Debates

Preface: This blog will not only be about politics. That's simply the way it's gone so far.

I spend way too much time thinking about politics. Makes sense; I majored in the damn thing. People probably don't realize just how much of my day is spent reading and analyzing the news, the people, the philosophies. Thing is, I've tended not to get into many political discussions anymore. One of the things I took away from 4 and 1/2 years of political study was an extreme disenchantment with debate and discussion. More often than not, the debates went (and go) nowhere. No one was swayed. No one considered anything other than their deeply entrenched viewpoint. This wasn't always that case. Sometimes progress was made: getting other people to see your point of view, and opening yourself up to the other side too. It's hard to feel like you can reasonably follow through with a career in this, however, when you're just not interested in pointless bickering and posturing. "Yeah, wonderful. So I'm supposed to think your NOT a complete ass because you use impressive sounding words? Saying 'germane' (which isn't even that special!) 10 times in the space of one statement does not make me to listen to your half-baked, lifted-from-a-fucking-punk-band politics"

So I decided to give it a rest for a while after college. I still am unsure if I'll get back into poli-sci in some professional manner, but I'm working on being more open about it and less afraid of discussion. It's all a matter of being better prepared for dealing with people who ultimately should be of no surprise, and giving yourself the chance to be surprising at the same time.