"I know enough about Marxism, for example, to state without overmuch reservation that capitalism, for all its contradictions, is superior to feudalism and serfdom, which is what bin Laden and the Taliban stand for." - Christopher Hitchens

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07/07/2006
Turning to the right
Guest Column/MICHAEL POWELL

My entire life I've been a liberal.

I grew up being told that Republicans were evil, heartless capitalists and for most of that time I believed it.

I even worked for the Democratic National Committee as a fund-raiser during the 2004 campaign.

But my experiences over the last two years have changed my views.

As I entered college, I was bombarded every day with far-left propaganda. Everywhere I looked, there was some poster by a socialist, communist or anti-war group. Their beliefs were far out of the mainstream, and for the most part, people I met at school bought into it all - hook, line and sinker.

I took several classes where the teachers were, from my perspective, blatantly anti-American and regularly degraded our culture, our society and those who serve our country. Students nodded their heads to what I believed were lies and untruths about America. I began to doubt my own liberal beliefs and whether I also had been misled.

It took a while for me to leave liberalism.

Growing up in Seattle, a certain view of the world has been ingrained in my mind. As I grew up, I was told that companies that pollute are simply greedy (I was never told that pollution is a byproduct of modern necessities), that government should and can solve our problems and that terrorists hate the United States because of what we've done. I believed these things until reality finally sunk in.

A moment of awakening, when I finally "got it," came earlier this year with two big events: the Dubai ports debacle and the controversy over Danish depictions of the prophet Mohammed.

The sale of several American ports to Dubai Ports (DP) World didn't cause a major controversy in any other country affected by the sale, and in the United States, it was the "tolerant" Democratic Party that lampooned President Bush for approving this sale.

I recall one liberal blogger that said that Bush was "selling out to al Qaeda." This was the height of ignorance and protectionism, as the only connection that DP World had to terrorism was being based in an Arab country.

Counter to that, I saw many people at my school who criticized the president for the ports sale suddenly defended Muslim protests of the cartoons depicting Mohammed. While the Danish cartoons were purposefully inciteful, bombing embassies, rioting and attacking Western establishments eclipsed any offense the cartoonists made. The logic of defending this behavior escaped me, and I found it hard to call myself a Democrat any longer.

As I started to study economics, it finally set in. I was now a conservative.

After years of being told about evil corporations and slave labor, I learned that it was, in fact, cheap labor that has helped uplift economies like Japan and South Korea while communist nations have starved.

I learned that Bush's "tax cuts for the rich" were just the same as the ones John F. Kennedy had created to stimulate the economy during his presidency, with similar positive results to Bush's cuts.

Many people start off as liberal and turn to the right as they get older in their years. I've done the same, but 30 years earlier.

Madison Valley resident Michael Powell is a college intern with the Madison Park Times. He interned with the newspaper before, during summer 2004 as a high-school student. He can be reached at mptimes@nwlink.com.

Turning to the Right

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