My Political Journey

By Way of Introduction
This entry in many ways is an answer to a question nobody asked. At least not in so many words or at least not recently. However in the past, especially during my days at Calvin College, I have often been asked how I came to hold the views I do, and felt I was unable to give a satisfactory answer without launching into my life’s story.

Also, many of the e-mails I have been receiving lately have been asking for clarification about some of my views. It’s understandable that there is some confusion about this, since I’ve changed labels many times over the past 10 years, from Republican to Democrat to Socialist to Communist to Anarchist to Kerry supporter.

But as to why I’ve undertaken to write it all down at this exact moment in time, there really is no reason. Except that this is something I’ve wanted to get off my chest for sometime, and the medium of a web log affords me the opportunity. Also recent conversations with the girlfriend, in which I’ve tried to explain to her my view of the world, have pushed some of this again to the front of my mind.

Like many things I post on this weblog, I worry that writing too much about myself betrays a certain amount of self-centeredness or self-indulgence. However the beauty of a weblog is that I’m not forcing this down anyone’s throat. It’s just there if anyone is interested. I also would enjoy reading stories of other people’s political evolution, in any of my friends with weblogs feel like writing similar pieces.

Republican Days
My earliest memory of the news is the attempted assassination of President Reagan. Actually at the time I thought there were several attempts, because I didn’t understand that the news programs were just replaying the same clip over and over again. I thought of Reagan as some kind of super hero. Every day someone shot him, but the next day he’d be walking around again like nothing happened. It actually wasn’t until my 8th grade history class that I learned he’d only been shot once.

My earliest political memory is the 1984 election. Needles to say I didn’t understand the issues, but I wanted Reagan to win because I had gotten used to seeing his face on TV, and didn’t want the new guy to take his place.

There was widespread agreement on this issue in my first grade class, and I recall during one recess chanting with some other students that “Mondale was a poopy pants.” All of us of course were too young to understand, but simply parroting the views of our parents (albeit changing the wording slightly.) Reagan won our school mock election overwhelmingly (with help from my vote).

The next political memory I have is in 4th grade overhearing some classmates say that Reagan is the best President this country has had in a long time. I felt privileged to be alive during the time of such a great President.”

West Michigan in general, and the private Christian Reformed schools that I attended in particular, were synonymous with conservatism. We were all Republicans by default.

But it would be untrue to say that my entire pre-liberal political life was simply parroting the ideas of others. At some point the ideas did become genuinely my own. Its hard to say when exactly this occurred and in fact, like all aspects of growing up, it was more of a process than an event, but I think by the time of 8th grade I largely understood the differences between the Republican and Democratic parties, and supported the Republicans.

And, as a young Republican, I was attracted to the more reactionary element of the party. I want to avoid straw men and resist the temptation to say that all Republicans are hateful. But, to the extent that there is an element of the Republican Party that runs on hate (and there is), I was attracted to this element.

A good example is my attitude towards homosexuals. When I first read about homosexuals in the newspaper, I was filled with revulsion and disgust. I wanted to hate them because they were different from me, but there were several articles in the paper urging tolerance and acceptance. So then I felt guilty for my initial reaction.

But then I learned at school that God hates homosexuality, and I was very happy to learn that God hated the same people that I did. I no longer had to feel guilty about my hatred, but in fact it was my Christian duty to oppose homosexuals. Sometimes my teachers talked about “hate the sin, love sinner,” but it was greatly overshadowed, both at school and at Church, by teachers complaining about gay activism. My 7th and 8th grade Bible teacher, who I greatly admired at the time, used to talk about how gay activism would cause California to be destroyed just like Sodom and Gomorrah.

My classmates also hated homosexuals, and I felt solidarity with them, since we all hated the same people. I occasionally day dreamed about beating up a homosexual, and becoming the class hero. In 11th grade for my Current Issues class I elected to debate the issue of homosexuals in the military. The bulk of my argument was that homosexuals were immoral and did not deserve any protections under the law. This infuriated my opponent, one of the few liberals at Grand Rapids Christian High School, but was well received by the rest of my classmates. After class, they talked about how if they were in the army they would “kick the shit” out of any homosexuals. I felt great pride about hating the right people, and getting such a positive reaction from my friends.

