It doesn't take much some days. Stuck in the same job for a few years, seeing people around me get promoted while I bust my ass doing more than they every did. After dealing with a particularly bad call, with someone who might be dealing with unfamiliar concepts in an unfamiliar language. Trying to get home when the subway has a malfunction...AGAIN. Turning on the news and seeing someone else get shot in the housing projects that dot the city, far away from my middle to upper class neighbourhood. Looking at the taxes I pay as a consumer, a worker, and as of next week, a homeowner.
I should be the archetype conservative. I'm white, born of English immigrants, a recent Christian convert, married, just bought a home, non-unionized, all of the usual triggers. And yet...I can't. I just can't sustain it. Whenever I start to think like a resentful, entitled, angry conservative, it just becomes....PAINFUL. I can literally feel my body getting tense, my jaw and my fist clenching, my head pounding. And then I let go. And then I feel embarrassed and almost ashamed for getting that way in the first place.
I remember that the people I'm speaking to have come from situations far worse than me or my parents would ever face, and are trying the best they can in a new country. I remember that the subway is breaking down because conservative politicians at all levels have starved public transportation in this city, as well as most other infrastructure in big cities, to bribe their power base in rural and suburban Canada and a belief that the private sector could do it for better. I know the shootings are the result of a lack of positive opportunities, a combination of subtle racism and tolerance of poverty in a society that can do better. And I know that taxes are the price of a civil society and we've all been getting a deep discount on that price for the last few years. A fair number of us realize that, and it's quite possible we'll know an exact number in the next few weeks.
I'm not sure why I'm sharing this right now. Maybe I'm looking for reassurance that I'm not really a bad person. Maybe I want to say obliquely that conservative thoughts seem like a disorder, one that causes mental and physical damage (perhaps that's why teabaggers oppose health care reform, because it could be classified as a pre-existing conditon). But I enjoy coming to this site, because it reinforces the things I've believed for as long as I've been politically conscious. It's helped clear away the negative feelings after events like those I mentioned. And for that, I thank you.