I wanted to give you the reader and listener some insight on my perspective and where my political philosophy was formed and how this philosophy comes through in podcast and the blog.
Political Awareness (fist look)
My political awareness starts before my teenage years. Mom spent nearly every year at the November polls. Dad was an idealist. He was deeply religious, charitable and deeply mistrustful of government. I remember in one of the small towns where I grew up, there was a machine shop with the large sign on the upper wall which read "Get Us Out Of The United Nations." There was a massive union steel plant in town where nearly everyone's dad, except mine, worked. This was an environment steeped in politics, from the far right, to populist protectionism.
I was a child of the late 80's and early 90's. High School and junior high was a time of tremendous change, both nationally and internationally. G.W. Bush crushed Dukakis in the '88 election. I remember that we had voting booths in my middle school and while people were voting a kid walking through halls screamed "vote socialist." I learned more about the many different direction that people wanted to see the country go.
One direction that many wanted the country to go was in victim classification. The American Disability Act (ADA) was past through Congress and made law. The was significant to me because I was in a car accident as a young child and to this day have only partial use of my right arm. The ADA was designed, to a small extent, for people like me. The odd thing about it was that while there was so much effort being put to victim classification, I was blessed to have the parents that I did, (my father isn't still with us). My parents never let me take the road of the disabled kid. So this 'benevolent' new program designed to protect me, was condescending.
Victim classification was also made plain in the Rodney King riots. I had a teacher tell the class the morning that the riots broke out that we, the white kids in the class, bore a special responsibility for the 'unjust' verdict of the case. He also defended the actions of the rioters while screaming to the class that we were all 'Racists.' Later that day I found myself debating with another young man about rioting being what I saw as a silly way to make a point. It also seemed a little contradictory to me, that my teacher and this young man, were defending the actions of people destroying their own neighborhoods, but they called me a 'Racist.' It was then that I started to realize that victim classification is to absolve the victim of any personal responsibility.
Some time later there were large protests in front of the Utah Governors mansion in Salt Lake City because of capital punishment case, deemed the 'Hi-Fi Killers.' In this case, two Caribbean men had robbed a Hi-Fi store in northern Utah. During the robbery the two men had tortured, raped and killed some of the innocent people caught in the store during the robbery. The protesters were calling the death penalty against these two men racist. This incident showed me that racism could be code for anything that protesters disagreed with.
The Middle East Awareness (first look)
This was the time of the Rushdie book "Satanic Verses." In my government class, in high school, there was an Iranian born girl, who stood in front of the class to defend her religion. She made no mention of the death warrant that had been put out on Rushdie by the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini, but I was exited to see her defend her faith in front of a room full of adolescent Christians and nonreligious students. This was also the time of the end of the ten year war, between Iran and Iraq, and the first U.S. 'Gulf War.' The Middle East was becoming less distant every day. This hit home when I saw my own brother ship off to war in "Operation Desert Storm," the official name of the first 'Gulf War.'
Later I had friends from Iraq who were Kurdish and Shi'a. I learned that the Middle East was, and is, a place of many different voices and perspectives. I did find however that there were many among the Middle Eastern immigrants who bought into conspiracy theories. I recall a news article from a Middle Eastern newspaper that one of my friends had, showed Bill Clinton, Yasser Arafat, and Yitchak Rabin and the headline read, "Negotiations to Perpetuate the Occupation." Other Middle Eastern friends were eager to tell me that King Hussein of Jordan was a U.S. spy for the C.I.A. or that U.S. policy was run from Tel Aviv.
Much later, after Sept. 11, 2001, many of my friends from the Middle East had begun to question the conspiracies that they had been taught and so many of them believed. Some asked how the United States who had given them so much freedom and opportunity, could be the same country that they had been taught to hate their whole lives. Many of them began to resent the religious hierarchy that had taught them to hate the United States. Another friend, started to learn about multi-tiered government, checks and balances and other distinctive parts of a republican democracy, which caused him to wonder why real republican democracies don't exist in the Middle East. His indignation towards those who defended the broken mentalities and broken governments started to come to a head when he would ask things like, "why is it that Arab leaders kill their own people and the leaders of the United States and Israel do not kill their own people?" Then he would add, partially to upset the Middle Easterner he was talking to, "perhaps we would be better off in Iraq under Sharon." Sharon, of course, being the Prime Minister of Israel at the time. I learned from the bravery of this friend, what Thomas Jefferson meant when he said, "When given a choice between despotism and liberty, free people will always choose the latter."
