◼ I wonder—would this be a good video to send to liberal friends who seem amenable to persuasion? - neoneocon
Read the excellent comment thread.
◼ Neo's story: Previously a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in New England, surrounded by liberals on all sides, I've found myself slowly but surely leaving the fold and becoming that dread thing: a neocon. - neoneocon
◼ Condescension and leaving the political fold - neoneocon
◼ Archive for the 'A mind is a difficult thing to change: my change story' Category
◼ A mind is a difficult thing to change: Part One–Intro
◼ A mind is a difficult thing to change: Part 2–Therapeutic change
◼ A mind is a difficult thing to change: Part 3–Beginnings
How does a political identity begin?
Political identities, like religious identities, start when we’re very young, and they start with the family. Later on, in our teens and early twenties, we may rebel, or we may continue along the path laid down in childhood. But as little children we can’t possibly understand politics rationally. For children, politics is mostly a matter of affilliation, plus some vague information swirling around in the public domain and filtering down to the child in childish terms: What does my family think and believe? Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?
◼ A mind is a difficult thing to change: interlude
◼ A mind is a difficult thing to change: Part 4A (Vietnam–the home front)
◼ A mind is a difficult thing to change: Part 4B (Vietnam–photographic interlude)
◼ A mind is a difficult thing to change: Vietnam interlude–after the fall
◼ A mind is a difficult thing to change: Part 4C (Vietnam–change and betrayal)
◼ A mind is a difficult thing to change: Part 5 (The quiet years: tanks vs. pears)
◼ A mind is a difficult thing to change: Part 6A (9/11: the watershed)
◼ A mind is a difficult thing to change–Part 6 B (After 9/11: war is interested in you)
The motivation was provided by 9/11 itself, as I wrote towards the end of my last “change” post:
It now seemed to be no less than a matter of life and death to learn, as best I could, what was going on. I knew it wasn’t up to me to solve this; I had no power and no influence in the world. But still something drove me, with a force that was almost relentless, to pursue knowledge and understanding about this event. The pursuit of this knowledge no longer seemed discretionary or abstract, it seemed both necessary and deeply, newly personal.
The access was provided by the internet. The worldwide media was newly at my fingertips. Without it, I would never have encountered the varied sources that led me down the path of change, but would instead have stuck with the old tried and true–the Times, the Globe, the New Yorker, Nightline, and NPR–and I am certain I would not be sitting here today, writing this blog.
Prior to this, I’d been neither a news junkie nor a history buff. My consumption of such things seems to have been about average: the usual cursory high school history courses plus one or two in college; the quick reading of a daily newspaper and a weekly periodical; and the viewing of the nightly news on TV, background noise while I concentrated on cooking dinner or tending to the family.
◼ A mind is a difficult thing to change: (Part 7A: Jenin, Jenin)
◼ A mind is a difficult thing to change: (Part 7B: the Vietnam photos revisited)
And Breitbart's watershed event:
The Left's Treatment of Clarence Thomas Changed Breitbart from Papa Giorgio on Vimeo.
