response to letters about conservatives

Amy Muething COM ’05

I’ve been keeping a secret, and I’ve been keeping it for far too long so I think it’s time I let it out. I’m a woman, I’m not homophobic, I don’t believe in the death penalty, and……..I’m a Republican. Please don’t shutter. I know around here that’s a dirty word. And quite frankly I don’t want to waste my time trying to explain my politics. It’s more than likely you’d rather kill yourself than switch your belief to anything close to mine and that’s fine. In fact, it’s one of the great things about this country. We can be on two opposite sides of this spectrum in our beliefs and yet still go on working and living side by side. But there is one thing I wish to address that has been brought up over the last couple of days. Though I did not agree with Brian Chaitoff’s assessment of the Daily Free Press, I am tired of Republican or conservative being synonymous with old, wealthy, greedy man trying to hold on to his billions of dollars. In many places in this country, Indiana for example where I grew up, EVERYONE IS NOT A DEMOCRAT. And believe me, they’re not all wealthy either. In fact, just as this is a significantly Democratic portion of the country there are signficiantly Rebublican portions as well. And no, the grass there isn’t blue and the people weren’t all assaulted by big corporations’ brainwashing. My request: you don’t have to agree with my assessment of how our country should be run or my politcal beliefs. But would you get your head out of the hole you dug ten feet under the ground and see that not everyone is like you, and by extension this does not mean they’re evil, stupid, or unenlightened. They just happen to have a different view of the world, and thank God they do! It’s only through compromise and mixing ideas that we get closer to a truly democratic government by the people, for the people, and of the people.