Intro

Being first generation American, I was always proud of the fact that my immigrant parents always kept up with current events in this county and sometimes knew more about what was going on than I did. I have known native Americans my own age who were less informed and I could never understand why. My father came to this country from Peru in 1955 and when he became a citizen in the early 60's, he registered as a Democrat. I don’t know how he came to that decision, maybe he liked Kennedy. Growing up, my two brothers and I identified with the democratic party as well since that’s what our parents were, and my earliest recollection of a presidential election was when Carter ran against Ford in 1976. We rooted for Carter and were elated when he won, even though I was in the 7^th grade and didn’t have a clue about politics. Then, through a"charismatic movement" that swept through the Catholic church in the late 70's, my Argentine mother became a born again Christian. She became a citizen in the early 80's and registered as a Republican. My brothers and I soon followed suit and by 1980, Reagan had become the favorite, and my father remained the lone democrat in the family.
Once I became old enough to vote, I still didn’t really know what the difference was between the parties and I wasn’t really that interested. Like most other 20 something’s, my focus was elsewhere. The only thing I knew is that if you were a Christian, you voted Republican and that liberals were mean people that didn’t believe in God. It wasn’t until about my mid to late 30s that I started to take more of an interest in politics, especially elections and tuned in a little more to the conversations going on around me. I began to watch MSNBC of all channels, and found programs like Chris Mathews and Keith Oberman’s foaming at the mouth entertaining. But after a while, I found all the Bush-bashing tiresome and began to switch between MSNBC, CNN and Fox News. I practically became a junkie watching those every evening I could. The positive side to that is I wasn’t watching much else and so at least I was informed at some level. But by no stretch do I consider myself a political scientist or analyst of any kind.
Here’s the issue. After listening to what’s been going on in the country the past few years and especially of late, I find that I’m really not part of this ultra conservative right wing Republican that everyone thinks you are automatically by just saying that you are a Republican. What do I consider myself? How about a citizen who cares about the issues concerning my country and the people in them? How about someone who’s realized that even though I am a strong Christian, some of my beliefs or positions on issues don’t necessarily coincide with that of the GOP, and that its OK, regardless of what others in my party may say. More importantly, I can’t be the only one feeling this way. What this blog seeks to do is to maybe in some small way help give voice to those like me who don’t feel like they want to be labeled or placed in a box just because others believe we should be in them. And maybe by not feeling boxed in, we’re freer to speak up, get involved, and stand up for what we believe is right, according to our conscious and not what others dictate to be right or wrong. Whether moderate Republican, Centrist, Independent, moderate Democrat or a little bit of each, we have a right to stand on the soap box of our own creation and be silenced by "RINO chasers" no more.