I would like to introduce myself and some of my beliefs and how I came to some of them, mostly since I find it fascinating how people formulate and their ideals, and for a small bit of narcissism.
After years of lurking on this site almost daily, and being generally supportive of the agenda espoused by the majority on this website, I have recently decided to become an active member here as some of you reading this may have noticed from my commenting on others' diaries and front page stories. Because I think it fair to have an understanding of where I come from and how my beliefs were formed I decided to write this diary to let you know some things about me.
First off, I am a 27 year old Jewish man originally from West Palm Beach, Florida, and I now live in Miami. I am single and live alone and have no pets for the moment (hoping to get a kitten someday soon).
I have a degree from the University of Florida in both history and Jewish Studies. I just completed my first year of law school, but the school and I have both decided it would be best if I took a leave of absence (for complex yet boring reasons I assure you). I am currently in broadcasting school with an eye to being on the radio for politics or sports, hopefully a little of both. I have this vision of being the liberal answer to Rush or Beck or Hannity. Not just as a counterbalance, but as an angry response to them. I would love to be the voice that gets heard as the response in the same fashion as whenever you hear something they say that gets you so mad you would like your own means of your voice being digitally transported into people's homes. I have never heard an unabashed angry liberal given a voice in the media, except for maybe Randi Rhodes, whose career flourished in south Florida. I really do believe there is a niche for that that is unfilled. In other words I have no desire to be Thomm Hartmann or Sam Seder (both of whom I happen to think are terrific generally).
I come from a traditionally Democratic home. All four of my grandparents lived through the Great Depression and all four of their first ballots cast were for FDR. None of my grandparents ever voted for a Republican for President, my parents are proud to repeat. Both of my grandfathers were WWII veterans and my father's mother was a sergeant in the Women's Auxiliary Corps in the Army Air Corps. We still joke that she is the highest ranking military member of our family ever produced in this country, and because of this she was correct whenever she wanted my grandfather to do something, as she ranked him officially.
My father was born in south Florida and my mother moved here when she was 7 or 8 years old, so I have deeper roots down here than most, and I do feel differently about Florida and some of our "invaders" than some of my liberal brethren, since the deeper one's roots are here the more likely to be a conservative you are. Those of you from south Florida know what I'm talking about. Generally the liberals here are the people that moved here from the northeast or snow birds that split their time between the two places but take advantage of the ridiculously low tax burden the state of Florida imposes and our homestead exemption. I guess I just wish it didn't look like I was always siding with "outsiders" politically on most issues and that we wouldn't need those "outsiders" to avoid electing unpalatable people or enacting more liberal policies.
That being said, one of my Senators is Marco Rubio and my Congressman in West Palm Beach is Allen West. My governor is Lex Luth...oops I meant Rick Scott; very easy to make that mistake. They are doppelgangers and both are super villains. At least once a day until March I had to stop to remind myself it wasn't a nightmare, that it was all too real. Luckily, I have gotten that down to only several times a week.
I was raised in a largely non-observant home, but I had a Bar Mitzvah and went to a Jewish day school until 8th grade primarily due to its excellence in the secular studies and its vicinity to my home, and the poor quality of the public schools around me. Florida public schools rank among the worst in the nation, mostly due to our low tax burden, at least in my opinion.
I proudly adhere to my family's tradition of religious ambivalence except in the cultural context. Frankly, I have seen too often religion used as a wedge and not for the positive it can do. Too many people are killed for believing in the "wrong" god or worshiping him "improperly" for me to believe religion is a net positive. And that's not even getting into the way religion is used in this country by the Michelle Bachmanns and Sarah Palins and Tom Donahues of the world. That is almost just as bad.
That being said, I have no illusions that religion and its influence is likely to change any time soon. On the topic of religion, I think one is making a more efficient use of their energy complaining about the weather than they are hoping for its downfall or it being downgraded in its importance. With weather one can always move to a different climate, but wherever one moves, if there are people there, there is going to be religion.
Don't think though that I believe there no positives that religion brings. Obviously there is much in the way of charity work and comforting people in difficult times that religion does achieve. I often wonder however why charity work often has to be done under the auspices of religion. Doctors Without Borders is probably just as effective at setting a broken leg as a missionary.
