(Caputulo 1 – Spanish)
GETTING TO KNOW THE AUTHOR.
THEME: This book will discuss some weighty thoughts.
They are provocative. The discussion will range from simple observations of the differences between the Leftist brain and the Conservative brain, into deep psychosocial analysis of their different thought patterns and thought disabilities. The purpose is to offer an explanation of why so many Conservatives observe that Leftists seem to have no common sense. The author has spent a lifetime studying this subject. He was educated at Stanford University and the University of Southern California, His B.A. degrees were in History and Political science. He obtained a Doctorate of Law from USC. Later he took every agriculture course available, entitling him to an AA in the subject of agriculture. He does not have a traditional PHD in psychology nor is he a Physician Surgeon with a specialty in Psychiatry. His background is better suited to this task, since he is freer to explore and postulate. As you think about it, because he is not bound up with categories, names and pigeon holes, he is better able to see the problem in a fresh light.
KNOWING THE AUTHOR: I am Rooster Bradford. It is important for you to know my bias and prejudices. I tend to be brief and this book was written that way. Who I am and what I believe is important as you read my analysis of the pivotal difference between the Conservative mind and the Liberal mind.
To borrow a phrase, I should be transparent. I am opening up new doors and windows to provide us all a better view. Why do liberals and Conservatives think so differently about so many important things in life? I will mostly use the term Leftist rather than Liberal since the latter is so vague.
The terms Conservative and Leftist have been coined to help us define general views on the nature of politics. The basic difference between a person who is Conservative and one who is a Leftist has to do with their thought process. That affects many things. In this book, however, we will focus on their political views.
Finding the answer has been a life time interest and study for me. As with most children, I was not political. As a child I did not see the differences, but I am certain they were present with the children I played with.
This difference is not an American problem. It includes each and every human being in the world. To remind you of the scope, I will add different languages to the Chapter numbers.
Just keep in mind the differences have always been with us and always will be.
Very early on I began to listen to and understand the world of political differences. My Mother was a full blown liberal and in those days a follower of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Democrat party. FDR could do no wrong in her eyes. My Father was a remote person in my life. When I did see him, it was mostly for short times, and I never recall him discussing politics with me. Like a good boy, I followed the admonition that a child was to be seen, not heard. Clearly from what I did hear I could understand why he and my mother were divorced. Intellectually they were on different planets.
I did not become a Conservative. I was born that way.
Certainly the disagreement with my Mother‘s thoughts was more important than any comments by my Father. Neither was active in day to day politics or seemed to participate in political parties.
From the get-go, I always took the Conservative view when considering any issue which was politically important. In other words it was not instilled in me. I was born that way. I lived apart from my Mother and Father for many of my formative years. In my 6th year, I was placed in Burbank Military School and then with the advent of World War II, I was placed in Page Military School. Both were in the Los Angeles greater area. In those days and in those places, political indoctrination was minimal. With the war there was patriotism. Both liberal and Conservative were patriotic. In my ninth year I was taken by my Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Don and lived with them for another couple of years.
Neither was political. During these years I know I thought as a Conservative. In the 6th grade my Mother reentered the picture and I lived with her. She was then married to a soldier serving in WW II. He was away. As I think about it there is no question she and I did not agree on politics. Now as a child you listen and keep your mouth shut, but the brain was saying ---Hey What!! She loved to discuss the political scene and attempted to convince me of the liberal mind set. There was no chance. I held my ground. I was not buying. Now why was that? I loved both my parents. They were not the kind who flooded me with love and affection, but were fair and interested in what I did, and less interested in what I thought, which is normal. I continued to live with my Mother until I went to Stanford University. If indoctrination was going to have a chance, that was the time. It did not. I remained Conservative.
As the years rolled on, my Mother lived with me for the last 10 years of her long life and in the last few years confessed to me she then believed she had been politically wrong.
Never a Conservative, but she went out doubting her Leftists beliefs.
Trying to analyze why I was Conservative and others were not took up a lot of my thought. Why on earth did God or evolution cause this wonderful opportunity to disagree and sometimes get violent about it? If God did it ---- Why? If evolution did it, how come?
While we were evolving for some 40 thousand years, this destructive attitude persisted.
Wouldn‘t evolution have removed these rough edges? Wouldn‘t selection and family, make getting along a high priority item? I guess not.
Clearly I was born running on a Conservative deck. No significant environmental or social force made me do it. It has been my observation that most Leftists appear to pop up the same way, rather than be molded into the mindset.
Because of a broken home, I was put with a multitude of adults, especially in schools. I went to so many grammar schools I have lost track. They were varied, from a one room school to mega ones of immense proportions. In all of these no teacher stands out as a mentor. In the 30s, 40s, and early 50s teachers did not indoctrinate much. High school was neutral. I do not recall any political lineups. The only event that stands out was in a Spanish Class. We were discussing the politics of Spain and its Civil war of the 30s. In that war communism lost to a dictator, Franco. Someone asked Mr. Lisbon (our teacher) what socialism was and he described it as follows. Our class room was on the second floor. From where we (students) sat, you would see, on the left windows, and to the right a wall. Mr.
Lisbon was at the front and the back wall served as a place to hook up clothes and things.
There were about 7 lines of desks.
He spoke along these lines. He said; let‘s suppose that everyone here was a socialist. We would believe in a common good and sharing the values of the land. We would believe that everyone was fair and would be tolerant of others. Now in this room the only real thing of value we can share are grades. The desks and room belong to the government. So let us suppose I give an exam and I grade it A, B, C, D and F on a curve.
