I want you all to know that I had planned on a funny entry happening next. I even began my compilation of a few top ten lists with which I would entertain you. But, it’s not to be.

I’ve begun a little research. I looked up Ann Coulter’s new book on Amazon and thought I would see what people were saying about it. And then I found a list of the top ten must read Conservative books and I started looking through that. I stopped on Sean Hannity’s book Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty Over Liberalism. I read the excerpt; I might even go the bookstore later, hunker down and read a little more. Why, you ask? Not just so that I can fire myself up for an angry rant about the evils of Conservatives in this blog, but because I had a thought. What exactly is being said in these books? What do all of these people keep saying that others find so true? I know what they say on their talk shows; I know what they are reported to say on the news, but what beliefs are being espoused in print that make me not a Conservative and are so very different from mine that I’m as hated by them as they are by Liberals?

I thought maybe I was wrong, you see. Maybe I had missed something. Maybe there was some fundamental difference of belief that I shared with all of these people that I just hadn’t realized in all the media fuss of Liberals vs. Conservatives. I’m an American. I’m a patriot. I want America to be safe and wonderful and happy. I want the ideals of our Constitution to be upheld. So do they. So I wondered, what makes us so different?

The difference, I’ve decided, really comes down to basic fundamental beliefs. Government with Church vs. government without Church. Refusal to accept powerlessness vs. refusal to abuse power. Monologism vs. dialogism. Need to control vs. need to be free.

All of those sound like very polemic statements I know, especially the last. My students spout the same information splayed across the media--liberals are trying to strengthen governmental control while conservatives are trying to fight them. Conservatives are trying to uphold our freedoms, keep America free, fight the good fight, stop evil, and Liberals just want to hand the country over to Hillary a.k.a. the anti-Christ. These are the sound bites. But the truth is so very, very different.

While our country was founded on Christian principles, we were never meant to be a “Christian” country. If we were, it was only because the founders could not comprehend a situation where Christianity was not the base religion of all. I say Christianity instead of Puritan, Protestant, Catholic, or Mormon because at the very least all possible sects of Christianity were to be tolerated, and all other religions allowed. At the very least. That hasn’t really been the case. We’ve discriminated against Catholics, Quakers, and Mormons. We have used Christianity as justification for slavery, women’s subservience, and denial of marriage to homosexuals. This isn’t an attack on Christianity, it’s merely an elucidation of what abuse of the religion has justified, and keeps justifying. The reason we have separation of church and state is so that these things don’t happen. When you justify societal changes with religion rationale can get a bit touchy. Meanwhile, all the people who believe in the faith and disagree with those who are abusing it get a bad name and are as frustrated as those being discriminated against. Some people believe wholly that The Bible justifies their actions while others believe wholly that The Bible would never justify such atrocities. No one can agree, no one can prove the other wrong. There’s the rub in faith. That’s why it isn’t part of our Constitution.

But the Conservatives use religion as a fear-mongering tactic. Look at the evil Liberals trying to cut religion out of school, out of government, out of your life. 9/11 was an attack on our very way of life, it is the start of a war “between good and evil; between right and wrong; between the Judeo-Christian values upon which this country was founded and the violent nihilism of radical Islam.” (Hannity, 6) But it isn’t that easy. Nor is it that simple.

Radical Christianity is the author of just as many atrocities throughout history as radical Islam. The KKK uses the Cross as a weapon, the witch trials used The Bible as justification, the Spanish Inquisition used Christianity as reason, and the Crusades believed the Holy Land should belong to the West. Radicalism might be evil, but it isn’t a simple evil. It isn’t something we can snuff out. And it certainly isn’t a sign of an evil person. It’s a sign of a zealot. A person who has no room for other belief. Those people scare me. I dread the thought of every meeting such a person again. But every religion, every country, every age has them. They aren’t unique to Islam. This isn’t something that just popped up with Al Queda. We aren’t the holy righteous gunslinger who’s going to have a shoot out with the bad guy and save the day. And this is where the fundamental difference of belief happens. This is why I’m not Conservative.

The ends, sometimes, justify the means, but never by any means necessary. We were attacked on 9/11, but our fundamental way of life didn’t change, at least, not because of Al Queda. It changed because we got scared. It changed because we believed a) that we were under some new, horrible, looming threat all the time and b) there was something we could do about it. Terrorism has been around a long time. Terrorists have tried before, and sometimes they have even succeeded. But we aren’t being invaded. The thing about zealots is, they can wait. They can wait as long as necessary and do whatever it takes to hurt you. There is no deterrent that will stop them. So as the government passes the Patriot Act and other legislation that is designed to “keep us safe” and all it is doing is stripping our rights. So as the government “fights for freedom” it does so by taking ours away.

It isn’t easy to admit that maybe we’ll never be able to get Al Queda back. It isn’t easy to admit that maybe nothing we do will stop them. Some would call that cowardly, but I call it the truth. I call it that because they will always find a place to go. The Christians, while under suppression by the Roman government went underground--people find a way. Meanwhile, we sit here, spinning our wheels, because we want to feel powerful. We want to feel like we can control the situation. And we feel that way by holding more control over our citizens at home. We feel that way by saying the ends justify the means by any means necessary. That we are right, good, holy, and they are wrong, bad, and evil.

So no, I’m not Conservative. I’m not Conservative because life is never so simple as the plot of a movie. There is rarely an obvious bad guy, and even more rarely a correct course of action to deal with him. I’m not Conservative because I feel there absolutely should be a separation of Church and State. I feel Churches should have the freedom to run their congregations as they see fit, and people should have equal rights under the government. I feel that women have to be allowed the choice to have or not have babies and that when they choose abortion they should be allowed to do so in peace. And when they choose to have it they shouldn’t be left, alone, poor, and hungry, by those same people who congratulated them for not having an abortion. I think that regardless if you believe the people of New Orleans deserved Katrina or not, it is more Christian, more humane, to do whatever you can to help them, not judge them. I think that each person should be left alone, and free, to live her life as she wishes, so long as it abides by our societal laws. And I think our laws should be based on a system of societal ethics, not religious morality.

I’m not saying that all Conservatives are like Hannity, nor am I saying that all Liberals are like me. But I am saying that it is more American to welcome dissent than it is to squash it. And I am saying that if you really want to have a free America you need to take the tag off the end that reads “only if you’re just like me.” And I am saying that sometimes there isn’t a solution. You can’t make people agree with you. And sometimes they hurt you because they don’t. But freedom doesn’t ensure safety. If we have a right to be free, then we will never, ever be truly safe. That’s a horrifying, freakish idea, but a true one.

So I will keep reading articles and looking at books of people who disagree with me. I’ll keep doing it because it is important I know what they are saying, not just what I think they are saying. And all I hope, all I can ever hope, is that some of them will do the same for me.