Conservatives in LA: Not Welcome

A Conservative In Los Angeles
Nancy Morgan
RightBias.com





Conservatives are not allowed in Los Angeles. At least not in what is termed 'polite society." I found this out the hard way.

I spent 33 years calling Los Angeles home. Most of those years were spent blindly accepting the assumptions portrayed by the spare headline or sound bite on the nightly news: Christians are bad, government is good, and America is the cause of all the world's woes.

Advocating the spending of tax dollars for any and all social problems was the mark of a good and moral person. Professing concern for those less well off was mandatory for financially successful people and it was de rigueur to have a least one 'best friend' of color. Wearing an AIDS awareness ribbon, at that time, signaled your inclusion in the community of man.

In return for inclusion in this community, members had a free pass to substitute intentions for actions. One was free to indulge in hedonistic behavior under the guise of empowerment. Discovering one's 'inner self' validated what used to be termed sexual promiscuity. Labels were confining so members had license to create their own. Who wouldn't prefer being labeled a free spirit instead of a selfish tramp? And in LA, labels, not substance, determined the social pecking order.

Any opinion at variance with the herd was considered judgmental, which was a definite no-no. Debate was redefined as argument, which was also a no-no. These rules were made clear to me only in the breach.

At age 39, six words spoken on TV changed my life forever. In 1992, I chanced to see H. Ross Perot on TV one night. He was holding up a toilet seat as he said, "The military paid $700.00 for this." OK. Then he said the words that would change my life forever. "And this is all public knowledge."

Public knowledge?

Not where I lived. For some reason, this motivated me, for the first time in my life, to investigate and question all the 'public knowledge' I had absorbed over the years. The results shocked and angered me. The good news, however, was that my days as a 'useful idiot' came to a screeching halt.

Somehow, I found National Review, then Human Events, then the Washington Times. Their message was new to me. I was amazed that I had managed to live my whole without any glimmer that there was another, more valid, point of view out there. The conservative point of view.

I assumed that my friends, family and co-workers would be just as outraged as I to find they had only been exposed to one side of most issues. That was my first mistake. My second mistake was believing that facts counted.

I lost business and friends before I realized I had to keep my mouth shut and my opinions to myself. I remember having dinner one night with Eric and Brenda in their beautiful Bel Air mansion. This couple had the best our country has to offer. I'll never forget Brenda exclaiming over her shrimp cocktail, "America? 150 years of slavery!" By challenging her, and others like her, I slowly lost my membership in the LA community of man.

After a few years, the only place I could be myself in public was while attending conservative functions held by the few conservative organizations that were based in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, my (one and only) husband of three years left me, due in large part to my inability to stifle my opinions. (He owed his living to the very liberal trial lawyers and his friends made clear to him my views were not welcome) I also found it increasingly hard to attend family functions, as the barely concealed tolerant patronizing of my out-of-bounds views started to grate.

The final straw was an ordinary news article. Our government schools, under the guise of 'safe sex' and 'tolerance' hosted a "Leather Fest" in San Francisco. Attended by seventh graders, some of the exhibits actually taught these kids how to fist. I won't go into details, except to explain that it is a homosexual practice...having nothing to do with tolerance or safe sex. And my tax dollars were paying for it.

Enough. After 33 years, I decided to leave Los Angeles. In 2002, I sold my business, my home, everything. I set off to find a place in the world where I could be myself without ticking everyone off. I found it in a small fishing village, Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. It was the best decision I ever made. The few times I've looked back, I feel only regret that I spent so many years of my life allowing others to define me.

by Nancy Morgan

Right Bias.com
Nancy Morgan is a columnist and news editor for RightBias.com
She lives in South Carolina.

Article may be reprinted, with attribution.

Obama: One Trip Does Not a Leader Make

All Obama, All the Time
by Nancy Morgan
Right Bias



We interrupt this program for a breaking news alert:

"Obama Has Landed Safely Back In The US."

America breathes a collective sigh of relief. Conservatives rejoice also, anticipating a long awaited break from 'All Obama, All The Time.' Alas, it is not to be.