I hope I have not turned too many people off by my religious ambivalence.
Both of my parents have worked for the government for most of my life. My father was a magistrate for well over a decade before becoming a judge and my mother is a teacher. Their experiences as public servants have shaped my thinking in many ways and most notably in my absolute detestation of any GOP attack on public workers. Public workers are generally a very honest, hardworking, and pretty capable group. They also sacrifice salary and are promised a fair pension as a form of payment on the back end for this arrangement. It is downright wrong and immoral to change the rules on them, period.
For the sake of brevity I will reduce the rest of the diary to some bullet points.
-I believe in liberalism. I am a proud liberal and wear it like a badge of honor. We should not run away from that word and keep allowing the right wing to sully it.
-I believe in a strong middle class. A strong middle class is the lifeblood of this country.
-I believe the GOP's ultimate goal is to eliminate the middle class and make everyone a serf to their corporate masters.
-I believe this current crop of GOPers is an actual, existential threat to this country as we know it.
-I believe in strong unions, collective bargaining, a much higher minimum wage, a forty hour work week, or a whole lot of what Eugene V. Debs was in favor of.
-I believe we as a nation spend FAR too much on guns in the guns versus butter debate.
-I believe in a much stronger social safety net. We should have permanent unemployment, universal healthcare, free universities for college aged people, and a whole plethora more. Last time I checked, places like Germany and England and France were still around and doing just fine, and perhaps better than us in some areas.
-I believe we could easily pay for such things if we re-prioritized how we spend our tax revenues. I'm looking at you giant Pentagon budget that has DOUBLED since 2003.
-I believe in much stricter gun control. I personally know far too many people I wouldn't trust to run a lemonade stand that own a firearm. Why do we have so many murders in this country? Easy access to handguns. End of discussion. Anyone who says anything else isn't being serious. The easiest way to gauge this is the murder rates of other industrialized nations and how ours is so much higher. What is the main difference? Access to firearms.
-I believe the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause applies to everyone. It is not open to interpretation, nor is it subject to the Book of Leviticus.
-I believe that the President's supporters are sometimes way too harsh on him.
-I also believe that President Obama has been a disappointment.
-I believe we share some of the blame for this. I know I for one probably imbued him with far too many of my beliefs than he actually shares, and I know I'm not the only one who did so.
-I also believe Barack Obama is a great politician and played up our hopes for him, knowing it would help him get elected.
-I believe he is governing in precisely the manner a centrist Democratic Senator from Illinois would.
-I believe in an independent, Jewish, State of Israel. I by no means agree with much, or most for that matter, of what they do as a nation, but the premise of its foundation, as a safe haven for Jews around the world after hundreds (thousands?) of years of oppression is still a valid one.
-I believe much of the debate over Israel is a proxy anti-Semitic battle. I really find it hard to believe much of the world cares about Palestinians when the world does not care much for the rest of the Arab or Muslim world. If Israelis were not Jewish I hardly think anyone would think twice about the situation there.
-All that being said, I believe Israel needs to ease up and allow a Palestinian state, without Palestine's capital in Jerusalem.
-I believe that is not going to be good enough for the Palestinians. I don't know if I would truly blame them if they rejected such an offer, but I think it's the best offer they're going to get for the foreseeable future.
-I believe I sound hypocritical about being a religious agnostic or perhaps a detractor of religion, but support a Jewish Israel.
-I believe that if anti-Semitism didn't exist Israel wouldn't exist either, because there would no need for such a place.
-I believe I just turned off a lot of people with my thoughts about Israel and the Palestinians.
-I believe in the designated hitter. Who the hell really wants to watch pitchers flail three times at the ball then go back to the dugout? Baseball "purists" can pound sand if they dislike the DH. It was instituted in 1973, eleven years before I was born. Last time I checked the world still has not ended.
-I believe Keith Olbermann is the best thing on television, followed by Lawrence O'Donnell and Rachel Maddow.
-I believe this diary is getting long and I wonder if anyone will read the whole thing, so I will wrap it up here.
So this is me and some of my core beliefs and how a twenty seven year old man from south Florida from a middle class family came about his political ethos.