Dissent and My Right to It
My earliest political memories are of my old daddy’s raging against FDR. Daddy was a conservative in the days when that term didn’t carry quite such a big stick and was about actually conserving things. I grew up with that familial heritage and am to this day conservative in the ways that I have always defined it. That definition has been hijacked to a very large degree and I hardly recognize those who espouse conservatism today.
At some distance, as I live now in Europe, I am appalled at what I read and see of dissent as our president tours America with his ‘town hall’ style meetings on Social Security reform. Even The American Conservative magazine is upset and ran a very-worth-the-reading article nearly eighteen months ago titled Free-Speech Zone, The Administration Quarantines Dissent. In it they chase down a number of fascinating threads that produce a fabric of intimidation. We didn't used to be (since McCarthy) much interested in being intimidated by our government and I hop…