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This was inspired by several things, including a post by Silverback, to whom I give a nod and a big thumbs-up.
In the course of my life I have gone from being a fairly reactionary Republican to being a somewhat left of center Democrat. It took a long, long, LONG time to do that, about 10 or 12 years or so. It was a long, slow, oftentimes painful transition for me, but then again, anything that forces you to realize that you are wrong, or that your beliefs are wrong, tends to not be a happy experience. I would like to think that the experience has forced me to grow, and that is a good thing, even if it was (admittedly) sometimes against my will. I have had a variety of catalytic events that have pushed me out of the Republican ranks over the years. I will say that taken as a whole, I now believe that the Democrats represent my views much better than the Republicans do. That does not mean that I think that that Democrats do no wrong, and there are still some things that I disagree with many of my fellow Democrats about. But ultimately I have chosen to identify myself as a Democrat, as I have for about 10 years now.
In many ways, I found that my old conservative beliefs were based on a world view that was simply not true. In other ways, I found that the things that I thought the Republican party stood for (many of which I still believe in) were being increasingly ignored not only by many individuals within the Republican ranks, but by the party as a whole. For example, the first thing that ever happened to me that made me start to question whether or not I wanted to identify myself as a Republican was Iran/Contra. Specifically, it was the reaction that many other Republicans had to Ollie North. Even as a fairly idealistic and yet dumb teenager, I could not understand how so many Republicans put him up on a pedestal. "He broke the law," I said in disbelief. "He lied to Congress, and freely admitted that he had done so, and yet the law and order party says 'Ollie for President'?". I won't even go into any of the other things about that, but my point is I believed that the Republicans were a law and order party, and clearly they were coming down on the wrong side of the law on this one. So I started questioning things.
One of the most powerful transforming experiences I have had was my military service. It was eye-opening in so many ways. First, it allowed me to interact on a daily basis with guys from all over, and not just all 50 states but places like Guam, and Samoa, and Saipan, not to mention guys who were from places like Mexico and Guatemala and other foreign nationals and who had not yet become American citizens. I found that I had lots in common with all of them, much more than the fact that we were all in basic together, or the fact that we were all stuck together at the Benning School for Boys. Still,, there were notable differences. One of the things that struck me the most was how few of them came from privileged backgrounds. Sure, there were a few other guys like me who came from middle-class backgrounds and grew up in the suburbs, but there were a lot of guys from the rust belt, and from Appalachia, and from inner cities. There were a lot of guys who had a pretty damn hardscrabble life whom the Army offered a way out, and possibly a way up. I found myself becoming fast friends with many of these guys, and actually getting along with them better than I got along with a lot of the other white Southern guys. Admittedly, some of that may have been because I never really cared for country music, college football, and NASCAR, but still, it was unexpected on my part. I found myself being exposed to things that I had never really had much of an appreciation for, like a lot of foreign cuisines and music. And my new best friend (a guy from New York City) really helped me develop an appreciation of musicians with a political message like Public Enemy and Rage Against the Machine, music that I had never really been exposed to previously. But I also saw more of the uglier side of things. Despite a hell of a lot of progress, there were still some racial and ethnic tensions in the Army, and it upset me to see that a considerable portion of it was brought on by guys who came to the Army with lots of prejudice and were not even trying to get past it. I started to get angrier and angrier at these guys. Many of them were from small rural towns in the South, or from similar small towns in places like Indiana or Michigan or Pennsylvania. They assumed because of my background that I would think like them, and so unlike guys with similar prejudices from inner cities they didn't hold back in front of me. I grew up in a small city, but I have spent a lot of time in small towns, like the town where my parents grew up (Somerset, Massachusetts, population about 18,000). Although I like some of those small-town ideals like saying hello to strangers, neighbors looking out for each other, stuff like that, there were some guys who seemed to think that their "small-town values" were superior to anything that came out of big cities or other countries despite the fact that they had never even really seen any of those places. They just assumed their way was best. And since their way often involved a lot of racial, ethnic and religious prejudice, I failed to see how their "values" were superior to jack shit. There were a lot of other transformative military experiences, like being in other countries and seeing what our country's policies were doing to people in those countries first-hand, but would be a whole other post in itself.
Over time, I began to have major problems with other Republican views, like their treatment of gays. Like most white middle-class guys in a Southern public high school, I made all sorts of "faggot" jokes and comments for years. I did not make my first openly gay friend until I was in my early twenties. And to see how that poor guy was treated by so many of the people that I identified myself with just made me ill on a level that words could not describe. Maybe it's because I have generally believed in standing up for the underdog, but it really upset me to see the way he was bullied, ostracized, even threatened. I found myself standing up for him because so few other people would. My parents had drilled into me the idea that racial prejudice was wrong, but despite their New England values being drilled into me I couldn't escape racial prejudices, largely because I was exposed to it on a daily basis at my nearly entirely white schools. But I also found myself starting to go off on my Republican friends who still used terms like "wetback" and "nigger" or that mocked and belittled the poor and the unfortunate, saying that their miseries were caused by their own laziness. All of this took place as I began to read more and more (history major and political science minor, in addition to being a geek and a total bookworm) about how the powerful and the wealthy in this country (many Democrats included) have systematically used the power of government not only for their own benefit, but to oppress those that tried to change things for the better. My home state of Alabama is a poster child for that.
I also made some gay women friends (one of whom is still my best friend), and that exposed me to feminism (not to mention even more GLBT issues) in a way that I had never really had the chance to see before. It was as if I had yet another set of blinders pulled off my eyes, and suddenly I began to see clearly for the first time just how horribly sexist and misogynistic much of our culture was and still is. And to see how many people, even many women, belittle the idea that women should receive equal treatment in society, and be judged by their abilities and not by their bodies, was just literally mind-blowing. Even now, I will meet Republican women who on the one hand will rail against feminists, and then in the same conversation complain about how they are being treated unfairly by their male bosses, and not even make the association. The personal is political, and I can't think of any better examples than that sort of thing in the workplace.
I don't want to drag this on and on, but I guess I am trying to say that although I understand what many Republicans (at least the old-school Eisenhower types and the libertarians) believe, and why many people choose to remain Republicans, I also have to say that I believe the best things about the Republican party (a belief in personal responsibility, a belief in a sensible and realistic foreign policy, a belief in fiscal responsibility, etc.) have been systematically gutted and kicked down over the past twenty five years or so from within the party, and not just by the rank and file, but by the party leadership. I honestly believe that the best parts of the GOP are long dead, killed by an overwhelming combination of greed, carelessness, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, and fundamentalist religion.
So remember, when you see someone who is a Republican, especially a Republican who seems to be wavering, make an effort to reach out. Try to use reason, and appeal to their better natures, as Lincoln said. A lot of the former Republicans I know were persuaded to change their votes because of reasoned arguments, not because of mindless name-calling and mud-slinging. The GOP has become the party of exclusion, and there is no reason for us to emulate them. We really are better than that.
Peace, and Go Obama/Biden!!!
9thkvius
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