Posted on 02/10/2010 7:50:43 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
A reader writes:
I was born, raised, and educated in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, an exemplary Whitopia. I grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh, watching Fox News and had a "Proud Member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" bumper sticker on my debate tub. I was lucky though. I did well enough in school to be eligible to attend one of those evil elite East Cost universities on scholarship. I defended Bush, idiotically, all the way until my senior year, when I studied abroad in both China and England. I was forced, over and over, by classmates and those I met in other countries to confront the grotesque neo-con mindset I had thought was so obviously right.
It took crossing both oceans, a comprehensive study of the history of religion and government, and four years of college to change my perspective. As someone who moved from one extreme to the other, I can tell you the one thing that saved me was the conservative impulse to be self critical, to avoid hubris and arrogance. The other was my parents teaching me to love science. My first break with Whitopia doctrine was when I argued with my church's youth group leader over the reality of evolution. That someone could deny something so obvious baffled me. It has been a slow and painful process since then, testing and retesting my beliefs.
I am now everything I grew up thinking I should hate:
I live in New York, go to NYU, and I study feminist and queer theory.(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com ...
Hmmmm. Let me go do a google check...
Well, in all this person’s high brow education and vast travels about the world, she certainly learned to spew sweeping generalities and say absolutely nothing.
No. This was written for gullible liberals, not rational, thinking people with common sense.
This is for the leftist sheep who believe it because they WANT TO BELIEVE!
Sounds like Hillary Clinton.
Andrew, the future belongs to those who have offspring.
Well this letter is an example of either someone who is not being genuine or someone who is genuinely confused. I came from a small town in Appalachia in Northern WV. I’ve loved science all my life and the closest thing to a mentor was Isaac Asimov who I followed in Isaac Asimov Science Fiction Magazine until he died. If this story is true it is an example of what we have to fear from the left and that is its stranglehold on education institutions. What this person has done is exchange one religion for another which is equally flawed.
I have never been afraid to turn a critical eye on myself or my beliefs. At one time I had fell prey to the childish idea that the world would be a better place if the government just provided identical cookie cutter houses to everyone and I was arrogant to think that I or my elected representatives could decide what degree of wealth someone needed or didn’t. These are childish things because when we are children we think in terms of what our parents provide us and we feast on warped ideas of fairness. It didn’t take me long to find the folly of the childish socialism that I had temporarily embraced. Once one begins to realize that their own successes and hard work become meaningless in a socialist system and the citizenry become no better than children who never really have to grow up with politician parents who take their toys and take their money and set them an allowance on what they can keep that one has to make a decision. That decision is largely a moral one and one that says a lot about the individual. It is a question of whether you believe you can not succeed as an adult and that you need to have political parents to take from your overachieving peers what you will not compete for yourself or humble yourself in front of them to ask for. The choice was easy for me because of the place I came from. I’d learned the value of hard work from my Father and my Grandfathers, and my Mother and Grandmothers. It was exactly those small town values that made me a better stronger more reasoned person.
I still love science but I didn’t stop at the gate to admire its ivory columns and sit in awe of them. I didn’t buy the leftist drivel about evolution and the death of God which brings us to the other great reason not to accept the dominion of the politician parents and that is the fallibility of man. I’ve read scientific papers that make the nuttiest religious tenets look tame. I’ve seen otherwise intelligent men and women spin totally unprovable and otherwise baseless tales around a two inch piece of bone fragment that would make a prophet blush. I’ve seen scientific claims made that totally throw out the window accept historical and climate science with barely a blink of an eye. I’ve seen degenerate sexual behaviors that not only are clearly detrimental to the fitness of an organism hailed as if they are of some new highly evolved mode of operation. The problem with this letter writer is they have stopped at the gates in awe. None of us have all the answers which is why none of us should be called master over our fellow man. We must be allowed to find our own way. That is what adulthood is for nearly every creature on this planet and to those who ask “Is it fair?” the answer can only be “How is it not?”.
I’ve studied it too and it was crap and they call evangelical preachers nuts and frauds.
A reader writes:
Uh, yeah, sure... Got a name?
Anybody that would thank Andrew Sullivan three times for anything is clearly dilusional.
One would think that little Miss Comprehensive Study would be a bit more familiar with English:
East Cost universities; Those of use who escaped; people we don't understand or relate too; If you really want know fear; Those of use who grew up....
Brilliant.
“If you really want know fear, all I can tell you is that Coeur d’Alene was downright progressive compared to the surrounding towns.”
This sentence shows how good her college education was. What does this mean: “If you really want know fear”
“....bumper sticker on my debate tub....”
What is a debate tub?
You go girl! Just remember to stay on the island.
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