By Julissa Treviño/reporter

With its strong arts community, the idea that Tarrant County is one of the most conservative counties in Texas had not crossed my mind.

Based on the way its citizens tend to vote, the county has been designated conservative—primarily Republican. As a state, Texas is religious, traditional and slow to accept change, making it a conservative state.

However, we should try to overcome and change that by all means.

I fear the connotations of conservatism, just as I dislike the connotations of liberal. Both, when applied to large communities, represent narrow-mindedness. When used to describe a society, their true meanings are lost and become the stereotypes associated with those meanings.

Conservative is synonymous with traditional and unprogressive. For a county with a rapidly growing economy, should we be unprogressive? Would that not hold us back while the world moves ahead?

As a Tarrant resident, I do not want to be seen as traditional and unprogressive.

By being so conservative, we limit ourselves to a great extent. Without change in our social views to accommodate contemporary standards, we will become a stagnant society.

Tarrant County should not necessarily turn liberal, but compared to certain places in the country, our views do not match contemporary beliefs and can even be considered obsolete. Remaining so tied to traditional beliefs, we cannot compete with these places as representation of progress.

Despite Tarrant County’s being far more conservative than the U.S. as a whole, that this country is conservative compared to the world. While we’ve been an international power from our beginnings, we cling to antiquated ideas and are slow to make real progress.

National Public Radio recently ranked the U.S. 68th in the number of females voting in major elections. This is staggering, but this number symbolizes how slow we are to adapt to changes—changes made in 1919.

Children take their parents comments as fact, and if most parents have conservative mind-sets, so will their children. This cycle leads to closed-mindedness and little tolerance.

Over time, I hope more people realize that while we are generally conservative, we desperately need to be more tolerant and open-minded. It is the only way we can see any progress as a society.