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It's hard to re-examine a baseline.

I am going to give an example-Tulsi Gabbard.

(DISCLAIMER: I am not trying to convince anyone she is a good VP candidate, or that she is even a Capital-C Conservative. This is about how I had to re-examine a baseline, and how difficult that can be. And I recognize, even if it is being universally ignored by both parties that certain aspects of citizenship are formally required in the Constitution to be eligible for the Presidency, that she might not be Constitutionally eligible. But you get the idea.)

Up until several weeks ago, I was completely anti-Tulsi Gabbard.

Completely.

I viewed her as a Leftist Snake-In-The-Grass at best, and a Leftist Snake-In-The-Grass Opportunist at worst. I was angry about her using her military service as a political career enhancer and bitterly resented her for doing it, she had been the Vice Chair of the DNC for quite a few years, she came from one of the most Leftist states in the Republic, she voted with the Democrats, etc. etc.

All true.

While I was on vacation the last two weeks, I visited a friend down in Florida, and he has cable (I don't) and he watches television (I don't) so one night, he puts on Tucker Carlson (I like Tucker Carlson in general, even though it is clear to me he may be opportunist-but...he says things that need to be heard)

So, when he put Tucker Carlson on, and the interviewee was Tulsi Gabbard, I didn't want to watch. Period. I had a visceral repulsion to her.

But I was a guest. Not my house. Not my television. So I sat there, and I was determined not to listen, not to allow my mind to be changed. I pulled out my laptop and figured I would surf Free Republic or something while my best friend watched the interview.

I assumed this interview was part of a coordinated effort by a segment of the Republican Party to prepare the conservative electorate

But...after a few minutes of stewing, I thought "What the Hell am I doing? Am I that afraid to even listen? What good is that?"

So...I had an internal conversation with myself, and said I am going to listen. Really listen. And I am going to force myself to keep an open mind so I can weigh what she says.

(I don't want to "re-litigate" my impressions...if you are interested, you can read them at this post on this thread:

LINK: rlmorel comments on thread at #140 about his impressions of Tulsi Gabbard in the Tucker Carlson Interview)

My point is, it was damned hard mental work to do that. I didn't WANT to change my mind. I didn't WANT to listen. I was determined not to listen, and I was going to pout, not watch, close my eyes and ears...until I thought "What am I doing that for? It goes contrary to every principle I try to adhere to, one of which is rational discourse on any issue. (I fully accept that DO engage, sometime willfully and with relish, in IRRATIONAL discourse on certain subjects, but that is another issue altogether, which involves figurative poking of eyes and such)

When I forced myself to watch, I had to admit I had based my opinions on various things that were simply easier and less time-consuming to process. At the end of it, I spent the rest of the evening wondering if I had been wrong to judge her as a Leftist Snake-In-The-Grass Opportunist, and spent the rest of that evening researching to get more facts.

And I concluded I had not only been wrong, but unfairly wrong. She may not be VP material or even a conservative to a degree that would please me to see in a politician, but...I had to conclude that she was NOT a Leftist Snake-In-The-Grass Opportunist. And I felt that I had been unfair to denigrate her military service, something I had publicly done on this very forum, and it was something I regretted.

Here, due to the nature of the Internet, I cannot make my statements disappear, but I can make a public retraction. That was my form of doing so.

One of my favorite quotes was from Upton Sinclair is: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

I have often thought that that quote might just as easily say: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his ideological purity depends on his not understanding it.”