M.D. Harmon on Publishing His 1000th Column
Conservatives are fish that swim in a liberal sea (at least in the Northeast) and cannot avoid encountering opposing views. Read More
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Thu, 07/19/2012 - 9:28am
Posted by M.D. Harmon
Interesting. When I read this, I went back and did the math, and discovered I had also published my thousandth column earlier this year. I started irregularly in 1990, and went to weekly status a couple of years later (all for the PPH). Adding the Maine Wire last December pushed me over the top in January or February. But this was not my path. I became consciously a conservative in the 10th grade, after reading "Conscience of a Conservative," the campaign book Brent Bozell ghost-wrote for Barry Goldwater, and maintained the worldview all the way through Bowdoin, which was as liberal then as it is today. Then I was "the conservative" in the political science department at Pitt, getting the master's that put me on the road to journalism. I did not study or work in a non-liberal environment (outside of the Army, of course) until I went to seminary in a traditional church, from which I graduated in 2006 with another master's. So I kept sharp by being sharpened, both by circumstances as well as my reading in a wide variety of disciplines. It is interesting that we ended up in the same place, though...
One of the differences between conservatives in the media and academia and liberals there (and to some extent, in the larger society) is that liberals tend not to read conservative books or journals, or watch Fox, or have many friends who disagree with them. Conservatives are fish that swim in a liberal sea (at least in the Northeast) and cannot avoid encountering opposing views. Maybe that's why liberals resort to namecalling and abuse rather than real argument so much, as they are not acquainted with disagreement enough to be able to counter it intellectually instead of emotionally. (And yes, I know there are abusive conservatives. But there's a difference between calling someone a bigot who is not a bigot, and calling someone a socialist who actually is a socialist....)