Liberals in the workplace

I think one issue that liberals/progressives think they must segregate into two parts is the relationship between their personal politics and their work environment. My personal feelings are as follows.

The most important things we can do on our job are to be honest, set high standards of work ethics and conduct for ourselves and our co-workers, and do as good a job as we can, always trying to improve our work skills and knowledge. That is the way we earn the respect of the people around us. When our co-workers then find out that we are flaming liberals who run anti-Bush blogs and attend peace marches and send money to groups advocating progressive causes, then it will be very hard for them to suddenly change their minds.

People by nature easily form judgments from initial impressions and then find it difficult for many reasons to change those impressions, whether it's because they don't want to admit to themselves that maybe they were wrong, or they have already told others how they initially felt about us and don't want to "lose face" at the water cooler, or whatever. So psychologically they have set themselves up to realize that some people who don't necessarily agree with them maybe have views and beliefs that bear consideration.

Of course there are the die-hard evangelical bible-thumpers who never learned how to think for themselves and just spout the safe, fanatical rantings of their religious leaders, but they have always been around (for our amusement, I think) and will always be there to firmly anchor the right end of the social spectrum.

It's the more recent, ill-informed converts to the Right that are susceptible to changing their views and beliefs as they are exposed more to the real world and to people like us who see the inhumanity around us and actually know the difference between good and evil. I think we're seeing that happening right now as we watch Bush's poll ratings sink into the sewer.

So I say to you, be honest and hard-working at your job, especially when times are as chaotic as they are right now. Always respect the opinions and beliefs of your co-workers, and always be proud of who you are, no matter what others may say to you or about you. No two people on this planet will ever agree on everything, and sometimes two people might never agree on just about anything, but we all have the same right to be here.