Today I Graduate - Thank You All
by Shane Hensinger
Mon May 12, 2008 at 01:11:27 PM PDT
Today I'm graduating from NYU with my second BA on my way to law school back in California next year.
- Shane Hensinger's diary :: ::
I moved to New York to start school at NYU in September 2006 - incidentally right around the same time I started reading Daily Kos.
A Democrat since the first presidential election I voted in in the 1990's I'd steadily become more progressive socially and slightly more hawkish on foreign policy - especially as I attended graduate school at an institution both named after a godfather of neoconservatism and whose faculty boasts many adherents of the ideas of neoconservatism.
Since I became involved here I've become more progressive and also more open-minded, no longer blithely dismissing ideas I once considered "out-of-the-mainstream" and embracing political ideas I would have shunned as "radical." You, each one of you, have helped to open my eyes to so much.
In the close to two years that I've been honored to have been a member of this community I've had a chance to put forth my own ideas and submit them to a sometimes harsh, sometimes gratifyingly pleasant but always intellectually satisfying grilling by DKos contributors.
I've had recommended and rescued diaries on subjects as varied as the Mandaeans of Iraq to my support for Senator Obama to the subtleties of international law and the war in Iraq. Every comment, either positive or negative, has helped to make me a better writer, a stronger debater and a prouder Democrat. I've been lauded here and insulted as well, called "brilliant" as well as "spoiled" and "snobby." In short - you guys have put me through the ringer and then lifted me back up again.
Daily Kos, its editors, writers and numerous contributors have been my constant companions during these past two years. I've been inspired in so many ways through my involvement in this community, both personally and politically. The phenomenon of Internet-based grassroots democracy is now central to my core belief in what makes progressive politics in this country successful.
So thank you - thanks to Markos, Miss Laura, McJoan, MBNYC, Jay Elias, Sofia and so many others here who have helped to hone me, who have jousted with me and who have helped me along as a writer and an activist. As I move forward in my own life this site and more importantly the ideas of this site will remain central to my political focus and passion. The best is yet ahead of us, all of us.
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