Tatyana Larina comes from my favorite work of poetry. And that's the only time you'll see me quoting Wikipedia as a source.
I came to the US in 1991, lived in San Francisco for 5 years, and I have a Computer Science degree. I worked in software industry for several years, later switching to a career of a full time mom, and I never looked back.
In my younger days, I wasn’t a conservative. That is not to say that I was ever a liberal – I was not anything at all. I had no idea that there were such concepts as “conservative” and “liberal”. I did not pay attention to politics at all, and the most political knowledge you would get out of me would be who the US President was, and even for that you had to catch me on the right day.
My first introduction to politics was during the second Israeli intifada in 2002. Unspeakable violence erupted in Israel. Every day dozens of people were killed. Even though I didn’t follow politics, that deeply affected me. I felt sad, frustrated, and powerless. And one night, I happened to stumble on an MSNBC program called “Alan Keyes is making sense.” He was talking passionately about Israel and the violence, and he addressed my feelings very well. Since that evening, I turned on Alan Keyes every night, and by his commentary he was able to take away some of the frustration and anger that I had. It was like a nightly therapy session.
Feeling intrigued after watching Alan Keyes, I wondered what else MSNBC had in store. I switched through the channels, and low and behold, I found Scarborough Country. Right off, Joe Scarborough wasn’t what he is today at all. He was a solid conservative (as I now understand), making common sense conservative points. I found him interesting and engaging. Opposing liberalism had not entered my mind at that time. I still didn’t know anything about liberalism. It was just the things he said sounded very common sense and worthwhile to me. Imagine that at some point, MSNBC had a conservative host on the air. Crazy times, ha?
Exploring my new political universe, I switched through more channels, and one night I found FOX. O’Reilly Factor was on. From the very first night, I was hooked. I abandoned Scarborough. O’Reilly was not just common sense – he was aggressive, and he was a fighter. He was Scarborough on steroids. He wasn’t just talking – he was taking on what he thought to be wrong and unjust. Ever since the first time, and until untimely end of Bill’s FOX career, I don’t think I ever missed one Factor.
For forming my political views, and my ability to formulate them, I have to give special credit to three people: Charles Krauthammer, Bill O’Reilly, and Greg Guttfeld. To Charles - philosophy. To Bill - realistic and pragmatic approach to politics. To Greg - realization that a good joke will change more minds than a long lecture.
And for everything else, thanks to my family.
