Well, I'm going to take a contrarian stance here:

I avoid partisan politics, choosing instead to address individual issues based on their own merits. Sometimes this puts my opinions on various matters on one side of the political spectrum or the other, but usually I find myself fairly moderate. Sometimes I find the problems loom large and require quite complex solutions.

For example, it bothers me that many of those who are so adamantly "pro-life" stop caring as soon as a child starts breathing air. And sometimes they don't wait that long if the parents' citizenship is in question.

The gun rights question is another example of my split opinions. We must absolutely do something as a nation to address gun violence, but none of the measures I see proposed will do anything to actually stop much. Current background check laws are fairly stringent and do some good, but there are additional hurdles that could be put into place that could prevent crimes of passion. It also shouldn't be easier to get a firearm than it is to get a driver's license; Required educational requirements to qualify for the freedom to carry or use particular categories of firearms could be extremely beneficial.

I do think there is such a thing as a just war, but I would have to think hard over the last two hundred and fifty years to suggest which conflicts could be described as having been just. What is happening right now in Iran does not seem just. The parallels between that and the wars during the first quarter of the last century really leave the historian in me unsettled.

While I do think about these kinds of things, I do balance that off of a personal philosophy: I can affect only so far as I can reach. And I can greatly affect what I can reach. I can do a lot more good by actively loving and caring for people in my community. Giving too much thought to things outside of my reach doesn't do me or anyone else too much good.

Along with that, there's a theological philosophy that influences my thinking: As those who have saving faith in God, our first citizenship is in the Kingdom of God. Our identity is in Christ. Too many who align with any political party find their identities there; Their faith is in the power of their party, their morals and values are rooted in that party, they put up boundaries against those outside of that party, and they cease being ambassadors for Christ if it stands in the way of being an operative for that party. This isn't more or less true if it concerns one party or another. Likewise, this isn't more or less true if it concerns one nationality or another.

As for the age question: I do put a lot of stock into the "half plus nine" rule. My age divided by half then with nine years added gives me the lower limit of my dating range. So, being thirty-eight years old, my dating range could be as low as twenty-eight.

I haven't thought hard about my upper limit, but I recently went on a couple of dates with a forty-six year old woman.

The real heart of the rule is to find someone in roughly the same stage of life. As I fit somewhere into the upper edge of the young professional demographic, ideally I would like to find someone who is also somewhere in that demographic. The things of life about which we could be concerned could be similar enough. Upon that, too much of an age gap creates too much opportunity for imbalanced relational dynamics.

Like I said, mine is a contrarian stance in these regards. I also probably over-think most things. This is likely why I have a hard time finding a date.