I do not like Winston Churchill. He had the gall to say "India is merely a geographical
expression. It is no more a single country than the Equator..". In my opinion, it shows an amazing level of ignorance on what constitutes a nation and how nations are built, broken, and rebuilt over years, decades, and centuries. Is his country, grandly called United Kingdom, a country or merely a geographical expression? Is it no more a single country than the Prime Meridian? In fact, very recently, the people of Scotland were asked the same question. Readers should understand that, this question came after more than two centuries of union, living together, and fighting two World Wars, on the same side!
That said, this is not a rant about Churchill. He was a great man and a even greater wit, even if the witticism ended up piercing the thin skin of this former Indian.
One of his alleged quotes is, "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain". I say alleged, since I could not find any reference to his having said it. But it is the type of remark you would expect him to make.
Well I was what you would call a socialist in my younger days. There was not a situation when I could find fault with workers and give any credit to a rich man. Indian movies accentuated this prejudice to a great extent. I have lost track of the number of movies with a handsome but poor youth, with a widowed mother, and maybe a unmarried sister, who falls in love with a rich girl with a disapproving father. Most Indians that grew up in the first 3 decades after independence tended to be socialist. It is not surprising that India with its colonial history, moved away from everything that United Kingdom, and its friend, United States, stood for.
With increasing affluence and a general awareness of how things work, I would now label my political opinions with this common phrase "Fiscally conservative, Socially Liberal". In United States that would put me near the center. Since social issues matter more to me, I tend to be left of Center and reflexively vote Democrats.
Overall, Churchill was correct. I have become more conservative in my opinions, maybe not so much that I would vote for Republicans in their current Avatar.
That said, I do yearn for the mythical Fiscally Conservative Republicans. I say mythical, since it was under a Republican Congress and Republican President that we ran some of the most awful budgets. In fact, I am sure the spending got so bad, dictionary.com changed the meaning of Profligacy to "refer to Bush Presidency Budgets"! But don't worry, however wrong they were, Cheney will defend those decisions. To quote Stephen Colbert from another context - The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will.
That said, this is not a rant about Churchill. He was a great man and a even greater wit, even if the witticism ended up piercing the thin skin of this former Indian.
One of his alleged quotes is, "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain". I say alleged, since I could not find any reference to his having said it. But it is the type of remark you would expect him to make.
Well I was what you would call a socialist in my younger days. There was not a situation when I could find fault with workers and give any credit to a rich man. Indian movies accentuated this prejudice to a great extent. I have lost track of the number of movies with a handsome but poor youth, with a widowed mother, and maybe a unmarried sister, who falls in love with a rich girl with a disapproving father. Most Indians that grew up in the first 3 decades after independence tended to be socialist. It is not surprising that India with its colonial history, moved away from everything that United Kingdom, and its friend, United States, stood for.
With increasing affluence and a general awareness of how things work, I would now label my political opinions with this common phrase "Fiscally conservative, Socially Liberal". In United States that would put me near the center. Since social issues matter more to me, I tend to be left of Center and reflexively vote Democrats.
Overall, Churchill was correct. I have become more conservative in my opinions, maybe not so much that I would vote for Republicans in their current Avatar.
That said, I do yearn for the mythical Fiscally Conservative Republicans. I say mythical, since it was under a Republican Congress and Republican President that we ran some of the most awful budgets. In fact, I am sure the spending got so bad, dictionary.com changed the meaning of Profligacy to "refer to Bush Presidency Budgets"! But don't worry, however wrong they were, Cheney will defend those decisions. To quote Stephen Colbert from another context - The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will.
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