I know someone who identifies herself as a staunch liberal. In practice, that generally translates to whatever the current biggest mouth with a (D) after his/her name is saying, that’s what she thinks.
She announced to me one day a couple of years ago that “the conservatives were trying to take her SUV away.”
Um. OK. “Huh?” I said.
“The conservatives are trying to take my SUV away. This whole ‘What Would Jesus Drive?’ crowd is driving my crazy.”
Ah. Now I understood. She’s found some fringe group who fits her desired pattern, so she takes it. It doesn’t matter that, by far, the loudest voices for reigning in the consumption habits of SUV drivers are on the left to far left. See, she doesn’t disagree with those eminently reasonable people. It’s the conservatives who are the bad guys. Here are some conservatives saying things she disagrees with, so they are instantly demonized.
Ergo, the big bad asshole conservatives are trying to take her SUV away.
I don’t want to do that. I try hard to guard against any sort of “automatic” thinking along those lines. About the biggest thing I have to watch out for is believing so strongly in an issue that I begin to consider my position self-evident (on gay marriage, for example).
Don’t shop around merely looking to validate your current opinion. Think. Believe. Know why you believe. What some dipshit on C-SPAN has to say about it probably isn’t terribly important, given the typical motivations of such a person. Don’t assign significance to a view just because the person who espouses it won office. Most of the time, the biggest whores, not the brightest lights, get elected. I’m not terribly impressed by someone who can spread legs the widest or bend over the farthest. Don’t you be either.
And remember, all the cool kids are voting for Ron Paul. Just sayin’.
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Yeah, she has NO idea who’s behind those bumper stickers. The lefties are the ones begging folks to stop with the conspicuous consumption – those on the conservative right would be DELIGHTED that she’s driving the gas hog: it justifies their keeping their noses in the Middle East!