How Did You Develop Your Political Position Or Non-Position?

[Marxist]

Just a thought about mind control.

 

[Angel]

I developed my dislike of politics altogether listening to the males in my family argue in circles over which side was right every single night of my childhood.


My position is mine. I hold my own standards and expectations. So far, nobody has come close to meeting them.

 

[Svedish_Chef]

My position is mine. I hold my own standards and expectations. So far, nobody has come close to meeting them.

 

[KillerMuffin]

I have an Oujia Board.

Mind control? Probably not. My family is chock full of esoteric liberals.

I am the lone wolf Republican. Why? I like the military, I like guns, I like the idea of a police force with more teeth, and I like the yap about a weaker federal government. I adored Reagan and I adored Dole. I'm from a more rural landscape where the Democratic platform domestic reform problems simply don't have the clout.

Is it mind control? Or is it simply comfort in my ways.

Perhaps being driven toward views that are outside of the social standard, being a non-conformist to a certain political spectrum is nothing more than the illusion of rebellion. Who makes the choice for you? Do you choose to be anti-establishment because your perception of the establishment makes you consider or support anything they are not? Is establishment necessarily evil or a necessary evil? What creates a person's views of the world? The control of their society or the freedom to guide their thoughts along the avenues that provide them the most comfort?

 

[Marxist]

KM--So you came up with all that by yourself? Intriguing....


I lean to the left because it's in my interest and my parents have always been Democrats. I've looked around and well, let's just say there aren't a lot of alternatives.

 

[KillerMuffin]

No, I actually didn't. My chihuahua dictated the last half of it. I contributed the part about my Oujia Board. I'se is sooo smart! Someday I shorely hopes to make it outta the third grade! I'll be the first 'un in my whole entire fambly to do it!

My intellegince has been insulted before. Let's make a run for originality, shall we?

 

[Marxist]

I need to take a class in manners and writing with clarity. What I was asking was if your POLITICS developed out of nowhere? How did you come to the idea the Reagan was Right? You said your family was liberal then started in on a pastoral. Do wide open spaces make you a Republican? If that's the case I'm expecting a challenge to Bush from within as Ted Turner runs for the White House in 2004. He's buying the Mid-West as we speak.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Clarity is good. You never know how it comes out on the otherside. If you think you're bad, you should see some of my monumental blunders. I once had KR thinking I actually liked him. Completely misunderstood me.

Well, I'm one of those One Issue Wonders. I have my "Big Issue" and that's pretty much where I tend to settle. That's the military. Republicans have historically been the military's party because Republicans have historically put the most cash in the cow. At least in the last 50 years.

I'm also a gun lover. I like CHarlton, hate Wayne LaPierre, and I adore my second amendment rights. You may not have noticed. Historically, the conservative platform has supported my right to bear arms and the liberal platform is that the only militias we have are the ought-to-be-illegal ones in Idaho.

Reagan was strong military, big on guns, and I agreed with concept of trickle down economics. It's rudimentary, I think. If the corporations have the money to hire and employ people, then the people have the money to buy things that support the corportations. Of course we did pull out of that nasty 80's recession, right? So whose to say.

I get my opinions very simply. I read a few bits of news. I'm not big on keeping track. I see what agrees with my philosophy of better military, guns, and how to run things. I vote that way.

How did I get my philosphies? Long association with the military. Long association with guns. Long association with a conservative feel of life. Conservative is just a label, but it's the closest to the way I feel. I live, I build a credo based on the way I live, and I choose my political viewpoints based on that credo.

The rural thing is a just a numbers bit. Look at the map and see which states always carry Republicans. Rural ones do. Urban states usually carry Democrats. I was so hoping Oregon would carry Nader, but they chickened out.

 

[Thomas Paine]

Hope you two don't mind my butting in here, but I'm in a responding mood tonight.

I come from a conservative Republican family, and I was one of those myself in a big way until a certain cataclysmic event occurred. Hell, when I was in college in the early 70's, I subscribed to the National Review, read books by William F. Buckley as fast as I could get through them and belonged to the YAF and the College Republicans.

I even campaigned for Nixon in '72 on the campus of a big East Coast University. Talk about small rallies...and the hippies got all the good-looking women.

Then came Watergate. I still remember sitting in front of the TV at my ex-wife-to-be's house, watching that slime-trailing gutter rat make his resignation speech while I railed loudly at the screen. And that was my turning point...

It felt weird, but I voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976 and have never voted for another Republican for President since that day. Yep, even Mondale and Dukakis.

