CONSERVATIVES AS GRADUATION SPEAKERS?

A conservative was complaining on a recent radio show that only a small percentage of graduation speakers at colleges and universities are of the conservative persuasion. Well, duh.

Of course conservatives are not well represented at graduation ceremonies. Graduations are a time of happiness, a time of optimism. Who wants to hear gloom and doom at such events? Gloom and doom may be correct. We may all be going to hell in a hand basket. But really, is that what you want to hear at your graduation, or your kid’s graduation?

Conservatives are all about gloom and doom. And about the past. They are ever moaning about the lost paradises of yesteryear. As a general matter, they are only happy when opining on two topics: their own alleged victimhood at the hands of liberals and the mainstream media, and the alleged decaying state of society.

Occasionally, a conservative will come along who doesn’t sound like Dr. Grump ninety percent of the time. Ronald Reagan was one such individual. But by and large, conservatives impress the rest of the populace as dour and dogmatic, incapable of expressing a positive view of the future without tying it to a particular political stance or a static economic structure.

So yes, Conservatives, you might be under-represented on graduation stages. But most of us get enough of cranky old aunts and uncles at Thanksgiving dinner. Who wants to hear one at a graduation?