This Writer’s Search for a Personal Moniker

Anyone who isn’t left-of-center knows that it can be hard to describe one’s political views to new acquaintances without risking the impression that you are some sort of right wing religious nut who stores arms caches in your bomb shelter. To the wrong listener, the word “conservative” can conjure up images of anything from a gun-toting Charlton Heston disciple to a Alex P. Keaton clone. Unless the person you are talking to is on the same political wavelength (a rarity in liberal West Los Angeles where Independent Sources is based), then a lot of words end up being being required to get the point across. (Good luck ever fitting it into a personals ad!)

Much of this of course is due to thorough job that that mainstream media has done giving decidedly negative connotations to terms that one might otherwise use to describe anything to the right. MSM has positioned the word “conservative” to equate with greedy, warlike, and bible-pounding. “Free market” now means Enron, pollution, and starvation in Africa. The worst word of all is now “capitalist,” a label the media applies to owners of foreign sweatshops. 

Which is why I’m now leaning toward the moniker South Park Conservative, a label associated with a kind of irreverent right-of-center, post-liberal attitude that likes to be in tune with popular culture (including blogging). Among other things, SPC’s simply abhor a culture of political correctness and conformity. Amen.

For the record, I simply must be against anything that can get you kicked out of college for using the now non-acceptable term “girlfriend” because it is too “heteronormative” or that causes changes to the Battle of Trafalgar 200 years after the fact to avoid embarrassing modern day French people. (While we are on the subject, we invite you to read all of our “Politically Correct… and Stupid” articles.)

Some believe, and I agree, that in addition to being part of the PC backlash, South Park Conservatism is a reaction against “punitive liberalism,” the post-1972 Left’s belief that America is always on the wrong side of the key events in history, and therefore deserves to be punished.

I understand that South Park Conservatism is not for everyone (Independent Sources’ favorite Michelle Malkin doesn’t consider herself one) and that a party slogan that says “America F-Yeah!” might be a bit too sophomoric. But a political attitude that is fun and not dour and that promotes having government do what it was meant to do, and no more, should not be seen as any less noble than than an attitude that advocates the opposite.

I invite your comments.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 14th, 2005 at 10:51 am by Insider and is filed under Politically Correct ... and stupid, Shameless Self-Promotion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.