OUT OF OUR COMFORT ZONE

I credit this post to my wife. She once asked me why I love her. I told her that one of the things that draws me to her is also one of the things that annoys me the most. In short, she has a way of dragging me kicking and screaming out of my comfort zone. If it were not for her, I would most likely be a uni-bomber-esque hermit of some sort (minus the whole mail bomb, and violent tendencies thing) living in a shack in the woods.
Though a life of seclusion and absolute privacy still appeals to me, I am grateful for my exposure to other aspects of life I would have otherwise never experienced. This exposure has made me a better person, if for no other reason than I learn something from each new thing that Mrs. Roadhouse "suggests" I try. This got me to thinkin'.

If my formerly liberal way of thinking could be so transformed by simply being exposed to other people, maybe other liberals are simply suffering from a lack of exposure to the other side of the coin as well. In my first book, I wrote that I do not think liberalism is some great "conspiracy", rather nothing more than an institutional mind set. Consider the following.
If there is such a thing as a "core" to the poison apple of liberalism, it is surely the large metropolitan city, namely New York, Chicago, L.A., Seattle, etc., etc. Here, liberalism can thrive for one main reason...insecurity. Face it, we all have insecurities, but unless you live and work along side a few million people every day, you might not be as pressured to confront them.

Case in point - me. I am the original "country mouse". I live well outside of a small farming town, and I drive big rigs for a living. If I so choose, I can go for days without interacting with anyone, with the exception of my family. And in my "culture", it is a social norm that everyone understands that your opinions are your own, and you are not entitled to agreement from anyone. We are under little pressure to hold a particular opinion, because most of us simply don't care what the other guy thinks. As a result, opinions tend to vary in the country, and social standards are dictated by common sense, not popularity.

For the "city mouse", none of this is the case. In the city, space, quiet, fresh air, time, civility, and freedom of movement are all but non-existent. To assume that this alone would not have an effect on one's mentality would be naive at best. For one thing, "city mouse" rarely has time to collect his/her thoughts and just think. Try finding a quiet spot to simply "chill" for a few hours in the city. Somewhere where there is no noise, elbows, or thumping music is akin to an oasis in the desert. This leaves little opportunity for "city mouse" to mull over the validity or merit of his/her opinions.
Then there is the never ending peer pressure city folks suffer from. Sure, you can wear a bone through your nose and pink leotard on the street and probably not get many strange looks. But try quoting Patrick Henry in a corporate break room and see how fast you can be ostracised. Over time, the prevailing viewpoint on any given issue tends to be considered the norm. Not because it makes sense, but because no one took the initiative to dispute it for fear of being looked at as a freak. After all, standing out in a crowd of three thousand (my town's current population) is one thing, but a crowd of over one million is a whole other story.
Couple all this with the fact that the bulk of our media is rooted in these cities and charged with distributing information to the rest of us, and you have a recipe for intellectual disaster across the nation.

It is my belief that if those closet conservatives who reside in the city were more willing to speak out, it might be harder for liberalism to infect the rest of us. It's time for them to get out of their comfort zone.