Why IS that???

Posted By Blackfive

One of the huge benefits of the "-lanches" from sites like Instapundit or Andrew Sullivan is the broader exposure to more readers for Blackfive. I get some really great email and most are hugely supportive, a lot send me information about other articles or blogs, some are negative, and a few are, for lack of a better word, stimulating in the thought provoking sense.

Today, I received an email from Dave in California. He is retired Highway Patrolman from California (31 years on the force!) who closed his email with this sentence:

Isn't it remarkable that those who have to face the bad guys are always Conservatives?

Yeah, that is remarkable. I have been trying to think of a hardcore liberal that I knew in military service or the hundreds of cops and firemen I know. With one exception, everyone is a conservative.

So, what do you think about that?

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Comments

[Jennifer Martinez]

Hmm, I hadn't thought about it before but that is truly amazing, now that you point it out. Someone ought to do a "study" and get to the bottom of this great mystery! Perhaps liberals ain't got no balls!

I have a friend named Batman (yes that's his real name) who ran recon with SOG in SEA and he's a liberal. He was a good recon man and no one from the teams can explain how/why he's a liberal. Then there's that ugly Kerry running for President, he's a combat veteran. But for the most part, yeah I think you're right, almost all Veterans are conservative.

Jennifer Martinez sends

[Captain Poopdeck]

Amen! I work on the other side of the stick from Dave so to speak. He catches the bad guys and I keep them off the street for awhile. There are 700 others like myself where I work and finding a liberal among them is very rare.

I have noticed over the years that some who come from the academy are liberal in their thinking apon arrival but if you run into them a year later there has been a complete change.

I also notice that our guests at the Gray Bar Hotel are all very liberal in their thinking.

[Russ]

Perhaps it's not so remarkable. "Conservatives" conserve... or preserve, defend, protect. We are fortunate, in the U.S., to have institutions worth preserving and conserving.

Remember, back in the bad old days of the USSR, the guardians of the regime were referred to as "conservative" -- despite the fact that what they were conserving wasn't worth a bucket of warm spit.

That's a problem inherent with "relativistic labelling," but I have no better terminology in mind at the moment.

[Jack]

Depends on who you're calling "liberal", because the definition that is being used in politics now is not the actual definition of the word (see below for the actual definition). What we're calling "conservative" in politics now is also not the actual definition of the word. I've been working on an extended post (which I hope to have up tomorrow night) on these words and why we need people of all stripes to get things done.

The people being called "liberal" now (whom I assume are the people you are referring to) are actually radical leftists in liberal clothing who are giving the word "liberal" a VERY bad name. By the dictionary definition of "liberal", the vast majority of the US population is liberal.

I'll stop now and save the rest for my post.

definition from Dictionary.com: liberal - a)Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
b)Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded

[valentin]

Samuel Huntington, a researcher at Harvard in the 1950s, noted that liberal and progressive societies (as I sincerely hope the US is) are notoriously poor at national security and foreign affairs. He theorized that they rely upon conservative institutions (such as the military) for stability in the world arena and for the freedom and safety to test their new ideas. The military must hold a conservative nature about its own business to ensure that the organization is grounded in solid doctrine, not reactionary to every new theory. Its people are held to a conservative standard to ensure their readiness to undertake that business and that lifestyle.

What I've found interesting is a friend's theory that the only institution remotely resembling communism in the US is in the military, particularly in the rank and compensation structure. Huh. So overtasked & short-staffed that merit-based promotions hardly happen in officer grades for a dozen years.

[doc Russia]

Call me mean, but I think that liberals are not well grounded in reality, and that the jobs you mentioned have often fatal consequences if you are operating under assumptions that are false. The consequences of a college professor teaching marxism (which is false) suffers are about zero, while a Marine thinking that little planning in a live-fire drill is necessary(also false) is likely to incur a mortal consequence. Same with cops and firefighters; cops who operate under the theory that all people are inherintly good (even criminals) probably do not last very long. Firefighters who assume they are well trained enough to go into a blaze alone usually do not get the chance to repeat that false assumption. Reality doesn't smack you in the face when your butt is on the line; it rips your spine out through your intestines.

[Sophie]

I don't actually "face" the bad guys in the sense a officer on the street must -- I'm a prosecutor -- but I see first hand what they do. I see the truly unspeakable evil people inflict on other EVERY DAY. I see the families ripped apart, the children forever scarred, and the damage wrought by unthinking, selfish, bad guys (and gals).

After witnessing this intensely personal suffering, I proudly ascribe to a conservative philosophy, with an objective code of morality; an absolute right and wrong.

Staring literally into the face of evil every day in my small corner of the world is real. And the reality of evil personified makes me hold even more dear the ideals of consevativism: a society, based upon our Constitution, within which each human being is afforded sacred respect. In my view, conservatives believe human life is sacred, and each person's life as inviolable.

[CD]

My sociology professor is fairly liberal, and he used to be in the Air Force (I don't know if he ever actually fought anyone, though). That's about all I can come up with.

[Blackfive]

Sophie - if I would have given it more thought, I would have included your duties as well. I have a good friend here in Chicago who has the same job as you and sometimes has to have police protection for his family.

Everyone - great comments here!

[JG]

I've also noticed that when a minority moves into the neighborhood, it is the liberals who come up with political incorrect statements like "There goes the neighborhood!" The conservatives tend to think that the new arrival picked the neighborhood because the housing was affordable and the quality of the local schools, the same reason they chose the neighborhood.

[thomas berryman]

Dennis Taylor, the city manager of Eugene Oregon is very liberal, and a decorated verteran of USARV.