Politics: A Shouting Match?

Hello to anyone who comes across this page.  I haven't kept my commitment of posting at least every two weeks very well (as this is the second post, and it is now mid-April), so I thought I'd post this one.  Think of it as a combination of an article and a mission statement for this blog (or at least for me - other [future] blog authors might differ in their decisions).

Many of you may have noticed that lately, politics has become increasingly hostile.  What started as a system of "We have different opinions - let's try to reach a middle ground," has become a system of "Your opinion is not the same as mine!  You're an idiot and a traitor to s!"  This, while not that hard to have predicted, is still shocking to me.  There are several people from both major parties who would agree with me that politics has degraded to mere shouting and threats.

Now, I expect it will inevitably get worse as people become, aspire to become, politicians only to show that they were right after all, and that everyone who disagreed was a big idiot.  That is one of the reasons I define myself as a Republicrat - I don't side with one side no matter what (like most politicians currently do).  But it doesn't have to be that way.  We just have to be practical (and perhaps just a little bit ideological) about things.

I try to take the time to see and hear both sides of the argument, and then looking at the facts for evidence, before making a decision and forming an opinion myself.  That is one of the key reasons I have not formed or published an opinion about the Health Care Bill.  I have only heard the destructive criticisms of it.  I still need to see someone other than Obama (for obvious reasons) promote it.  I still need to look at the text of the Act (which I hear is very long, so I will look for key points that are often pointed out).  If I find that some arguments that people are making for or against it are false, I will publish my best interpretation of what is really true about those statements.  I will not be for or against a political issue, as that will bias future thoughts of it.  I will instead try to be disinterested (which does not mean "not interested," but means "not biased") and impartial, and to have both sides of the story and the facts.

I know I am nowhere near perfect.  I will still have opinions on politics, but I will try to be as impartial as I can without overstepping certain personally-set boundaries.

I want to see comments on this post.