Wednesday, September 10, 2008

My Conservative Friends, Colleagues and Family

So I did a quick survey of the conservatives that I personally know and I can pretty much pigeon-hole each one into any of the following categories:
1) Pro Business - A free-market advocate who wants to privatize everything the government does including fire departments, schools, police, etc. The same people who will want to privatize profits but socialize losses. (e.g. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other failed financial institutions.)
2) Religious Fundamentalists - Jesus-everything. Those who want the bible to be the basis of all education, science, law, media, internet, elections, governments, etc. Fundamentalist, Muslim or Christian have no business running a free society. Single-issue (abortion) voters fall in this category. These are the people who want creationism in biology textbooks.
3) FOTBs - Fresh Off The Boeings. The new (and sometimes, not-so-new) immigrant wanna-be who are so blinded by speeches of patriotism, the American dream and everything American. People who easily want to identify with Caucasians and thinks America can do no wrong. A lot of Asians I know who view themselves as honorary whites vote very conservative. People who will unknowingly forward emails that Obama is a Muslim are usually FOTBs.
4) The Uneducated. A lot of working class types who are threatened by everything progressives stand for. Mostly just a high school education, wants to preserve the American way of life, whatever the hell that means. Those who want a president who speaks in simple terms. Very emotional voters; thinks all immigrants should go back to where they came from.
Mind you, these are my closest friends, colleagues and immediate family who fall in one of these four groups. I think that demographically, they make up the bulk of the conservative base in this country as a whole. Thankfully, they are a minority in California.

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