Just background information for those who don’t know me that I went to a relatively small high school (graduating class of about 35 kids) and I met some of the people I graduated with back in 2005 today over lunch. Some I had kept in touch with more over others, then there have been some who I saw maybe once since graduation.
It was quite a small community, our principal would even love to call it “a family” all the time but it was quite something. I used to have informative, often heated debates with some people on questions varying from social to fiscal issues. There were just some that I thought I would never see eye to eye with, or some that would never switch their party lines to vote for another candidate – even on a more local ballot, never mind on a national scale.
One of the friends I met today was one of those people who I always argued against but continuously ending up respecting because they stood for their beliefs and stood firm on it. As an opponent in those arguments, you always felt they gave you a fair shake in listening to your points and rebutting things they disagreed with in a rather calm and respectful way – at least most of the times. To be quite frank, on the political scale we were as polar opposites as one could be without falling off the scale.
That same friend, who was always an avid learner certainly pulled a fast one by me today when they said they had voted for Barack Obama in this past year’s national election. In all my years of personally knowing someone who fundamentally stood on issues that were slightly more conservative than they were liberal, I did not see this one coming. They had been reading up on several social issues for some part of their studies and that in turn led them to vote the way they did. (By the way, the person did end up voting conservative down the ballot for every other candidate. haha)
I’m not saying voting conservative is a bad thing, actually a couple of my better friends would probably lean more right than left but I am certainly glad to see more and more people shedding the party label and voting for what they believe in and what they think is right. I certainly would think that even my friends who are liberal hippies would be able to vote for a Republican if it was clear that, that candidate would certainly put the country in a better situation than their opponent.
