If you're looking for a philosophy which will impress a lot of the "cool" people out there, conservatism is not it.

Allow me to demonstrate: At a college party, which makes a better pick-up line for a young man: "I'm a member of the Young Republicans!", or "Isn't Bush and idiot -- like my Che shirt? Wanna go to the peace rally?" In New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Hollywood, Berkeley, SF, or Seattle, people will ostracize you if you say you're a Republican. Are there any major cities which would ostracize a Democrat?

Being "conservative" is less cool than being a "libertarian". At least libertarians can say, hey, they don't do drugs or do weird kinky things in public, but they're not about to get in anyone else's way. Very enlightened.

How cool is being conservative? Try being one sometime. You'll quickly discover that many accuse you of being an idiot (or being in favor of one -- as if John Kerry was a fiscally conservative quantum physicist), of being greedy, of hating black people, gays, women, minorities, the poor, of being "intolerant", and of trying "force your religion on others." (As a friend of recently experienced, a surprising number of conservative political arguments end up with the conservative being called "fundamentalist Christian". Dennis Prager (who is Jewish) is often denigrated in this fashion.)

On the flip side, this means conservativism is probably the most altruistic political platform in the US today. With one or two major exceptions, almost all "conservative" arguments are expressions of concern about hidden or future victims. (Liberalism can be altruistic as well, but opinion-forming elites tend to think well of liberals, which means you at least get the benefit of looking good to your peers. Watching "Living with Ed" for examples.)

The two exception are, of course, those policies which are shared by libertarians: desire for lower taxes and fewer business regulations. One can see how anyone with a job or who owns a business would directly benefit from such policies. And of course, one is called "greedy" or "sold out" for such a stance.

(And yet, even in these cases, many conservatives don't argue for selfish reasons. When I argue for low taxes, in all honesty, I seldom do it because I think that extra $100 or whatever a month will make me a tremendously wealthy man. I'm more often thinking about creating new businesses to employ people, lowering the unemployment rate and raising wages. In any tough time, it's always the poorest people who are hit hardest -- wealthier or more skilled folks (me) tend to come out okay.)

In all other policy areas, the conservative is left arguing for some more subtle harm which happens outside the media spotlight. If there was ever a political philosophy which concerned itself with invisible victims, conservatism was it.

But the downside is that one has rather unappealing arguments, and can't otherwise say "How does this affect you?" It doesn't. (For a conservative, that's a lose/lose question. If one is affected, then one is selfish. If one is not affected, then one is being a busybody. This tactic is seldom applied to Democratic policies, though, and almost never by the media.)

Consider affirmative action. I oppose it because I believe it hurts minority "beneficiaries". (It hurts non-minorities too, but the harm is more dilute.) Sending people -- of any color -- to a tougher college than they'd qualify for is a recipe for failure. There are fewer qualified black lawyers, doctors, teachers, etc. today because of affirmative action.

How did it hurt me? I'm not black: it didn't hurt me. And I don't actually care what color my lawyer or dentist is (as long as they're competent) so I'm not even impacted in that way. And certainly nobody's going to do a 20/20 segment on black kids who flunk out of college because they're not qualified for that particular school. You'd be accused of portraying blacks as stupid -- despite the fact that anyone would have the same result, given the same "preferential" admission policies.

Consider abortion. How does Jasmine's abortion affect me? It doesn't. All I have are vague arguments about about losing future scientists and depopulation -- and a professed concern to want to treat "the fetus" like I'd want to be treated. You can do a compelling story on poor women with abusive partners. Fetuses haven't even learned to talk yet.

Consider socialized medicine. You can easily run a newspaper story about how Jose had to get into debt for his cancer treatment, or how Anna can't afford regular check-ups. But nobody covers a myriad of subtle decisions made in socialized systems which result in untold death upon death -- everything from inefficient bureaucratic policies which waste money, to the hospital or doctor who has to quietly ration life-saving or -enhancing treatments, to higher rates of errors because more qualified doctors moved to a different nation or ended up in more lucrative professions instead of becoming MDs, to amazing therapies which never come into existence because the profit motive has been eliminated.

Consider "gay marriage": No society's ever fundamentally redefined marriage before, so noone has any hard data on what the long-term outcomes will be. And any ill effect would be in future decades or generation, so only slippery-slope arguments (which some dismiss out of hand) remain.

Yet there was once a time when large-scale socialism had never been tried too, nor easy divorce. Counter-arguments to these were also based on slippery slopes. (Socialism can work quite well at first. And how am I hurt by Linda leaving a marriage where she doesn't feel quite satisfied?) Now we know that those "slopes" were real, and conservatives were right. But don't expect the New York Times or CNN to run any stories to that effect.

Consider the war in Iraq. It's easy to run stories about dead American soldiers. It's harder to cover the (unprovable) genocide or increased levels of death which might result if we left. (The media also blames dead civilians on the US, not the terrorists.)

War supporters like myself can only worriedly point to Vietnam, and Laos, and Cambodia. But the parallel isn't exact, lessons from history are always unpopular (unless it involves vague allusions to Bush being a Nazi), and, frankly, the left and mainstream media seem to have suddenly decided that a pile of a hundred dead Iraqis isn't worth one American life. Or dollar. (So much for the left being "citizens of the world.")

In one policy area after another, the conservative must tell a somewhat complicated story of economics or social dynamics, must point to history and guess it will be like that again, and must either defend against the charge of being a moral busybody or admit they're arguing for something which will also benefit them.

And the victims that concern us don't have names: People who were never born, alternate realities where employment was higher, would-be doctors who became lawyers instead, and kids who are confused and miserable sexually (when they might have been happier, or even avoided suicide) because society has sold them a false bill of goods.

I want to be clear: I'm not saying this to impress you. (Many of you have never even met me, and won't.) But many people don't understand what drives conservatives, and, being one, I felt it was important to write this down so that outsiders could at least hear it, for once.

Best to you all.