Something I don't understand...

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=16822242&m=16822506
After watching this snippet from NPR, one thing in particular struck me:

The issues that people view as important and those they choose to ignore seemed to fall along party lines: The Republicans don't seem to care about reforming healthcare or the environment, The Democrats didn't mention security or border defense.

It makes me wonder which comes first? Do the issues we care about determine our political leanings, or do our political leanings determine which issues we care about? Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it's a very significant problem when our politics determine our reality rather than addressing it.

Anyway, I found these brief interviews to be pretty enlightening, and thanks to NPR for offering this kind of coverage...

www.npr.org

Intuitively you would imagine it would be the former - we become Democrats because we care more about issues where the prevailing wisdom favors Democrats and vice versa. However I'm not sure humans are that rational. Much of it no doubt comes from selective evidence acceptance and seeking echo-chamber likemindedness (a facet in which DU is far from innocent). If you consider yourself Rebublican and look to Fox for your news and Rush for your commentary and spend your time chatting at Free Republic, you're going to have to be exceptionally strong minded and individualistic to continue to believe that universal healthcare is a rational option even for thoroughly capitalist business interests. The inverse is true too of course.

Frankly I respect far more those who can say "I naturally align with party X on most of the major issues but I believe the position more closely aligned with party Y is the correct one on issue Z" than those who say "Party X is always and by definition completely wrong". That just means you are seeking reinforcement rather than facts, and abdicating your reasoning skills to the party you prefer.