How have your politics changed over the years?

[crashhelmet]

My family is predominantly Republican, for the sole reason that my family is predominantly made up of military families. My father, all of my uncles, both of my grandfathers, and all of my great grandfathers made careers out of the military. Almost all of my male cousins enlisted and I would've done the same had I not shattered my ankle in high school. But this one stereotypical factor trumped the stereotypes of typical Democrats found throughout my family. Mexican on my mother's side, Irish on my father's side. Catholic on all sides.

Coming from a Republican family, I thought that I was a Republican too. It was explained to me in my american Government class that the difference between the two parties ultimately stemmed from their core platform on how to run the country. Republicans believed that being pro-business and pro-economy was the way to grow. Democrats believed that it was being pro-people and supporting those in which they govern.

When I turned 18 and it came time to register to vote for the first time, I registered as a Democrat and have ever since.

I've always been more Centrist or Moderate than Liberal or Conservative. I support platforms on both sides of the spectrum, as well as those that find compromise between the two.

In the 2000 election, I would've voted for McCain over Gore, had he been the candidate instead of Dubya, despite my being a registered Democrat. Since the 2000 election, I haven't become more Liberal. I've become more Anti-Conservative. The amount of bullshit spewed out of the mouths of Conservative politicians and their pundits makes me want to either run for political office to fight on the front lines, or expatriate.

The lies, hatred, and ignorance out of the "Christian Right" make me ashamed to call myself a Christian. The serious abuse of power by the Republicans in government across the country make me ashamed to call myself an American.

[Gravekeeper]

I've always been more Centrist or Moderate than Liberal or Conservative. I support platforms on both sides of the spectrum, as well as those that find compromise between the two.

The American political spectrum throws me for a bit of loop still sometimes. Everything is about 3 notches to the right by the standards of the rest of the world. By the Canadian spectrum, Obama is a conservative.

I've become more Anti-Conservative. The amount of bullshit spewed out of the mouths of Conservative politicians and their pundits makes me want to either run for political office to fight on the front lines, or expatriate.

Thats another thing. I think there's a fair chunk of Americans that aren't Democrats, they're anti-Conservatives. But its a two party system.

[Peppergirl]

Thats another thing. I think there's a fair chunk of Americans that aren't Democrats, they're anti-Conservatives. But its a two party system.

This right here!

Also, I second CH's assertion that the shenanigans of the vocal, far-right leaning Christians have seriously served to humiliate those of us who consider ourselves Christian. It's really unfortunate.

[HYHYBT]

Since the 2000 election, I haven't become more Liberal. I've become more Anti-Conservative.

A great way to put it! I'm stealing it.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

I wouldn't say my politics have changed that much. What I have gotten a lot better at is allowing for causality that I haven't researched yet and otherwise allowing for both sides to have understandable human emotions that are more nuanced than good/bad.

That's resulted in me sitting on the fence more often and not really arguing from conclusions, rather I'm more apt to attack what I see as faulty logic or a faulty premise.

The end result for me has been that I start viewing things as more sociological phenomena, movements countering movements, etc. to the point that I often thing in terms of minimizing damage because I see that damage as always having a later effect. It's a bit detached, but you see a lot of patterns that way.

I sort of feel that this period in history has given rise to an abnormally large proportion of demagogues but I'm not sure if that's because of the niche nature of information now OR the lack of current generations seeing human cost on the scale of WWII/Great Depression. I like the niche theory in the sense that the inability for any one thought leader to even influence 1/3 of people reliably has given a rise to the need to hyper-motivate in order to move elections or public discourse. It requires a lot of lying either directly or through your grass-roots movements.

So when it comes to politics I'm now more apt to look for people I think will be intelligent and I'll park my politics and vote against them if I see someone I view as an empty idealogue, a demagogue, or intellectually unfit shows up.

[victory sabre]

Good question, I will try to answer.

I grew up in a fairly apolitical home. How I got interested in politics, I will never know. I do know that in 1980 future President Ronald Reagan inspired this, then, 7 year old boy to study the issues (to the best ability a 7 year old could pre internet). His words made sense, and I considered myself a Republican. Heck I was so Republican that when I came out of the closet as an Atheist, I used politics as part of it (in 1988 for a comfirmation class we had to write an essay on why we wanted to be confirmed. I stated that I did not. I did not believe in a god, and that I believed in a god as much as I believed Michael Dukakas would win the 1988 election).

1990 was where the crack started appearing. I couldn't vote yet, sadly, but here in Minnesota we had an interesting Governors race (if you want the full details you can Google it). Arne Carlson, after all the BS happened, became the nominee. If I could have voted I wouldn't have voted for him, because of his views on abortion.

