The other day at work I asked the tech working that shift what he considered his political affiliations to be. He told me he was republican, definitely. I then asked him what his views were on some issues that people like to use to show their basic ideals, and the reasons for their party affiliation. His answers were surprisingly moderate. Surprising to him that is. That got me thinking about a lot of things, and I came up with a list of issues that people usually feel strongly about, and that they usually use to associate themselves with one party or the other. A friend told me once that most people in America were moderate and didn’t even know it, and would probably associate with libertarian views if they could get past the fact that libertarians are seen as freaks of nature. The things he said made sense to me. Here is a list I’ve been meaning to make of such issues.

Abortion
Euthanasia
Gun control
Homosexuality
Capitol punishment
Religion
Environment
Welfare
Social programs
Taxes
Race issues
Immigration
Health care
Labor
Social security
Education

There recently was an article in Time magazine, it was an essay really, where the author said he was upset that the republican party and the ‘religious right’ had hijacked the Christian faith. Of course this is true, and right wing leaders and commentators have been doing their best to associate religion with conservatism for a while now. I’ve heard that Ann Coulter is coming out with a new book called Godless – The Church of Liberalism. The book isn’t out yet, but I’m sure it is another attempt to associate liberals with atheists. The title will. This is her way of associating liberals with immorality. After all, look up the definition in any dictionary of ‘atheism’ and you will find that ‘immorality’ is a common interpretation of the word, right next to ‘godlessness’. As if theists have a monopoly on morals. In the Time essay the author says that one needs to separate ‘christians’ from ‘christianism’, that it is necessary to keep one’s perspective of their own beliefs and ideals, and avoid politicizing the issues on an individual basis.

Here’s something that should be tried. Instead of the chain email with a bunch of questions compelling recipients to get to know everyone, how about we pose questions based on the issues above? I guess they are just too personal. Maybe people just don’t want to know how their friends feel about these things, because then they would feel compelled to hold them in a lower regard if they found their views differ in any way. This is because it seems to be the norm, a person’s duty, to reject the person if their values and ideals are rejected in any way. It is expected that a person should reject another if they differ on an important issue, such as abortion say. People feel compelled to act differently, to treat someone differently if such information is available. One way to avoid such a situation is to keep the issue under wraps, not talk about it. It has become the standard, and someone willing to ask another is being rude. So, we simple don’t talk about it, except in a general sense when it is used to make people feel obligated to act a certain way, support this or that person based simply on a few key issues.