OK, taking the deep plunge. :gulp:
I go by my adopted nickname from a former TV role, Mick Belker, so "Mick" is fine. I don't find much time for socializing. I live, and pretty much have lived, in relatively affluent areas (New York Metro) with a significant liberal/progressive population. So let's just say that my interactions with neighbors and local acquaintances have been pleasant, even cordial, but not close.
My wife is to the far-left which can make discussions at home a tad difficult. Suffice it to say that we don't talk much politics 'cause, when we do, it gets "sticky."
Still, we've sorta figured it out and, to date, have been able to suppress the urge to strangle one another. But, like I said, it's difficult. I love her so and there's much that I would like to discuss with her (she is VERY intelligent) but it's clear that my views on politics are just incompatible with hers and we will NEVER agree. :sigh:
I am an autodidact so my family's Democrat Party indoctrination was peeled away, layer by layer, over many years. My father was a brilliant man, the smartest man I've ever known.
Requiescat in pace. An inventor, engineer, teacher, businessman, and disillusioned former small-c communist, my father spent the first half of his life coming to his conservatism, I guess the same as me. Like so many of his generation, he was swept up in his youth by the promise of socialism… before he grew old and wise enough, and had witnessed sufficient death and destruction around the world to be convinced that Leftism was a mortal enemy hiding behind populist rhetoric.
He introduced me to National Review when I was 13 years old and my own journey began. But it took me until 1981 - and it shames me to this day – after I voted for President Carter to realize my mistake, one I’ve endeavored never to make again.
I would say that I am more a classic liberal, a libertarian by modern definition, than a conservative but with more than sufficient bona fides to be quite comfortable here at CC. I hope that’s enough to go on. I’d be glad to answer any pertinent questions.
That’s about it. I’ve begun to post here only in the last week or so and find the discussions to be informative, sometimes sardonic, often witty, even ROFL funny, and generally welcoming. I hope that I can contribute something of worth. Thank you all for having me.
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Best,
Mick