Also to the extent that there is a racist element to the Republican Party (and make no mistake, there is) I was greatly attracted to it.

I didn’t hate black people per se, and would never have self-identified as a racist, but I ate up the coded language of the political discourse.

I hated welfare mothers and lazy poor people who I viewed as draining the system and taking money from hard working people. (Why I, as someone who was too young to pay taxes, developed such strong feelings on the issue I can’t really say. Maybe I picked up some of it from my dad). But when I pictured a welfare mother in my mind, she was always a fat black woman. And because she was different than me, she was easy to hate.

I also hated criminals. I was a strong supporter of the death penalty, and other “get tough on crime” measures. The movie “Shawshank Redemption” came out while I was in high school, but I refused to see it because I thought it was wrong to show sympathy for people in prison.

Again, as someone who never had encounter with any sort of criminal, it is difficult in retrospect to trace the origins of this position. But I do recall reading lots of newspaper stories. And again, the criminal was always black.

I really hated illegal immigrants. I was worried their presence would lead to overcrowding in American cities, and the loss of American culture. (Again, another position somewhat difficult to explain since I lived in Michigan, but I held it.)

I remember feeling furious in high school when a teacher described how many illegal immigrants crossed the boarder. Although not a Californian, I read about proposition 187, and was glad that someone was getting tough on illegals.

I was in fact somewhat wary of all immigrants. I once read a newspaper article about an immigrant family’s struggle to preserve their heritage. Since the children only learned American culture in schools, the mother worried they were forgetting about their native country.

I was so angry that I typed out my first “Letter to the Editor”. American schools teach American culture. How dare these immigrants come to America to complain that our schools should be more diverse.

(There is some debate between me and my sister, who also remembers the incident, about when exactly this took place, but I think somewhere between 8th and 10th grade. Fortunately I never mailed the letter. The act of writing it alone had helped to release the anger.)

I passionately believed in an English only America, and hated immigrants who didn’t learn our language. I also disapproved of many of my classmates who were taking Spanish class. I viewed their learning Spanish as helping to enable Mexican immigrants who didn’t learn English. I became very proud that I was enrolled in Latin.

The foreign language department at my high school started a “Foreign Language Week.” The theme for the first year was “beauty in diversity”. The theme made me feel uncomfortable since, like many white males, I felt people advocating diversity were just trying to make me feel guilty about who I was.

During 11th grade, I overheard an Asian student with a locker next to mine talk about what food she was bringing to the “diversity dinner” that night. I cynically thought to myself, “Of course she’s going to the dinner. She and all the other minority students are going to get together and make the rest of us feel guilty about being white.” Then it occurred to me that the language department at my high school contained no Asian languages. All of the languages taught, Latin, French, German and Spanish had their origins in Western Europe.

And then I thought I had the perfect line to hit these hypocrites who were preaching to me about diversity. I wrote an article for the school paper saying that until the foreign language department diversified itself, it had no business preaching to the rest of us about diversity.

I received a lot of positive feedback on the article, especially from some students interested in studying Chinese or Japanese. But I told everyone who talked to me that I didn’t really care whether the foreign language department diversified itself or not. I just wanted them to stop preaching diversity to the rest of us.

(As a side note I should add that this article is one of the few political pieces I wrote during that era that I remain proud of today. But that is only because the point I once made ironically I now believe seriously.)

Finally during these years I had a very strong sense of national pride. I was on the swim team, and took the playing of the national anthem very seriously. There was a Canadian on our team who stood with his arms crossed while the rest of us put our hands over our heart. I thought since he was living in America, he should salute our flag. Although I never initiated anything, I thought it would not be a bad idea if he got pushed around the locker room a little bit for this.

