..liberal

Those people who don't talk about politics have always baffled me. Even though it can be an unpleasant and abrasive conversation to have with some people, I have always viewed it as a necessary way of understanding and comparing my opinions with another person's for refining and reflection. This idea of political conversation is touted as a great accomplishment and what we, as members of a democracy, should always be striving for. A civil exchange of ideas and perspectives that informs and challenges our perception of the reality of society for all of it's members.

This cotton candy philosophy of democratic sparing is charming but quickly melts away when most conversations about politics actually commence. Politics is a dirty, contrived game of pride, manipulation, and self-seeking preservation.

Within the political world, apparently I am a liberal. This is not a label that I put on myself but after a weekend with my family I will gladly align myself along this party. Maybe it just means that I give a little bit of a fuck about people, the environment, the -isms of society that are all alive and acitvetly debilitating their recipients, and the widening gaps between people groups that perpetuate hostility and obliterate the possibility of peacemaking. Call me a liberal if my stance on issues falls predominately into a 'leftist' way of thinking; it really means little in the end.

This label of liberal that is so easy to brand others with is shortsighted and is causing hemorrhaging in my relationship with my father and family. With a philosophical bent towards 'the poor', 'the marginal', recycling, small corporations, and 'a social nanny state', my understanding of the American society receives the stamp of granola and I cease to be a daughter, becoming a wayward youth in desperate need of enlightenment and re-education. In the bold name of 'truth' and 'freedom' my father makes his assault on my proclaimed stance on issues, looking to inform my ignorance with the seasoned wisdom of years of government failure and excessive taxation.

Great. Let's talk. Charter schools, Seattle's bag-tax, immigration reform, public transit, affirmative action, fair and efficient tax policy, consumer safety regulation, women in the workforce, the prison system, crime, foreign aide, welfare: bring it on. The few requirements of the engagement being consistent logic, polite discourse, and a desire to understand the other's perspective. Without these prerequisites I have little interest in meaningless political racket ball because it is a pointless endeavor that leads me to a whole bouquet of pain to wade through post-fact um.

The problem with the scarlet L that is burning on my chest is that it is impossible to see past it. My father looks for an opportunity in every debate to weld the sharp corners of that L into a more acceptable and realistic C. The part that he consistently misses while he is prying and twisting in vain is that this label holds no meaning or weight in my life. It simply is a condensed, oversimplification of a massive structure of ideas and beliefs that I have constructed through education, conviction, logic, and compassion. My father is so often fruitlessly distracted by my liberal leanings that he misses the fact that my political beliefs are formed directly out of my understanding of humanity; in all of its twisted decay and inherent worth that demands respect.

So when I am eating eggs, cantaloupe, and cinnamon bread with my Caucasian, conservative family and they casually hop from racist comments about the littering habits of illegal Mexican immigrants, to the oppressive restrictions of the Seattle bag tax, and then effortlessly into the unavoidable reality of sexual harassment in the work place, my outrage does not come from the fact that I voted Democrat in the last election. I burn with outrage internally because the meaningful situations that pain beautiful groups of our society are disregarded as infringements upon our comfortable lifestyle. The grievances of the people around that table are legitimate to their situations but may hold little weight when juxtaposed with the conditions of millions of people that are flippantly disregarded over the course of a meal.

But at the end of my vacation I have come to the end of my rope and I am deeply wounded by another battle round that I have forfeited from exhaustion. Ultimately my views on issues and my political affiliation are deeply reflective of the person I am and desire to become but are not the essence of who I really I am. To be ridiculed, interrogated, and lectured because of them is not painful because I am a liberal, it is wounding because I am daughter that is being misunderstood in the name of re-education.

Usually I tell myself, "It is okay," to bind up my wounded heart and love again next time, with naive hope that something will be different. The truth is that I am not okay. I am broken because of this treatment and feel deeply unloved because of it. Where to go from here...