Minor Thoughts from me to you

Yesterday I found trying to write the archetypal 500-word op-ed so much fun that this morning I've decided to write a couple more on (what I will charitably call) the art form. And because Rabbi Jesus advised us to go where the sinners are - an idea revealing of His divine understanding of marketing - I've thrown it up on a blog on Townhall.com itself to feature it. I've named it "Townhall Reviewed".

This morning I pounded out the following column (took about 30 min.). While I won't claim its source to be divine, I frankly feel God probably agrees with it.

I'll probably do a few more, so c'mon back later if you find it pleasing.

A Varied Diet Is Good For You: Stop Reading So Many Conservative Pundits

If you’re reading this, odds are you’re not a very informed person.

Forgive me, but it has to be said by somebody.

And I say it, if it makes any difference, as a young man who grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh, at least until his father discovered any number of other talk radio hosts who quickly followed in El Rushbo’s historic wake, and who by my sophomore year in high school did not end a day without absorbing every new column published by Townhall.com’s elite assemblage of conservative pundits.

Over a decade later I still read and listen to them, too - they’re just not all I read and listen to.

Today I also listen to podcasts from Dan Carlin, a moderate. And also broadcasts from Air America, which isn’t. Books I’ve recently read: Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickeled and Dimed and Hillary Clinton’s autobiography.

All of this is good.

For all the intuitive understanding today’s conservatives possess of the marketplace and specifically the wonderfully-termed marketplace of ideas, they tend not to bother shopping around in it. Six or seven years ago I certainly never did. What information I needed to know from the books, articles, and videos of my political opponents I learned from quoted excerpts within my own, which handily came with ready rebuttals to any points I might find troubling.

That I had encased myself within a bubble of groupthink, one no less Orwellian than that which envelopes our universities, did not occur to me until late in college, when in my zeal to become the most effective culture warrior I could be I decided to start reading the works of my enemies; I wanted to be a Christian apologist and writer, so I started by putting away Norman L. Geisler, Lee Strobel, and other “defenders of the faith” and instead reading alternative commentaries on the Tanakh by moder-day Jewish scribes like Gunther W. Plaut and Dennis Prager, after which I graduated to the atheist treatments of Dr. Robert M. Price and the full-bore counter-apologists we all know so well: Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, et al.

I liken the effect of this expanded reading list to having eaten only American hamburgers for most of my life and then discovering ethnic food exists. The variety and richness of thought I encountered, even though I disagreed with a lot of it, was intoxicating – and yes, I started coming across arguments against Biblical inerrancy and various Christian values that C.S. Lewis, Norman L. Geisler, and the rest never mentioned to me. For the first time in my life I was truly being challenged, and only the opinions I truly deserved to have survived this refiner’s fire.

Naturally, I soon enough applied the same approach to my politics, and now – well, now I’m in a place I’d never thought I’d be. Which is scary, but also very exciting.

There’s little practical difference between living in a one-party state where you are constantly brainwashed and living in a two-party state where you are constantly conditioning yourself. Don’t waste the blessing you’ve been given of living in one of the few countries on Earth where you really can explore every point of view. It’s too rare a gift and it’s dishonest.

Take a break today from Townhall.com. Hell, take a week off. It’s not like you don’t know what all of these people think about everything anyway. Instead, jump over to a Libertarian website (they half-agree with you! Good place to start!), or even a Democrat one if you’re brave enough. Then when you return to the discussions here, at least you’ll have a unique voice, as opposed to being just another Republican repeating the exact same points from the exact same sources that everyone else is repeating.

Become informed.