Idealism versus Maturity.
As most people did in the 1990's, I was bombarded with idealistic and left wing ideas. "Truths" were chanted at me as if those of us at that time had no idea how to discern truth. We heard television ads telling us it was our selfish need to give birth to babies that was destroying the planet; others said, car exhaust was poisoning us. I even had a girl once tell me that breaking Styrofoam cups was destroying the ozone layer. All of this nonsense was the "truth" of the day. Luckily, I had been taught to look objectively for the truth by my parents and older siblings. It occurred to me that if things like the ads on television starting in the 80's told us that Brazil was cutting down the amount of trees the size of Connecticut every month, that now by the early 90's, Brazil must have no more forest. Any time I looked at the "truth" of the day, I found that it's blatant hypocrisy was as transparent as the Clinton administrations claim that 1991 had the worst economic crisis in 50 years.
It was time to grow up. All the propaganda that had been pounded down our throats, it was all fitting for a preadolescent idealism. Once I had a job, had to pay bills, had to raise kids, none of that 1960's like mentality made any sense any more.
Why Reality Slate?
I grew up in the time of Rush Limbaugh; I idealized Michael Medved, Dennis Praeger, and I always wanted to be like one of these guys. I always admired the way they, specifically Praeger and Medved, have a calm and intellectual perspective on the issues of the day. There are so many others in talk radio, however, who get caught up in conspiracy theory, emotional arguments or "anti-establishment" talk that they resemble the coffee shop ranters of the early 90's, rather than real political observers.
When I finally had a group of people who shared my passion for independent thought and Conservative values, without the muddy water of emotional fluff, it was time for Reality Slate to come about.
My political awareness starts before my teenage years. Mom spent nearly every year at the November polls. Dad was an idealist. He was deeply religious, charitable and deeply mistrustful of government. I remember in one of the small towns where I grew up, there was a machine shop with the large sign on the upper wall which read "Get Us Out Of The United Nations." There was a massive union steel plant in town where nearly everyone's dad, except mine, worked. This was an environment steeped in politics, from the far right, to populist protectionism.
I was a child of the late 80's and early 90's. High School and junior high was a time of tremendous change, both nationally and internationally. G.W. Bush crushed Dukakis in the '88 election. I remember that we had voting booths in my middle school and while people were voting a kid walking through halls screamed "vote socialist." I learned more about the many different direction that people wanted to see the country go.
One direction that many wanted the country to go was in victim classification. The American Disability Act (ADA) was past through Congress and made law. The was significant to me because I was in a car accident as a young child and to this day have only partial use of my right arm. The ADA was designed, to a small extent, for people like me. The odd thing about it was that while there was so much effort being put to victim classification, I was blessed to have the parents that I did, (my father isn't still with us). My parents never let me take the road of the disabled kid. So this 'benevolent' new program designed to protect me, was condescending.
Victim classification was also made plain in the Rodney King riots. I had a teacher tell the class the morning that the riots broke out that we, the white kids in the class, bore a special responsibility for the 'unjust' verdict of the case. He also defended the actions of the rioters while screaming to the class that we were all 'Racists.' Later that day I found myself debating with another young man about rioting being what I saw as a silly way to make a point. It also seemed a little contradictory to me, that my teacher and this young man, were defending the actions of people destroying their own neighborhoods, but they called me a 'Racist.' It was then that I started to realize that victim classification is to absolve the victim of any personal responsibility.
