I grew up in Virginia during the eighties and nineties. My childhood occurred in the Reagan years - a period during which many conservatives grew to consider the United States a nation of conservative people. Much to my surprise, Virginia hasn't always been so conservative. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
Growing up, the handful of people who did talk to me about politics were conservative. So without really earning it, I adopted what I will call a "series of conservative opinions." In my twenties, I grew to recognize these opinions as being rather more like libertarian ideas than conservative ones, and far right of neoconservative ideals.
As I approach thirty and fatherhood, it is becoming more important that I understand these philosophies and their politics to a much greater depth. Unfortunately, independent critical analysis doesn't exist - everyone's opinion is biased by nature, from some much more than others'. So I have decided to make a different approach.
I intend to read two books
- The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater
- The Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Krugman
For those of you who know neither the books nor the authors, I suggest you head to Wikipedia and play catch-up. Suffice it to say, these men represent the faithful few: men truly dedicated to the ideals of their political camps. So I will read them both, and throughout the experience I will measure my reaction as a means of deciding (for now) where my own politics lie.
In short, I will develop my own opinion.
