Hi,
my name is Michael Kirtley and I am a recovering Evangelical, John
Birch, Right Wing Republican. I was the only one in my family to ever
graduate from high school much less college, and not coincidentally,
the only one to break away from the fundamentalist right wing mindset
that has such a stranglehold on everyone else in my family. I currently reside in Salida, Colorado, which is a great place to live if you like outdoor activities. Salida has kayaking, fishing, downhill skiing, cross country skiing, backpacking and hundreds of miles of hiking and mountain biking trails.
I
was raised in Texas as an Evangelical, John Birch, Right Wing
Republican. Actually, the Republican party at the time was too
liberal for my family; one of my earliest memories was of going
door-to-door distributing fliers for the Constitution party. As a
little kid, I was thoroughly indoctrinated in right wing politics and
theology. I was also really fascinated by how the world worked so I
was naturally drawn to science and natural history. I was lucky that my mother bought an A-Z set of World Book Encyclopedias from our pastor and ironically, those books proved to be my salvation. Being a shy kid without siblings meant I had a lot of time and I spent most of it paging through those encyclopedias, literally hundreds of times. I became loaded with a lot of pretty esoteric information and really good at answering game show questions like on Jeopardy. Those encyclopedias helped me to realize that many of the things I was being taught
as certain truths were in fact, wrong.
It
became obvious early on that the racism I was steeped in as a young
right-winger in Texas was wrong; that MLK was right when he said
people should be measured by the content of their character and not
the color of their skin. If the racist views I was taught were wrong,
as they clearly were, couldn't my indoctrination be wrong in other
areas as well? More questioning ensued; more reading and evaluating.
As the years went by, I gradually let go of most of my right wing
views as I realized they were largely rooted in fallacies and in many
cases just plain old fear and hate. I passed through a libertarian
phase that allowed me to hold on to some of my right wing views such
as smaller government and maximum individual freedom while having a
somewhat rational view of the world. I have mostly moved away from
libertarianism since as anyone who has given it much thought probably realizes,
voluntary self regulation doesn't work in the real world. Libertarianism might seem like a viable idea until your neighbor decides to start a metal plating business and/or your other neighbor decides that he would like to try his hand at running a feedlot.
Libertarianism
might have worked in Daniel Boone's day but in a world with 7 billion
people, we need rules to make the world livable. So at present, I believe
in less government when possible and maximum individual freedom and
liberty where possible but realize we need effective government and
that a measured amount of government can be a good and necessary
thing. I especially think we need government to stand up to and
regulate the powerful corporate and moneyed interests that individuals
can not compete against. Unfortunately, I think that is where
government has failed primarily due to the corrupting influence of
money needed to get elected and right wing cheer leading for
corporate interests. If it isn't already too late, I see as the
greatest threat to American democracy today, the complete takeover of
our political system by those moneyed interests and corporations.
