Why is it necessary for everyone to
fit into a certain ideological “box”?
Aren’t we supposed to be the country of free thinkers? Ideology is
involved in everything, which is not a bad thing; you do need a certain amount
of ideology when it comes to life. After
all these are the ideas that you believe to be true and essentially the “code”
that one lives by. The problem with
ideology is that if you identify with a certain group then everyone expects you
to have the exact same ideas as they do, and if you don’t then to a certain
extent then you get shunned. Nowhere is
this more apparent than in the area of politics and religion, especially
because the line between the two tends to get very fuzzy.
If people, especially politicians,
would look at things from a logical or fact-based standpoint instead of a
principles of party or fanatical standpoint maybe a greater good could be
created for the country. It is seen all
the time with issues such as gun control or gay rights. If you are a Democrat then by default you
have to be for gun control and gay rights, if you’re not then a big deal is
made of it and your name gets blasted all over the internet for going against
what your party believes. The opposite
is true of Republicans. Why is it so
wrong for a person to have a differing view on one or two issues within their
political party? Are we not allowed to
be free thinkers anymore? It boils down
to the need for everyone to feel like they have an identity and in this case it
is a political identity. This is seen
all over society. Supposed someone is a
member of the NRA but a Democrat then they are scoffed at because they are then
viewed as going against the democrat philosophies. Inversely someone that identifies as Republican
and for gay rights then they are considered to be a RINO (Republican In Name
Only). Republicans do tend to be a
little more tolerant of differing views within their party than the Democrats. You have the Log Cabin Republicans who are
for gay rights and equality yet still have the republican values of smaller
government and lower taxes. The Democrats
and Social Progressives preach for human rights, equal protection and freedom
of speech, that is until someone says something that they do not agree with or
believe then that person gets labeled a bigot and all of the social progressive
groups will come after them and attempt to smear them through the left leaning
media and across social media.
It is so contradictory, and that is why I
believe it is so hard to get the younger people in America to actually have a
passion for politics. Because of the issues with the
current two party system I am a firm believer in the Libertarian Party. The “hard stances” of the libertarian party
is smaller government in all facets of life and free market capitalism. Granted there is a lot more to the parties
beliefs than just those facets, but that is a pretty good overview.
If you are interested in learning
more about the libertarian party check out some of the following resources:
National Libertarian Party Web-Site
www.lp.org
Watch The Independents on Fox
Business Network (I’m pretty sure it is the first Libertarian News Show on
mainstream cable.)
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