This Christmas, as with every Christmas, I spent a lot of time in rooms full of conservatives. I grew up in a conserv family, nearly everyone I knew was conserv, and most of them are still of that political persuasion. Luckily, with some help from the Iraq war, I broke the bonds of the conserv cult, and a few years later I got both of my parents and brother to vote for Obama. My dad has slipped back a bit-thanks to the siren-like fear-mongering of Faux News, but my mom and brother have broken away from the Kool-Aid drinkers pretty firmly. However, nearly everyone I grew up with are still social conserves. So, as I visited my friends this year, I got to hear about "welfare queens," "job stealing Mexicans," how Dems are "baby-killers" and was called everything from Socialist, Marxist, to Chairman Mao, etc.
The most interesting discovery though, was that out of the approximately 18 conserves I met, every one of them was for the public option and, also, for my pet issue - publicly funded elections.
Read More