But I remained a Republican in many ways and even got elected to office once as one. But beyond the pragmatism of practical politics I began to feel an ideological tug that was pulling me in a different direction.

A lot of things influenced my thinking. I got older. I did a lot of traveling, all around the U.S., Mexico, Europe and saw things that made me think harder. I went to law school. I worked for big companies, met important people, got an inside look at how government worked. I saw the effects that conservative social policies had on people. I read books, I listened to people who had something to say and eventually my youthful conservatism, which I clung to for no other reason than it had been the family philosophy, eroded and I developed a clearer picture of what I actually believed, based on my own experiences and knowledge.

So today I'd describe myself as a liberal and a Democrat, although I was still a little lukewarm about the party thing until last year's election, which left me feeling like I needed to make a stand. There are things that the D's and the liberals believe that I don't agree with, but it's the closest I can come to putting a label on myself.

 

[Marxist]

KM---Take lessons from T.P. I know I am. Very well thought out post.

Thanx

 

[Siren]

My Political Position sort of

 

[Azwed]

I don't like putting labels on myself, so I would not say I am a Democrat or a Republican. I grew up with two Republican parents. One from the northern midwest and one from the south east. Dad was in the Army and spent time in Vietnam. Mechanized infantry i think, but he was originaly supposed to fly helicopters. My family was definetly way to the conservative side.

As I have mentioned before I grew up in Midland and my family was in the oil business. My dad was one of the better geologists in the area. My family knew the Bushs. My mom and Laura were in the young republicans women's club together. Even though the Bush daughters are only a couple years younger then me I never really knew them. We were in very different social circles and I only lived in Midland till I was ten. If I had stayed their longer I might have got to know them but not likely.


I was a Republican until sometime in high school just not sure when. I don't remember exactly. Now I would say I am a left leaning moderate.

I like guns. I have mentioned several times on here that I shot in competitions when I was a teenager. I did not do it all the time since my dad was not around much. I did shoot a few times a year and it was fun. I have a natural talent for it.

I think the average, law abiding, mental stable citizen should be able to own a gun. Should there be gun laws and gun control? Yup, there should. Does anyone really need a full auto? I mean come on honestly what the hell are you going to use it for?

I would really like it if anyone who is buying a handgun, for the first time, has to take a basic saftey course and shooting course. I know some areas do this and I think it would stop a lot of accidental gun related deaths and injuries.

I think the military should be strong, but strong in the right way. We don't need to just throw gobs of money at it. We have to put the right amount of money in the right places. The cold war is over we don't need a huge military. We need a fast reacting, flexible, mobile military.

I don't like tricle down economics.(sorry KM) I think it does work for the first few layers of society, but after that it stops working. It is kind of like a pyramid scheme. Only the first few levels really make a lot of money. After the first few levels the money dries up.

I think women should have the right to chose an abortion if they want to. I don't think it should take them 6 months to make that decsion. If you can't figure out if you want to make that decsion in the first 6 months then you are just going to have the child and you can give it up for adoption.

I think we should keep religion out of schools and out of government. Religion mixed with government is bad. That is obvious throughout history and can also be seen in the present day.

I don't want our government so small that it fits in our bedrooms. I don't want people legislating what I can do with another consenting adult in the privacy of my own home.

Like it says in my sig line a little bit of socialism is a good thing, but don't go overboard with it. If you go do you end up like the UK in the 70's. No one wants to work because you can make just as much money staying at home and collection money from the government.


I want our cops and laws to be strong, but I don't want stupid laws on the book. Espesialy ones they have no chance of enforcing through ordinary means. Examples would be that law in Alabama that said people could not buy dildos or whatever. Any of the various stupid laws in Virginia about sex. What are they going to send people looking through my window to make sure I am having sex in the missonary position?


I don't want our prisons so full of first time recreational drug users that we can't keep real criminals in jail. For a while in north carolina rapists were getting 6 months in jail. They had to parole them after that to make room for all the drug convictions.

I think the enviroment is imporatand and we should protect it. We can't go overboard with this either though. To continue the progress of our society some enviromental damage will have to occur. We should work to minamize it as much as possible and repair what damage we do.

Hmhh I can't think of anymore examples right now really. I am going to post something on another thread that I heard on the radio. If any of you listen to The Big Show you will have heard it. I hate the big show and think it is a load of crap. I only listen to it sometimes since the only good radio station in my area carries it. I don't want to listen to country so I listen to my classic/new rock and some of the big show.

It is a letter that is very conservative and goes along way to define what a conservative in america is. It really showed me how I am a moderate. I agree with some of it completley. I agree with a lot of it to a point and I disagree completley with some too.

