Becoming an Non-Republican, Or: How I learned to stop worrying, and love liberals.

The following is another long post. Apparently I have more time on my hands, now that I am a proper house husband. This post will precede another long post about the unfortunate reaction, many in my state are having to the fact that in 4 years, people that were unfortunate enough to have been born in need of serious health care, or became ill before or between insurances or even on ones that were cruelly kicked off their insurance, THESE people will finally get what they deserve:

Peace of mind.

With that context, this is the story of the formation of my political belief:

I went to Mountain View High School in Orem, Utah. I was a mighty "Bruin" Our rival school across town was the Orem Tigers. I was always being dragged to football games, basketball games, basically anything with 'ball' in the name and I was dragged there by my friends. I have a general distaste for having to sit through boring games where I never really care what the outcome is, but in these cases I was also expected to choose a side based on what part of town I happened to be born on, or what University I lived closest to.

In other words: I was supposed to root for the Bruins and hate the Tigers. If I happened to see students that were Tigers I was supposed to be like: BOOoo, they are Tigers...I am a BRUIN!!

because......I was born west of State Street.

The same went for the fact that I was supposed to root for BYU my whole life and again, I never really cared. In fact, I actually ended up going to the University of Utah, BYU's fiercely hated rival, only because I could actually get in to that school and because their illustration program actually accepted me, and well, because it was the only one I bothered applying to.

Ahem...where was I? Oh yes...

During high school I also started forming my opinions about politics. What was very clear to me at that point was that I was definitely supposed to be a Republican, and why?

A. Because I am Mormon.

B. Because Mormons aren't "supposed to be" Democrats, or at least that's one of the unspoken social mores in Utah County.

C. Because no one I knew was a Democrat, wait I take that back, I only knew one person, all growing up that was an admitted Democrat (his family were all proud Democrats), and we ridiculed him many times. Sorry Jeremy.

I got so into developing my political beliefs, in fact, that during my Junior year in high school that I started listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio every weekday and even read a couple of his books. My favorite was called The Way Things Ought To Be.
Ol' Rushbo, had me converted into a full fledged liberal-hating, conservative Republican. After a time of really allowing him to influence me in what I was supposed to believe as a Republican, I realized slowly that I disliked this list of people:

Feminists or Feminazis (as he likes to call them)

Homosexuals

Hippies

Communists

Anti-war Protestors

The Media Elite/Hollywood

etc, etc.

It wasn't until half way through my mission that I thought back on my interest in his politics and how I was reading about Jesus' life all the time and how his message of inclusion and non-paranoia about those that are different than you, actually allowed me to have a slight epiphany that, not only did I reject a lot of core principle of what conservatives all seemed to believe, but that it actually seemed that I lined up more with the Democrats in my view of inclusion and caring more about "the little guy" than about Capitalism and the greed it seems to breed. I know this is divisive stuff, but I am getting to my point, finally.

Anyway, I was faced with in the coming years after my mission another mission to decide what I believed politically. Was I a Democrat, or was I a Republican. After a lot of thinking, I eventually realized, that I am neither. Mostly the reasoning being, I HATE partisanships, I HATE people feeling the need to pick a team all the time. I get WHY they do, because there is comfort and safety in numbers and it's a lot of the ol' "I'm with you, we belong to the same team, because we BOTH hate Obama, or George W. Bush and their respective parties) That's why they go around saying things like: Comrade Obama wants us to get in the bread lines, or Bush hates black people because he sat on his butt during Katrina, so I hate Republicans because Bush is secretly a racist.

It's not the solidarity I despise, it's the blind willful ignorance of voting party lines or looking at someone differently once you realized that they believe differently than you. This extends beyond politics to issues of relations among differing religions and racial groups. Basically anyone that says: I don't like you because you don't belong to my club, and because I allow people in my club to mostly think for me, because they all seem to say that such and such is wrong or such and such is right, and because they do, then I do as well.
So that is why I am am independent, BUT, the ironic thing is, if you happened to see what I am registered as, I am registered as a Republican. This is mostly because of laziness, and I have only attempted to officially change it. When I voted this last election, I asked one of two middle aged ladies volunteering in the gymnasium of my old elementary school, this:

"How do I change my voter registration from Republican to Independent?" And the first lady says: "Why would you want to do that?! You should stay a Republican!" and then the next lady says embarassed, "Carol, you can't say THAT! " and Carol says, "Why not?, it's the best party."
I went away from that feeling that even though I was going to get grief from all my friends, (and have) I felt that my vote from Obama, was a step in the right direction.
So here is my message, to all my Republican friends and family that might read this blog entry. I am sorry if I have let you down, but I feel that this political course is right for me, and as the wise sage Sheryl Crow once said:

"If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad."

Unless you are a cannibal or something.