- Oct 14, 2005
- 10,051
- 44
- 91
I have a question. I grew up in a small, New Jersey town. I'd say most people in my town were fairly Conservative, as I defined it at the time. Many people went to Church, many people were religious, and for the most part, I felt it was a fairly wealthy area. When I graduated High School, I went to a really liberal College - but I didn't really know what that meant at the time. I took up a Political Science minor and began taking classes. Most of my classes taught the same thing: Global warming is bad, big business ruins the world because they all dump their waste in foreign countries, that we as a first world country cause less developed nations to be dependent on us (dependency theory) or that we try to make them like us (modernization theory?).
My education never really touched on social issues like abortion rights, gay marriage, etc., so I'll leave the social issues out of the picture. But where it did leave me is with a liberal bias: who wouldn't want to help the poor countries? who wouldn't want to stop big US business from dumping trash in costa rica? who wouldn't want to pay more taxes so that we can all have a fair life? After all, it isn't people's fault that they don't have a job, it's the big business's fault for not providing them and being greedy with money... /brainwashed
In any event, I've been reading a lot on the health care bill lately, and I find it quite odd that almost every democrat is in support of it, and every conservative is against it. My democratic friends into politics will argue that the republicans aren't supporting it because "they want to keep the corrupt health care companies going so that they can put more money in their pockets". Surely that isn't the entire truth - is it? Is every republican in congress voting against this bill simply because they don't want to lose the massive amount of profits they are making?
Or something else I learned: big pharmaceutical companies don't want to make HIV drugs cheaper for poor people overseas because it will hurt their bottom line. True?
I personally hate all the spending we've been doing lately. It's ridiculous. But I once remember hearing something from a friend that "The republicans spend and spend and spend, and then the Democrats come in once a decade and clean up the deficit". If that's the case, then why does it seem like the deficit is getting larger and larger?
The point of this thread isn't to rant or flame. The point is to show you where my bias education has left me, and why I've begun to question things I've been told or taught. Can someone clarify?
My education never really touched on social issues like abortion rights, gay marriage, etc., so I'll leave the social issues out of the picture. But where it did leave me is with a liberal bias: who wouldn't want to help the poor countries? who wouldn't want to stop big US business from dumping trash in costa rica? who wouldn't want to pay more taxes so that we can all have a fair life? After all, it isn't people's fault that they don't have a job, it's the big business's fault for not providing them and being greedy with money... /brainwashed
In any event, I've been reading a lot on the health care bill lately, and I find it quite odd that almost every democrat is in support of it, and every conservative is against it. My democratic friends into politics will argue that the republicans aren't supporting it because "they want to keep the corrupt health care companies going so that they can put more money in their pockets". Surely that isn't the entire truth - is it? Is every republican in congress voting against this bill simply because they don't want to lose the massive amount of profits they are making?
Or something else I learned: big pharmaceutical companies don't want to make HIV drugs cheaper for poor people overseas because it will hurt their bottom line. True?
I personally hate all the spending we've been doing lately. It's ridiculous. But I once remember hearing something from a friend that "The republicans spend and spend and spend, and then the Democrats come in once a decade and clean up the deficit". If that's the case, then why does it seem like the deficit is getting larger and larger?
The point of this thread isn't to rant or flame. The point is to show you where my bias education has left me, and why I've begun to question things I've been told or taught. Can someone clarify?