When I get intoxicated, I usually turn into a philosopher and a huge pedagogue. After six shots of hard liquor, I can solve the world’s problems.

The things is: it makes folks uncomfortable. I haven’t found a lot of folks who genuinely like talking politics, even though it impacts their daily lives.

Tonight, I was able to pick at a neighbor’s brain. Dave, he was born in Saudi Arabia. He went to “English Schools”. So, when I meet folks who have been educated outside of the US (where I was educated), I’m always interested in how and what they were instructed. But they, like Dave, are always hesitant. –Such as having fears that I will judge them as privileged, or elite. But it is a sincere interest on my part: I was educated here, in the US, in Indiana, in public schools, and I know how it went for me. I have friends. I talk to them. They’ve gone to public schools, some of them. I know how it was for them; and so I’m interested in what the differences are and what really works. To get folks knowledgeable, to get them interested in the daily realities of their lives. Not sports bullshit. Not celebrity bullshit. But, for example, to know that Mitt Romney or, especially, Tom Tancredo are fucking asshole fascists. These are the things we should know.

So, I start asking questions.

Like what they’ve learned about “American History”. And beliefs. Such as, do they “believe in a creator“? (Although we profess to have separation of Church and State, we really don’t so much.)

How do we handle these things?

Am I so extreme as my opponents? –That I even think of them as opponents? (E.g., Shouldn’t someone without a uterus who wants to control uteruses be seen as an opponent by someone who has/had a uterus? I ask you.)

Should we not just collect social surveys, and social data, but utilize this data? Analyze this data? Critically? And make suggestions for improvement? That helps not only ourselves, but others, equally?

Am I so disillusioned?