I was recently contacted by a random McCain/Palin supporter who (I assume) saw a note I had made in a blog that demanded that we Kossacks leave Sarah Palin alone. I was instructed in that short email to stop worrying about Palin, because Obama and his radical socialist agenda was going to run this country into the ground.
I'll be honest. It's hard to argue when fact is ignored and your opponent in the conversation is relying on lies and innuendo. I've been told that Obama doesn't care about the troops (that I don't care about the troops), and that he (and I) want the terrorists to win.
I realized in the midst of my last response that I wasn't speaking to Mr/Mrs/Ms TLP, but rather to myself about 15 years ago when I wrote this response, and I wanted to share this with the rest of you.
I'd like to share a little bit about myself before I share my response. I grew up the daughter of divorced parents, and their separation happened so early that I cannot remember my life any differently. My mother is Democrat, a Catholic, and a believer in moderation both in politics and religion. My father is a Republican, a fundamentalist missionary, and a believer in God's will through politics and personal action.
Much to my mother's dismay, I grew up a Daddy's girl, desperate for the approval and attention of a man I had contact with no more than 3-4 hours a week, sometimes less. I became a fervent believer in a church that spoke in tongues, fires lit by the spirit, on a weekly basis. My stepmother's parents ran the church we attended. By 12 years old, I had not "felt" the spirit, but felt personally pressured to begin babbling syllables to be like the adults in the church. My father rejoiced that I had begun to speak in tongues.
In my teens, I attended conferences, ran youth groups, and started the first Christian organization/bible study in my public high school, even fighting the horrid liberal teachers that attempted to argue the separation of church & state to keep us from officially meeting and advertising. I trusted my father that the Devil planted the fossil record to cause doubt in our hearts, that the world was approximately 10,000 years old, and that the Russians drilled a hole into hell a few years back and a Demon emerged and told the world that it belonged to him (and that the screams of the damned could be heard in a microphone lowered into the hole). I attended clinic protests. I wept for the souls of millions of murdered babies, and for the souls of the mothers that killed them. I mastered the issues, and mastered debates on religion.
When I left for college, I had been informed by my two best friends that they could no longer hide the fact that they were gay men. I watched the younger of my two friends, still stuck in high school, be emotionally and psychologically tortured by his adoptive parents for his supposed moral failing. My church told me that I should agree with them - that he had to be saved, or else he'd go to Hell, for the simple sin of being attracted to the same people I was attracted to. It didn't make any sense. I brought this issue to my father, and told him that the God he'd told me about wouldn't condemn someone for being in love. My father corrected me - he would, and does, and if my friend didn't fix himself, he was damned.
This was my mini-crisis, over a decade ago. It caused me to question everything about my life: my church, my political beliefs, my relationship with my parents, and more. Without one source for Truth in my life, I was forced to instead read and decide for myself, and this is how my politics changed to be where they are today.
This is where I come from in talking with this McCain supporter in the following response:
You say (McCain's) interested in ending the war, yet his words and actions prove otherwise. McCain has made it blatantly clear that what he wants is more war. Why? I'm honestly not sure. I voted for McCain in 2000, and had no idea what he'd become over the course of eight short years. Mind you, I'm positive it's not mental illness, and I find it utterly classless that people use his age as ammunition against him - there's nothing inherently wrong with age, just as there's nothing about age that automatically makes one experienced or qualified for office. McCain's curt treatment of a press that dares to break ranks and ask valid questions about his policies and his poor choice in vice president - in my opinion - betrays his dissatisfaction with how his campaign is being run. I still think (or hope, at least) that McCain is still an honorable man, unhappy with being stuck in a dishonorably run campaign machine.
Ah, but you wanted to criticize me about war. You say that Obama doesn't care about the troops, but Veterans organizations strongly disagree with you. You seem to want to hint the same about me, but that theory is easy enough to disprove with a quick look through my past diaries.
I know you're not looking for pity, and I don't want to be patronizing to you, but I'll say this: I know where you're coming from. There were years of my life where I knew in the core of my being that liberals were baby-killing, soldier-hating freaks of nature, Hell-bent on destroying this country, destroying my Church, and destroying the family. It took a tremendous come-to-Jesus moment and a mini-crisis in my life to see the truth, and since that time I've seen that it was the GOP that's been treating Lady Liberty like a dirty whore and raping this country for everything it's worth. They come in the guise of conservativism, but practice fiscal politics that are more "liberal" than anything true liberals or true conservatives could ever imagine. They come in wrapped in the American flag, but their disdain for our founding ideals, our Constitution, our economic and social stability betray their supposed patriotism as a lie.
I do not accuse you of doing this, TLP. The men and women responsible for these policies don't bother to email strangers on the internet. They don't participate in web sites and blogs. Quite frankly, they're not regular people as you or I would define it. These are the men and women that convince people like you that people like me or Barack Obama are sub-humans who actively seek to destroy the country that you and I love.
Perhaps I'm naive (I've certainly been accused of it before), but I think you write and respond to me because you care - not just about this election, but about our country and its wellbeing. It's because of this shared link of concern about our country and its welfare that I sincerely think there is a chance that you can look past the rhetoric at some point and see the truth about this division between you and "liberals." I'm not so naive to think that it would happen in the coming days, weeks, or even in the coming year - but if I can learn and grow, I know you can, too.
Have a good evening.
I know many of you will disagree with my optimism in this regard, and I know that in most cases, kind words and logical arguments don't change minds. I remember conversations with my mother, with strangers, with friends where they tried to reason with me and I might have had a polite response, but there was no way on heaven or earth that they'd have been able to change my mind. Still, I am not alone in my conversion from blind faith to reason (in religion OR politics), and I believe we have the ability to impact hearts and minds with our words - and especially with our deeds.
There's really no key point to this diary, aside from wanting to share some late-night optimism with my fellow Kossacks. No matter how hard it gets, remember that one of our greatest strengths as human beings is our ability to learn, grow, and change - individually and as a group.
Have a good night.