I don't want to exaggerate or to my make my up-bringing sound more conservative than it actually was. I should state that even in my conservative school and church there were some liberals. And there was even moderation among the conservatives. My parents could probably be placed on the moderate wing of the Republican Party. There were some students at Grand Rapids Christian High School who identified themselves as democrats, and even some teachers. Therefore I have no one to blame but myself for the horrible ideals I held in those days.

However the liberals were always aware that they were outnumbered, and they spoke softly. No one was reigning in the conservatives. Likewise a child in that environment who espoused liberal ideas would be gently challenged by the teacher or the parent, but there seemed to be no check on how far one moved to the right. And I think it is this, if anything, that can be blamed for my early reactionism.

An example: During the 1988 election, when I was in 5th grade, my teacher made an effort to explain to us the difference between the presidential candidates. When I learned Dukakis wanted to clean up the enviroment and help the poor, I decided that I would support him. When I expressed my view to my parents at dinner that night they explained to me the world was not quite that simple. I had to think about what kind of plan Dukakis was going to use to clean up the environment, and what would be the economic costs. Likewise with aid to the poor.

And they were absolutely right. I hadn't thought about the complexities of the issues. But in later years when I would express all sorts of right wing views, no one would challenge me to think about the issues more deeply.

Homosexuality is another good example. At school a student could usually express all sorts of hateful opinions about homosexuals and get away with it. But any student who advocated that homosexuality was not a sin was gently challenged by the teacher to think more about the issue.

By challenging only the view points on the left, I believe this environment helped to breed extremism on the right and allowed those like me, whose minds were attracted to hate, to develop our views which went largely unchallenged, if not tacitly approved.

During the first Gulf War no one ever said that to me this war is a good thing, but it was the tacit approval I noticed. None of my classmates who expressed militaristic views were ever debated by the teachers, but any students who criticized the war were asked to think more deeply about the issue.

But although criticism of the war might have been muted or non-existent, there were some issues were I was left in no doubt of where my school and church stood. The immorality of sex before marriage was hammered into my brain from all sides all through out middle school and high school. Whole courses in my middle school were devoted to sexual morality. At high school I'd say close to a 3rd of the regular chapels were about sexual purity. Once a year there would be a spiritual renewal week, the focus of which was almost overwhelmingly on sexual Puritanism. The same refrain was repeated at the Church youth group endlessly.

As an extremely shy high school student who could barely talk to a girl, the subject of pre-marital sex had as much relevance as insider stock trading, and I began to consider the constant harping about it a bit of overkill. Surely there was more to the Christian creed than the prohibition against pre-marital sex.

The idea that sex would be attacked with such fury, but war given tacit approval would cause me to wonder about a mistaken sense of priority later on. This more than anything is why I eventually rejected the idea of sexual Puritanism and abstinence. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Conversion
I was often asked at Calvin College how I could come from such a conservative background and turn into such a vocal opinionated liberal. There were a number of diverse factors, and it is hard to say in retrospect where appropriate emphasis should be given. It was a process, and yet there was a moment of epiphany that I remember clearly.

One unexpected factor was perhaps my interest in ancient history. All of history is essentially the story of class warfare, and long before I read any Marx I began to take notice of this. The plebeians in ancient Rome were always getting screwed over by the patricians, just as the poor one reads about in any history book are always getting the raw deal. It seemed to be a tragic story that repeated itself over and over again, and I began to wish for a happy ending, or at least make sure I was on the right side of the struggle.

Another factor was my interest in Beatles music, which evolved into an interest in the 1960s in general. I begin to read a lot about the anti-Vietnam movement.
Because I was almost of college age and around the same age as the protesters were, I felt sympathy for them. At first I began to regard the protesters as interesting but misguided. Then I eventually decided they were right. The Vietnam War was wrong, and war in general is wrong. But in truth I did not fully arrive at this conclusion until I had begun to self-identify as a liberal, so it is difficult to say whether my interest in the 60s fueled my conversion to liberalism, or whether the reverse was true.