Also in 1990 President Bush decided to break his cardinal pledge to not raise taxes. I was pissed. Come 1992, I was so annoyed, I was very willing to support Pat Buchanan for President. Since my State doesn't have a Presidential primary, I couldn't vote for him. I did vote to re-elect President Bush that fall, but didn't like having to.

By 1994 I was seriously involved in politics. I was the chair of my college College Republicans. I was also a delegate to the State Republican convention, where I was a delegate for Arne Carlson. There was only one reason why I was: his choice for Lt. Governor, was, and is a friend of mine. I was still very concerned about his views on abortion, and state spending, but was hopeful that she could reign him in, and move him, hell, even toward the center I would have been happy.

It was not to be.

In 1996, fresh into the labor market, I was working on the inside, on a, losing, Congressional campaign. I was still a delegate to the local and State conventions. But I was getting annoyed with the lack of concern for the issues I cared about - reducing the size and scope of government, lowering taxes and reforming the tax code, and protecting human life. I did vote for Bob Dole for President, but really didn't like doing so.

1998 was where the real breaks happened. Joanne Benson was running for Governor, against St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman, and former State Representative Alan Quist. It was a nasty convention, however, even though he said he'd stay neutral, Arne Carlson threw his weight behind Coleman, and he got the nomination. I was very upset, as were a lot of other people.

Also in the election a wild card emerged - Jesse Ventura. I was looking at supporting him, and when I met him, in person, at the County Fair, I was convinced - I was going to vote for the man in November. I may not have agreed with him on everything, but I respected him, which was more than I could say for the Republican and DFL candidates. I also got tons of flack from my friends for supporting him - and I mean TONS! Sadly, and I regret it, I didn't follow through, and went to form and voted for Coleman. Though when Ventura shocked the State, and won, I was happy.

2000 was the breaking point. I was very anti Bush 41. While I voted to reelect him, I had come to regret that vote, because his views were so opposite of mine. With another Bush running for President I sad enough! I will not vote for candidates that will stab me in the back when elected. I had a big fear that this Bush wouldn't be much different than his father. I refused to vote for him for President, and I didn't. When he started talking about the compassionate conservative nonsense, I was disgusted. When he signed the Unconstitutional McCain/Fiengold law I was repulsed. Jumping ahead, when he pushed the largest expansion of welfare since the not so Great Society - Medicare Part D, I was horrified. And his proposal for amnesty for illegal aliens seemed so treasonous to me. But with that I am jumping ahead a bit.

In 2002, I did return to the Republican fold, and voted to elect Tim Pawlenty Governor of this State. He wasn't the best, but was FAR better than Carlson. I did vote for Norm Coleman for Senate, mostly because I was disgusted by the campaign rally.... I mean Paul Welstone's funeral. I didn't agree with Welstone on anything, but I did respect him, and was annoyed what happened at the funeral.

2004, again, no way in hell was I going to re-elect Bush, for the reasons stated above. I was also getting annoyed with Representative Kennedy for seeming to support some of President Bush's crazy ideas.

2006, I did vote for a Republican to replace Rep. Kennedy, but I refused to vote to elect him to the US Senate. Yes, the person who won was, and is, a disaster, but he seemed not to be interested in fixing the problems in DC.

2008. Seriously, Senator McCain. NO WAY! NO! I wasn't going to vote for him, and didn't. I really don't need to say more about this man as to why I wasn't going to vote for him.

Also in 2008 Senator Coleman was up for reelection. The same reasons I refused to vote for Rep. Kennedy for Senate 2 years before are why I didn't vote for him. Another 3rd party vote by me. And, as you know, the winner of the election, now Sen Franken, won by about 300 votes after some votes were "found" in Minneapolis. Either way, both were/are disasters.

2010 - I felt I found my calling in the TEA party movement. My namesake fought in the Revolutionary War when he refused to give his Virginia farm over to the British. They tried to take it twice, and got their clocks cleaned twice. They were pushing people who believed in what this nation was founded on into office to shake things up. Yes, a lot of good people did get elected, and are trying to shake things up, but it seems that the movement got co-opted by the Republican Party as a means to get their kind of candidates elected, as seen in 2012, and this year.

2012. I fully supported Ron Paul for President. He was the first Republican I would have been willing to vote for for President since Dole. Of course, the Powers That be didn't like him, and it was Governor Romney's turn. Didn't support him, or vote for him, because he was no different than McCain, or Bush, or Dole, or Bush. I drank a lot of Mangria election night, because I knew either way we were screwed. We're going off a cliff, the question is is it going to be at 85mph or 90?

So this brings me to today. Where am I at? Well, the best way to describe me as a libertarian, small "L". I believe in limited Government. I believe in freedom. I believe in the Second Amendment, and practice that freedom when I have time to go to the range (not often enough, though). I believe in the individual over the collective, and I believe in private charity over charity at the barrel of a gun.

