We went deep-sea fishing yester­day and hung out with some Repub­li­cans! Actually, I’m only kidding. We didn’t talk to them, but we did gawk a lot and talk about them. I was initially kind of shocked to see someone wearing this hat— non-iron­i­cally (not an early Halloween costume or anything!). But it made me think about how in a certain way my circle is very narrow, much more even than when I was an under­grad (the School of Music is, predictably, much less diverse). It made me wonder that I wasn’t seeing the world wrong from some deluded, far-left point of view. When I listen to or read the news, I like to think I know how to spot bias, and that as a result I “know the facts” about all the “issues”. But truth­fully, I haven’t even given the other side a chance.

My gut reaction is to scorn conser­v­a­tives I’ve met who are really just like me— who’ve inher­ited their ideas from their parents and have never had to deeply question their own world­view. It’s a terrible double standard, and I’m sure I hold conser­v­a­tives to many more. Should I be doing more ques­tion­ing of my polit­i­cal beliefs, simply because I hold the same views as my parents (and their parents)?

I caught four good-sized bluefish (the first four fish I’ve caught in my life!). The Repub­li­cans looked like they caught about 27 each, but really, isn’t sport-fishing exper­tise prac­ti­cally a require­ment for joining the party?