Why I watch CNN

It's no secret that I am Democrat. But not an extremist. In fact one of my favorite sayings is "Moderation in everything, including moderation."

It seems to me that today we have more and more extremists. I am not only talking about extremist Islamic Muslims. We have our very own home grown extremists right here in America in the form of extremist Christians. Extreme Muslims, extreme Christians, what is the difference? Religion over the ages has a lot to answer for. There have undoubtedly been more wars fought, and more people killed, over religion than any other cause or for any other reason.

But that is another blog for another time.

There seem to be more and more extreme right wing Conservatives and more and more extreme left wing Liberals as time goes on. Why is that?

I have my own little theory. It is because more and more we are not being exposed to a fair sided discussion of politics. We get only one side of the picture.

If you are a Republican you "Have" to watch FOX News and listen to Rush Limbaugh - or you are not a true Republican. And if you watch FOX and listen to Rush you are only going to get one Extreme side of the whole story.

If you are a Democrat you "Have" to watch MSNBC and listen to Mike Malloy - or you are not a true Democrat. And if you watch MSNBC and listen to Mike you are only going to get one Extreme side of the whole story.

What is the answer? Well I have found that people who watch FOX say that CNN is too far to the left, and people who watch MSNBC say that CNN is too far to the right! That says to me that CNN must be the way to go. Another alternative is BBC NEWS, BBC NEWS reports the news - just the news - with no comment or slant. They leave it up to you to interpret it. (Something that no one could accuse FOX or MSNBC of doing!)

Just think, if you only watch FOX or MSNBC you are NOT getting a fair and balanced picture of what is happening in the world and more especially in American politics. Why would anyone want to do that? (Not get both sides of the picture in some semblance of a fair and balanced view?) I really don't know.

Perhaps it is because we have a tendency to exaggeration, which I suppose is a form of extremism. How many times have you heard from your spouse or a co-worker "You ALWAYS . . . " Rarely is it true that you - "Always leave the lights on, or the table a mess, or forget your appointments, or are late." But that is what we say to each other.

Then we see that "The other side" (The other political party.) has exaggerated something, so naturally we over exaggerate our "side" to compensate for their exaggeration. And it snowballs. Unfortunately when you get people going to such extremes it can get out of hand, as has happened here, today. And no one will listen to anything that "The other side says". Even to the point now that if something that is a basic tenet of Party A is proposed by Party B, Party A will vote it down!!

I don't know the answer but when we get so far apart it can only mean trouble. It is how wars have started.