From high school up until recently, I considered myself a staunch conservative. I voted for George Bush in 2004, a mere two months after I turned 18, and I supported Bush in the 2000 election. I was a member of Campus Conservatives and even volunteered for the Bob Riley re-election campaign in 2006. When I graduated high school in 2005, I opted to pursue a degree in political science. Politics had always been an interest of mine, and I felt it was the area in which I could best apply my intelligence. I was well aware of the cliche college warnings–warned often by fellow conservatives that my professors had devised some evil plot to turn me into a liberal. I remained a staunch conservative throughout my first two years of college. I watched Fox News religiously and read books authored by the likes of Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity. Conservative literature was my gospel, and I was not open to dissenting opinions.
Some who read this blog might be a bit puzzled as to why I chose to name my blog “A Libertarian Marine”. It is important to note that there probably wasn’t any one particular factor that led to my “transformation”, but rather a combination of small factors (although some were certainly larger than others). After completing my coursework in political science, I attempted to ponder all the knowledge I had received in three years as a student. I took classes ranging from Constitutional Law to Political Theory to Negotiations in Latin America. Probably the most influential courses I took included Constitutional Law (which concentrated largely on civil rights and liberties) and Political Theory. Political Theory introduced me to the profound political insights of men like John Locke and Isaiah Berlin, which largely contributed to my decision to become a Libertarian. Another reason is my contempt for the two-party system in America. I have come to a conclusion about the two-party system, and it is this: Republicans and Democrats both want the same thing–big government. They just want to achieve it in different ways. Democrats want to increase government programs such as welfare, and generally favor increased taxes, although not all the time. Republicans want bigger government in the form of moral legislation and national defense. If George Bush says that he will create ten new government agencies to combat terrorism, then the American people will eat it up. Republicans want to legislate moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage at the federal level, despite the fact that the 10th Amendment suggests that these issues should be decided at the state level. Libertarianism offers an ideal belief system uncorrupted by lobbyists and extremists: minimum government and maximum freedom. Another factor that drove me away from conservatism is the emergence of the neo-conservatives. These people have managed to find support for large government while still condemning the moral sins that real conservatives condemn.
You still might ask yourself, “Why does it matter that you’re a Libertarian Marine?” Sadly, my libertarian ideals have not been greeted well by conservatives who have a stereotypical image of a Marine. I am openly opposed to the war in Iraq, on the grounds that I believe the purpose of the US military is to defend the American people. Because of views like these, I have been called everything from “unpatriotic” to a “disgrace to the uniform”. I joined the Marines as a conservative. I am now a Libertarian, but my reasons for serving and my pride of country are just as they have always been. I try not to take it personally when someone launches such an attack on me. If someone can insult a member of the military in a public arena without fear of being arrested, then I know I’m doing my job. I may disagree with them vehemently, but it is my duty to ensure that they are always able to express themselves.
With that introduction out of the way, I will explain the title of this entry. It is no doubt one of the main catalysts of my retreat from conservatism. First of all, I am not voting for Barack Obama. Nor am I voting for John McCain. However, my reasons for not voting for Barack Obama are starkly different from that of many conservatives. I’m not voting for him because I do not agree with his policies. You might think that sounds pretty normal. But unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, you’ve surely seen some of the absurdities that have surfaced about Barack Obama courtesy of conservatives. Rarely do I hear a Republican debate Obama’s policies. Rather, they have replaced intellectual discourse with fabrications being circulated via e-mail. According to these claims, Obama is a Muslim terrorist plant who won’t say the pledge of allegiance, attends a racist church, and is married to a racist woman. A quick visit to snopes.com will easily dispel all of these myths, but conservatives just don’t want to hear it. It has been proven that he is not a Muslim. Conservatives squealed in excitement when an inconvenient photo of Obama was taken showing him holding his hands at his waist during a playing of the National Anthem. What the photo doesn’t show is that Obama was the only one on stage singing along with the Anthem. It is also not a requirement to hold your hand over your heart for the anthem, as it is for the pledge of allegiance.
There can only be one explanation for the continuance of such vitriol: fear. Never have I seen such claims live so long after they had been thoroughly debunked. And fear is the reason. A young black liberal with a foreign name is far too radical a change for conservatives who have been living in the political comfort zone their entire lives. Whether they know it or not, they are expressing a deed-seeded bigotry by spreading this slander. For many of them, having the middle name of a deposed Iraqi dictator and a last name a mere letter away from “Osama” is reason enough not to vote for him. They don’t have the capacity to debate his policies, so they grasp at whatever they can. It is truly a sad realization of how low some terrified conservatives will go to maintain the status-quo.
To all the fear-mongers out there who are continuing to preach this absurdity, I truly am beyond shocked and appalled.
