Posted by
voice_of_reason on Monday, July 02, 2007 8:20:18 PM
Confession: I am politically conservative and I drive a Hybrid. Since I don't necessarily want to 'plug' a particularly brand of Hybrid automobiles, I will not reveal its identity - except to say that its name rhymes with Boy Yoda Tree Us.
Imagine my surprise when I am treated to smiles from the tie-dyed, pony-tailed and liberally tattooed crowd!
Sometimes it is cute college coeds, with flowers in their hair, who gaze at me approvingly while swaying seductively to the music from their iPods (OK, this is probably just the wishful thinking of a middle-aged male). More often, I get the hail-fellow-well-met nods from aging hippies with bumper stickers that proclaim No blood for Oil and exhibit an inexplicable antipathy for the letter "W" on their Volkswagens. Given my age bracket and dress code, I get the strongest approvals from unwashed, pot-smoking, and sometimes pot-bellied tree-huggers who seem to thrive in the blue-enclave-within-a-red-state that I call home.
Why can't these cats dig it? I am a conservative, and I drive a Tree Us because .. I am .. a technophile! I happen to think that Boy Yoda did a fine job with this new fangled technology.
So, how do conservatives react? Not very well either, I'm sorry to say. Since I don't have any conservative bumper stickers on my Tree Us (or any of my other cars), they jump to the conclusion that I must be an ACLU charter member. One patriot struck up a nonchalant conversation with me the other day in a parking lot, casually soliciting my opinions on various topics including nuking Iran (or Iraq, he wasn't feeling very picky that day) into the Stone Ages. Presumably, he hoped that he could metaphorically "tear me a new one", once I copped to my blue-ness. He seemed either puzzled or disappointed when he found that my views were slightly to the Right of his! With his preconceptions in tatters, he slunk off into the fading sunset.
Can't I just enjoy the Sounds of Silence when my Tree Us automatically shuts off the gas in stop-and-go traffic while on my way to drop my kids off at school? Hey, don't hate me because I don't fit the mold as a conventional Tree Us driver. I'm driving my kids to the private school in which they are enrolled. I vote with my good, conservative feet (and dollars) away from Public Education, something that should be anathema to all conservatives in our mostly Capitalist country.
Then there are those who proclaim loudly that they would like to take their aptly named Expedurban SUVs and grind a Tree Us into the Japanese beer cans from whence it came! Personally, I think that people have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of gas-guzzlers. But does that right make the drivers of gas-guzzlers any more patriotic or conservative than a techno-geek like me who likes his Tree Us?
When did conservatism become synonymous with anti-environmentalism? For the record, I don't believe in the so-called solutions that Leftist environmentalists propose. Nor do I have to believe that Anthropogenic Global Warming is drowning polar bears to drive a Hybrid when gas is $3/gallon!
A few years of this and I may start to develop some empathy for those poor, mis-understood Limousine Liberals, some of whom also enroll their kids at Private Schools while extolling the virtues of Public Education for everyone else! Nah, that will never happen, I have nothing in common with those hypocrites ..