Why I Adore My Conservative Friends

I recently returned from Chicago for my mandated Northwestern Law interview. In the all-too-short time we had for the meeting, I took my chance to ask how ideologically divided the student body was. I has said nothing at this point to give away my true leanings, and left my question as neutral as I could. Not knowing the answer I was looking for, she eventually told me that both ends of the spectrum were quite well represented, and that the Constitutionalist/Federalist Society debates were a staple of the extracurricular life.

This was, of course, the answer I wanted to hear. Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows how liberal my views are, and I don't need to repeat it. What I need to say is how much I love passionate, intellectually engaged conservatives. Great debate is how we shape not only the ideas of our opponents, but our own ideas as well, and smart people who disagree are the greatest asset one can have to one's own continued thought.

...which is why this pisses me off so much. Conservapedia, started by Andrew Schlafly, is another example of a certain subset of Conservatives who, rather than enter the debate, claim a right to their own facts, and then when others don't accept their "facts" as true, declare that they're simply picking up their ball and going home. Schlafly's issue is, of course, with Wikipedia, which he claims sports a liberal and anti-Christian bias. Seemingly missing from this rant is the fact that Wikipedia is, for all it's faults, edited by the public, and as such is as egalitarian as it possibly can be. Also, he takes offense to the BCE/CE dating procedure,
which I didn't even realize was uniform in Wikipedia.

From the FoxNews entry:

Fox News was started in 1996 in response to the other cable news channels which all had obvious liberal biases. Because of this, Rupert Murdoch decided to start a real new channel which would tell the truth. The success of Fox news over every other news channel is because it is fair and balanced. It has many people on it who work to spread truth such as Sean Hannity who is a great American. Fox News is best because instead of just telling you what to think, they only report the news unbiased and then allow the viewer to decide.

In 2005 the White House selected Tony Snow from Fox News to be the new White House press secretary which was a great honor for Fox because it showed how well it was presenting the real truth instead of the fake liberal version.

Of course, Schlafly has every right to do this, but what does it say about a group of people so afraid of differing opinions that they would feel the need to be protected from them? I know that there are subsets of liberals that do the same, so I'm not claiming that this is entirely a right-wing phenomenon. But if your beliefs are so central to your life that you can't bear to read facts, let alone opinions, that might subvert them, shouldn't those belifes also be strong enough to handle it?