The College Fix

OPINION: Some helpful tips for the next generation

Here is some free 4th of July advice for young, freedom-loving conservatives heading back to campus, starting college, or graduating into your first real job: don’t be weird.

We are now at around the halfway point where the start of the new school year is about as close as the end of the last one.

With school starting next month, students will have a variety of conservative leaning groups to choose from: Turning Point USA, College Republicans, Students for Life, Network of Enlightened Women, Young Americans for Freedom, Young Americans for Liberty, and plenty others.

Take advantage of those opportunities! A lot of people before you spent time, and sometimes waged legal battles, to win even simple approval. I myself have sent a number of passive aggressive emails to school administrators so Turning Point USA and Students for Life groups could exist.

Even if you do not agree with everything a particular group teaches, it is a good way to meet new people, get exposed to ideas, and hone your own beliefs. There may be other opportunities to participate in nonpartisan political clubs, debate groups, or book discussions – join as much as you can.

These experiences, as well as your classes and internships, will help shape your worldview and may help you figure out if you want to work in the political movement after college. There are many opportunities – campaigns, think tanks, activist groups, and of course, journalism.

But throughout this process, I am begging you, the young conservative, to simply be normal – focus on improving at your job, reading a lot, and meeting your spouse.

Weird is cross-dressing and taking a new, opposite sex name, leaving one’s spouse, or fornicating.

Weird is posing half nude for a beer company’s calendar or posting revealing photos on Instagram, particularly if you’re married. That is weird! Please be normal.

The conservative movement doesn’t need a purity test but a chastity test would be nice.

Or at least if you’re going to be weird, be bookish weird, as in you know too much about 18th-century libertarian philosophy or you can recite everything Ronald Reagan ate for breakfast during his second term. That is tolerable.

But practicing odd behaviors like cross-dressing or other things that should be more associated with seedy New York City nightclubs in the 1970s than conservatism?

That is weird.

MORE: Only 12% of Democrats age 18 to 34 ‘extremely proud’ to be American, Gallup poll says

IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: A backyard cookout buffet; RDNE Stock Project/Pexels

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