Tooting my own horn

When I did my last article for American Thinker, about the intersection between the First Amendment freedoms and various communities' failure to acknowledge Christmas, the editor (Thomas Lifson) was a bit surprised about my complete unwillingness to reveal my identity. He suggested, therefore, that I write an article about hidden conservatism. I did, and he was kind enough to publish it here. It won't surprise you, will it, if I suggest you read it? UPDATE: There's a fascinating thread about my article over at Lucianne.com. Many agree, many call me a gutless wonder. I'll be the first to admit my cowardice -- I'm not confrontational by nature -- and many of the posters over there admit that they like to "shake things up." Others acknowledge the futility of discussing things with people whose idea of debate is to announce ultimate conclusions: "Bush is the worst President ever." "This is all about Halliburton and oil." There's nowhere to go if the whole argument is bootstrapping off of an emotional conclusion. Many feel I live in the equivalent of a facist neighborhood and that, by my silence, I'm complicit in something akin to genocide. As to that, I do disagree. Mine is a homegenous community, with people sharing identical political viewpoints. As I noted in my article, though, both they and I are legitimate participants in a two party system, and my chosen party happens to control the White House and Congress. Right now, no one's being carted off to the gas chambers. This isn't about saving the world, it's about saving social relations. And my life is not, for the most part, politics. It's kids and shopping and work and gardening and sports and barbeques. Politics doesn't appear as "Let's kill the Jews/Blacks/Chinese/Christians." It appears as an emotional "I hate Bush" -- an opinion, not a practice.