How did you change your political views?

MrFun · June 20, 2003, 09:03

For those of you who used to adhere to one political party, only to change your support to another political party, what influenced your decision to change your support?

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?

For this thread, anyone from any country can add their comments -- it doesn't even have to be necessarily political party, but more generally, liberal, conservative, libertarian, communist, socialist, and so on. For example, if you were once socialist, and then later changed to having a libertarian viewpoint, what caused you to change?

I myself have not changed -- I'm still a moderate liberal.

DaShi · June 20, 2003, 09:37

Screwdriver through the temple. I'm a moderate liberal now.

SlowwHand · June 20, 2003, 09:40

Moderates. HA!

I was like you both.
Then I joined the service.
Saw the world.
Saw how things are.
Realized that I, just like you 2 are, was full of ****.

DaShi · June 20, 2003, 09:43

Hey, don't involve me in you sick little game. I want no part of it.

SlowwHand · June 20, 2003, 09:46

Ecthy · June 20, 2003, 09:51

my political leanings change anti-cyclical with German governments...

Asher · June 20, 2003, 10:19

I don't think my political views have changed at all.

I used to be more left-wing, though, but only slightly.

Eli · June 20, 2003, 10:28

I was 15, and I was a leftist(on Israeli security issues, i'm still undecided on economical issues).

On a scale of +5 to -5, where the - is the left, if Firelad is -4 then I was -3.

The period was the period of pre-Camp David, and I was ready to give up everything.
The line of thought was that as soon as we give the poor Pals their independence(67 borders) and Jerusalem everyone will be happy.

Then the Intifada started, and I discovered Apolyton.

The Intifada provided a reason to change opinion, but Apolyton was the final push.
I started arguing about stuff here and realized a truth.
If there are so many enlighted westerners, with everything in life, who were never harmed by Israel, who are not Arabs or Muslims, and THEY go as far as denying the very right of Israel to exist, then what about the refugees(and non-refugees) living in terrible conditions in the camps and in the territories and listening every day to Palestinian propaganda and who probably lost their homes in 1948 and personally suffered from the conflict and violence?
The Intifada was a proof and I changed my position.

BeBro · June 20, 2003, 10:41

I was strictly leftist some years ago, but changed slightly to moderate leftist. But in praxis I don´t care much about "left" or "right" anymore.

Why? Because it makes no sense to whine always about eg. evil US or evil Israel once you get a bigger picture. Ideology is just an obstacle when you try to learn more about this world. Stupidity can be found at all sides

General Ludd · June 20, 2003, 10:44

When I was young, I was a fastist/stalinist. A couple of years ago I was a pacifist.

General Ludd · June 20, 2003, 10:46

Quote:

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Moderates. HA!

I was like you both.
Then I joined the service.
Saw the world.
Saw how things are.
Realized that I, just like you 2 are, was full of ****.

Eh? you always say you are a moderate and proud of the fact.

Or have you gone through all that in the past couple of months?

Kropotkin · June 20, 2003, 10:57

I started out as a young marxist about the age of 13-14, matured somewhat into a ideological anarchist as I learned more about history and how societies has (not) worked out. As a young adult I've turned out to be more and more cynical and is now more of a sceptical nihilist. Im' still very much leftist though, even if I hardly agree with most leftists.

Ecthy · June 20, 2003, 11:01

"matured into an anarchist"

Az · June 20, 2003, 11:10

what's a fastist, Osweld?

I was always a leftist. When young, I was asked if I had the option of the death of all the people of china, and all the people of Israel, and I chose all the people of Israel ( including my own family, of course), since there were much more people in China.
Today, I don't know, I don't think about it. I just wish I am never forced to make such a choice.

General Ludd · June 20, 2003, 11:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Azazel
what's a fastist, Osweld?

Er... I believed in doing things quickly. Really.

Richelieu · June 20, 2003, 11:53

I used to be much more to the left but life changed that. In the US i'd be a right wing Democrat i guess.

Imran Siddiqui · June 20, 2003, 11:57

Quote:

Er... I believed in doing things quickly.

I'm sure the women really liked that

.

DinoDoc · June 20, 2003, 12:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Richelieu
In the US i'd be a right wing Democrat i guess.

We call them Republicans.

Richelieu · June 20, 2003, 12:14

Quote:

Originally posted by DinoDoc
We call them Republicans.

