This is something I’ve been deliberating lately, and today (well, by the time I get around to posting this it will have been last night) I felt compelled to sit down and write about it. And I am now blogging about it because I know it's a topic that at least some of you who know me well might be interested to read about.
Where do I stand, politically? I’ve been confused about it ever since I started giving a hoot about politics (somewhere around when I was fifteen-sixteenish). So I did a little bit of research and a fair amount of thinking (and a lot of talking to myself) over the last couple of days.
For the purposes of this small explanation, I am going to explore politics in the contemporary, generalized right/left conservative/liberal “Republican/Democrat” terms.
I think I’m somewhere around conservative-to-moderate. The way I have come to understand it, I tend to be very conservative on anything I view as a moral issue (obviously, as it’s usually the right-wingers that see those issues as moral issues at all); regarding things that I do not see as an matter of morality, I tend more towards the liberal end of the political spectrum.
For example, I believe that abortion is morally wrong (conservative), but I think the government should make an active effort to erase class distinctions based on gender or race (a liberal position). Of course, sometimes my views on both sides clash—I definitely believe every human being should have equal rights and opportunities, but I don’t think the government should minimize one person’s efforts and achievements by elevating someone who didn’t put as much effort into bettering themselves to the same status in society.)
(And then there’s the issue of “sexual minorities”...I firmly believe homosexuality is wrong, but I believe just as strongly that people should be loved for who they are even if I cannot approve of their behavior. So where do I believe the government should treat those people? How can the legal system treat them as equal citizens without thus necessarily condoning their behavior? Generally, I take the politically conservative side here, but I always feel a little bit bad about it.)
I’ll take a moment to explain what I mean by “what I see as moral issues”. As someone who is pro-life, I hear the term abortion and instantly think, “Oh, that’s morally wrong.” However, someone who is pro-choice doesn’t necessarily hear abortion and go, “Yes, that’s morally right.” To my understanding, they view it as more of a civic issue than a moral one. They view abortion as the law’s treatment of women’s rights, where a political conservative views it as the woman’s treatment of another human being. Pro-life proclaims a baby's right to life; pro-choice heralds a woman's right to autonomy.
In people’s heads, it’s two completely different problems.
The same is true of gay marriage—a politically conservative person probably views it as inherently, basically wrong; where a politically liberal person views it as a basic human right.
Left and right can agree on a vague, absolute truth—”murder is wrong”—but then cannot agree on what actually constitutes murder.
And then there’s the debates I could care less about—take gun laws, for instance. Republicans are all for gun rights, Democrats all for beating them down. I think it’s a pointless argument to waste energy on...but that’s probably because it has basically no bearing on my life, and as long as people aren’t shooting each other with those guns, it isn’t a moral absolute that I think needs to be addressed one way or another. I really don’t care.
Overall, I would say I am probably fairly moderate, but I would tend to vote for conservative candidates because I am much more ethically and emotionally tied up in the issues on which i take a conservative view.
I could go on for a while outlining my feelings on specific issues. But I won’t bother, here. I mainly wanted to get out a basic outline of what I believe, what goes on in my head, the very small parts that I have actually ironed out. I don’t keep up with enough contemporary politics to have a really good understanding of everything. I’m only just stepping into the world where this really matters to me, where it all begins to have a much more personal effect on me.
I think we should reinstitute a theocracy and let God straighten politics out (and thus, I suppose, eliminate politics altogether?).
(That was a hastily made statement that, while generally true, probably isn’t true in the sense of half the implications that just popped into your heads.)
