Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Debate history
Did you talk about politics and social matters as a family growing up? Do you talk about these things as a family now? What inspired a desire in you to think about the world and care about what is happening in the halls of power? What hang-ups do you have about conversations like these?
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7 comments:
For me...we did not talk politics or social issues growing up...not at all. My parents did not believe in sharing the way they voted and honestly the subject never really came up. My brother is a democrat. I am obviously very conservative. I came to my opinions based mostly on the Bible which is why I passionately argue my perspective from a Biblical viewpoint. Since my dad is not a Christian and my mom only became one as I was an adult, this obviously did not influence me. I have since learned that my parents are both republicans now, but my mom used to be a democrat and they used to joke about how they canceled each others' votes.
We did not talk about anything in my family! At all! Ever! It was only when I went to Bible School and the debates that we would have in class, that I really started to think about politics even though I had been interested in history for a long and rather affected by news. Josh's family is big on debate and so that was a whole new education for me. In my family, if you disagree with someone about anything, it is the same as hating them. It was hard to not take things personally with Josh's family for a long time, but I'm getting better at it. Slowly! I still sometimes have trouble with it (hense my reaction to that Cdn Free Press article. Sorry again!) But yeah, Josh and I, and his family, debate things all the time now. They actually have a history of trying to convince each other of things they don't even believe, or even completely silly things! Complete verbal sparing simply for the joy of it!
In my constant search to understand people, I asked my parents about why Mennonites tend to vote the way that they do, and actually managed to have a someone productive conversation with my Father until we disagreed too much. When my mom found out how I vote, she said she'd pray for my soul!
Beyond taking things personally, I've realized that I am too much a paper writer for these kind of conversations. Had I written "I think" or stuck a smily face on any of my history papers (which are basically "let me convince you of what I think" papers) my prof would have given me a nasty look followed by an F. I'm trying REALLY hard to remember to put in lots of "I think's" so it doesn't sound like I think I know everything, but it's a hard habit to break!
:) re: the "I thinks," etc. :)
This could be long... ;) I grew up in a family of democrats, but I don't know when debate really started. I kind of think it was when my brother was in high school because he was in debate. I hated when politics came up because he and my mom and all his friends were obviously democrat and made me feel attacked any time I disagreed (ok, maybe some of those were Perceived attacks;). So basically, I came to kind of hate politics and be apathetic about things b/c I hated how people get so emotional and mean about it. So I chose to go along with what most of my Christian friends were voting, which seemed mostly republican/conservative. I still didn't understand everything though, but I never felt like I could really question things because people seemed so one-party oriented or judgmental or something. And then when everyone attacked Bush all the time, it was more of the same but worse. I didn't want to have debates with people who acted like I was a complete idiot for voting for someone! Whether I did it for good enough reasons or not! (I think I've mentioned on here before how I get really frustrated when people can't even See the other side's view, even if they don't agree.)
Anyway, everything changed when I read about Ron Paul before last year's caucuses. :) The newspaper had a full-page pic of all the candidates, along with some of their views. He was the only one wearing black tennis shoes instead of dress shoes (so, looked pretty nerdy!), and then I read about him sticking to his principles so strictly that he suggested he and the other congressmen contribute toward an award for Rosa Parks instead of forcing taxpayers to do so, and he gave back a portion of his yearly salary to the Treasury! So obviously I was surprised and interested, since I had been so cynical about politics and politicians. I looked more into his views, etc., and finally felt like I understood things! Finally someone was not just saying where they stand on "the issues," but explaining things in detail and explaining WHY! Finally someone was pointing out the inconsistencies within the parties instead of standing loyally by to one specific party just to be loyal to that party (which I of course had been guilty of before)!
Debate is still hard for me and I think may raise my blood pressure on occasions, but oftentimes that's because I feel misunderstood or can't get my point out well enough, even though it makes sense in my head (I think I've said before that's like witnessing -- and in fact, this post seems a bit like telling our testimony! But obviously not too, of course:), and although I do still struggle with that, I do find debating a little easier because I feel like I understand more and can better explain my views. :)
As for why it's so important to me now, I guess it's just because before I didn't realize all that was going on and how many rules were being broken by our leaders and how many liberties were being taken away, etc. I didn't even know we weren't on the gold standard anymore! I guess kind of how HM said it's tied to a Biblical viewpoint for her, I think it is to me too. It used to just be politics, which I thought of as an annoying manipulative game, but now I kind of see it as an issue of truth and morality, if that makes sense (e.g., how all this bailout stuff is spending money we don't have, and printing money is stealing from people via inflation, and we continue to force others to do things our way ("democracy") through war, and we're seeing the results of our immoral ways in our economic problems, etc.). And so it takes on greater meaning.
Another way this feels like witnessing... I feel like it's kind of like when you first accept Christ or go on a missions trip and come back. You've suddenly changed and want other people to also, or at least to understand where you're coming from, but they don't. I feel instead like I'm viewed as an annoying person trying to push her views onto others. I guess it's hard to find the balance!
Wow, I wasn't kidding about the possibility of that being long, was I??
oh my goodness, I can't STAND team politics! It drives me nuts! It's the main reason why I don't actually get involved in politics and just happily debate things in an informal manner. Thankfully for me, we have so many parties, that we don't need to just chose one or the other and so I can also happily float to whichever party I currently agree with. However we still do have lots of team politics here and yes, again, it drives me NUTS!!!
"team politics" -- that is such a good term for it!
We talked about things like that when I was a kid, but it was always centered around what God's word said and how we should respond as Christians. (My father was a pastor.)
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