Why I Started The Understanding Project
At heart, I am an explorer. I want to know things. I want to know where the trail leads. I want to know how the world works. I seek out new ideas. I love truth.
In the world of politics, where power is involved, truth is in short supply. In the past, this has caused me to retreat from political involvement and pursue other interests. Politics has never been my primary hobby. I only began researching the issues because every adult in my early life seemed to think it was my patriotic duty. I have better things to do, such as highlighting the good in the world or creating art. Unfortunately, just because I leave others alone, this does not mean others will leave me alone. Corrupt officials have harassed me before.
I first started The Understanding Project in 2010 to promote civility, unity, tolerance, compromise, pragmatism, and most of all, understanding. It was to be a safe place for those of different party alignments to dialogue and reach an agreement. By 2013, I saw that it was a total failure and I gave up on it.
In 2020, I decided to bring back the blog, but with some changes. I now offer it only as an educational service in how to analyze news media and discern truth from falsehood. There is a great need for this. Young people who have yet to build up biases will not know which news outlets to believe. When different news outlets accuse each other of lying, or when they don’t even cover the same stories so coverage can be compared, knowing the truth can be hard. It may seem overwhelming. I will use logic to explain how people can do their own research.
That any given person will change the world is extremely unlikely. That I of all people might succeed where all others have failed seems at first glance to be the height of narcissism and arrogance. On closer examination, it appears that the reason most – if not all – of those others failed was because they had never truly tried. They saw that no one else had succeeded and so they gave up before they even started. As rare as they are, there have been those in history who have made a difference, for both good and for bad – and the one thing they all had in common was that they made the attempt. Activists are not certain winners, but quitters are certain losers.
In American culture and entertainment, heroes are revered more than those who surrender. When the Ghostbusters fight ghosts, the Ninja Turtles fight Shredder, and the Autobots fight the Decepticons, it should surprise nobody when real heroes fight against real bullies. I have always stood up to bullies – not only to protect myself, but to put an end to their reign in order to protect others and to be an inspiration. Someone has to be first, and if we all wait for someone else to do it, nothing will change.
There are those who seem to think that politics only has to do with issues they find boring far removed from what matters to them directly, but what they apparently don’t understand is that government has the power to involve itself in anything it decides to. So long as there exist people expanding the government’s power and there exist people opposed in some way to some cherished activity of others, the threat is real. It is only a matter of time before the two come together. One might think that human reproduction, arguably the most personal of issues, would be safest from government intrusion, but there are actually those that would mandate contraceptives if they could get away with it and those that would prohibit contraceptives if they could get away with it. That they have both failed is due to people getting involved!
Keep fighting. Keep voting. Keep lobbying. Keep serving. Keep donating. Keep speaking out. Resist!