Some thoughts triggered by the following Luskin quote:

Musil makes the point that O'Reilly is not a canonical conservative like, say, Sean Hannity -- so he doesn't represent a clear antipodal position to Krugman. Musil's right, but that's why I think O'Reilly was able to be so effective. He didn't get trapped in canonical debates bounded by ideological norms. He was able to step outside the debate and start a meta-debate on his own terms, calling into question Krugman's methods more than his actual positions.

I also saw something like this recently in a comment somewhere -- a guy saying he didn't necessarily disagree with the Democrats' stances on things, but he was really disappointed with the "current crop" of Democrats and their methods.

That's how it starts, really.

Once, I viewed myself as standing astride the political spectrum. I figured, probably in vanity, that I could be cool and aloof by positioning myself as neither a conservative nor liberal. I figured "the truth" on various large issues, if it was discernible to humans, probably fell into both camps... liberals being right here, conservatives having a good point there.

That's nice in theory, but the devil lurks amongst those details.

Over time, I had, of course, to make some decisions about how I felt on various issues. Was I for unions or against them? Was it better to cut or raise taxes? Was it better to ban guns or tuck them into one's jacket? Was affirmative action a good idea or a bad one? What about abortion and the death penalty and the inherantance tax and farm subsidies and ... ?

You get the idea.

So I'd listen to the arguments from both sides. Sometimes, I felt, conservatives would make a convincing-sounding point. I'd bring it back to the left. Who would dodge the issue, engage in ad homen attack, cry (I'm not kidding), or otherwise, apparently, do their best to avoid the topic.

I was often left unconvinced about who was really right on the issue -- not having felt like I'd ever gotten a decent explanation of the leftist justification, and wanting to give the benefit of the doubt. I figured there was still a good justification out there for the liberal point of view -- how else to explain all the others who felt the same? -- but maybe it was just this one guy or woman I spoke to who was acting badly.

But then it would happen again. And again. And again.

So I still bought a lot of the beliefs -- global warming was happening, it was bad to let people carry guns, the death penalty didn't deter crime, unions made this country great, FDR helped us out of the depression, etc. -- but was not impressed with the tactics displayed by the leftist apologists I'd meet.

Eventually, over time, I'd put aside some time and dig -- really dig -- into the various questions. Sometimes I learned by accident, like when I bought P.J. O'Rourke's "Eat the Rich" because it had a great title (I picked it up because I thought it was a leftist apology and hoped it might provide a better justification of their views!), seemed funny, and described a lot of travels to strange places.

Instead, I accidentally learned the basic rules of economics that I'd failed to learn from my college econ courses. And started understanding why tax cuts work in many cases. And why poverty in the third world isn't caused by rich westerners buying another SUV. Boy was that a shock!

Each time I'd do the research, I'd find myself finally -- to my shock and suprise -- ending up holding a more conservative position than when I'd started. "As best as I can tell, the right wingers seem correct on this point, too. Hmmm..."

I didn't like being identified as a conservative. That's uncool. But over time, I realized that labels serve a purpose -- they let people know in advance where you stand on most your issues, even though you have some exceptions (as I do) -- and that it was simpler if I just told people I was a conservative.

O'Reilly isn't really a conservative. He's got some conservative views, but he's pretty all-over-the-place really. But he's at that stage where he's noticing the tactics of his opponents are frequently deplorable and dishonest.

Though he's gone from NOT self-identifying as a conservative, just a few years ago, to calling himself one now, O'Reilly probably won't become an actual conservative, really, for many years -- if at all.

It took over a decade for me to move from one to the other. But it's a start, and is useful for keeping down the worst liberal abuses. And an honest person is always an ally of mine -- at least to a degree -- even if we don't always agree on every point.

The myth here is that it's really the conservative verses the liberals. That's not true. It's really dishonest liberals (apparently not the minority) versus everyone who's going to get in their way -- conservatives, moderate liberals (see what happened to poor Lieberman), or the unaligned. A person who's all over the place politically, but respects the truth when it's obvious, is an ally of mine (at least to a good degree) even if we don't come down the same on each issue.

For me, it's more about the methods, not the conclusions. The conclusions will come later once you get your methods straight.

God bless y'all.

- Tim