Do Conservatives Drink Beer?
What is a Conservative
By Daniel Muniz

Do conservatives drink beer?

That is quite an interesting question. Speaking for myself, I do drink beer although not nearly as much as I used to because I am married and I have an infant son. However, I do agree that certain occasions may warrant a celebration that involves the consumption of copious quantities of alcohol, such as a wedding, New Year's Eve party, or maybe like the San Antonio Spurs taking another championship.

The beer I usually buy is Moosehead but admittedly my favorite type of beer is "free" beer.

But does drinking beer mean that I am not a conservative?

After all, George W. Bush is a teetotaler and a conservative. And there are quite a few high profile conservatives as well as a number of religious groups who despise alcohol.

Is it that real conservatives do not drink beer?

By the way, what is a conservative and what makes you one?

And who gets to define what a conservative is? The media, Democrats, Hollywood...

The answer depends entirely on where you get your information from and if you are willing to analyze its source and analyze the information itself.

There are a number of "sources" of information and quite a few of them are eager to assign what type of views or opinions you should have instead of merely reporting the news.

In the media world of sound bites and filters, it becomes cumbersome and awkward to explain a philosophy or even a single issue in any kind of depth because it does not neatly fit into a few columns of a newspaper or within a magazine article. And it also cannot fit within thirty or sixty seconds of a television news story.

As a result, the media as a source of information has made it too easy to assign a label to a category of people. Not necessarily a stereotype but the effect is much the same if labels are used to define people and to define what they are supposed to think and believe in without bothering to actually investigate what the facts really are.

Take a look at this example.

Suppose a sub-group of religious Christians have the following characteristics:

● Thinks the country would be better off if religion were more influential.
● Supports the role of religious leaders as political spokesmen.
● Opposes gay marriage.
● Finds that religious beliefs play an important role in where people stand on important issues of the day.
● Believes Israel was granted to the Jews by God.
● Believes that Israel represents a fulfillment of the Bible's prophecy of the second coming.

Many in the traditional press would scoff at this sub-group assuming that they must be ultra-religious right-wing nuts, especially the part about religious leaders as political spokesmen. Popular culture such as David Letterman, Saturday Night Live, and others have their own cruel caricatures of such a sub-group.

And interestingly, liberals would love to disparage this community if it were not for the fact that this sub-group happens to be part of the most loyal members of the Democratic Party; they are African-Americans.

Surprised?

Many people are astonished that these beliefs belong to a community of the most ardent Democrats even though these same values are also shared by "white" evangelical Christians.

This example illustrates how easy it is to assign a viewpoint to an individual or to a group of people without bothering to investigate the facts or by relying on erroneous assumptions. It also demonstrates that someone can hold some rather conservative religious viewpoints and not be a Republican.

But this will not stop Hollywood actors and liberal organizations from ridiculing and scorning those who identify with such values as long as they belong to the Republican party.

Unfortunately, these unnoticed but important details cannot be squeezed into a sound bite or explained in a ninety second story. The media is interested in painting things in extremes so that the result can produce dramatic and often sensationalistic news stories, thus the need to fit them neatly into uncomplicated coherent stories. Verifiable facts simply do not lend themselves into the labels and caricatures that the traditional press and Hollywood has already defined.

Take for example, the African-American community expects its religious leaders to play an important role in the political arena. The traditional press rarely demonizes such leaders. But when a white evangelical Christian leader makes a political statement, the media rarely misses an opportunity to denigrate such an individual.

One label, a white evangelical Christian, is often viewed (depending on what part of the country you live in) as extremist and can easily be depicted as sensational in the eyes of the press and of Hollywood. But the other label, African-Americans, will not generate the equivalent type of sensationalism even if the same religious beliefs are shared.

Overall, labels just don't mean anything particularly when they applied to philosophies and ideologies. So why accept someone else's definition of a label especially when such labels are defined in broad or monolithic terms?

And on the subject of labels, are conservative Republicans made up of only white evangelical Christians?

Well, I am Hispanic and Catholic. And I have supported quite a few Republicans and I have even volunteered my time and services in a number of conservative GOP campaigns.

Does that mean that I am not a conservative?

Of course not, unless you are someone who subscribes to the descriptions that the media and popular culture assigns.

Now here is the next biggest surprise which may be quite shocking. Conservatives are comprised of a rather wide assortment of groups and communities of people. In other words, they are diverse.

Some conservatives are rather religious and go to a place of worship on a frequent basis but they may not necessarily be white evangelical Christians. Some of them are Catholics. In addition, there are plenty of conservatives who are Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and even Muslims.

Some conservatives have a spotty church attendance while others may not attend religious services at all and do not have any kind of membership of any organized religion. There are even a number of conservatives who are agnostic as well as others who do not believe in the existence of any kind of Supreme Being.

And the political beliefs of conservatives can be just as varied as religious norms. Some conservatives are more focused on a particular issue like gun rights, or a strong national defense, or with fiscal responsibility, or they may be focused on a multitude of issues.

And do conservatives use profanity?

Some do and some don't. George W. Bush used a very bad (but accurate?) word to describe a pesky reporter. The late Redd Foxx of "Sanford and Son" fame insisted that no matter who you are, if a car door gets slammed on your hand, you are going to use a lot of bad words. That is a theory that I personally don't want to test but I suspect that there is plenty of truth in it.

Do conservatives gamble?

Some conservatives like to gamble in a casino while others just do football squares and the lottery. And then there are others who are more interested in betting in a fair venue like playing poker with friends and family instead of having a middle man or Indian tribe or the government taking a cut of the proceeds. But more often than not, the media seems to publicize only the conservatives who do not gamble at all.

And so the same thing goes with beer.

While some conservatives are teetotalers, others like myself enjoy a good pint from time to time. While some conservatives may limit themselves to only beer, others also partake in wine, bourbon, gin, whiskey, vodka, tequila, and lots of other types alcohol. I personally don't drink much in hard liquor or mixed drinks (except margaritas) anymore although I may re-start a wine collection. And I do have quite a few bottles of tequila reserved for a very special occasion like when the Dallas Cowboys become worth watching again (hell might freeze over before that happens).

And by the way, the only kind of tequila I consider as real tequila, are the bottles that have a worm in it.

Although Democrats may think that they have a lock on diversity when it comes to their membership, if anyone in the media or in Hollywood would bother to verify the facts themselves, they would realize that conservatives are a fairly diverse group of people. By and large, conservatives come in all kinds of varieties with many types of values. They do not have a monolithic viewpoint or lifestyle than can be defined into a single sound bite. There is not a one-size fits all belief system that can categorize a segment of the conservative population.

Some may be more conservative than others while some may even harbor a few liberal ideas.

And some may even enjoy a good Moosehead or two.

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