In a conventional world, I should have become an ardent Liberal Democrat, but the world is anything but conventional. And while my experiences as a youth brought me Liberal tendencies, I was gradually steered in the other direction with good reason. In this book, I will explain how and why this metamorphosis occurred.
I was born in the Middle East and lived there for the first eighteen years of my life. I was deeply affected by President Kennedy's assassination, and he became an idol for me. Shortly after I moved to the United States to attend college, the Watergate scandal transpired, and the US involvement in an unpopular war in Vietnam did not lessen my Liberal beliefs. I attended a small liberal arts college in Ohio and eventually received my master's degree from the University of Dayton in Ohio. I then taught at a branch of Ohio State University in Lima, Ohio, for six years.
I then got my PhD from the University of Northern Colorado and began teaching at another small liberal arts college in North Dakota. Spending almost all of my life in academia should have strengthened my Liberal views since the overwhelming majority of educators have Liberal tendencies. But that is not how it all turned out. Associating with some very Liberal colleagues and getting deeper into the news reported by the media that over the years became more and more biased in favor of the political Left eventually caused me to do a 180-degree turn.
It is not proper to stereotype people, so I will only make my comments relating to the majority of people that I have met over the years with persuasions from either the Left or the Right of the political spectrum. Each time I arrived at a new location looking for new friends, I found the people with more Liberal tendencies more approachable and more hospitable. On the other hand, the majority of the Conservative people that I met were more reserved and harder to approach.
Once I entered some of the inner circles of these groups, however, it all changed, and the change was astonishing. I was very popular with Liberal groups as long as I agreed with them. As soon as I questioned any of their beliefs, they would turn on me and often viciously. The Conservative groups, on the other hand, while they would not abandon their beliefs when questioned, they were a lot more understanding and accepting.
