Uneducated Liberalism Vol I

Uneducated Liberalism: The Birth of a Liberal

Political opinion from the realm of the objective. That is to say, I’m no expert.

Alright admit it. When you read the title of my new little column here you thought one of two things:

1) “Uneducated Liberalism?” Is there any other kind? And do we really need any more liberal bias in the media? Even the obscure-crappy-website-that-nobody-reads-media?

2) What the hell does that mean? (Your ignorance somehow magnetically drawn to the term “uneducated’)

3) Finally! A voice of reason in this otherwise theocratic arch-conservative, red-state coalition of corruption we live in.

If you’re person #1, you might be advised to click the “X” button in the top right corner of your browser. If you’re person #2, your brain probably imploded on the word “theocratic.” If you’re person #3, welcome to the first installment of “Uneducated Liberalism,” I’m your host, the One Called Random.

I grew up in a family that did not, with very few exceptions, ever discuss politics. I can remember my father telling me at a very young age that there were three things a man did not discuss: Religion, politics, and women. For the vast majority of my childhood “the president” was just some guy who came on TV upon occasion, talked in a very boring manner and did so for a very long time. Some years later, I wonder if my opinion of him has changed much beyond that.

I would concede that my first real interest in anything political probably came about watching old Vietnam war movies and listening to Charlie Daniels tapes, as my father did his best to explain to me what the song “Still in Saigon” was about and what the draft was. As early as I can remember I was never keen on the idea of having somebody else tell me I had to go fight in a war. I was all for defending our country and all, I just had a difficult time fathoming how to do it from ten thousand miles away.

Maybe my parents taught me more about politics than I realized.

Once in high school I still never really cared too much about it. That was of course until the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a massive reprint of a Congressional report depicting President Bill Clinton inserting a cigar in a women’s vagina. I’ve still yet to find a girl that would let me try that one, but I suppose my fondness for cigars even know could be attributed to that. Surely a Swisher Sweet cherry-tipped Cigarillo would slide in relatively easily…

I guess as anybody in the entertainment business will tell you, sex is good for ratings, even in politics. Sure it may not have done much to help out Slick Willy’s approval rating but I’m sure it made an entire generation of teenage boys take interest in politics that would have otherwise continued to view the president as that guy on TV who talked boringly for entirely too long.

My senior year, I discovered that perhaps I had a few more opinions that I’d given myself credit for. This can in large part be attributed to a teacher whom I connected with very well, perhaps because he was also a football coach of mine, who taught current events at the time and required that at the minimum we as students be able to formulate a semi-educated opinion on a number of political and social issues. This was of course in the fall of 2000 during the Bush/Gore presidential election when the great state of Florida couldn’t make up its damned mind (and neither could CNN) and the presidential election hung in limbo for a matter of weeks. Having been given a brief and relatively incomprehensive rundown of a number of presidential issues leading up to the equation, I’d drawn the conclusion that my fragile teenage mind was marginally a Democrat, and thus was appalled to learn that not only are people in Florida too stupid to read a ballot correctly, they also apparently can’t count. I’m not saying the final verdict wasn’t correct (though I have my doubts) but how many recounts are really necessary before one can reasonable conclude that the first two counts were accurate?

My freshman year of college through a whim of fate I landed in the freshman seminar of a college professor who was not extremely, almost obnoxiously, liberal. He was of course not bound by the restraints of high school teachers working in the public school system and could openly express his anti-Republican views. Furthermore, despite being one of the hardest professors I ever had and at times a royal prick, he was extremely funny. His teaching style was full of stuttering and stammering, spitting, chalk throwing, more spitting, and other antics that made him perhaps the most charismatic showman I’d ever seen in a classroom. Unless you were sitting in the first row. Then you needed an umbrella. Of course it doesn‘t hurt that said professor also taught political science. Guess who landed in that class second semester when the same kooky professor was deemed his academic advisor? Yup. The Random One.

