I am a republican yet I can offer no defense for my affliction, only to say that I am likely the only republican whose parents are both liberals.

I can never forget the day I understood my affliction. I was born and partly raised in a small town outside Dallas, Texas. In a conceded red state, my unfortunate circumstance was looked on with pity, and more often than not, overlooked entirely as commonplace. Thus I was lulled to a foolish state of self confidence and voiced my opinions boisterously. By the age of seven I had already sent away to the national chapter of Teenage Republicans so that with my thirteenth birthday I would be prepared to form my own chapter of pseudo-fascists. Well to be honest, I never would have given my beloved party such a derogatory name, I only learned to refer to it as such later in my life.

No, for the first golden age of my republicanism, I knew not of the connotations to be associated with the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan and more recently, perhaps to my demise, George W. Bush. I was raised among gunslingers, capitalists, and Minute Men and dreamed everyday of my future with the grandest and oldest party of which I knew.

But alas, like the glorious Reagen Era, my time had come. Following my father's job, I took up residence in one of the most liberal pockets of South Florida. I left the great state of Texas as master of my domain but upon my arrival in Parkland, I learned that said domain was little more than the dirty bed in the corner of the sick ward. No longer future president of the Grapevine Teenage Republicans Club, I was little more than the ignorant conservative who the neighbors feared wanted to convert them to Methodists and sell them Smith and Wessons from my bedroom window.

It was in such a state I began my isolation in the bluest town I had ever known, in every sense of the word. But I began to consider myself somewhat fortunate in a morbid sort of way. Clearly targeted as the political leper of the town, my isolation allowed me monk-like devotion to whatever I chose to bury myself in. Upon hearing the slurs (this is where I first heard the term “pseudo-fascist”) hurled at me from behind the protective veil of universal consent, I learned to delve deeper into my party's policies, past the superficial awe I once enjoyed. I learned of the Republican party's golden egg: fiscal conservatism. I was again taken aback at the ingenuity with which my party carved its ideals, and my political fervor began to grow again.

It was also around this time when the Bush-Gore presidential election began to intensify. I knew that when victory would come my proverbial Atlas would shrug (a testament to Ayn Rand, a staunch fiscal conservative) and the humiliation I faced every day would be cast aside and replaced with reverence and admiration such as none had seen before me. In the days before the election I let my color show to the world and braced myself for the inevitable glory like Napoleon on the eve of his European conquest. And alas, the streets flowed red that November, and how I rejoiced! Not only was my affliction cured, but all others became tribute states to my triumphant leper colony. The iron cast of ignorant conservatism was replaced with the golden staff of glorious Republicanism, and I wielded it with pride.

Well that golden age has come and gone with the presidency of George W. Bush. My glory was short lived but it was never again replaced with the humiliating onslaught of political slander I was subject to upon first coming to this liberal town. I was more or less considered John, a kid who among many other faults, happened to be a Republican. But I had friends, and I learned to coexist with my Democrat neighbors.

But I suppose it's just as well that my Republican pride be diminished. More often than not, I am unable to distinguish between an a** or an elephant as I pass one on the street. After all, they are both four legged mammals and I'm sure if we trace the path of evolution far enough back, are separated fundamentally by only the most insignificant of adaptations; a natural anomaly that ought not continue to reverberate in our society today.