(Whatever happened to the E) He continued; ―Now I seat you all by grades. Over on the window we have As and on the far side, by the wall, we have all the Fs, The Bs are next to the As, then the Cs and then the Ds would be placed next to the Fs. Now in Capitalism that is the way it stays. In Socialism we cannot have such inequality and unfairness. We will have to take from the A‘s to give to the F‘s and so on until everyone has a C+.‖ For whatever reason, I knew immediately where he was going.
When he got there, the class sat in silence. He had a time getting a discussion going.
Finally, it began and clearly none of the talkers liked it. The fairness and tolerance did not appear.
Jealousy and envy seemed to rule the day. I doubt any student in that class ever loved Socialism, and maybe there was some indoctrination by his example, but Mr. Lisbon simply gave the facts and we had to decide the merits. Indoctrination---maybe, but I think not. My point is that Mr. Lisbon did not influence me.
What he said simply reinforced what I already knew. The light bulb for me was how many students had no idea. If there was someone who liked the idea they stayed quiet. It was an omen of the future.
After High School it was Stanford University for 4 years, the Army for 2+ then Law School and the practice of law. In all of my schooling, no mentor showed up. No one teacher influenced my political beliefs. What I was----stayed and have remained to this moment in time. How is that? At Stanford, I joined the Young Republicans and became politically active in a political party for the first time. All we really did was distribute papers, go to meetings and show up at Conservative speaker events. We also discussed such matters and one Conservative student and I became good intellectual friends and remain so today. We joined the same fraternity, went our separate career ways and eventually came together again and are very good friends as I write this book.
After the military service, I started studying for my law degree. I first went to Hastings Law School in San Francisco.
This was a public funded school, a part of the University of California. There I found many opportunities to debate during school and after. I found debate to be a wonderful intellectual way to test my beliefs. There were many liberals and they wanted to gang up on me. It was fun. After the first year, I transferred to USC law school, and obtained my doctorate in law.
On schedule I passed the State Bar and was admitted to practice in the State of California Courts and the Federal Courts (not the Supreme Court which is a different application.).
Shortly after my graduation in 1961 Goldwater began the run for President. I found a hero in this Candidate. I remember the Cow Palace GOP convention of 1964, in San Francisco, and how his conservatism split the Republican Party. I knew I had to do a part to help out because so many Republicans in Name only (Not called RINOS then) refused to help. I even posted campaign posters in Watts, an entirely Black community in Los Angeles. You remember the one where the residences burned it down in 1965 because of a perceived race motivated impounding of the car of Marquette Frye. When the riots were over 34 were dead, 3032 injured and 3,952 arrested. Millions of dollars of property damage occurred as the rioters burned and pillaged the property of others. I hope my intrusion in 1964 had nothing to do with the heated tensions.
Still there never was a mentor or person who influenced my beliefs. Law School made me even more certain I was right. (Did I say Right?) What I mean is that I became a devotee to the rule of law over a Judge and a stronger devotee to the Constitution and the writings of the Founders.
In law practice, I was a trial lawyer and examined and cross examined just about every type of person and profession imaginable. I spent 5 years as a prosecutor and the rest in private practice. I continued to argue politics whenever I could.
Even at Hastings, I found most liberals refused to debate. That has been my life experience. In fact I must say, the few I was able to debate always caved. That is they ended up abandoning logic and common sense, and used emotional cymbals (not symbols) to end their participation. Such as ―You just don‘t get it, or You are racists, or Capitalists are just plain stupid, etc.‖ Facts and logic seemed to be abandoned by the liberal debaters who stayed with me.
In time, politics invited me into the mix and I ran for State office twice and, twice I came very close to the incumbent, but lost. My opponent was never found nude in a fountain with two lovely ladies. The incumbency factor did me in. In fact, it was a good thing, because I was a husband and father and quite poor.
If I had won, I would still be poor. Honest men do not get rich in politics.
The years rolled by and still I was outspoken and endeavored to win the minds and hearts of others to the Conservative view. Some call me a renaissance man. If that is true, no one should seek it. Keeps you very busy. Today, among many things, I write this book and have a Conservative talk show called ―THE ROOSTER CROWS‖
(TheRoosterCrows.net.) I am still at it, trying to convince folks of the best form of government for we, the flawed.
Finally, it is important to know my other interests. They may create a bias. Certainly political debate has always been a small part of my interests. First, I am compulsive about doing as many things as I can achieve physically. I went to school to learn all I could about farming and became a farmer. I still am farming avocados and lemons on my own ranch. I have spent over 30 years as a surfer, collect cars and restore them, love travel, started some 4 nonprofit companies and about the same number commercial ones. My wife and I run a company that‘s involved with organic production. I play some 13
musical instruments. As a part of my musical interests I formed a large Swing Band which played in all of the really neat places in Southern California. I had and still have a New Orleans Jass band (No, it is spelled correctly.) In it I play cornet and trombone.
Each morning I play the piano and sing as often as I can. I am an accomplished Scottish Bagpipe player and have played banjo and guitar. Most of it has been self-taught, after I was 44 years of age. In this busy life I have been married twice and had two children with each. My wife and life partner‘s name is Susan. Along the way I have studied just about every subject I could. Jack of many and master of few. My critics will pick up on this admission. For example, I developed an extensive chronology of the development of Hominids (you and I). I wanted to prove there is no proof we evolved, came from God, or were dropped here by Aliens. The Chronology does that. I started it to argue against the liberal compulsion to adopt evolution as if it were a God. Trying to debate this issue clearly ran into a stone wall. I needed proof. So I now have it. You too can view this massive work as the last item in this book. I update it frequently and the most recent will be on my web page, theroostercrows.net Now you know a bit about me and will be in a better position to judge what I say and write.
As always I have been a Conservative. I register as a Republican and when I ran for office, I did so as a Republican.
When it comes to push or shove, I am through and through a defender of the Constitution as written and amended and opposed to centralization of power.