I keep trying to read the Huffington Post...

... but to see things from their point of view, I'd have to have my head pretty far up my ass.


You see, I don't live in an ideological/political echo chamber.  I try to watch Keith Olbermann.  I try to read the Huffington Post.  When liberal commenters leave their "home" blog URL as part of their comments on a conservative blog post I read, I visit the site to see if there's an insight, a new, rational viewpoint.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, what do I see?  Conservatives are evil.  Republicans are stupid.  Rethuglicans.  Silly Bible-thumpers who reject science.  Global warming deniers who'll look to their imaginary friend in the sky to protect them.  Crooked Wall Street types.  They only care about money!

Seriously?  Do these people live in Fantasy Land?  In my experience, nobody is that one-dimensional.  Except, of course, the conservative Christians whom are often cast as heinous villians or dunder-headed comic relief.  I've concluded that the people who leave such comments are the type who'd say they don't have any conservative friends.

That could be true in the following ways:

• Their conservative friends decline to reveal their political leanings because they do not wish to expend energy defending themselves from juvenile attacks.
• Their conservative friends wish to keep their political leanings secret out of the interest of preserving their friendships.
• These people are living in an environment hostile to the very notion of dissent and non-conformity of thought.  Certain districts of San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland spring to mind.
• Some combination of the above.

I know I've kept my religious beliefs and political leanings to myself because of the above.  I've got a friend who's hardly spoken me since he learned I didn't buy into the global warming alarmism.  My friend is a civil engineer who did his grad work at MIT, yet he called me a denier instead of a skeptic.  I blame his chip-on-her-shoulder wife.  I've got another friend who ripped on Catholics just the other night.  She's ripped on Republicans and people with small-town values (often one in the same) in the past, characterizing them as unintelligent, close-minded, etc.  She has since learned I am one of those people she has belittled and continues to belittle.  Curious how she has reconciled the contradiction.