I got pulled into the gravitational field of the blogosphere right after Sarah Palin’s luminous speech at the Republican National Convention in 2008. I am a lesbian and life-long Democrat, but Barack Obama’s last chance to get my support lay in his choice of vice president. When he didn’t choose Hillary Clinton, I considered myself a free woman. When John McCain chose Sarah Palin, I had someone to vote FOR rather than just voting against Obama/Biden.
In the first two weeks of September, when the McCain/Palin ticket was ahead, I spent hours Googling and cackling over stories on the missteps and confusion of the Obama campaign. In the process, I came across Michelle Malkin and Jonah Goldberg (here, here and here, and who, I recently learned, ALSO loves Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Words cannot capture my joy!).
I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of Liberal Fascism, which is the title of Goldberg’s current book. And I could relate to the trashings Malkin endures from feminists and the victim-entitlement crowd. See here, here and here. More on that, anon.
Almost all of my friends are Democrats who had imbibed deeply of the Kool-Aid, so I figured I had to do plenty of research to be able to explain my vote if I wanted to keep my friends. OK, I found out later about the immunity-to-facts-and-reason conferred by the Kool-Aid. Silly me. And lost a friend. Damn.
I really just could not abide the adoration of the Obamessiah in Left Blogistan and the mainstream media, so I began to explore conservative Web sites from the Blogroll and links on Michelle Malkin’s site. Plus I read National Review Online, American Thinker, Weekly Standard, International Business Daily. God help me, I even began to look for columns by Karl Rove, the Great Satan of the right, and Ann Coulter, the other Great Satan (but devilishly funny, when she is goring the oxes you want gored, here, here, here and here).
I really began to relate to what it must feel like to turn into a werewolf.
I was turning into a fiscal conservative.
The horror!
I think the turning point came after reading an article on Obama’s tax policy in American Thinker that pointed out that Obama was not going to renew the Bush tax cuts, but refused to say he would be increasing taxes even though the practical effect would be that taxes would go up.
Anyway, I did the math for how much an entrepreneur like me would have to pay just in federal income taxes and FICA (wage slaves: your employer pays half of that for you; entrepreneurs pay all of it). Then I considered how much of your income a mortgage broker figures you can use for housing (preferably 25 to 33 percent, although some programs go higher).
So, once you pay your taxes and your mortgage or rent, there’s not all that much left to live on. Worse than that, there’s not all that much to donate to the causes you want to support. So, at last it penetrated my awareness, this is what conservatives are talking about when they say that you should be spending your money instead of giving it to the government so politicians can decide what to do with it.
(Pause for choirs of angels and a beam of golden light pouring down from heaven.)
The way that translated to me is that if taxes are too high, Maharishi University of Management could fail due to falling donations. Feral cats would not get neutered or spayed. Nooooooooo!!!!!!!!
That’s the short version of how I became a conservative.
This blog is going to be about my journey into this strange new land and my experiences of getting acquainted with the natives and their ways. Plus other stuff. Information theory. The origin of life. Evolution. Why Intelligent Design is re-branded creationism and both are based only in faith and not in science. My father is Hubert P. Yockey, a leading authority on those subjects, and I edit his work, so I do have some important things to say on those subjects.
What else? Enlightenment, how to achieve. World peace, ditto. Yogic flying. Gay marriage. Gays in the military. End-of-life care decisions. The bassoon. Community band. And cats. Guest blogging from Manhattan by my straight Cuban Diva BFF, who is a lover of anonymity, something I cannot comprehend, and who has not yet settled on her nom de blog.
So, really, nothing heavy.
Y’all come back now, ya hear!
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