My government teacher at Maine East High school in Park Ridge, Illinois, was a guy named Paul Carlson. He was a big guy, mutton chop sideburns, loud voice, beloved on campus. He was genial, respectful, funny, and very sure of himself.
He also was very conservative. A member of the John Birch Society, he taught us as a matter of fact that Joe McCarthy had been killed by communists to silence him because he knew too much.
We loved him because he engaged in endless debates with us. Even as kids, we knew his ideas about AIDS and Apartheid were grossly out of touch; but he stood his ground and argued the facts as he saw them and let us answer with our truths.
Several years earlier, another student must have had a similar experience: Hillary Clinton also went to Maine East and had Paul Carlson as a teacher. He’s even mentioned in a book that came out against her in the 90s. “My God,” Mr. Carlson is quoted while watching the 1992 Democratic Convention. “Hillary’s become a radical.”
Mr. Carlson would not recognize today’s conservatism. Old conservatives didn’t win debates by whining that the questions they got were harder than the ones their opponent got, or that they were interrupted more often. Today’s conservative watches the clock to see how many seconds his opponent is going overtime.
Mr. Carlson had no love for the “liberal-biased media,” but he didn’t whine endlessly about the number of stories they published or cry “It’s three against one” when he was in a class full of students who disagreed with him. And I would love to know what he would have thought about the notion that a Republican presidential nominee uses Russia as a model for great leadership.
Once our current national hostage situation is over, I propose a new political campaign: Make Conservatives Great Again. I’m selling hats.
I’m Dan Libman, and that’s my perspective.
