» posted on 9:07am - April 28 2009 | posted by ArmOfAtlas
I don't pretend to understand the practice of politics today, only the philosophy of politics as they should be. Now I have no illusions of perfection or utopia, but I do... did... believe that a democratic government would do the right thing for its people. But that is a belief founded on relativity and naivety.
I was walking next to my friend on the waterfront and we were laughing. Sometimes he would lead, sometimes I would. Enjoying the other's company. He told me of his fiance, college, new job, dog, church. I told him about my wife, daughter, work, family, the like. Then the sky turned red and the sea turned black. My friends flesh melted and I watched and waited. Not in fear or anticipation, but the way you would wait for the toaster to finish or a pot to boil.
Then my wife woke me up. She said I was crying. Not crying out, not sobbing... Just crying. The last time I had a bad dream, it led me down a serious personal quest for religious and spiritual freedom. It cost me my friends, my community, and some of my family. It ultimately ended up being me finding myself amid a lifetime of religious brainwashing. What would this dream mean for me?
I called the friend I was walking with in the dream. Didn't mention the dream, though. Asked him how life was, how his parents were, how he was, made small talk. Everything seemed fine and that dream started to slip from my mind (as dreams often do) when he made a comment that I didn't expect: "I went to one of the tea parties that were all over the news."
My heart skipped a beat. My friend's always been an asshole republican, but never done anything about it. The blind sheep, so to speak, but this? This is a different level. He wasn't there protesting higher taxes or anything like that... He was bragging about just being there. And that concerned me. When I asked him "why?" he would do something like that; what his being there accomplished; what he hoped to achieve by attending a mob-like meeting? He called me a liberal. I called him a sheep. He asked me how I liked the idea of Obama fucking my grandchildren from the grave. I asked him how he liked associating himself with the self-righteous conservatives that will probably put him there. He said he'd be proud to shake that patriot's hand.
If you're keeping track, my heart has now skipped two beats. I told my "friend" that I didn't think I could keep talking to him if those were the opinions he wanted to share. He responded by saying that that's the way his father would have done it, and his grandfather, and this nation's fore-fathers, and he couldn't be friends with someone who hated their country. I hung up the phone, but not before wondering what the nation's fore-mothers would have thought.
By this point the dream is all but gone when I turn on the tv and the news is on. One channel capitalizes on the opportunity to steal the lime light. The other channel squashes the "tea parties" as "tea baggers" making it all one big joke. And between my dream and my friend and all of american news, for the first time in my young adult life, I question my political brainwashing.
Not my region's impact on my political opinions, but everything in general. I know I'm being brainwashed; everyone is; constantly (politically speaking). But my friend shows what happens when it goes unchecked. I think I've kept mine in check. I feel I've questioned my own political ideals. But I openly admit that politics is mostly new to me. So how much of it is (latent) brainwashing? As difficult as it was to turn my back on my faith and God in general, how does one do that with politics?
This quest is a personal one; And though this post could have easily gone under philosophy, I feel given my recent step into the great unknown that is politics (to me), it would seem only fair to question myself here as well.
--- "The Bad Dream" has been viewed 
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