![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
For more than 20 years now, I've called myself a political moderate. It's a term that's not all that helpfully descriptive, bespeaking little than an aversion to extremes in policy and approach. I've also called myself an independent, which suits me better, as an expression that my views can't be pigeonholed and sanded down to fit within the parameters of either of the two major U.S. parties -- that of the factors I bring into play when making an informed investigation and judgment prior to voting, political party affiliation isn't one of them. (Plus, as I posted several years ago, I've also stayed clear of political parties for a faith-based reason, as I've seen too many people of my faith who, from my perspective, seem more aligned to their politics than to the teachings they claim to cherish.) Besides, words like "conservative" and "liberal," as far as I'm concerned, have been leached of all meaning -- they say a lot more about the speaker's own stance than anything else. (My own paper has been called left-wing and right-wing -- at the same time. What does that prove? Absolutely nothing at all.)
Well and good -- and I'll probably remain independent, even though that effectively disenfranchises myself come primary time, at least in my state. But as the political dialogue gets louder, coarser, shriller and more ridiculous (with bombastic claims of "war on faith" and the like) ... and as now in the Facebook Era I see how many of my old high school classmates have moved rightward of me (or maybe they always were, and we never talked about politics; or maybe I've moved leftward) ... and as people in various circles in which I move think nothing of, say, unleashing all manner of anti-Obama invective casually, figuring that, well, pretty much everyone in the room must agree with them ... and as each day brings a statement out of a candidate's mouth more jaw-droppingly outrageous than the day before ... I wonder whether I'm still that moderate. Politically, I don't really know what I am -- kind of a mutt, really.
( 10 RANDOM THINGS I THINK )
Well and good -- and I'll probably remain independent, even though that effectively disenfranchises myself come primary time, at least in my state. But as the political dialogue gets louder, coarser, shriller and more ridiculous (with bombastic claims of "war on faith" and the like) ... and as now in the Facebook Era I see how many of my old high school classmates have moved rightward of me (or maybe they always were, and we never talked about politics; or maybe I've moved leftward) ... and as people in various circles in which I move think nothing of, say, unleashing all manner of anti-Obama invective casually, figuring that, well, pretty much everyone in the room must agree with them ... and as each day brings a statement out of a candidate's mouth more jaw-droppingly outrageous than the day before ... I wonder whether I'm still that moderate. Politically, I don't really know what I am -- kind of a mutt, really.
( 10 RANDOM THINGS I THINK )
