle wrote to the editor of the Times cheering him on this issue.

Of course, once he was elected, he cut benefits to anyone on a strike. Hmmm... all of a sudden Bubba who had thought he meant someone else was a bit red faced to find out he was one (leech). During that time what I objected to the most about Reagan was how he vilified the poor. I dealt with poor people every day and pretty much found them to be a representative cross section of our society from the standpoint of decency.

Reagan took credit for the fall of USSR. I always chuckled at the presumption. I sort of figured that if it was such a terrible system it probably would have gone to pieces a lot faster if we had JUST FREEKING LEFT THEM ALONE. As a student of history I saw example after example of people fighting tooth and nail in defense of horrible tyrants when they felt threatened by foreigners.

So... where are we today when it is the conservatives who want to bomb the hell out of anyone who might someday do something to hurt us? Conservatives as activists.... this is a conundrum to me. I think that Dad would be appalled.

[1] He felt that the Warren Court had incorrectly broadened the constitutional framers intent of privacy. He also was pretty adament about states rights.