A confession
10/24/06 11:05
People
think I’m always pounding on the Republicans and
their habit of sloganeering instead of actually
governing because I’m a Democrat. Snot true. I’m a
registered independent now, but the truth is, I was
once a Reagan Republican. I was a true believer.
From my earliest memories I recall being taught how the US is good and righteous and benevolent, but we have these evil enemies that want us to fail, so we had to be ever vigilant and true to our country and practice putting our head between our legs to protect us from nuclear bombs. In the ‘70’s, I witnessed the US pull out of Vietnam and I believed the right-wing when they said we lost because our leaders didn’t have the guts to finish the job. Then there was the Arab oil embargo with high gas prices, recession and stagflation etc. That was followed by the Iran hostage crisis. I felt like the world was out to get us and we needed to kick some ass.
I was ignorant. And arrogant. Ronald Reagan pushed all the right buttons with me. He was the prototypical rugged American cowboy (at least he played one on TV) who wasn’t going to take any shit from those damn foreigners. And so, for my first-ever vote, I voted for him with a great sense of pride and patriotism.
It’s embarrassing to look back on it now. I’ve always considered myself to be pretty bright, but it’s obvious that my analytical thinking skills back then left a lot to be desired. Intelligence doesn’t do you any good if you’re too lazy to put in the work to actually separate the facts from the fiction. It’s always easier to just believe what the government tells you and go back to drinking beer and watching television than it is to try to be a responsible and informed citizen. I get so angry at the rubes who are still backing dubya because I see my younger self there.
I can’t point my finger at any particular event that woke me up, but it was some time near the end of Reagan’s second term that I finally began to pull my head out of the sand. I’m working on another post about some of the myths of the Reagan era now. Some of those myths are still being perpetuated by the current administration, which shouldn’t be too surprising, I guess, since a lot of the same actors are in the cast. More on this later.
From my earliest memories I recall being taught how the US is good and righteous and benevolent, but we have these evil enemies that want us to fail, so we had to be ever vigilant and true to our country and practice putting our head between our legs to protect us from nuclear bombs. In the ‘70’s, I witnessed the US pull out of Vietnam and I believed the right-wing when they said we lost because our leaders didn’t have the guts to finish the job. Then there was the Arab oil embargo with high gas prices, recession and stagflation etc. That was followed by the Iran hostage crisis. I felt like the world was out to get us and we needed to kick some ass.
I was ignorant. And arrogant. Ronald Reagan pushed all the right buttons with me. He was the prototypical rugged American cowboy (at least he played one on TV) who wasn’t going to take any shit from those damn foreigners. And so, for my first-ever vote, I voted for him with a great sense of pride and patriotism.
It’s embarrassing to look back on it now. I’ve always considered myself to be pretty bright, but it’s obvious that my analytical thinking skills back then left a lot to be desired. Intelligence doesn’t do you any good if you’re too lazy to put in the work to actually separate the facts from the fiction. It’s always easier to just believe what the government tells you and go back to drinking beer and watching television than it is to try to be a responsible and informed citizen. I get so angry at the rubes who are still backing dubya because I see my younger self there.
I can’t point my finger at any particular event that woke me up, but it was some time near the end of Reagan’s second term that I finally began to pull my head out of the sand. I’m working on another post about some of the myths of the Reagan era now. Some of those myths are still being perpetuated by the current administration, which shouldn’t be too surprising, I guess, since a lot of the same actors are in the cast. More on this later.
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