Obama continues to dominate the old media, with 24/7 coverage of his every utterance. Talking heads ruminate endlessly and in depth, on the 'historic' tour just completed by their new president in waiting. With the appropriate oohs and aahs, our old media elites expound on Obama's gravitas, his presidential appearance, his new foreign experience which, coincidentally, Obama states, has confirmed all his preconceptions about Iraq and Afghanistan. How utterly prescient!

Obama, like many on the left, inhabits a world occupied solely with like-minded individuals. Having spent his whole life in the company of socialist and Marxists activists, liberal academics and fellow elites, Obama has made the all too common mistake of believing that his world view is the only one. The correct one. Hence, his surprise was undoubtedly as great as CNN's Christiane Amampour's, when she abjectly reported that she was "surprised by the lack of euphoria" following his 'historic' speech.

Missing from Obama's body of knowledge and experience is any semblance of appreciation for the fully half of Americans who have never inhabited his world. Those pesky conservatives. The right-wing nuts who cling to their guns and Bibles out of a sense of desperation. The idiots who believe global warming is not man-made and the outdated traditionalists who favor free market solutions over government solutions.

You know the type, the ones that are offended that Obama removed the American flag from his campaign plane before jetting off to kow-tow to Europe and condescend to Iraq. The ones that resent the man from nowhere who has the audacity, if not the credentials, to lecture the world on proper behaviour. The ones that dare to question the lies, oops, I mean spin, that issues forth from camp Obama daily.

The latest kerfluffle involves questions about why Obama chose to work out at the Ritz instead of visiting with the troops. Conservatives have the audacity to suggest it was because the military wouldn't allow Obama to bring photographers with him to record his close ties with America's soldiers. You know, the American warriors that are responsible for the very freedoms Obama broadly assigns to the world. No photo op, no visit from on high.



There are even those on the right that dare question the Obama camp's estimate of the reported 200,000 that gathered to hear his Berlin speech. The attendance figures reported by German public television ZDF were 20,000, not the 200,000 figure the Obama camp gave to a complaisant media. Some Americans were even rude enough to question why no American flag was present during Obama's 'historic' Berlin speech.

Adding insult to injury, right-wing bad boy, John Bolton, had the temerity to suggest, "The successes Obama refers to in his speech - the defeat of Nazism, the Berlin airlift and the collapse of communism - were all gained by strong alliances defeating determined opponents of freedom, not by 'one-worlders'."

To top it off, right-wing bloggers actually fact-checked his speech. In a direct assault on Obama's self-anointed right to fashion reality according to his own whim, a London paper found several 'misstatements' (that's liberalspeak for lies) in his historic speech. The audacity!

Ignoring any views that don't conform to his own grandiose view of himself, this 'lightly accomplished one-term senator, a former state legislator from Illinois, a Harvard graduate who has no substantive records of accomplishments' has instructed his aides to start planning his presidential transition.

Nothing in Obama's life has prepared him for the defeat he is bound to suffer come November. All because his pollsters, his advisors and his wife neglected to remind him that all the adulation in the world means squat unless followed up with a vote and, unfortunately, the adoring throngs in Europe can't vote, yet.

Obama has managed to alienate increasing numbers of oh so ordinary Americans who do vote. Like the average American who is more impressed with actions than words. Like the little people who work hard, play by the rules, love God and country and know instinctively that expertise with teleprompters does not a leader make.

The average Joe wants a president who is a citizen of America, not a citizen of the world. They most certainly don't want a president who apologizes for his own country in foreign lands. Even the unsophisticated guy in flyover country knows better than Obama that relying on the old media for accurate information on how Americans think and feel is a fool's game.

Obama will be genuinely surprised when McCain is elected president in November - a presidency that Obama has already claimed as his own. He will undoubtedly question how McCain could have won when Obama doesn't even know a single person who voted for him.

All those meanies on the right have to do is continue to give the Big O more rope.

by Nancy Morgan

Nancy Morgan is a columnist and a news editor for RightBias.com
She lives in South Carolina, where she writes "Culture Watch" weekly.

Article may be reprinted with attribution. Bio available on request.