Idea Behind American Spectator Magazine
The American Spectator magazine is one of my favorite sources for news and analysis. I have moved far beyond the kindergarten antics of Fox News, I am proud to say, and am more in the zone of New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly. Some of my more fanatical right wing friends criticize me for reading American Spectator magazine, although it is not a left wing magazine (it is, in fact, a right wing mag). They think that any magazine that tries to provide analysis is just there to tell you what to think. That is ridiculous, I do not mind telling you. American Spectator magazine does not tell you what to think. Rather, it provides the ideas of some qualified political analysts and media professionals and allows you to form your own opinions on the issues.
Of course, like any good right winger, I know that it does not all come down to the facts. My left wing friends joke that facts have a well known liberal bias, and I have to say that there is some truth to that. Although the commentary in American Spectator magazine really gives me some good ammo to counter against most left wing liberal kinds of arguments, I know that my political opinions are not ultimately about the “reason” and “logic” so highly praised by democrats nowadays. They are about faith. American Spectator magazine does not give me my undying faith in America as the world leader in democracy. Even when facts get in the way of that faith, such as the fact of secret military detention facilities around the world, or of abuses in American jails at home (to say nothing of Abu Ghraib) I know that it is important that, as an American, I continue to believe in the essential goodness of our national character, and the decisions of our leaders.
That faith does not come from American Spectator magazine. That faith comes from God. But then again, there are some things that American Spectator magazine gives me that God does not. It allows me to see an insiders perspective on Washington politics, for example, as well as good muckraking, and predictions about the next moves which our government is going to make. I believe that you need to balance being a good citizen and a good American. As a good American, I need blind faith, and the ability to do what I am told, but as a good citizen, I also need to have as much political awareness as possible, and American Spectator magazine helps me with that.
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