Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

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Studies Confirm What You’ve Always Suspected

Studies show that liberals are messier than conservatives, and my office is much messier than that of some complacently liberal NEWSWEEK summarizer of studies. Because I’m so emotionally self-confident, I have no need for order or structure in my environment and barely any in my life. You won’t find any cleaning supplies or calendars in my bedroom. If I have any residual conservative inclinations, they may flow from my strange intolerance for tatoos and foreign travel.

Discussions - 6 Comments

Well, that's because liberals always expect people to pick up after them. Just look at how they treat the cleaning staff. Or how liberal intellectuals treat admin staff for that matter.

Well, on the basis of my bedroom, I must be Noam Chomsky...

I am guilty of white walls in my house; except for our daughter's bedroom, which is purple (God help us) but covered with posters and drawings. Yes, I also have art on my walls, but inherited and old-fashioned prints and a watercolor or two. Nothing vivid.

I have books, magazines, and papers seemingly everywhere, though I do try to keep them contained around my desk and in my bedroom. I try. You would think books, magazines and papers were a major element in my decorating scheme, if I had a decorating scheme, which we have never been able to afford. I have no travel brochures about because we can't afford travel, either, and I find those, luring me with their possibilities, to be enervatingly depressing.

The house is actually much neater and more orderly (well...) than when all of the boys still lived here. I, once again, have a crib in my bedroom (I'll bet you don't) for when a grandbaby stays. Baby things are stacked there, too, just stacked because that was supposed to be a very temporary arrangement which irregularly continues. My grandchildren's toys, including a large rocking horse, are collected quite near my desk, that being out of everyone else's way. I don't mind.


Good housekeeping has always been one of my failures. If this study is correct, I have lost my political identity to this personal failing. I even lack the proper "intense existential fear of death" thinking that Heaven sounds a much better place than Earth and always feeling eager to get there.


I think of my conservative friends' houses, much more orderly than mine, and think this study might, MIGHT, have a point. But I ask you, who, WHO, keeps cleaning supplies in the bedroom?

I take a moderate view on housekeeping. The thing is not an absolute good in and of itself. It is in the service of higher goods--and, to the extent that it conflicts or competes with them--it can wait. Keeping house is a necessary evil (at least in my book since I'd rather be reading one). Yet most often, I do it--mainly because I'm married to an engineer! The higher good, in that case, being his (and therefore my) sanity. Besides, I finally figured out that I can listen to a book as I clean. Even so, the only chores I enjoy are ironing, sewing and baking. And perhaps I only enjoy those because, nowadays, they are not necessary. Who likes doing anything that they have to do?

If such a study is correct then the military is a very conservative place that is guilty of ideological bias in promotions. I knew a young specialist that was supposed to become a sergeant until his first sergeant found that his room was unclean during a health and welfare inspection. The military is also against tattos but the regulation has been relaxed somewhat due to recruitment and retainment issues. In terms of foreign travel the military is quite liberal, albeit some liberals are calling for a more conservative attitude in this regard.

According to at least one young Marine I know (several others agreed during the dinner's conversation) the military is in the job of making every recruit into a conservative. This matter of forcing order and cleanliness in the bedroom would seem to confirm that. Now that I think of it, my son at The Citadel keeps cleaning supplies in his bedroom. That boy likes cleaning about as much Julie, or I , do.

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