At the State Fair on Sunday, with my friend Heather, We were walking along with her kids (whom really like me, I bribe them with bacon jerky) the subject of politics came up. I said to her "all politics is bullshit". She was shocked. She's known me since 1987. She remembers all the political discussions in Russian class we all had. I told her I wasn't even sure I was going to vote this November, because I don't think any of the candidates will do what is needed to actually fix this State and Nation. Only time will tell if I vote, or not.

[Gravekeeper]

Whilst I disagree with some of your views ( and any other thread I would likely flog you with pages of research as I am want to do >.> ) I do fully agree that politics is bullshit. Or more specifically, US politics is almost 100% bullshit. From the outside looking in its astoundingly bullshit. Every other word I see on TV from US politicians is such amazing, pandering and/or blatantly dishonest bullshit. The few politicians you have that are honestly there to serve the people get destroyed by the noise machine as it points its finger at them and screeches to alert the rest of its kind of a normal human being.

The other thing about US politics, which we've discussed before, is how completely warped the spectrum is. You think you have liberals and a left but you don't. You just have center, right, far right, crazy right and bipolar Ouroboros self eating snake right. I mean people yell that Obama is the most liberal president in the history of everything. But to the rest of the world, he's still right of our conservatives.

On the political spectrum I am way left and way down. Liberal and libertarian. But the problem there is that the US spectrum has turned so many social and religious issues into political issues that its become a complete mess. These aren't liberal vs conservative issues, they are libertarian vs authoritarian issues. I am economically left and socially libertarian.

Even the term libertarian is being warped now. A good portion of Americans beginning to self identify as libertarians don't actually know what it means. Feeding the Ouroboros. ;p

You can't for example be for limited government but also demand government legislate the freedom of people's choices and private lives. Its bipolar things like that that drive me nuts about the modern Republican party and its various offshoots.

[victory sabre]

Any other country I'd be SOL when it comes to politics, instead of mostly SOL here. Maybe I'd be a part of UKIP in the UK (sure as hell wouldn't be Tory, Labour, or Liberal Dem). In Canada I wouldn't be a Conservative, Liberal, NDP, or BQ. France, no way in hell I'd associate with LePenn, and her party. I could go on and on.

I consider myself a liberal in the classical sense. As I posted in my previous post, I believe in liberty. I believe in the individual. These are at the core of my being, and sadly, the leadership of the major parties here in the US don't believe in those things. Yeah, the Republicans might talk a good game on occasion, but when in office, they don't follow through. I will vote this fall, only because a friend is running for school board. I think he would work hard to make a difference, and he's got a lot of common sense. The other offices, well, they'll have to work hard to convince me that they'll do the right things in office. That they'll not be a politician, but a statesman.

[the_std]

I seem to have bucked the trend and mellowed out a lot. I used to be fanatically left-leaning. Environmental terrorism, legislating feelings by supporting laws that would have made "hurtful speech" illegal (and never seemed to get past the planning stages), Green Party 4 Lyfe, etc. I was seriously convinced I could shift the paradigm in my "stodgy" city, make a difference, change the world, make it a better place.

But now, as I've gained more life experience, I take a more realistic stance. Yes, I'm still a strong environmentalism supporter, and I love Canada for taking a moderate view on hate speech. I will vote Green if the candidate is not a lunatic and supports feasible efforts to make change, instead of their entire platform being MAKING MONEY HURTS THE PLANET!!!!!1111, and I do a hell of a lot more research on both sides of the aisle before I make a decision.

I am still pretty freaking liberal, but I like to think I understand more about how my country functions, and what is worth putting my time and energy into. I'm also still trying to make the world a better place, but through means that might actually work, such as non-profits and political campaigning.

[Gravekeeper]

I consider myself a liberal in the classical sense.

Thats what the rest of us just call liberal, heh ;p

If you're a hardcore individualist though, I can see the US system as a whole driving you up the fucking wall. It drives me up the wall just watching it.

I think it might be time to dust off the Political Compass again. If you're never taken it before, it can be pretty interesting / enlightening.

I sit even further left and more libertarian than the Dalai Llama apparently.

I am still pretty freaking liberal, but I like to think I understand more about how my country functions, and what is worth putting my time and energy into. I'm also still trying to make the world a better place, but through means that might actually work, such as non-profits and political campaigning

.

Well, the nice part about the parliamentary system is that it functions based on political co-operation between differing parties. Instead of having two sides so polarized they will do anything to destroy one another. Its also rather interesting to note that the Canadian government has a surprising number of elected independents with no party affiliation.

