Your endless rants and whining have helped me see the err of my ways
This one is for you, the extreme liberals of JoeUser who have spent the past year and a half I've regularly blogged here screaming, stomping and gnashing teeth over the pure evil that is George Bush and the vile conspiracies of the Right. You have helped me further define my political views, my stances on issues and my attitude towards our government and the world at large.
Thanks to you, I intend to re-register as an Independent. That's a change AWAY from Democrat.
I grew up in a University town, an area dominated by liberal thinkers. I saw the countless campus protests all my life. I listened to my father rant and rail against Republicans. My sister went to one of the protests in Washington D.C a few years ago. Several of my friends back home are far far left animal rights and nature nuts. I lived my life in a liberal's dream location. The conservatives were few and generally laughed at, and all was well in our little blue town amidst a sea of red counties. My views fit in well, I was as left as you got and was against just about anything closely related to the Right. I was a Loopy Luddite Lefty and I admit it. But then something important happened...
I went to College, I was exposed to people with different ideas. I later moved away from my hometown, away from the Reality Distortion Field that surrounds any University town and ventured out into the wonders of the "Real World" where I was exposed to even more ideas and differing thoughts. It was from this new distance however that I began to see the sheer stupidity of some of the tactics of the left. Then I saw the way people here were behaving and realized that it wasn't something confined to the little town I came from... it was beginning to look like the insantiy was a bit wider spread.
Add to all of this the last election. Bush won again, and this time there couldn't really be any claims of "stealing" the election or whatever. Yet, most of the people I knew were still screaming, wailing, gnashing their teeth over the outcome. In fact, months later THEY STILL ARE. They try to blame absolutely everything that's going wrong in the US and the World on Bush. World hunger? Bush did it! Trade Defecit? Didn't exist before Bush! Social Security? Bush wants to kill old people! It's just plain ridiculous.
The constant complaining, the irrational hatred is just getting to be too much for me. This sentiment isn't limited to extremists in the party anymore either, we see it in Washington with Dem congressmen voting against everything Bush puts up just because it's Bush. I don't think I want to be associated anymore with a group that has made their sole platform "Everything that Bush says is wrong" It's petty, reactionary and lacks any sense of drive, vision or future. I want out. You all have proven to me that this is not a group to be affiliated with.
Now, I'm not jumping the fence to the Right. I'm still a pretty damn liberal guy on a number of issues, but I'm also reasonable enough to recognize the merits of conservative policies as well. I've grown more moderate as a result of how people here on JU, as well as those I know in real life react to politics. This is why I'm moving to Independent. Sure, I won't be able to vote in primaries, but I will feel more free to vote my mind across party lines. I won't have to deal with people calling me a bad Democrat or whatever. I'll be registered as what I am, one who thinks independently of either major party.
I voted against Bush. I disagreed with the Iraq invasion. I support ongoing efforts in Iraq to shore up the government and ensure the save eventual withdrawl of our troops when the time is right. I am against any law banning Gay Marraige as such a law is entirely based upon Religion which I feel has no place in our laws. I am against attempts to sanitize our language so as to not offend gender, race or creed since attempts to do so stifle free speech. I have a mailman damnit! Not a mailPERSON. I favor help programs for the poor and unemployed as a method to rehabilitate, not as a method to sustain them for years and years. I am in favor of revisions to Social Security to make it a more streamlined process, and less of a political mess. I support the death penalty and am pro-choice. I think we need to be consistent and strong in our foreign policies, but do not think we have the right to dictate to other nations how they should behave.
I'm done with the Democratic party until such a time comes around that it expells its crazy fanatics and actually starts addressing real issues instead of reacting to things they don't like.