Of course my freshman year of college also saw the 9/11 Terrorist attacks. That same colorful showman of a professor was crying that day as we discussed what the United States course of action should be. The discussion of that day is best served for a later column, so I’ll save it. Suffice it to say for now that for a few weeks in the Fall of 2001 I felt more “republican” in the classic sense than I ever had before or since. Like everybody else, I was singing “Put a boot in their ass” and I was ready to take up arms, just like the rest, perhaps somehow understanding ten years later what I couldn’t pinpoint about that Charlie Daniels song, knowing how one can defend his homeland ten thousand miles away from it.

As time went on in college its really tough to pinpoint how or why my liberalism grew to the level it is now. I know that the war in Iraq and the discussion surrounding it my sophomore year had a lot to do with it. I didn’t then, and still don’t know, agree with going to a war that an international body representing the most powerful and largely democratically elected governments in the world, The United Nations, disapproves of. To be fair, that probably wasn’t the springboard to my liberal perspectives now, but rather was a final straw; affirmation that where I was leaning “left” on a variety of domestic issues (taxation, abortion, gun control, etc) I was most certainly opposed to any viewpoint that would spit in the face of something that my knowledge of history had taught me was a good idea.

I found my way into a group of friends who were not just ’liberal’ in the classic sense but in some cases we joked “damn near socialist”. Courses in philosophy and other humanities seemed to interest the entire clique I’d wandered my way into, and it seemed the more we became educated in the realms of political science, philosophy, history, the enlightenment and others the more ’liberal’ we became. Maybe it was the faculty. Maybe it was ’liberal biased’ media in the background and the humor John Stewart and later Steven Colbert. Or maybe it was the Tool, the war, the malt liquor, and Kevin Smith flicks. Whatever happened, I went into my early years of college a dumb jock with no real clue how he felt about anything outside of “Sausage or Pepperoni” and came out a slightly smarter x-jock with assertive positions on a number of political issues.

Maybe it was the depression my junior, senior, and fifth years of college. Nothing like long days of intrinsically staring at walls in your room to make you look deep into your soul and find out how you feel about things. College is rationally a time when one “discovers themselves” and I was no exception. In a lot of ways my interests in writing online helped me sort out my opinions on such things. Writing wrestling columns is writing to entertain, to entertain is to make jokes, and to joke you must know what you’re comfortable saying and what you’re not. As my feelings and opinions sorted themselves out, as I “grew up” so to speak, I began to notice a few things, namely that I was quickly being labeled as a “Liberal”.

Now, let it be known right now that while I don’t much care for society’s trend toward applying labels to everything as if people are supposed to fit in tidy little cubicles of personality, I understand how they come about and accept the need for them in certain situations. The world of politics marks one of those exceptions. My choice to side with Democrats in American politics, or to align myself on the left of America’s political spectrum, is not a result of flip-flopping, lashing out at the current administration, or feeling overwhelmingly passionate about one particular topic that happens to be the liberal viewpoint. Rather, my liberalism is the result of well thought out and formulated opinions on a slew of topics, the majority of which I’ve landed left of center on. On some issues I find myself to be fairly moderate and on others I find myself to a “bleeding-heart”.

Liberal. A bleeding-heart liberal I suppose is what I am. It’s not because that’s what my parents were-retroactive questioning has led me to believe that my mom is almost entirely conservative whereas my father is “Southern Democrat” if I’ve ever met one. My liberalism isn’t a result of one or two issues, or one or two influential personalities in my life. I am a liberal because after careful consideration I’ve determined that it is not only the way I feel, it’s the way everybody should feel. I don’t lean left because I don’t like the right, I lean left because left is right and right is wrong. Damn wrong. Not on one issue, but on damn near all of them.

Maybe you agree with me. Chances are, you don’t. And that’s fine because more important than the definitive and coercive party lines that we’ve drawn is the open dialogue of Democracy. I’ve taken it upon myself to begin the journey that is this column because I believe its important to constantly reevaluate one’s own stances on topics that are influential in our lives. I believe the best way to evaluate oneself is to pour it out on the open table and offer it up for dissection, critique, or affirmation.

With luck, this new column will afford me the opportunity to do those things. And maybe, convert a few new liberals in the process.

I’ll spit on you if I have to.




Random is a teacher in the public school system and contributes written and audio work frequently to a variety of sites including lordsofpain.net and themoviebar.net as well as serving as the owner/operator of theprojectlives.com. Please direct all feedback to [e-mail]