Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut.

I have been told from time to time that I have gone slightly to completely crazy. That well-meaning but insulting remark usually comes from my liberal friends when we are talking about Iraq or terrorism or free speech on campus or, or, or... I know that they worry about me, but they really shouldn't.

Because I don't feel so crazy. Not with all that we have seen change and move over the last few months. Yes, there were dark days in the Iraq war and there will likely be more darkness to come, but I feel vindicated when I hear from friends in Ukraine that I made as I blogged their revolution, or when I see thousands of Lebanese citizens bringing down a corrupt government. Freedom is on the march and I have watched it moving and I have been here at my computer writing about it for anyone to read.

And I don't feel crazy because I have the companionship of good people who email me and who comment on this blog and who invite me to comment on their sites. I have been engaged in more stimulating conversations in these few months than in many years.

I also don't feel crazy because I just read Cinnamon Stillwell's column The Making Of A 9/11 Republican and I said to myself, "Yes. I understand completely." Ms Stillwell's journey from the left is much like my own, although she is much farther along the road to using the c-word to describe her politics than I am.  Or maybe the neo-c-word. Whatever. She speaks for a lot of us who have turned from the left to get to the right place.

Having been indoctrinated in the postcolonialist, self-loathing school of multiculturalism, I thought America was the root of all evil in the world. Its democratic form of government and capitalist economic system was nothing more than a machine in which citizens were forced to be cogs. I put aside the nagging question of why so many people all over the world risk their lives to come to the United States. Freedom of speech, religious freedom, women's rights, gay rights (yes, even without same-sex marriage), social and economic mobility, relative racial harmony and democracy itself were all taken for granted in my narrow, insulated world view.

So, what happened to change all that? In a nutshell, 9/11. The terrorist attacks on this country were not only an act of war but also a crime against humanity. It seemed glaringly obvious to me at the time, and it still does today. But the reaction of my former comrades on the left bespoke a different perspective. The day after the attacks, I dragged myself into work, still in a state of shock, and the first thing I heard was one of my co-workers bellowing triumphantly, "Bush got his war!" There was little sympathy for the victims of this horrific attack, only an irrational hatred for their own country.

As I spent months grieving the losses, others around me wrapped themselves in the comfortable shell of cynicism and acted as if nothing had changed. I soon began to recognize in them an inability to view America or its people as victims, born of years of indoctrination in which we were always presented as the bad guys.

I won't quote any more of the article because it deserves to be read in its entirety. But I will ask you long-time conservatives a favor: when you come upon one of us ex-leftists, be gentle. We have been through a lot. We have had our dearest principles and prejudices shattered and we are rebuilding as fast as we can.

And to you liberals out there who don't get what we neo-somethings are all about. We're not nuts. We're just right.