Maybe It Really Is All Bush's Fault

I’ve always been a curious person. I have a need to know as much as I can about life and the world around me. This runs the gamut from science to politics. And I guess I just don’t understand people that aren’t curious. Knowing the truth, the real story, that’s always been important to me. I’ve admitted that as a young man I was adamantly against the Viet Nam War. I wore long hair, peace symbols and bell-bottom jeans. I told anyone that would listen that the war was wrong and that we had no business in that part of the world.



It wasn’t until years later that I read about documents, declassified by the Vietnamese, that showed just how close we were to winning that war when we pulled out. [If you are a Democrat you will probably bail out right here because this is not sounding like something that makes you feel good.] You know, when we abandoned those that we had promised to help and left hundreds of thousands to die and millions others to languish in re-education camps. It made me ashamed.

I love reading both sides of the evolution theory. (Yes, there really are two sides). [Oops, bye-bye Liberals] I’m fascinated by the idea of extraterrestrial visitation even though I don’t believe it has happened (yet). [Gee, never thought I'd alienate the Ron Paul crowd] I’ve read the Gnostic Gospels. [Mainstream news reporters, sorry dudes, you'll be missed the rest of the essay...] I’ve read the Koran. I’ve chanted in a Buddhist temple. Even though I’ve always been drawn back to Christ for my faith I find no harm in learning about other religions.

What causes people to not be curious? Or to even stop being curious when confronted with ideas that don’t jibe with their own? I consider myself to be conservative in my politics and my lifestyle. But I listen intently to the words and arguments from the far-left and from the middle and from the far-right. And while I consider the far-right to be a little on the goofy side, the words of the far-left have so far always reinforced my core beliefs. I cannot for the life of me find anything in them that makes enough sense to change my mind. But I keep listening just in case. Well, and you pretty much can’t help but listen since that’s pretty much all you’re going to hear on NPR, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN and just about any other news channels you turn to. Even FOX tends to spout some of that ideology from time to time.

So why would someone fix on a political ideology and not want to hear anything that disagrees with it? What makes one of your best friends, a person whom you endured listening to spew hatred and disdain during years of a certain past administration, suddenly have no interest in politics now that it’s a new administration? When you try to talk calmly and rationally about current events, what makes a co-worker threaten you with violence because they deem you too stupid to live? Why is it that when asked the difficult questions, they resort to shouting you down as if talking louder makes what they say a fact? Especially when presented with facts that dispute it…

What makes friends reply “unsubscribe Republican propaganda” when barbed in a friendly way about their politics? Why won’t anyone discuss this with me? I really want to know what’s real.