 

[Mischka]

My political positions stem from my views on religion, my experiences/perspective as a woman, my upbringing, and a dozen chance encounters, ideas, readings, and reactions to life's events. I don't have a defining moment of political clarity in my life, and I don't have the exact same beliefs as anyone else I know.

I don't vote straight party because I don't like either party that much; I prefer the contention amd forced compromise that the two party system creates over the unchecked agenda of either party.

 

[Weevil]

and the hippies got all the good-looking women.

I believe Thomas Paine just said it for me.

 

[RedJ]

The trick is...

... to try to separate opinion from fact, that can be done as not everything is 'opinion' and thus why we have social sciences. If you don't try to bring some theroy into things you are only spewing dogma and ideology. To do this you will have to stretch your perspective of thought beyond the sliver that is offered to you. Republican and Democrat, Nader or Perot, its really pretty much the same thing. Praxis and the dialectic, or practice and weighing thoughts against their opposite are good starts for any budding social critic.

RedJ

 

[Guest]

Hey KM, you love someone who sold arms to the enemy (Iran Contra) and screwed over poor people like you??????

 

[modest mouse]

This is a difficult question for me. I think of myself as too young (24) to answer, as I have not formulated many of my views to the extent that they have solidified.

I would probably fall into the ever increasing pool of financially conservative, socially liberal voters. I dont refer to myself as Democrat or Republican.

In the last presidential election I voted for Nader. I felt a vote for a third party and some new political thought was the only vote I could cast and not regret down the line. I disliked Bush but never warmed up to Gore. I do wish that McCain had stayed in the race longer, despite his checkered political past I found his moderation refreshing.

Here in Vermont we have a number of radical political sects stirring up the mix. It makes for more issue related debates rather than the same argument every election cycle. I think the radicalism helps people find how they truly feel regarding an issue.

This was certainly the case with Civil Unions (gay marriage). There was a great deal of rumbling about the issue, with conservatives showing vehemence rarely seen. In the end the law passed and is quietly supported by the majority of Vermonters(including myself).

In a long winded fashion I am saying I try to come to each issue with a clear head, as much as possible anyway. This usually means I am split between candidates as they preach to their supporters in the primaries...not really finding a man/woman suiting my concerns.

Many of my reasons for preferring liberal policies concerning personal freedom are rooted in growing up in a lower social class as a reasonably intelligent person. When one has less to protect the freedom to be as one chooses is all that more important. The right to your own personal identity takes on more significance.

I encounter problems with traditional liberal thought in regards to personal responsibility. This is where I lean to what is a Republican thought process. What confounds me is the idea of personal responsibility while wanting to be the moral police. How the conflict doesnt poke conservatives in the eye I may never know.

My point among all this is that I am conflicted, which I am not terribly uncomfortable with. I tend to be extremely opionated on a given issue which is simply a function of my personality.

 

[Angelus]

I never have a position with politics because if I take one then I know that I will have an argument on my hands and that is just stupid because I always know it will be an argument that will just keep going.

 

[sigh]

i developed my political position...

by casually tossing a dart at a "political affiliation" dartboard while drinking tequila shots in a seedy barroom one night

it hit this slender little section titled "flaming moderate", so there you are...

isn't that how everyone does it?

 

[Laurel]

Mine came from watching "Schoolhouse Rock" as a kid.

I'm not kidding! It's all there. That's how I learned the preamble to the Constitution.. Whenever I say it or read it, I still hear it in my head as that corny song. That and Superfriends taught me all I needed to know. Freedom is a natural right. You should respect others even if they aren't the same as you. All that crap.

My dad would take me to the library and tell me, "See all these books? You can read any of them. You know why? Because you're in America. In other places, they don't let you read what you want to read." That made a big impression on me. I couldn't imagine a place where you could get in trouble for reading the wrong book! That was shocking to me. It still is.

 

[Emeraldtryst]

I got my fucked up ideas from trying to survive within a house that was split politically.

I love the idea behind the right to bear arms...if and when the people of the country decide that their government needs to be changed...our founding fathers gave us the right to throw it out and supposedly guaranteed that the people could be just as powerful as the military.

I go way off the deep end on both sides as far as some issues go though...My only problem is that you only have two choices in this country. You have to accept the views that one side has to vote for them.

Just my incoherant rant for the evening.

 

[Lost Cause]

I'm a history buff. I read my way around a question to get as many sides of it I can. When I'm satisfied I have all the information, I make a decision and stick by it. Every item in our Bill of Rights has a historical reason for it. (usually based on their experiences in Europe) I don't sway in an debate if I have historical, not hysterical information.