[AHerald]

Called a lefty secularist quasi-atheist vegan friend/customer of mine this morning for my business. We've known each other a long time and the conversations are often political. The first words out her mouth, "So you want to slash your wrists today?" To which I responded that my concern was for the unborn. She sighed loudly. I could almost hear her eyes rolling.

"He's the most radical pro-abortion candidate in history. It's true. It's what he believes," I said.

"It's also what I believe," she said, as though the mere weight of her opinion would shame me for having criticized Obama.

"Well, I pray that you are enlightened by the Truth." I said

"No, I pray that it is you who are enlightened," she said.

The conversation came to an abrupt end because a coworker of hers was arriving and it was obvious to both of us that this was about to spiral into an inappropriate exchange during a business call. It was tense but all business from then on.

[oblomov]

Although conservatives commonly associate veganism with leftist politics, my wife is a staunch conservative vegetarian. She extends her pro-life beliefs to include animals, which she believes to be self-conscious, if not sentient. At the very least, she is opposed to inhumane treatment of animals, so the meat I eat is grassfed beef, free range chicken, or wild caught fish. Fine with me- I like the flavor.

When I first met my wife, she was a bit confused politically: a grab-bag of conservative ideas gleaned from her parents and fashionable left postures picked up in college. Over time, she has become solidly conservative, more traditionalist in some ways than me.

It's been great to see her political awareness blossom, and I can't help but think that there are many latent conservatives out there who adopt a left-wing identity because they take what they consider to be the moral high-road of veganism/vegetarianism.

Many vegans I speak with are deeply culturally conservative. I talked with a young anarchist woman passing out pamphlets on the street a few months ago and noted how similar her perspective was to Christopher Lasch. She said she loved Lasch, even though he wasn't "politically correct". Hmm, I thought, and recommended that she read E.F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful and The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton. She was a bit perplexed and intrigued. I saw her later in a coffeeshop and she told me that she loved the books, and wanted more recommendations (ah, the drug after the gateway drug is what addicts you).

I am socially fearless and I never give up hope in bringing others to conservatism. But they must be surprised, their defenses breached with unusual and unanticipated tactics. Obama never tells his audiences, "I'm about to do a hypnotic induction on you"; he just does it.