Some time later there were large protests in front of the Utah Governors mansion in Salt Lake City because of capital punishment case, deemed the 'Hi-Fi Killers.' In this case, two Caribbean men had robbed a Hi-Fi store in northern Utah. During the robbery the two men had tortured, raped and killed some of the innocent people caught in the store during the robbery. The protesters were calling the death penalty against these two men racist. This incident showed me that racism could be code for anything that protesters disagreed with.
The Middle East Awareness (first look)
This was the time of the Rushdie book "Satanic Verses." In my government class, in high school, there was an Iranian born girl, who stood in front of the class to defend her religion. She made no mention of the death warrant that had been put out on Rushdie by the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini, but I was exited to see her defend her faith in front of a room full of adolescent Christians and nonreligious students. This was also the time of the end of the ten year war, between Iran and Iraq, and the first U.S. 'Gulf War.' The Middle East was becoming less distant every day. This hit home when I saw my own brother ship off to war in "Operation Desert Storm," the official name of the first 'Gulf War.'
Later I had friends from Iraq who were Kurdish and Shi'a. I learned that the Middle East was, and is, a place of many different voices and perspectives. I did find however that there were many among the Middle Eastern immigrants who bought into conspiracy theories. I recall a news article from a Middle Eastern newspaper that one of my friends had, showed Bill Clinton, Yasser Arafat, and Yitchak Rabin and the headline read, "Negotiations to Perpetuate the Occupation." Other Middle Eastern friends were eager to tell me that King Hussein of Jordan was a U.S. spy for the C.I.A. or that U.S. policy was run from Tel Aviv.
Much later, after Sept. 11, 2001, many of my friends from the Middle East had begun to question the conspiracies that they had been taught and so many of them believed. Some asked how the United States who had given them so much freedom and opportunity, could be the same country that they had been taught to hate their whole lives. Many of them began to resent the religious hierarchy that had taught them to hate the United States. Another friend, started to learn about multi-tiered government, checks and balances and other distinctive parts of a republican democracy, which caused him to wonder why real republican democracies don't exist in the Middle East. His indignation towards those who defended the broken mentalities and broken governments started to come to a head when he would ask things like, "why is it that Arab leaders kill their own people and the leaders of the United States and Israel do not kill their own people?" Then he would add, partially to upset the Middle Easterner he was talking to, "perhaps we would be better off in Iraq under Sharon." Sharon, of course, being the Prime Minister of Israel at the time. I learned from the bravery of this friend, what Thomas Jefferson meant when he said, "When given a choice between despotism and liberty, free people will always choose the latter."
Idealism versus Maturity.
As most people did in the 1990's, I was bombarded with idealistic and left wing ideas. "Truths" were chanted at me as if those of us at that time had no idea how to discern truth. We heard television ads telling us it was our selfish need to give birth to babies that was destroying the planet; others said, car exhaust was poisoning us. I even had a girl once tell me that breaking Styrofoam cups was destroying the ozone layer. All of this nonsense was the "truth" of the day. Luckily, I had been taught to look objectively for the truth by my parents and older siblings. It occurred to me that if things like the ads on television starting in the 80's told us that Brazil was cutting down the amount of trees the size of Connecticut every month, that now by the early 90's, Brazil must have no more forest. Any time I looked at the "truth" of the day, I found that it's blatant hypocrisy was as transparent as the Clinton administrations claim that 1991 had the worst economic crisis in 50 years.
It was time to grow up. All the propaganda that had been pounded down our throats, it was all fitting for a preadolescent idealism. Once I had a job, had to pay bills, had to raise kids, none of that 1960's like mentality made any sense any more.
Why Reality Slate?
I grew up in the time of Rush Limbaugh; I idealized Michael Medved, Dennis Praeger, and I always wanted to be like one of these guys. I always admired the way they, specifically Praeger and Medved, have a calm and intellectual perspective on the issues of the day. There are so many others in talk radio, however, who get caught up in conspiracy theory, emotional arguments or "anti-establishment" talk that they resemble the coffee shop ranters of the early 90's, rather than real political observers.
When I finally had a group of people who shared my passion for independent thought and Conservative values, without the muddy water of emotional fluff, it was time for Reality Slate to come about.
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