Independent Minded vs. The Sheep

I started this blog for a few reasons. One is I have two wonderful young children who have robbed me of any social life, so I’m now online as much as the guys in my company’s web development staff on Friday nights. But the second is that I appear to be a freak of nature. I have the nerve to think Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh are both full of shit. Am I all alone here?

I can’t seem to read any other blog or listen to any so-called pundit who is incapable of shilling their respective party line. Is everyone a Democratic or Republican sheep who thinks the other side is the root of all evil? I can’t tell you how many liberals I’ve met who think all the people that live in “red” states are gun-toting, wife-beating, chew-dipping yahoos that haven’t changed since the 50s – the 1850s! And there are plenty of conservatives who think the exact same way.

I have news for all you partisans: START THINKING FOR YOURSELVES. If you’re so impressionable that you parrot everything you just heard in Fahrenheit 9/11 or Fox News, DON’T WATCH IT. And show some respect for anyone who doesn’t tow the party line you’re clinging to, for God’s sake.

Here’s an example of how people latch onto partisan ideas instead of just the ideas. In 1992, a presidential candidate proposed a flat tax idea. I’d just suffered through doing my taxes myself and I thought it was a great idea. What candidate proposed this? None other than Jerry Brown, former California left-wing governor (and budget hawk). When Jerry actually started doing OK in the primaries, Republicans shouted down his flat tax as wacky. Then in 1996, Steve Forbes runs and starts plugging the flat tax. LO AND BEHOLD, the Republicans have changed their tune. And wouldn’t you know it, the Democrats are bitching about the flat tax. Did it occur that having Jerry Brown and Steve Forbes pitch the flat tax together would make truly bipartisan viewing?

In my home state of Massachusetts, it’s been fascinating to watch Governor Mitt Romney walk this tightrope of listening to his constituents and do about-faces when it comes to the national Republican party, where he clearly has higher ambitions. Romney won the election by being a typical moderate Northeast Republican governor – the same type that run or have recently run states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and New Hampshire. They’ve all been socially liberal and accepting while fiscally conservative. But while this adheres to the Northeastern and New England mindset, it’s totally out of whack with the big boys in D.C. Romney has been caught in some “contradictions,” to use a polite word, on stem cell research and other issues, which you can read about when you scroll down to some of my earlier essays.

And guess what? If Romney truly wants to run for national office, this is necessary. It doesn’t matter that he’s a Republican (or that Massachusetts has elected a Republican to the corner office since 1990). In today’s Globe, a conservative group has said Romney will never be endorsed by them because he comes from Massachusetts – a blue state. How myopic.

Anyone else think this is crazy?