Modern journalists and news sources are often charged with the task of remaining "unbiased" in their reporting. Meaning they report the news and current events for what they are at face value and refrain from adding their own personal opinions or values to the material.

That's how it's supposed to be, anyway, but often isn't the case. But whether you get your news and stay up to date through mainstream sources like Fox News or CNN or from journals and blogs like The Wall Street Journal or MSN, you'll find that a surprising amount of their content is trying to push their individual agendas.

This is what always confused me in my younger years. It seemed like an age old feud between two families. One side wanted to help those in need through social programs and the help of others, that society was designed to be against people. The other believed that anybody could achieve greatness without outside help if they applied themselves, regardless of their place in society. And yes, I am aware it's much more complex than that in our two party system here in the US, but each side disagreed with the other vehemently, with an almost blind passion. So that begs the questions: Where do these disagreements come from? Where does it all start?

Well it's hard to tell. To try and answer these one might have to delve into the age old psychological debate of "nature vs nurture." Do these disagreements come from genetic differences in our brains or do they stem from the people around us, from where we come from? And while I don't have a few hundred pages to fully cover the intricacies of each side I want to touch on the side that is more easily comparable to our own lives.

It's easiest to see that who we are might very well be a direct result of our past. A basic example that's very relatable is someone may not be able to stomach a certain food that made them sick a long time ago. The same way that if you punish your dog for getting into the trash enough times eventually they'll learn that digging through the trash usually results in something bad for them.

The same concept can be applied to most aspects of life. We make decisions about things like food, love, even politics, based on things that have happened to us in the past. Simply put: we're creatures of habit. If something bad has happened, like getting sick after eating one type of food, then we try to stay away from that food.

We like the things that are familiar to us, things that haven't ever caused us harm in the past. And from a young age we are very impressionable, other's values (usually our parents or faith leaders) become our own because it's the only thing we've ever known. If your parents believed that gun laws were a stem for violent crime or if they believed the opposite you most likely do too. It was the only thing you knew and it probably stuck with you.These things seep into almost every aspect of our lives, and in my last example you can see just how it can change the way we view different aspects of politics.

People, for one reason or another, are going to disagree with you. And I think that in recent years, especially in young people, we have seen a trend towards being almost afraid of those people, to cry out "hate speech!" at the first sign of an opposing opinion, even if it is a bigoted or blatantly wrong one. What we should be doing and teaching others to do is to respect those people's right to their own opinions and to dispute them, to argue with them and show them with our minds why what they think is wrong or hurtful to a progressive society.

We will never live in a world where we agree with 100 percent of everyone, and we shouldn't. Opposing ideas are what makes change happen. It causes inventors and innovators to create better and more efficient things that help society. It causes people to notice the wrongs in the world and to take steps to right those wrongs. But hiding in fear of those who disagree with us is not the solution, and President Obama, whether or not you think he's a good president, gave a speech on different viewpoints that you can find here where he makes some points that I think are very important to remember.

So the next time you hear someone with a different view than you remember: they came from somewhere completely different, with a different past and series of events that has come to shape them into who they are. Remember that having a civil discussion is often better than simply yelling that they are wrong and can help both parties learn something. The only way we can come to get along with our enemies is to fully understand them.

Or to "walk a mile in their shoes," so to speak (thanks, Atticus for teaching us all something important).