Democrat or republican. Is it just me, or does the country seem polarized right now? Too many people seem to have slipped into some kind of "us and them" mentality, it's kind of annoying. Personally I identify a little bit with democrats and a little bit with republicans. I was raised a democrat and both my parents are democrats, but I'm happy to say I've matured past the "us and them" mentality that still plagues many others in our society. I've learned to empathize with the other side. After all, republicans are not evil people. Some of the people who run that party may seem a little bit shifty, but most of the votes in republican party actually come from the "average" working class person. These kinds of people vote for the republican party because of they believe in things like family values and national security. Republican leaders promise these individuals that their issues will be taken care of, which is why those same leaders get their votes. I suppose the point I'm trying to make here is that most republican voters are just normal people trying to do what they believe is right. They don't deserve to be laughed at or dehumanized.
Unfortunately I suppose the lack of empathy for the other side is somewhat predictable. Just like ants, some people seem to slip into a kind of "follower mode" when dealing with anything they regard as "enemies". Their brains shut off, and they blindly follow whoever they have chosen as their leader. They don't see their job as thinking, their job is to attack the other sides position and tear it down.
Now I should stop right here and say that I consider myself more of a democrat than a republican. In fact I believe that many republican policies are essentially nonsense designed to help big corporations, but not the average person. Under George W Bush there even seemed to be corruption within the white house itself. Former lobbyists being appointed to key positions within organizations they used to fight again? Didn't seem right to me.
Just because I dislike this kind of thing however it isn't going to cause me to slip into group-think mode, but I can't say the same for all democrats. I think some democrats have become so hateful of the opposition that there's essentially no point in even trying to talk to them about considering opposing points of view. For example if I tried to explain to one of these people that I was a social democrat but that I believed in family values, I'd automatically get lumped into the "enemy" category and they would stop listening to what I had to say.
Of course I like to think that most of us democrats are not like that at all. But whenever I encounter such intolerant people I find them very exacerbating to be around. I suppose it doesn't help that categorizing and labeling are rampantly perpetuated by both liberals and conservatives alike, and when it's all said and done everyone has developed a set of stereotypes to go along with the words used by the opposition. Which is of course why we have to keep renaming things, so from now on I declare family values to be known as "personal-group liberties". Yes I support personal-group liberties, and I hope everyone else does too.
Vocab:
Perpetuated: Cause to continue or prevail; "perpetuate a myth"
Exacerbating: Exasperate or irritate
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