Certainly another factor was simply growing older, taking government and economics classes, and beginning to understand the complexity of issues that I once thought were very simple. But more than anything it was probably the person sitting next to me in these classes.

There were very few liberals at GRCHS, and we often took pleasure in shouting down the ones who spoke up. Thus the liberals either learned to shut up, or became incredibly obnoxious. My 11th grade year I sat next to one of the obnoxious ones.

She was a year above me, but we overlapped in three elective classes that year. And somehow the seating chart always put her next to me.

I spoke very few words to her, but I could overhear all of the comments she made to her friend. At first I hated her, then I began to regard her with a grudging respect, and finally I began to realize she was right.

I’ve heard people say before that political debate is useless because no one ever changes their mind. Although it is true that not many people will admit error in the middle of an argument, seeds of doubt can be sowed that may eventually lead to an evolved opinion.

This was true of me. The whole year I listened to her opinions, and gradually they had an effect on me. Several years later it is hard to remember her comments verbatim, but I remember their effect.

I do remember some things. In my economics class, when the majority of the students once expressed agreement with the statement that poor people are lazy and welfare was unnecessary, she turned to her friend and said in disgust something about how all these white children of privilege had no idea what problems the poor face. Although at the time I was still strongly against welfare, it was the first time I considered my ignorance of the struggles of the poor.

She was also in my current events class that year. Because we disagreed on so much, we were paired up as debating partners. We debated the subject of homosexuals in the military. I spent much of my time talking about how evil homosexuals were. Later in the course of the debate I was forced to admit that I never actually met any homosexuals. “That’s obvious,” she snapped. After class I later reflected on why I hate homosexuals so much when I didn’t know any.

As I began to acknowledge the complexity of the issues, I began to consider myself a moderate Republican. I began to recognize that everyone who was different than me wasn’t bad.

And then one day I decided that I didn’t hate people on welfare. I wanted to help the poor. I decided I didn’t hate homosexuals, or feminists, or illegal immigrants, or any of the other people I had been taught to hate. And it was a really freeing moment to let go of all that hate. I realized that all that hate had been eating away at me, and I felt so much lighter without it.

DemocratSomewhere during my senior year I decided I identified with the Democratic Party more than the Republican. But it is difficult to be young and liberal in a conservative environment, because people older and smarter than me were constantly espousing contrary views, and I doubted myself constantly.

After so many years of having conservative propaganda drilled into my head, many of the changes still came gradually even after I had begun calling myself a liberal.

After years of hearing about how evil homosexuality was, it was beyond my comprehension to think of it simply as an alternative lifestyle. At first I simply said that, although it was a sin, in a secular society homosexuals should not be discriminated against. It was not until my Freshman year at Calvin that I finally came around to the idea that it was not a sin.

Pre-marital sex was the same. By the time I was in 12th grade I had become very angry about the over-attention this issue received, but the idea of pre-marital sex being wrong was so firmly entrenched in my brain that I didn’t start to openly advocate otherwise until my Sophomore year at Calvin.

But again, I’m getting ahead of myself. As a 12th grade student I was only just beginning to express liberal views. I kept myself relatively quiet at school, but I started to have arguments with my friends in youth group. I argued that most of the people on welfare were not lazy, but victims of circumstance. When they found they couldn't talk sense into me, they would pull out their usual trump card. "You come from a rich family, so you just don't understand what the poor are really like." I was always somewhat amused by this as it was the exact same argument people used against me when I had been arguing from the conservative side.

In those days religion, politics, church, school, teachers and parents were woven tightly together for me, and any disappointment by any of them would shake up my faith in all of them. Also for those of us in conservative communities, religion and politics were always linked.

Again returning to the example of homosexuality: it was difficult to argue for equal rights and dignity for homosexuals, when I belonged to a church that was constantly reminding me they were sinful. For a while I tried to argue that, while homosexuality may be a sin, in a secular society homosexuals' rights should be protected. But this was a strained position, because at the end I always had to admit they were morally flawed. I was uncomfortable with this, but what could I do? I couldn't argue with God.

