Roots and culture change
You know, I was browsing facebook and looking at how people change. Several of those I went to school with seem like completely different people than the teens I once knew.
And then I think back to their parents and it all makes sense.
I'm not saying we are clones of those who raised us - that would be pretty crappy evolution. But the resemblance is unmistakable.
Take me. At first blush, my mix of politics is pretty crazy. I can sound either crazy hippie or crazy right wing nut depending on the topic I'm on. Save the wolves, save the earth, save each other. Fix the legal system including not allowing jobs to discriminate against ex felons. Protect due process, careful with no-knock warrants, repeal the patriot act, legalize mary jane and maybe some other drugs. Better reform programs for criminals. Equal rights for gays. Pro choice, pro womens rights, screw the current standard of beauty. Spay and neuter your pets.
Sound like a hippy yet?
Yet I'm also pro death penalty in the right cases. I'm completely in favor of the arizona immigration law and am against amnesty for illegals. I think all welfare needs repealed and replaced with a system that requires you work for your money. That includes disability - I've never met someone on disability yet who couldn't give at least 5 hours a week in the right type of job. Maybe a parapalegic - although even they might make good spokespeople and it would start to solve this issue we have where we hide the differently abled away. I'm for severe financial reform that includes cutting every program the federal government runs by 15% (The across the board amount it would take to pay off the national debt in a reasonable amount of time.) I'm anti insurance companies. I'm against the monstrosity of the healthcare bill, for finance reform, pro electoral college, and have read both the federalist and the anti-federalist papers. I'm somewhat of an isolationist (though less so as I get older) and I support my military as much as possible. I'm passionately for the second amendment and feel the country would be in a better place if everyone had a firearm and knew how to use it. Also, I think the whale wars people should be arrested. How is it not assault to throw pepper gas at people?
Sound like a tea partier yet?
If this contradiction in terms confuses you imagine how I feel. I can't find any groups that agree with me. Libertarians come closest although their ranks are filled with some pretty crazy folks. It seems to make no sense. My dad was a democrat and my mom apathetic.
But then I think about the broader culture I was raised in and it makes sense. I'm hill folk, or country, or mountain people. Although only on the tip of appalachia my dad was raised in a time where everyone worked the mines and gypsys still came by. Hill folk (at least the kind I came from) are fiercely independent. They are hard workers who don't appreciate anyone meddling in their affairs. They believe in doing the right thing and helping a neighbor out, but they cling to the purse strings after having been swindled one to many times. They are proud of their history in fighting for this country. The hill folk I was raised with wouldn't take a handout unless it was that or starve, although that mentality has eroded quickly. It is by and large an insular world.
My long-winded point is that the older I get the more I realize what a product of my environment I am. Sure I'm my own girl (the equal rights for gays thing isn't a hill folk specialty) but the more I change, the more I find myself becoming the same. And the more I realize this, the more I realize that any lasting reform on any of my passionate issues will require culture change before we'll see lasting change. Culture change naturally happens as generations change but it can be accelerated signifigantly by media campaigns.
And then I realize that if I recognize that people with money and power recognize that and I wonder what agendas they are pushing and if I'd agree with them if I knew them. And what culture they are coming from that are causing those agendas. Because there are some cultures that this girl from the hills doesn't want to win.