Why I am a Republican

Long, I have considered myself a Libertarian. I'm adamantly in favor of reduced taxes; reduced government intrusion into private life; freedom of speech, religion, though, and action; self-determination; individual and civil rights. These beliefs lead me to be pro-choice and pro-gay rights. They also lead me to be in favor of social security privatization and education vouchers. I'm against hate crime laws, prayer in schools, racial quotas, and posting the ten commandments in public. I"m in favor of free trade and free speech. I'm equally appalled at government intrusion into the bedroom and into the kitchen. I'm a supporter of the right to self-defense and to equal protection under the law.

As of 2000, when George W. Bush and Al Gore were debating, I was also quite an isolationist.

When then-Governor Bush said, "The military should not be the world's police," I thought, "Right on!" When he finally was elected to office, I was relieved - while he stood against abortion and gay rights, I felt that there was little in office he could do to really affect either particularly in accordance with the glee Gore expressed when he made clear that marriage was only for a man and woman. I expected him to hold up the ideals I voted for: lower taxes, privatization of social security, reduced government, and a reduced role for our military in foreign affairs.

My mind, and apparently his, changed six years ago today.

I was working for Marsh, the largest insurance broker in the world, in one of their technical groups, Marsh Risk Technologies. We sold a product which allowed companies to track their insurance claims and better analyze where risks occurred so they could reduce injuries and thus reduce claims. We had clients throughout the Great Lakes region in particular: Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Ontario, and Kentucky (how Kentucky ended up in the "Great Lakes" and not in the Southeast region, I don't know. We had corporate partners which worked in the various Marsh offices who managed the entire project; we handled the tech side, they handled the business side. We were based in Detroit, they were based there or in Grand Rapids, Cleveland, Columbus, Louisville, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and in New York - they were based with our company's world headquarters and our programming department at One World Trade Center. our company had the floors 93 through 100.

Six years ago today, at 8:46 am, American Airlines Flight 11 hit One World Trade Center at floors 93 through 99.

295 of my coworkers were killed.

I am thankful that policy at that office meant that work didn't start until 9:00, so most of the workers were not yet to work, including programmers and consultants I had worked closely with. Two people I knew died. One programmer, who usually got to the office each day at 8:00, was in a plane on her way to Kentucky to visit a client of mine. Programmers nearly never leave the office, so the fact that she was traveling that day might have saved her life.

In the days following, I was confused, distraught, and searching for answers. After calming down and regaining my sense, I made a concerted effort to search out different voices, different ideas, and different ways forward. I stumbled across a website, newamericancentury.org, which made sense to me. We can not, they argued, hole up and hope that radical fundamentalism will just ignore us. The recent Bin Laden tape, wherein he says that the war will end only when we all convert to radical Islam, proves that. We can not, either, just try to retaliate against those who have injured us. We must, they argue, look to create a radical change in the face of the Middle East. The way to do that is through liberal democracy.

The essential argument of the neo-conservatives has nothing to do with oil revenues or imperialism. It has to do with one idea: the spread of liberal democracy throughout the world. Should the U.S. be able to take one of the world's most oppressive, dictatorial, violent nations and replace it with a flourishing, liberal democracy, it would show the radicals another way: a way of life where they can be free to worship, free to speak their minds, free from the depredations of tyranny, free to prosper economically and will live a happier, more fulfilled, longer, healthier, more prosperous life.

This ideal led me to reject my prior isolationism. Still, I'm radically different from the conservative Republicans on issues such as abortion, the role of religion of public life, and gay rights. The party, however, pitches a big tent and there's room inside for an economic conservative dedicated to the spread of liberal democracy.