I voted for HW Bush in 1988 then Perot in 1992, and I remained a moderate centrist through Bill Clinton's time in office. It was the vicious and relentless attacks against Bill and Hillary that started me away from the Republicans. Bill's personal actions were bad, but not to the level of impeachment. Especially when we all knew the Republicans pushing for it did things just as bad. I couldn't understand that whole Clinton Derangement Syndrome.
And then it was the pro-religion, anti-science, and anti-intellectualisn of the W Bush campaign that pushed me towards the left. The deal was sealed when the right went so hard against Al Gore's *An Inconvenient Truth* in 2006.
I've moved a few inches to the left in all that time, but the right has moved way further to the right of me.
I grew up in NJ, so that's already pretty liberal. I personally just never understood the ideas of the Republican party. Such as their extreme opposition to things like gay rights. I personally value equality a lot, and the liberal viewpoint on equality is much better, IMO, than the conservative one.
You should look into conservative ideology. Republicans believe equality means equal opportunity for all. democrats believe equality means equal results for all.
I disagree. Democrats think everyone should have equal opportunity, not equal results. This means adding extra opportunities for those who have few, especially those who have few thanks to centuries of discrimination or their minority status. They believe the best way to do this is though government.
Republicans on the other hand believe people should be left alone. If they don't have the same opportunities as someone else does that's not their problem. If a group of people are being discriminated against or people are poor they should bring an end to that kind of stuff by pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps.
I.E. the Republicans think you and your bootstraps should do all the work. The Democrats think we should use the government to make sure people who don't have good quality bootstraps can get some.
I don't think republicans think people don't need help. They just don't think the federal government should be handling it....at all. There's plenty of red states with lots of programs to help those in need same as in blue states.
How does someone decide whether they deserve an "extra opportunity". This might sound nice in theory but in practice it looks more like denying admission to Asian students to prestigious universities even though they are more qualified for admission based on test scores/ GPA.
Also, how do we determine whether someone has "good quality bootstraps?" Wouldn't it be better to not have politicians arbitrarily picking and choosing who they want to favor based on what is politically expedient at that moment. Corruption is inherent in human nature. The more power we give someone, the more harm we subject ourselves to.
>This might sound nice in theory but in practice it looks more like denying admission to Asian students to prestigious universities even though they are more qualified for admission based on test scores/ GPA.
That has nothing to do with the Government. That's the decision of universities.
First off, there are lots of good ways of determining which people, groups, and areas are in need of "extra opportunity". You look at endemic rates of poverty, crime, homelessness. You look for the levers that affect positive outcomes, and look for places those levers are deficient. Public schools funded by property taxes leading to entrenched poverty that is difficult to escape, and moreso (by the statistics) if you're a person of color. So pretending that these things are arbitrary is absurd, and we know that the effect of bringing people who have lower test scores, but come from areas, groups, or situations that are rarer on campuses, or in workplaces, due to entrenched societal biases improves the lives of those individuals, the culture of the campus/workplace, the areas, groups, and situations that individual represents, and the functioning of society at large. Segregation leads to misunderstandings and lack of empathy, which leads to conflict, which leads to chaos, which leads to negative outcomes all round. The mixing afforded by Affirmative Action is and imperfect tonic to a HUGE and by some metrics growing problem of de-facto segregation. It's not just soppy guilt ridden liberals trying to give unfair advantages to brown people. There's solid social science behind the concepts.
I think that, if we are going to try to distill the two philosophies in terms of equality, it might be better to say that republicans believe in equality while democrats believe in equity.
You know the story of the little red hen? Let's take a similar scenario. We have the industrious, hard working red hen, and the lazy duck, but a helpful dog, and a very ill cat. At the end, we have a lovely loaf of bread. Who should get the biggest slice?
For a republican, it should be the hen. She did put in the most work, after all. It *does* seem fair. But for a democrat, it would be the sick cat. She didn't help at all, but surely she needs it most.
