Enough with the lower post shaming on DU

[better]

119. Thanks right back at ya for your thoughtful reply!

Reagan was a bit of a difficult one for me, probably mainly because of my age. I was only 14 when he left office, and while the effects of trickle-down economics and the racism behind "welfare queens" didn't really enter my worldview at that age, the collapse of Communism most certainly did, since I am just old enough to have spent my childhood years with the fear of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Compounding this, Carter was the only Democrat to hold the Presidency from the time I was born until I was 18, and given that Carter left office two months before I turned six, my awareness of him was pretty much limited to that he had been the President.

Naturally, since Republicans had held the White House for more or less the entirety of my sentient life by the time Clinton came into office, I didn't really have much upon which to evaluate the difference between the parties. And of course my attention was somewhat preoccupied with pursuits other than politics, shall we say, throughout my late teens and early twenties.

I've long held that there is great importance to the concept of paying attention to where someone is on their journey. We seem to get this intuitively with some things, yet overlook it with others. Nobody seems to get upset with a 10 year old for not knowing algebra, because we all recognize that it's not reasonable to expect them to yet. But when it comes to politics, it's all too easy for us to overlook that it's a far more complicated subject to master.

Even once we start being taught algebra, there's no concerted effort to teach us that the answer to 2x / 4 = 4 is fruitcake.