I’m reminded of something that John Podhoretz said many years ago: The great advantage that conservatives have over liberals is that we are bilingual. We can speak our language and we also know theirs. They however even now still don’t know ours and cannot be bothered to learn.
I worry sometimes about the strength of the blogging movement. It would be easy to shut off the news and stop reading the paper and only receive the perspectives from bloggers that you only agree with. But if this occurs, we will be guilty of building our own cocoons. Our great strength is the ability to see both sides of the issue and to understand the view of a liberal. I hate calling a liberal an enemy because they are not, they're just people that I disagree with, but the old adage, "Know thy enemy" is applicable because this has helped Republicans win elections and it has caused Democrats to lose.
We lose perspective if we only gain our information from one source. In every aspect of our lives, it is productive to question our belief systems. This is how we build our beliefs and faith. This is how we become mature productive members of society. I cannot take a credible stand for anything if I'm not willing to understand the issues at hand.
Why should we be afraid to hear information that conflicts with our beliefs? If we change our mind because we were wrong, we gain by being no longer ignorant to fact and if we reaffirm our beliefs, we gain by knowing where we stand...