Closeted Conservatism- The New McCarthyism?

                                           

I don’t know about all of you, but I am for the most part a closeted conservative when it comes to my professional and scholastic life. Some may say it’s cowardice, others might agree with me when I say it’s prudence. Even though a good portion of our country considers itself conservative (in fact nearly two-thirds does), there is still an unspoken word that if you are conservative and in a profession dominated by liberals, you are going to have one heck of a time pulling ahead in that atmosphere. Notice how when you get into an argument with a liberal, for the most part, it immediately turns ugly? Rather than debate on facts, they allow anger and passion to supersede logic and many times unleash what seems like unwarranted rage. This has happened to me before, and this is why I choose to keep my political activism separate from my everyday life.

When Senator Joseph McCarthy went on a communist witch-hunt in the mid- 20^th century, the media admonished the man, and along with him, his unfettered accusations that people were in fact part of the communist party (side note: most were despite revisionist attempts to say otheriwise). But I digress, today we are faced with a new type of McCarthyism, a public scourging of certain individuals (in certain environments) when it is made known that they are politically active conservatives. I have talked to many people who admit to staying quiet in the workplace out of fear of recourse from their liberal employer. Aren’t these liberals supposed to be tolerant? Aren’t they supposed to be the party of ‘liberty’? Well we all know the etymology of the modern word liberal, and how in fact it has nothing to do with liberty, rather a posture in which if you do not tow the utopian line, you will be marginalized, ridiculed, and hopefully coerced into submission.

I write this story as I head off to Washington DC for the CPAC convention (the juggernaut of conservative political networking), and I do so keeping it a secret from many people I know. It becomes exhausting worrying about who will find out just how politically active I am, but I willingly submit to it. I chose a profession dominated by liberals, not all of which may be inclined to blacklist those who do not conform to their dogmatic liberalism, but nonetheless there are people who would be taken aback at how I have chosen to dedicate a good portion of my life. At the end of the day I have to throw caution to the wind, as I am sure every politically persecuted person has had to do before me (and no I am not trying to say I am on the same lines as a dissident in Nazi Germany <eye roll> ,but I do feel the need to hide what I do). In throwing caution to the wind, I know one day someone may call me out on what I am doing, they may keep me from advancing in a certain stage in my career, but it will be worth it, this was all worth it. As Edmund Burke once said,  "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."