" Hi, I'm Marty, and I'm a recovering Republican"

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/republican_party/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2009/11/10/recovering_republican#story_full_5807b356c40da1e40d3bc0c8f367ed48

Hi, I'm Marty, and I'm a recovering Republican

I was a feminazi-hating, liberal-bashing loudmouth who tried to befriend Bill O'Reilly. Man, I was such a douche
By Marty Beckerman


Every day I wake up with the same thought: "I used to be such a goddamned idiot."

I am a former Republican. And I wasn't merely the libertarian, live-and-let-live, fun-at-parties kind of conservative whose primary concern is balancing the budget; I was a spiteful, narrow-minded, fire-breathing paranoid lunatic who questioned the patriotism and morality of my liberal fellow citizens. Recognizing the error of my ways has done wonders for my mental health but left me with constant, unremitting remorse; I really want to go back in time and kick my own ass.

snip//

However, I might have never recovered from my right-wing fever if not for the controversy I caused. Readers sent me hate mail following a Salon interview with Rebecca Traister, in which I bashed feminism and articulated such thoughts as: "Men don't see women as clean and pure but as a means to an end, a nice little fuck-hole." One Salon reader even threatened my physical safety.

But middle-aged liberal psychologist Steve Edgell took another approach: calmly and gently talking me back to earth. Over the course of many e-mails and phone conversations, Dr. Edgell -- who had been an Ayn Rand junkie at my age -- explained the reasons for his own political evolution and guided me through the myriad inconsistencies of my rabid philosophy. Just as I was beginning to understand how unbalanced I had become, Edgell died of a heart attack. He did not live to see me completely return to planet Earth but must have known he had planted the seeds of doubt. I never met the man, and I don't necessarily agree with everything he believed, but I owe him my sanity. (He was an atheist, but I hope he is looking down from the cosmic void with amused satisfaction.)

Just as morphing into an extremist took a couple years, un-becoming an extremist happened over time. One by one I saw the flaws in conservative orthodoxy: attempting to fight terrorism with torture, which only aided our enemies' propaganda efforts and thus created more terrorists; seeking to liberalize the Muslim world while curtailing rights for gay people at home; criticizing public schools for lackluster results and therefore cutting funds further; disdaining the weak while never analyzing why they are weak; always seeing the effect but never the cause, which on a mass scale perpetuates the effect.

The 2008 financial crash further proved to me the necessity of an economic safety net within the market system; tying health insurance to employment suddenly made no sense, for example, when millions of people lost their jobs due to conditions beyond their control. Capitalism with a few safety pads -- or a condom, I suppose, since the recession has fucked us all -- is a far cry from a Marxian worker's paradise.

I am not an extreme leftist by any means -- I still dream of swimming in a vault of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck, I would die to protect the First Amendment from censorial progressive overreach, and I would consider voting for moderate Republicans if any still existed -- but I've learned to see the big picture. It doesn't matter whether you are liberal or conservative, but it's dangerous to always think with exclamation points instead of question marks. Your stance on any particular issue is far less important than whether your worldview is a product of inquiry or incuriosity, whether you feel more comfortable questioning the crowd or blindly marching with it. No ideology has a monopoly on reality -- including left-wing politics.

No longer drunk on jingoism and bloodlust, I feel like a German in 1946, wondering what the hell happened to me, what the hell I supported when I harbored no doubt that we should "nuke 'em all" and measured people by standards other than their character. The years pass, but I cannot reconcile my former and present selves; in my early 20s I made the worst mistake of my life --injecting poison into a world that desperately needed the antidote -- and while it's impossible to undo that error, perhaps my penance is remembering and therefore not repeating it. Just as Dr. Edgell steered me back to the shores of lucidity, I can encourage mellowness in others -- no matter their cause -- and discourage the inevitable craziness that resentment and overgeneralization breed.

Paul of Tarsus, the most famous convert in history, commented long ago: "Even though I was once … a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief." I don't know if anyone, deity or human, will show mercy on me, but I will try to have mercy on myself, and -- even if I continue to fail -- maybe that's enough.

[Demeter]

1. Hi Marty!

Is this for real, or are you hypothesizing?

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

2. Much more at the link, Folks.

This is an interesting read, Thanx and Good Morning, Babylonsister.
k&r.

[mzmolly]

3. Welcome to the light Marty!

:kick:

[BlancheSplanchnik]

4. Wow!

Just Wow!

**a little dazed** :)

Obviously the writer is intelligent and thoughtful, and willing to look, I mean really look, at himself.

I wonder what's possible for people of average intelligence -- or less?

[Recoverin_Republican]

5. Interesting. I think there are more than a few of us. It took a while for me, but better late than

never I guess, I hope

[ShamelessHussy]

6. welcome to DU

:toast:

[Recoverin_Republican]

10. Thanks. I feel like a real babe in the woods compared to you guys. Since I woke up

I realize I've got a lot of learning to do (or should I say a lot of "unlearning" to do).



