changes

I've often heard/read stories about people who started out as one extreme in their college days and ended up the opposite by the time their children were in college. I've never considered myself one to change core principles, and I don't have children so watching and teaching a maturing teen certainly doesn't enter into the fray.  Perhaps groups have changed their positions, so I'm really still the same and others have simply moved to more extreme positions. Whatever the reason, I find myself on the fence or somewhat over the fence on many political issues these days.

Topics like gun control, mental illnesses, police brutality, government overreach, public education, homeschooling - more and more I find that my views don't line up with people I know. And I'm okay with that, but what shocks me is how vitriolic people are when you dare to disagree with them on the smallest of points. It's almost as if our nation with its free speech principles is actually unable to handle free speech. Have we become so insecure in who we are that anyone who dares to slightly disagree with us is a hater or delusional?  Some days it seems we can't have a decent debate or conversation with anyone who thinks even the least bit different from our viewpoint.

I don't think you will ever see a book from stating how I became a liberal. No one will be more shocked than me if that happens! But if someone were to ask me today, I would probably classify myself as a moderate. And I never thought that would happen. And for the record, my liberal friends would still rank me as a right-wing conservative, but my right-wing conservative friends wouldn't classify me in their ranks if we ever had a heart-to-heart conversation.  That sentence makes me laugh a little. And I'm okay with that. I'm still who I've always been, though I like to think a little wiser.

It'll be interesting to look back in thirty years and see where my fence post stands in the ever-changing landscape of viewpoints.