Can't call myself that. That would be grounds for deportation over here.

St Leo · June 20, 2003, 13:16

I've always been a social liberal, but right now I am drifiting to left-wing economics as well.

C0ckney · June 20, 2003, 13:38

used to be fairly left wing, then i saw the light

Cruddy · June 20, 2003, 15:46

Travel helped. Living by my own wits helped. Meeting people from different social backgroundgrounds helped.

Politicial views are like cheese, they take time to mature.

Odin · June 20, 2003, 17:52

I started out as a John McCain/Libertarian-style Republican, Then came 9-11 and Enron and I saw the light.

MrFun · June 20, 2003, 17:57

Quote:

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Moderates. HA!

I was like you both.
Then I joined the service.
Saw the world.
Saw how things are.
Realized that I, just like you 2 are, was full of ****.

Thanks for your arrogant opinion.

Berzerker · June 20, 2003, 18:18

I took what my folks taught me about not stealing to it's logical conclusion and became a libertarian.

KrazyHorse · June 20, 2003, 18:42

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

MichaeltheGreat · June 20, 2003, 19:07

I started out as a kid in the 60's as a Bobby Kennedy - MLK liberal who couldn't stand that dmaned Texas rancher. In my teens I moved sharply left through the third year of college (when I was 18), then I got sick of the vacuousness of most leftists. After that, I gradually moved right on economic issues, although I never could stand Reagan.

On most social and environmental issues, I pretty much stayed in the center of the Democratic party, so very little movement there. On privacy and personal moral matters, I'm fairly close to libertarian in my view that there's a lot of things that are just none of the government's business.

The biggest driver for me away from the left is that no matter how laudable the end goal is, the left usually manages enough ineptness and whininess to make me sick if I stayed in a room with them for too long.

Maniac · June 20, 2003, 19:25

I started out very left-liberal, but as time progresses I'm becoming somewhat more authoritarian/right-wing (Currently 0.00 auth<->lib and -5 left on www.politicalcompass.org ). When I die of old age I'll probably be some conservative right-winger.

Zkribbler · June 20, 2003, 22:15

I started out as a right-wing Republican but then saw a series of lights.

I was anti-abortion until a girl I knew in college died from having an illegal abortion. That death drove home two realizations: First, the mere fact that abortions were (then) illegal wasn't going to stop them from happening. Second, laws have unintended consequences...even sometimes ending people's lives.

I was also pro-Vietnam. Then someone asked me if I was for the war, why wasn't I over there fighting. I gave him some half-@ssed answer which sent him away, but it didn't satisfy me. I thought about it somemore and came to the conclusion that I supported the war enough to send others to fight but not enough to subject myself to that stupidity. And the closer I looked at that war, the more stupid it looked. There was no democracy, just a series of corrupt military dictators. Certainly nothing worth dying for.

Ecology was just beginning to emerge, with pollution's endangerment of the human race. Big business was ignoring the problem, willing to kill people for profits.

Ralph Nadar published "Unsafe at Any Speed" and was subjected to mudslinging attacks from the auto industry and big business in general.

I had some run-ins with my landlord's lawyers and with managers at my workplace, and found them to be lying, incompetent, bullying sons-of-beeswax.

That pretty much destroyed any remaining illusions I had that people who were rich and powerful achieved that because they were morally and intellectually superior.

Conservatives were battling the civil rights movement. J. Edgar Hoover was calling Dr. Martin Luther King a communist.

National Guard troops opened fire on anti-war protesters at Kent State, wounding many. Four non-protesting students headed for class were killed.

The Grand Jury blamed students for provoking the guardsmen.

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.

In short, I was driven from the Right by a realization that it was filled with a bunch of unprincipled, greedy bastards who would jettison fairness and compassion, who would let any number of people die, who would sell out the future of humanity, just to make a few lousy bucks.

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, then our salvation was with the liberals.

Rex Little · June 20, 2003, 22:22

In high school I was a Lyndon Johnson liberal, mostly because of the influence of my American History teacher. In my graduation speech I came out for big government and the Vietnam War

(this was 1966). Can't point to any one thing that changed me; age, experience and time away from that teacher probably all contributed. At age 23 I read Ayn Rand's books; by that time I was already a libertarian, and Rand just helped me clarify and organize my thinking.