First off, good to hear from you, always. How I miss having these conversations in person where we can throw things at each other and do some proper arguing. Oh, well.
I thought I would take this chance to offer a few thoughts of my own, and, I hope, not ignite a firestorm in the process. I hope you take my words with the same open mind that I took yours. You are, after all, the best friends I have ever had. I consider you guys to be more like brothers than friends.
Now, enough with the gooshy stuff, on to politics.
First off, I'm no liberal. I am of the opinion that polititians (90% of them anyway) are not altruistic idealists. Moreso, I think most of them are self-serving except when they are serving special interests and corporate america. That goes for both sides of the isle. The idea that one party is evil and the other is good is just a sign that you have bought what one side is selling. This is not a new tactic. It is an old trick for politicos to categorize their oppenents as 'evil'. It's an easy way to energize voters.
For example: Lincoln was often portrayed as making "the devil's deal" when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Good thing history saw him differently.
John Quincy Adams campaign even had a song that culminated with this wonderful diatribe:
Tears are comin', fears are coming,
Plague and pestilence is comin',
Hatin's comin;, Satan's comin',
If John Quincy not be comin
Whew! Good thing he got elected or we'd all be living in the millineium.
Right!
Silly then, silly now. Don't buy it.
So if you do think it is a question of 'good and evil' I'm afraid that you have been duped. If you look at our own religion, you would think if there was a real, imminent danger in 'liberalism' we would have heard about it. In fact, maybe someone would have mentioned it, but, the opposite is true. We are constantly urged to think for ourselves and make educated political decisions.
Contrary to popular belief, early mormons were strongly democratic, in fact, "The early Utah community was so solidly Democratic that the mostly Republican post-Civil War Congress was reluctant to grant the territory statehood for fear it would be a knee-jerk Democratic state. To reassure Congress, church leaders simply asked half of the state's Mormons to register as Republicans, and in 1896, after decades of attempts, Utah finally became a state" ( <- copied from The New Republic article here).
Many church leaders were active democrats, Wilford Woodruff, Heber Grant, B.H. Roberts, Hugh B. Brown, James Faust, Marlin Jensen and Hugh Nibly. So if you want to call 'liberals' evil, think about who you are calling names.
Right now, conservative pundits have found a willing audience in those who are looking for someone to blame. Do the pundits really beleive that 'liberals' are 'evil'? I don't know, but it sure sells a lot of books!
Instead of looking at ways to change things, it's much easier to blame the liberals. Blame it all on them, from the economy to child porn, because their evil!
The truth is much more complicated. It's easier to blame someone else for the state of your country then to try to work with them to make progress. If there is anything wrong with this country, BOTH parties share the blame, equally (-there are pedophilic liberals and conservatives). The way that elected officials sell their souls to their parties and big business ensures that the needs of the rich are met much faster than the needs of the people.
In short, republicans are just as 'evil' (which is a word I dispute as politcally valid) as democrats.
As for thanking liberals for pornography, prostitution etc. I think this is a simple tactic used by conservative pundits to try to get evangelical christians to vote republican. I happen to live in the only state in the union where prostitution is legal and just happens to be extremely republican. How many votes in the past 40 years have been taken to make it illegal here? Yup, 0. But I will not point my finger at the conservative legislature and call them evil. No, I wish it were so easy. The fact is, they have sold their souls to the businesses in the state and wouldn't dare overturn something that makes so much money. I think the republicans will ride this rightous wave as long as it fits their political needs.
As I said, I do NOT consider myself 'liberal' (which, by the way, is just a buzzword right now. If Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh have it thier way it will soon fall in the same catagory as fascist or communist). I choose to not affiliate with either party any more because of the nature of our political environment. It's poison.
But, I am constantly shocked at the audacity of average conservative thought. I can't help but think of how misinformation permeated the former soviet union. They thought we were sadists, sexual deviants, and down right evil. I like to think they were wrong, but it goes to show you what a little misinformation can do to get people to stop thinking for themselves and begin reciting the party mantras.
For example, abortion. Big time political polarization right there. But, the majority of LDS don't think about it and say that they are pro-life when in fact they support abortion in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is in danger. Folks, that's not pro-life. They would toss you right out of the conservative cheering squad for that one. I know you are all getting riled with me right now, but instead of catagorising each other and resorting to party mantras, there is actually intelligent debate to be had. It is not a matter of baby killers verses the religious nutsos. There is actually -gasp- discourse to be had about the pluses and minuses of both sides.
With worst-case scenarious when forcibly raped and impregnated women or girls are then forced to have the baby of a rapist, even in the horrible instance when it is a family member, you call that pro-life. Count me out. How about forcing your wife to have a child that will most likely not live and will probably kill your wife in the process? That's called pro-life. On the other hand, I agree that abortion, on principle is morally wrong. When a women uses abortions instead of common sense, it's murder. But calling it one way or the other, catagorizing someone either a baby-killer or religious nutso, that means your not thinking it through. We need to stop swollowing the dogma we are fed and start making our own observations. So what am I, pro-choice or pro-life. Neither, dangit.
I appreciate you allowing me to vent back to you. I was a little surprised by your email, but I am SO glad you sent it to me. Email me back with your thoughts, I think we all have progress to make. If there is one last thing I would say it is about the media. There is much talk about how liberal the media is. As a member of the 'media', I find this painfully laughable and perplexing. Specifically this claim is made by conservative pundits who make no attempt to be unbiased. They are the most guilty of that which they accuse others of (hey, is that a mote in your eye?) I find it scary that they make no attempt to provide real facts but rather, only those facts that will support their ideas. I happen to know how much effort is put into making a newspaper state the facts and not the personal opinions of the journalistic staff (obviously that doesn't go for the opinion section). Hardly a day goes by when we don't say to ourselves, 'will people think we are showing political preference if we run this story?' Or, 'we ran an article Senator X and his sex scandal last week on the front page. He has now been vindicated, we should make sure we put that out front to be fair."
What I have noticed is that conservatives complain that we are being biased only when a story doesn't support their pre-concieved notions. "I disagree with that story, dang liberal media!" All they want (I may be generalizing here) without even knowing it, is to have the media be biased toward them. If it is simply stating facts or, heaven forbid, portrays someone conservative in a bad light, it must be a liberal conspiracy! They then tune in to AM radio where they are required to do no thinking for themselves and their opinions are readily supplied to them. Unlimited access to even more brilliant opinions can be theirs for a small monthly fee. Also buy the newest New York Times bestseller, "Liberals want to eat your baby and Hillary Clinton is the Anti-Christ!" Three hours a day is all we ask!
In my opinion, 'liberals' as portrayed by conservatives, and 'conservatives' as portrayed by liberals, don't exist. They are imaginary thorns in your side to keep you from seeing the real problems in this country. The politicians, all of them.
In short, I think it's time we turn off Rush, Hannity, Colmes and Franken and do some thinking of our own.
-Josh
Labels: Politics