My Declaration of (Non)Independence

So, to anyone who truly knows me, I have described myself as a political Independent for as long as I've been able to register to vote. I've been pretty staunch about this. I always felt that I could identify with policies of both the Democrats and Republicans. I've used the whole "Socially liberal, fiscally conservative" tag for myself pretty consistently. However, I don't feel that this is true anymore.

This has been building for quite sometime, but I honestly feel I can no longer claim Independence. So, let this be my notice to all 1 of you who follow me, or to the various people who may come here from my Facebook, but I am now, without a doubt, a Democrat!

Now, as I've said, this has been building for a while. But, like most awakenings, and I do believe this was an awakening, it took a pretty jarring event to finally break open the flood gates of awareness. It took something as tragic as the shootings down in Arizona to truly make me see the light.

Now, please don't think I'm using a tragic event such as that for some shameless self-promotion. That's not the point. I think what happened was tragic, heart-breaking, and, ultimately, preventable. But that's a blog for another day.

No, what happened there truly showed me what the basic characteristics of each party were. I don't believe that anybody should really break down those events to being politically charged. We may never know what went on in that person's head. But, to see how people tried to lump him in with either Political Party was shocking.

Democrats tried to say he was motivated by Republican violent rhetoric. Ok. That's wrong, even though I freely admit I tried saying the same thing. I was wrong too. HOWEVER, the Republicans, instead of downplaying that or even trying to say that this guy was crazy so who knows what motivated him, they then say "Oh no. He's a lefty. We're not to blame."

WHAT??? That's your response??? He's a lefty, we're not to blame??? Are you fucking kidding me????

All that did was make me want to watch more and more of the news. I needed to know where each side was coming from. I needed to know why I felt so outraged over all this. I needed to augment my political knowledge.

So, I watched some Fox News. I watched some MSNBC. I watched some CNN. I read the news from various sites. And then, I watched the Daily Show.

Needless to say, Jon Stewart is now my hero. I found that he felt the exact same way I do about various political topics and the way that politicians handle themselves. Then, to see that he is a lefty, I realized I was too.

Additionally, I watched Rachel Maddow. I know that most people on the right don't like her. I don't care anymore. I do. She's smart, witty, sarcastic(like me)....and she's also from Western MA. Awesome.

Having watched her show quite a bit over the past 2 weeks, she's usually pretty dead on.

So. Having said all that, there it is. I'm a Democrat. I'm actually pretty happy about that. I feel much better about it now. I just can't bear myself to align myself, even slightly, with a group that are so completely out of touch with regular people. I know the Dems aren't really in touch, but at least they don't outright LIE and expect people to believe them.

Ok. Maybe they do lie, but at least those lies aren't as bad as saying that our Founding Fathers were against slavery and stated so in the Constitution.

Yes. The Tea Party faction of the Repubs say AND believe that.

Yeah. I'm a Democrat.