The the campaign season grinds on, I've noticed something about myself that's a little bit troubling. I've always been on the left side of the political spectrum, but I've also always prided myself on being able to see the other side and having some sort of balance in terms of how I view issues. I think this comes from growing up liberal in the very conservative state of Arizona.
What worries me is that lately, I find myself for very little tolerance for the other side of the spectrum and find myself getting upset when people disagree with me. Not upset like, "Gee, wouldn't it be nice if everyone thought I was right?" More like, "How can anyone possibly not agree with me? Are they idiots?"
Don't get me wrong, people who disagree with me probably are idiots. I just used to be better about being nice about it.
The outgrowth of this is that I have significantly less tolerance for listening to the other side of issues. I'm limiting my reading more to liberal sites than to the balance of sites I used to read. When I accidently click on something conservative, I rarely make it all the way through before I need to click away again.
I'm not about to hold myself up as the poster child for a wave of increasingly politically intolerant people, but I also don't think I'm alone. And I think our political discussions are poorer for it.
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