(via swisserswatter)
Reblogged from Rocket Jumper.
November 21, 2009, 10:01am
Hi, I'm Marty, and I'm a recovering Republican
Just as morphing into an extremist took a couple years, un-becoming an extremist happened over time. One by one I saw the flaws in conservative orthodoxy: attempting to fight terrorism with torture, which only aided our enemies’ propaganda efforts and thus created more terrorists; seeking to liberalize the Muslim world while curtailing rights for gay people at home; criticizing public schools for lackluster results and therefore cutting funds further; disdaining the weak while never analyzing why they are weak; always seeing the effect but never the cause, which on a mass scale perpetuates the effect.
It doesn’t matter whether you are liberal or conservative, but it’s dangerous to always think with exclamation points instead of question marks.
I liked Marty back when we were both teenagers and he wrote, in proto-blog form, about taking a hooker to his high school prom. Now I’m quite chagrined to learn that his humor came from such misogyny, mostly because my naive appreciation must have meant I harbored some of the same vitriol. This editorial is fantastic though, and he’s obviously grown up a lot since then. I hope I have too.
This is a very good read. Contrary to cries of infuriated conservatives, this editorial is not a bash on conservatism from an “inside man”, but rather a well expressed opinion of why where you sit is far less important than your ability to approach issues with an investigative mentality instead of a condescending one. I’ve met far too many good people who view issues in the latter manner because they refuse to let go of their political (or religious) doctrine.
November 14, 2009, 10:16am