I was out with a friend last night and in our inebriated state, the topic of politics came up (don't ask me how). She mentioned that she doesn't really pay attention to it and doesn't really know much about Democrats and Republicans, but that her father is a Republican and what he says seems to make sense.
Hmm. My friend and I are very similar, we come from similar backgrounds and have the same views on most social issues. And yet when she heard what her father had to say, it sounded logical and reasonable. Of course my internal reaction was that he was probably just feeding her the party line about Republicans just wanting to keep taxes low and keep those dirty politicians out of our lives. That would make sense to me too.
But it made me think - why am I a liberal? Was I simply influenced by someone who was feeding me the party line? Have I ever really given both sides equal consideration to make an informed decision? To be honest, probably not.
The way I look at it, there are four sides of the story: Democrats, Republicans, what each stands for in theory, and then in reality.
I've got the ideology part down for each side, and since my two favorite shows are Rachel Maddow and Bill Maher, I'm pretty clear on the seedy underbelly of the elephant. But I can't honestly say that I've been open to hearing the Republicans' point of view about the dark side of my own party. I'm well aware that there is corruption on both sides and the Democrats are far from perfect, but this is the area where I need some clarity.
So I'm going to do it. I'm going to watch Fox News. I might even listen to Rush Limbaugh. I'm going to listen with an open mind and seriously consider what they have to say. I know that these may be the conservative extremes (just like Maddow and Maher), but they're also the ones that a lot of the party take their cues from, so I want to get inside the minds of the average Republican.
Stay tuned, this could get interesting...
No comments:
Post a Comment