I took a course in college called ethics with Kevin Reed. Changed the way I looked at politics.

I read some stuff on cnn and occasionally watch some cnn, but rarely.

Great questions.

I was pretty much politically agnostic for many years. I called myself and voted Democrat because my parents did.

I would say I started watching news regularly in 2000. I just wanted to be informed. Then 9/11 happened. 9/11 woke me up, I guess you could say. Fitting I am writing this on the 8th anniversary.

I started watching Bill O’Reilly. Not so much anymore.

I listened to the President regularly (W. Bush). I started watching Fox since that’s where O’Reilly was. I watched Hannity and Colmes.

Today I don’t have cable so I don’t watch much news. Network news is so boring.

I read blogs now (RedState, Michelle Malkin, Citizen Link, Heritage Foundation, National Review). I listen to the radio (Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Victoria Taft).

I get Imprimis in the mail. The book that really got me thinking was Hannity’s books and O’Reilly’s “Who’s Looking Out For You”.

I recently read Mark Levin’s “Liberty and Tyranny”. It really speaks to what I subscribe to politically.

I am drawn to what Mark Levin thinks. He’s a Constitutional lawyer and expert. He speaks about things so clearly to me.

I have been going back and reading and listening to the things Reagan has spoken about. He’s a real inspiration to me; a great man.

Because of these things, I now get hate mail from people who disagree with me. LOL!

Oh, I forgot, I read CNN.com and FoxNews.com. They are pretty much the same stories up and down. People who say Fox is not news or partisan make me laugh because they have the same stories.

Guys, great comments! Digesting.

For online opinion pieces, I try to read both the Times and WSJ to get a little flava from both sides on the issues.

Reagan was an excellent speaker and speechwriter. I love the story of how he honed his craft through acting and his work on the GE Westinghouse show for years.

I read blogs regularly, and take full advantage of rss feeds. I trust bloggers from my alma mater, Biola University…there’s a site called Scriptorium Daily Middlebrow that has a good group of regular contributors including John Mark Reynolds and occasionally JP Moreland writes an article. I have to guard myself against political idolatry, so I do not get too engulfed in cable news or mainstream media.

I will read the overtly Christian blogs found on ConversantLife.com. They cover a wide range of topics there and it is an altogether good community.

The Christian bloggers that I read will link to mainstream sites, and offer reasonable commentary. I suppose some of my favorite bloggers may seem boring in their style because they do not try to instigate quarrels, but I choose to give ear to those who are fair and reasonable and more interested in poignantly asking questions in regards to difficult topics than getting in slam-dunks.

For our generation, obviously 9/11 has affected the political world for us, just as Pearl Harbor did for the Builder & Boomer generations before us.

@ Eric - great comments, good to keep in mind! How an idea is presented or discussed matters so very much. I’m much more likely to listen to someone who’s presenting their idea in a reasoned, fair-minded manner and attidude. Hopefully, it’s also free of logical fallacies and overly provocative statements that could cloud the issue with unnecessary emotions (though anger and moral outrage can be important drivers of political change).

This is so important to those of us who say we follow Christ - to speak gently, respectfully, and listen carefully.

Jay - good stuff, thanks for contributing. One question I asked lots of people in Rwanda and Uganda this Summer was on corruption: how do you beat it? How is it stemmed, from the bottom up or the top down? These were two good samples, as Rwanda is currently one of the (relatively) least corrupt countries in Africa, with its Northern neighbor Uganda the fifth-worst country in the world to do business.

The answers were consistent, from the Africans’ point of view: corruption thrives or is stamped out from the top down, from the leader him or herself.

I really like good speeches. I like hearing persuasive arguments - I like the challenge of weighing the statements to see if they’re false, true, misleading, or inspiring.

More than anything, writing helps me figure out what I think about things.

I’ve read Newsweek faithfully for 15 years. I often disagree with the political opinions it offers as much as I agree. I waiver between really caring and being apolitical because I’m not sure how much God really cares about the political scene.

Joel Rosenberg.  Epicenter is a great read and an eye opener.  Joel’s other books are fabulous in giving a view of what’s going on in the middle east.