He’s either a right-wing extremist, a knee-jerk liberal, a yuppie, a gun nut, a Jesus freak, a redneck, a soccer mom, a welfare queen, or possibly even a conspiracy theorist, but regardless of what he actually thinks or feels, he falls into one of many media-defined categories, and without ever speaking to him, you’re fairly certain that you already know his opinions on all political issues. And just as every army teaches its soldiers to use derogatory names for their enemy, you’ve been taught a derogatory name to describe most of the people around you, and there are corresponding television characters that give you examples of how they think, so you never really have to talk to them at all. Continue reading “I know your neighbor….”