I thought about how bible verses had been pulled out of context in the past to justify slavery and the subjugation of women. Might the same thing type of thing be happening now? I brought the point up at a youth group meeting, but the youth pastor responded the bible was so clear on this point, he didn't think it was comparable.

But depending on which part of the bible one wants to emphasize, isn't the fact that women are not supposed to be in authority very clearly stated? Isn't it very clearly stated that the black man is supposed to draw water?

And I began to notice that the bible was very selectively emphasized. Jesus tells us that if we want to be right with God we must sell all our possessions and give the money to the poor. How many Christians do we see doing this? The John the Baptist preached that "If anyone has two coats, let him give to the man who has none." But how many Christians do you see giving away their extra coat?

In fact much of the New Testament, and especially the teachings of Jesus, instruct the rich to share their possessions to the poor. Not just give generously, but share all they have. The gospels almost read like a socialist track. By contrast condemnations against homosexuality appear mostly in the letters of Paul when he is just listing off sins. Yet which verses get the most attention? Which verses are we told must be taken literally?

And why is this? Because the condemnations against homosexuality are directed against other people. That's why these versions are so often quoted by the religious right. They can stand on the moral high ground and condemn other people with these verses while ignoring Jesus' condemnations of the wealthy. It is the same with sex. Although adultery is forbidden, the only time one can find a condemnation against fortification is when Paul is going through his list of sins. And yet what has the church treated as the ultimate sin? Pre-marital sex. Contrast that with the attitude towards war. Reading the gospels one gets a very clear since of Jesus' pacifism, and yet why is war accepted but sex condemned? Because the old people in the church, well past their sexual peak, enjoy nothing more than telling the young people that pre-marital sex is evil. But they realize full well they need the young people to march off and die in their wars, so the church never takes a strong stand against militarism.

As I considered these points my understanding of Christianity and religion began to evolve. I began to realize that so much of what had been preached at me for so many years was wrong. And if these people were wrong on one point, might they be wrong on another?

One thing I had never felt comfortable about was the idea that non-Christians were condemned to hell. It just never made any sense. I could understand the idea of evil people being sent to hell, but I couldn't understand the idea of good non-Christians being sent to hell. Why would the gates of heaven and hell be determined by one's intellectual beliefs, with disregard to their actions? I could understand salvation by faith, not by works, but I couldn't understand condemnation by lack of faith. It's not like the non-Christians made a conscious decision to believe in the wrong faith. From our perspective as humans, knowing the real truth is impossible. Even the best of Christians experience moments of doubt. Are people condemned to an eternity of suffering because they made the wrong choice in the "religion roulette"?

Also there seemed to be questions of race and geography. Christianity has historically been the religion of white Europeans. Asians believed in Buddhism. Was this because Europeans were better people? Of course not. Simply someone growing up in a Christian family would adopt Christianity.

The idea of salvation only through Christ was another idea that had been so deeply imbedded in me it took a lot of thinking before I finally rejected it. But they (my teachers and church leaders) had been wrong about so many other things, could not they be wrong about this too?

From a logical standpoint, the concept of hell didn’t make any sense. If God is all powerful, we must assume he has the ability to save everyone from hell. And if he is all loving, why would he choose to condemn good people who had unwittingly chosen the wrong religion?

Having grown up in the church, I was well aware of all the “Sunday School” answers that were used to explain away this apparent contradiction. Most of the responses ran somewhat along the lines that, “We can’t understand God’s plan, all we can do is have faith.” But these answers, which asked us to suspend logic in return for faith, only seemed to work as long as I had respect for the people who told me this. Once I realized what liars they were, there was no longer any reason to accept anything just because they said so.

I began to realize that Christianity has no monopoly on the truth, and all religions are equally valid paths to God. To believe otherwise, that Christianity is the only legitimate religion, is