How did you change your political views?

[Dinner]

Re: How did you change your political views?

Originally posted by MrFun
For instance, if at one time (if you're an American), you were a staunch Republican and you later changed your support to the Democratic party, how did you go about this change?

I switched from being a moderate Republican to being a moderate Democrat after the who Impeachment debockle. I was so pissed off about the Republican party grand standing and dragging the country through the mud just so they try to tar and feather a man for cheating. That the Ken Starr special prosicuture was obviously a politically motivated witch hunt which never did anything other then pile up millions upon millions of dollars in bills for the public to pay didn't help either.

[Victor Galis]

I was once naive, too young to understand the purpose of taxation and such and profoundly influenced by the revolution. Then I grew up, saw what a screwed up place the US really is and became a leftist. Did some more thinking, and gradually became more pacifistic.

[monkspider]

Believe it or not, I started out as a hard-right Republican nationalist, in fact, I posted a little bit on Apoly several years ago under my old account with this type of thinking. But I have evolved into a socialist minded individual after seeing more of the real world and I have never looked back.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Reagan won the governorship in California on an anti-student platform (among othe positions). When he took office, California was No. 1 in the nation in education. When Grey Davis took office (following a string of Republican governors), California was No. 49.

To be fair the fall was almost entirely the fault of Democrates. How? Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s all public schools were neighborhood schools who's funds were nearly all raised through local property taxes. This did a good job of letting the local population decide on school funding & issues but it also meant that more affluent had higher land values and so paid higher property taxes while poorer areas had less money.

Democrates got all indignant about it and vowed to "level the playing field" by having the state control local properity taxes as well as school funding. Sounds ok doesn't it? The only problem was politicians in the State House jumped on top of the money and diverted it to their pet projects and left education lacking. Citizens got mad at the poor school funding so the politicians raised the properity taxes to pay for better schools only the money got diverted agains so they raised taxes again but the money got diverted again so...

Are you getting the picture? Any way property taxes quaddruppled in one 5 year period and the people we outraged. So outraged they ammended the state's constitution so that all raises in taxes would need a 60% majority instead of the old 50% +1 vote majority. Now the state is unable to raise taxes but niether is the Democratic majority willing to cut spending on non-essential programs enough to pay for decent schools. That's why we now have a $35 billion per year deficit in the state which is 50% more then the state takes in per year.

[Bosh]

Read a good bit of socialist theory in HS (was a big nerd) and bounced all around the radical left but after some looon poly flame wars (which tended to make me a bit more moderate and libertarian) and doing some real activism in college (just grauduated) I've ended up as some kind of very bizarrely moderate libertarian socialist.

[Q Classic]

i was raised in a conservative republican household.

once i started thinking on my own, i realized that a lot of the brand of conservatives down where i lived didn't particularly like my kind, even if some of their ideas were spot on.

once i started doing a bit of research, i found that some conservatives are identical to some liberals in their demagoguery of their ideological enemies.

once i started living my own life, i found that some points the liberals had were extremely valid, and perfectly workable.

so instead of being conservative, i ended up being moderate.
more economically conservative, more socially liberal.

anybody should be allowed to get married (straight and gays), but they damn well ought to stay together (divorces should be harder to get).
race-based-aa should be thrown out wholesale, and economic-based-aa should be brought in.
welfare shouldn't subsidize people who sit on their ass all day, but they sure as hell deserve a living wage if they work full-time, or have more than one job.
so i sorta straddle the fence right there.

[Urban Ranger]

For you conservatives out there, have you read John Rawls? How would you refute his "veil of ignorance" argument?

[Berzerker]

Krazyhorse -

Funny. That's why I'm a socialist.

Your parents taught you to steal?

[Zero]

Went from Communist to the most evilest ultra right wing fascist from beginning of HS to the end of HS. Now I just pretend to be in the middle by saying some lefty crap so no one thinks im the next mussolini or something.

[Berzerker]

Zkribbler -

So if we "little folks" wanted to be left alone without some overload trying to run our lives, wanted to have equal opportunity, want to have hard work rewarded with sucess, the our salvation was with the liberals.

Liberals don't try to run your life? Who do you think got the US into Vietnam?

[MRT144]

anti commies berzerker

[Lord Merciless]

I used to be moderate leftist. I loved Clinton, voted for Gore, and gloated when Gingrich got kicked out.

No more after 9-1-1. The leftist ideals are nothing to me now but day-dreaming nonsense. They make one weak and dependent. The glory of a civilization doesn't come through self-loathing and other masochistic behaviors, but through self-confidence and power.

I'm moderate right now. I don't qualify as a true conservative because I distrust corporations and the religious right.

[Ben Kenobi]

Second, laws have unintended consequences...even sometimes ending people's lives.

And some laws have intended consequences to end people's lives. Laws cannot be held responsible for what people do when trying to break the laws.

That's probably the main reason for my shift to the right. Before I went to university, I would classify myself as a social liberal and a fiscal conservative.

I would never have voted for the Liberals, though I only agreed with the Reform party because of their fiscal conservative stance, and status as a western protest party.

I became disillusioned by what most 'social liberals' do when leading their life, that it did not give me pleasure, and for many, that it did not give them pleasure. Most of the people I admired in the university setting were Christians of one stripe or another, even before I became one.

When the radical left pro-choice people destroyed a peaceful protest that shocked me, because aren't liberals first and foremost for protecting peaceful protest, along the lines of Martin Luther King? I realised that most liberals only believe in tolerance when you agree with them on the important issues.

[Al B. Sure!]

Monkspider:

you have been tainted in college by liberal thinking. a couple years into being out of college, you'd probably go back to being a conservative

[Vandal-1]

I believe money runs the show and in keeping the corruptable state off the @$$ of the people as much as possible but not in free lunch for feminazies or minorities.