As for the Green Party, I hear yeah. I'd like to see them get some more seats but they suffer a perception of being a one issue party even though they've always had a full platform. I think the NDP could have gotten the reins had Jack Layton not passed away so suddenly.

[kaycivine]

When I was little I was raised by Republican conservatives...so I supported Bush in 4th grade. (Clinton all I knew was that he was a naughty boy.)

After 9/11, I saw why people were angry, but some racism that came out of it concerned my 5th grade+ self..

By 8th grade, our main assignment was to watch the Presidential debates between Kerry/Bush.
I didn't like Bush too much by then, but seeing Kerry flip flop consistently was annoying.


The last year of Bush, I saw how people lost faith in conservatives, where I was, but still voted conservatively. The Gay marriage lost by only 2 percent in 2008 in California. (I was too young by 3 months to vote then.)

I started showing a more liberal point of view in high school, and my first day of college I registered under the Democratic Party. I liked Obama, genuinely, even if I felt he had some horse shit, so I supported him as much as I could intelligently. (Like I wasn't blind about what he did wrong, but I got so tired of that whole "he isn't American" crap or how people claimed he lied about going to Harvard. Look at the student Newspaper Archives. He was Editor-in-Chief)

Nowadays I don't want to recognize as a Democrat. I'm looking into other options for Presidency. I think our main issue is that despite the many parties we have, we only focus on two. And it will likely be that way, but my tiny voting voice will go to a lesser known candidate in the next election if need be.


I can understand some financially conservative-based views, but I'm more liberal in everything else. Pro-marriage for anyone who is a consenting adult with other consenting adult(s), pro-choice, pro- socialized medicine. I DO think we worship guns too much however in this country, and go more crazy about our rights to keep them than we should be. (This is just a personal opinion)

I don't plan on staying in this country my whole life though, so some people may say my views don't matter.

[KabeRinnaul]

I think it might be time to dust off the Political Compass again. If you're never taken it before, it can be pretty interesting / enlightening.

Took that again and I apparently sit at -5.50 and -6.97. I think it used to be more like -4/-6, so it looks like I'm drifting slightly towards the bottom left.

It would be interesting to take that each year, save the result, and then eventually plug them into an animated gif to see how you change over time.

[Panacea]

I was a Reagan Republican. I strongly supported him in high school, and voted for him in my first election in 1984. I had a strong libertarian streak, but never went all out no government at all or don't participate in world affairs. I've always been pro choice and pro 2nd Amendment (that's never changed).

Mom was a die hard Republican and Dad a die hard Democrat (worked in the JFK campaign; I have a pic of Dad with JFK in Sacramento during the campaign).

I know now that some of the things Reagan said were BS, and it's clear he was failing mentally in his second term. I felt bad for Bush I, I always liked him and felt he had to suffer the consequences of a recession Reagan brought us into.

I didn't like Clinton at first; the bit with the travel office and White Water really made me think he was the corrupt politician Republicans claimed he was. But the conspiracy theories about Vince Foster, and the way folks went apeshit over Monica Lewinsky really made me think it was all about power and not about Clinton. I was terribly disappointed that the GOP killed health care reform. I loathed Hilary at the time but thought she was onto something with health care reform. Unfortunately, no one could separate out her unpleasantness from her intentions.

I voted for Bush II in 2000, but not in 2004. I was very disappointed in him. A good friend warned me he was not a true conservative, which I ignored (he was right). But I'm not so sure a true conservative would have been much better. But Bush was a disaster as President.

I left the GOP in disgust the night McCain brought Sarah Palin on the stage. After watching her upstage him, I was done, done, done. I registered as a Democrat mostly as an act of rebellion (of sorts) but I'm really an independent. I could vote for a Republican who I didn't think would be a Wall Street flunky.

[the_std]

I have to say - I'm pleasantly surprised at how many of our regular board members here are conservative, or identify as right-leaning. I never would have guessed by so many of the conversations we've had. Thank you guys for giving me hope in the normal conservatives of the States. It's too bad you aren't represented in your government.

[victory sabre]

Thats what the rest of us just call liberal, heh ;p

If you're a hardcore individualist though, I can see the US system as a whole driving you up the fucking wall. It drives me up the wall just watching it.

I think it might be time to dust off the Political Compass again. If you're never taken it before, it can be pretty interesting / enlightening.

I sit even further left and more libertarian than the Dalai Llama apparently.

I took it again, and, again I'm in No Man's Land with this score

Economic Left/Right: 3.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.10

http://www.politicalcompass.org/prin...3.12&soc=-2.10

And as you can see from the chart when you do it, there's no one in my area, at all. It's no wonder why I feel so politically alienated, and frustrated with it all. Oh, well, it feels liberating to march to the beat of my own drummer, in a way.