What I like about speaking to Ukrainian audiences is that nobody perceives me as particularly conservative. Here my opinions are far-right and there they are simply normal. I don’t think people even see them as political but more common sense than anything else.
Every time I tell one of my stories about the ideological compliance in North America, people at first look puzzled and then invariably say, “so it’s like in the USSR?” Because yes, it is. Not Stalin’s USSR, of course, but Brezhnev’s and, increasingly, Andropov’s.
“The first thing that neoliberalism does is create a moral and ethical catastrophe on a society-wide level,” said during today’s event the Dean of Liberal Arts of the university that hosted it. I jumped up in my seat because it’s almost literally what I’m saying in the book I’m writing right now. I never hoped to see the day when a Dean would talk about morality like it’s a good thing.
Clarissa's Blog 
“Far right” in america is the position held by the median democratic party voter 12 years ago.
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True. “Countries should have borders” didn’t use to be an extreme position until very recently. Neither was “mathematics isn’t racist.”
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The Patron Saint of Progressives Barack Obama was against gay marriage in his first term and only changed his mind in 2012.
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I think he was saying what people wanted to hear to be comfortable with him.
Amanda
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I don’t think he cares either way. He’s very cynical.
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The very definition of an empty suit.
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Do you dislike being perceived as conservative?
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I dislike the horrified faces of people around me when I say I’m conservative. The shock is somewhere at the level of what it would be if I said I’m a raging pedophile who kidnaps children and keeps them chained in a dungeon. “But how is it possible?” a friend asked. “You are a good person. You can’t be conservative!!”
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The point of my post, however, was that it’s nice to be surrounded by people who understand you and share your beliefs.
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this is why my family moved. Also for freedom.
Amanda
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