BREAKING NEWS: Friend Says Andy Griffith Has Died

[antigone382]

97. Yeah, I didn't realize it until I went to Vermont last summer.

I loved almost everything about the politics, culture, and scenery of the place. I wish that the place I live had a similar outlook. However, I was disconcerted by the ability to define political conservatives as "those people." I just am so used to interacting with people who hold divergent political views on a person to person level; in fact people of different political persuasions just have to get past it because we depend on each other here. We've visited each other in the hospital, cried at the same funerals, and lent each other money to get family members out of jail. I understand that the policies my friends support often undermine their own livelihoods and futures, and if there's one thing I'd like to do it's bring awareness, in a non-condescending way, of that very fact. However, I don't have the luxury of drawing sharp distinction between myself and them, or curbing my perception of their humanity.