It's Reality, Stupid

A recent conversation with an old friend.

sez me:

Well, Tom, it seems to me that lately you've been sliding to the left on a lot of political issues, after maintaining a fairly centrist position on most things since I met you many years ago. So what happened? Did you:

--have some kind of epiphany?

--finally see the True Light of Reason?

--come to understand that the politics of making the rich richer were perhaps not the best objective for American domestic policies?

--decide that "fair and balanced" shouldn't mean having common sense and reasonable discussion on the one side, and screaming hysterical right-wing extremist religious fundamentalists--or outright lies, in the case of the Bushies--on the other?

So what caused you to become a liberal after all this time?

sez Tom:

Well, I quit my job with corporate America and was unemployed for a while, and for the first time in 25 years or so I had the time to do lots of reading and really pay attention to what is going on. If one actually tries to take in REALITY, instead of the arguments and sound bites of the idealogues, moving to the political left (or at least away from the political right) is pretty much inevitable for any modestly intelligent and reasonably sane person.