So, I was talking to my old friend Bethany last night, and we got into talking about politics a little. Bethany describes herself as “ultra-conservative”, and she’s a member of a Pentecostal church (her dad’s the preacher there). She reads my blog (Hi, Bethany!), and based on the stuff I’ve written, has wondered if I think that half of all Americans (that would be the half that voted for Bush, I guess) are idiots.

I’ve been thingking about this lately. What do I think about the conservatives (rather, the “conservatives”–”conservative” meaning pro-deficit-spending and pro-intrusive-government as opposed to actually conservative, meaning small-government, socially-libertarian)? The evangelicals and fundamentalists? The people who voted for G.W. Bush? I definitely disagree with them on a wide range of issues, and I definitely think that lots of their ideas about how the world should be are downright nasty. And I do talk about them being idiots, all the time. Realistically, however, I know that Americans are not divided into red-staters and blue-staters on the basis of intelligence. I have known an awful lot of conservatives who are just as intelligent as I am (heh). There are lots of really smart people who are working to enact policies that I find to be completely abhorrent. On what basis could they possibly justify their political preferences?

I think the main reason people vote “conservative” is because they have a significantly different perception of the world than us liberals. In particular, our choice of news sources and our ontologies strongly correlate with our political leanings. The Daily Howler touches on the first in today’s post about two Americas: what you believe about a situation is going to be heavily influenced by the information you get about that situation. Liberals and “conservatives” rely on frighteningly disparate sources for their news. It might make sense to be for the war in Iraq if your sources tell you that Saddam was in on 9/11. It would definitely make sense to be against removing Terry Sciavo’s feeding tube if your sources tell you that she is responsive and conscious. As for the second, your religion or lack thereof can potentially have a major effect on your ideas about politics. If you believe that Jesus will come to this earth again when the Jews’ land is restored to them, it makes sense to be in favor of the neocons’ policies on the environment and the Middle East. If you believe that human life is sacred, it makes sense to view abortion as murder. (Think about how Northerners reacted to the enslavement of black people, for example–when liberals saw humans being abused on such a large scale, they did everything they could to correct the injustice.)

I don’t know how Bethany voted, and I don’t know her specific opinions on many, if not most of the seriously divisive issues in politics today. I don’t even know if she’s a conservative or a “conservative”. We know each other’s general political leanings, so we know we’re liable to be in major disagreement on a lot of these issues. But we’ve been friends since the 6th grade, and I know she’s an intelligent, educated, and thoughtful person. When I’ve asked her questions about her religion, she has always been able to give thorough, reasonable answers about why she believes and behaves as she does. She may be ultra-conservative, but she’s definitely not an idiot. I’ve always felt really thankful for our friendship because it’s given me a look into a world I otherwise woudn’t have known much about. I think if liberals and conservatives actually talked to each other more–about why they believe what they believe, as opposed to butting their heasds together about specific political issues–there’d be a lot less rancor in our national political dialogue.

Maybe I’m being unrealistically optimistic, though. Bethany, in any case, thinks I’m off my rocker.

The Alchera Project

I found out about The Alchera Project from my friend Joy, who’s been writing from their prompts for a while now. I have to admit that having a blog hasn’t helped me with writing my thesis (so far!), but I am enjoying the writing itself. In school I was always considered a good writer, but writing’s never been something I’ve enjoyed. So, this is an interesting new development for me. The Alchera Project is really nothing more than a less-tacky-than-average blog meme, but a lot of the topics they give are interesting to think about (for me, at least). We’ll see how it goes.