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=495255&mesg_id=495879

[babylonsister]

8. Welcome to DU! I hope you have thick skin, but

we're glad you're here! :toast:

[Recoverin_Republican]

9. Thanks. I've been reading the posts on DU for some time. Since before my awakening.

It took some time, but after losing my job and listening to the increasingly radical Right, i finally started to wake up to what a sucker I had been. The Republican party sure has made a specialty of convincing many people they are Republicans (when the Republican party really doesn't have the interests of anybody who works for a paycheck in mind). I'm not just talking about blue collar people. If you are not wealthy enough to live off the interest and dividends of your investments then you really don't belong in the Republican party.

DU has it's extreme types, for sure, but I have really had my eyes opened by a lot of good stuff (especially links to good sites for information) posted here.

I finally decided, if nobody minded (my being an ex-idiot and all) that I would like to get in on these discussions... if only so I could ask some questions now and then.

[ginnyinWI]

14. I just ignore the extreme types here.

I grew up nominally repub too, changed as I reached middle age and started to think for myself about 17 years ago. As repubs, we are raised on the notion that the free market is salvation for all of us--give business the freedom to work and it will all trickle down and make us prosper. Huh.

I finally figured out that business is out to take us for all it can get and wreck out environment in the process. I personally would rather give government a chance to rein in those interests in favor of the good of all the people.

Add to that how many deficits repub administrations have racked up compared to Dems, and how much trouble in the world they have ignored or made worse. Dem presidents tend to use their brains, not their guts, and I like that.

I call myself a liberal or progressive, not a centrist. Might as well get both feet wet. But I'm no radical. That is defined as a person who will resort to violence--and we have that on both ends of the political spectrum, don't we? :)

[ShamelessHussy]

7. I lost sight of grayscale (don't believe everything you think)

I lost sight of grayscale and instead saw the world in black and white; I labeled Terri Schiavo's husband a money-hungry murderer for pulling the plug on his comatose wife, lumped all Palestinians together with the few terrorists among their population, uttered racial/sexual/ethnic slurs with a little too much enthusiasm for simple prurience and approvingly repeated Michael Savage's book title "Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder." I even argued that women belong in the home, not the workplace! (Now a self-employed author, I cook dinner for my girlfriend nightly and perform household chores -- groceries, laundry, dishes -- when she heads to the office. Truly I am a domestic goddess.)

...

I completely understand why conservatives-turned-liberals such as Arianna Huffington and David Brock and liberals-turned-conservatives such as P.J. O'Rourke and David Horowitz spend decades walking back their youthful ramblings. When millions upon millions of people remember you for something that you no longer represent -- if you think they remember you anyway, which they probably do not -- the shame is unbearable, the desire for a time machine pathological. The temptation is to become an extremist in the opposite direction -- LOOK how much I've changed, everybody! -- which is hardly an act of maturity. The dilemma remains: You have evolved, yet the perception of you remains stuck in a misguided past. (At a recent literary event someone asked me, "Aren't you the guy who thinks women shouldn't have sex?" I'm misanthropic, yes, but willing to concede that humanity should probably reproduce.)

...

But middle-aged liberal psychologist Steve Edgell took another approach: calmly and gently talking me back to earth. Over the course of many e-mails and phone conversations, Dr. Edgell -- who had been an Ayn Rand junkie at my age -- explained the reasons for his own political evolution and guided me through the myriad inconsistencies of my rabid philosophy. Just as I was beginning to understand how unbalanced I had become, Edgell died of a heart attack. He did not live to see me completely return to planet Earth but must have known he had planted the seeds of doubt. I never met the man, and I don't necessarily agree with everything he believed, but I owe him my sanity. (He was an atheist, but I hope he is looking down from the cosmic void with amused satisfaction.)

...

No longer drunk on jingoism and bloodlust, I feel like a German in 1946, wondering what the hell happened to me, what the hell I supported when I harbored no doubt that we should "nuke 'em all" and measured people by standards other than their character. The years pass, but I cannot reconcile my former and present selves; in my early 20s I made the worst mistake of my life --injecting poison into a world that desperately needed the antidote -- and while it's impossible to undo that error, perhaps my penance is remembering and therefore not repeating it. Just as Dr. Edgell steered me back to the shores of lucidity, I can encourage mellowness in others -- no matter their cause -- and discourage the inevitable craziness that resentment and overgeneralization breed.

he's got too much respect for intellectual honestly to go on being deluded... and I was especially glad to hear about the middle aged, sensei, who took him down a calm path to see things from another perspective, yet so sorry to hear he has died... it's always great to see how the written word can stll be very effective at removing the blinding passion of our emotions when used appropriately =)

[pscot]

11. Like the man said

You have to learn to forgive yourself. We all make mistakes.

[Speciesamused]

12. We welcome you with open arms and minds:)

[Progservative_n_SC]

13. I understand what you are saying completely

Though I am far from a fire breathing liberal I just can't stomach what the right is becoming. It took me until I was 35 years old to step back from the ledge and try to find a middle path between two extremes.