Talkin' Shit About A Pretty Sunset

Political ideologies are not inbred. There are distinct phases and forces in one's life that impart tendancies in gaining a world view, one way or other. While it's not an exact science, my concise stages will help you understand why you think the bullshit that you do.

Childhood through grade school: Very few people have political memories from this period. In fact, you're the exception if you know who the president is. If there is any shred of political ideology, it's because you have parents with opinionated politics. If so, you'll end up as either president or Charles Manson because your political consciousness began way too early.

High School: This is when most people form their first political ideologies, however, anything relating to international affairs will be limited to events like Krista Mcauliffe in the space shuttle or Reagan standing at the Berlin wall. If any high schooler can put together a political statement beyond echoing what they've heard other people say, it's a straight miracle.

College: The first signs of independent political analysis will form. Those whose politics are shaped by the influence of a university professor will come home to their parents sophomore year as committed Marxists and use the word "hegemony" in every fucking conversation. They think they're the first to figure out that US foreign policy isn't based on altruism. The number of Noam Chomsky books the student reads will kick it up a notch, and the ideology that results can be summed up thusly: United States = bad. Not United States = good. Conversely, students who hate their sociology professors and never travel abroad will become right-wingers, and stagnate that way forever.

The non-college route: If you don't go to college, there's an 80% chance you'll be a right winger. Being right wing is easy; the world is a simple place where the forces of good and evil are at constant battle. Doing what feels good is the most important thing, and any argument that contains more than two minutes of complex analysis is PC-Commie crap.

Post-college through death: The strong opinions a person had in college will soften by the mid to late 20s. The lefty from college still believes that the world is run by a cabal of Wall Street bankers, The World Bank, IMF and George Bush; that all international foreign investment is an attempt to expand the American empire; and that the US military is at the beck and call of the aforementioned conspiracy. The righty still thinks Reagan single-handedly destroyed the Soviet Union. As for what happens after one's 30s, Bukowski said it best: "When a young radical ends up an old radical the critics and the conservatives treat him as if he escaped from a mental institution. ... What hardly ever happens is a man going from being a young conservative to becoming an old wild-ass radical. However: young conservatives always seem to become old conservatives."

Such is our politics, and you can have it all.

Keep it.

Sail it up your ass.


(Please don't tell anyone I quoted Bukowski).