#aauth I want to establish a weekly or biweekly roundup of the biggest pieces of news coming from all the right-leaning news sites, talking heads, and content creators. I think that being aware of whats actually being said by the other political party, including the language used to say it, is incredibly important when making any attempt to discuss politics with someone not in total agreement with your claims or underlying assumptions. We have to know where each other are coming from if we're ever going to make any progress in bridging the widening gap between the parties in our two-party system here in the United States. Despite [most Americans being agreement on a wide variety of political issues](https://www.americancommunities.org/), the sentiment that we have become more divided and hostile towards each other than ever before has become (ironically) another one of those things we all mostly agree on. I was born in the deep south--southern Louisiana, to be precise--and grew up in an entirely Republican-voting family. I identified as a conservative from an early age and became quite engaged in political content from junior high onward, before going on to become a Libertarian through high school after getting into Austrian Economics and reading Atlas Shrugged (twice). Eventually, after moving in with a guy (hey, Evan!) that would go on to become my best friend and discovering we held opposite political views, I discovered that, if I dug deep enough, what served as the foundation or origin for all my political thinking was simply inheritance. I dug deep into conservative and libertarian thought because of where I was born, who my parents were, and the information that was prevalent and available in my environment. Sure, I definitely went harder than most kids my age with politics--it wasn't very cool in 2009 to be reading Ludwig von Mises (the vast majority of my interests weren't cool back then, to be fair). But, ultimately, I realized that I didn't have a complete, 360-degree understanding of my own political beliefs that I insisted I was so passionate about. What ensued following this realization was, more a less, a total destruction of my internal self. I would pick an issue--often whatever was hot at the time (this was 2016, so a lot of crazy shit was starting to become hot)--find a handful of studies and opinions from esteemed sources, and try to build an opinion from the ground up. I often described this as acquiring positions from bottom-up rather than inheriting them, top-down, and entrenching them with information that already confirms your inherited positions while expanding them slightly. What I came to find that much of what I thought I _absolutely knew_ to be true was, in fact, simply untrue. I've often told Evan that this contribution to my life was one of the most positive and important things that ever happened to me, and I'll continue thanking him forever (thanks Evan - love you dude <3). Not owing allegiance to the evolutions (or devolutions) and mood-swings of a party or ideology is inherently very freeing. I can be a gun owner that supports gun-control legislation, a strong proponent of capitalism that recognizes the absolute necessity that are government regulatory mechanisms for society, or whatever else I decide has the most compelling evidence behind it. And my positions are often mostly-free from emotional attachment, so challenges to them rarely feel like assaults on my character (except when they literally are), as they often do for a majority of people. I've always been the kind of person that goes super hard on things that I discover I either love or are important to me. Believe it or not, I'm usually absolutely terrified to platform any opinion of my on a hotly contested subject due to fear of simply being wrong because I've overlooked some crucial data. If you read or hear anything from me that's commentary on even slightly controversial topics, know that I probably exhausted myself reading, re-reading, writing, and re-writing on that content before posting it. And that 99% of what I create never sees the light of the day because I talked myself out of posting anything. So, you could say that the truth is important to me. And it's not because I feel the _need_ to be right about everything. In fact, I honestly believe that viewing debate and the truth itself as a matter of winning or losing against another person to be, often times, harmful to whatever the subject or broader goal at hand is. You'll likely hear a lot of jokes on this channel, some of which will be at the expense of others, but know that I don't believe that knowing something that another doesn't--or being on what is the "right" side of an issue--makes you in anyway morally superior to the other person. Or them somehow worth less as a person than you are. Sometimes peoples beliefs and positions are also not a reflection of their intelligence, or indicative of their overall moral character. How someone reached a certain belief, or why that belief has them emotionally worked up, can often be a highly complex matter that's especially unique to each individual and their life's story. I know plenty of people that are highly intelligent and educated that believe things I think border on the verge of insanity. I also know people that support policies that result in practices that are functionally morally reprehensible and cause real harm to people in our society at large. It doesn't necessarily make that person evil and unreachable, and I think to immediately write people off as such to be incredibly counterproductive. I think the most effective way to fix policies and beliefs doing active harm to others in the world, except in the most extreme of circumstances, is to gain an understanding of the other side, and to try to persuade any and all of those with even slightly open minds to see a bit of your side.