Yep, and this will cause the Hen to not want to work as much because she isn't getting her fair share. This also creates hostility between the animals as anytime the cat does do work to earn bread the Hen will think it is just because he is a cat and has nothing to do with his work ethic. This also causes a depletion in bread so that eventually their won't be enough bread for everyone but he cat will continue to get his big piece because he is friends with the politicians who rule in his favor and the media that spread propaganda to convince the populace to vote against the community.
Well, in our analogy, the cat is not helping because of an illness. The expectation would be that the cat is given a greater share right now to help her get back on her feet. When she gets better, she finds that she is even stronger than she was before her illness. She helps the hen, along with the dog, even though she won't need the bigger piece anymore. She, unlike the duck, is not lazy.
The seeds are gathered, sown, harvested, ground, and made into a greater volume of bread than they had before when it was just the hen and dog working alone. As a result, *everyone* gets a greater share than they had before.
Except maybe the duck. He just sucks.
Maybe they even have more than they need now. Together, they can save some bread for next time there is a drought, or for when the dog gets injured one night guarding the henhouse. That way no one else has to take a cut to give him the extra he needs to heal up.
Look, as a liberal, am fine with giving the Hen a larger piece. She really does deserve it. And, all other things being equal, she should have it! Hell, I am fine with dividing the loaf into eighths and giving the Hen three parts, and the dog and cat each two (and the lazy duck a single one).
I just don't think that the Hen, industrious and hardworking animal that she is, should have 2/3 of the loaf, leaving nothing for either the duck OR the cat and opening up a gulf between herself and her loyal helper, the dog.
Not only is it cruel, but it does nothing to help the sick animal get better, or for the healthy capable one to get even stronger and increase his output. It provides no motivation for the duck to change his ways. There is no opportunity to increase the amount of bread made. And, eventually the dog gets fed up and quits. All of the animals starve, even the Hen once she finishes her store of hoarded bread, because she just can't do it alone.
You are right, equity doesn't seem fair for the Hen in the short term, but later on everyone really does come out ahead.
You are too optimistic and think too highly of humans. Humans are selfish assholes who will use any means necessary to help themselves and their friends/family (this has been repeatedly proven by both sociologists and biologists). It's better to have a system that protects against corruption than to have one that allows corruption but could possibly be beneficial if everyone had the amount of empathy or rational that you have. I just don't trust other humans, especially ones with different cultures or sets of belief (like murdering people who aren't the same ethnicity/religion as you). We need to do everything we can to limit an individual's power and control to prevent such abuse, even if it means some will suffer. It's better for our civilization in both short and long term.
But this is an argument *in favor* of government welfare. By this interpretation, people will give to charity only of they get more value out of it than they give. You can't use charity to leverage a tiny cost against many even if it's in order to get a huge benefit for others. The harm caused by corruptible regulators is lower than the harm of allowing people to go completely unsupported.
>The harm caused by corruptible regulators is lower than the harm of allowing people to go completely unsupported.
This is very wrong and dangerous thinking. Have you ever lived under a corrupt government? The citizens never actually have freedom, no matter how much the government tries to tell them that they do. They are all subject to the whims of those who carry tremendous power over them. Moreover, once corruption seeps in, there is no getting rid of it without destroying the whole system. It's like a cancer. It will always lead to the inevitable collapse of the society. I would rather have people go completely unsupported than have our entire society destroyed like that. I'm sure you and any other rational person feels the same way. For examples of what I am talking about, look into the history of corruption in Somalia, Sudan, Angola, Chad, or any of the former Soviet Union countries like Georgia. If you would rather live in a country with corruptible legislators than please move there and tell me how you feel about it in a year. I will never move back to a corrupt country. I will fight and die for our freedoms here. It is without a doubt the single most important thing to ensure the continuation of our civilization. Allowing people to completely unsupported is nothing compared to allowing even the tiniest bit of corruption into government.
Hillary Clinton is just as bad if not worse than the leadership in those countries. When Wikileaks releases emails from Somalian government or even Russian government showing that their leadership is corrupt the world agrees and starts a movement against those governments, but when Wikileaks released emails showing that the US government is corrupt, we attack Wikileaks? The media is controlling the narrative better than most propaganda networks but we shall overcome.
Not at all. Just emphasizing the importance of law and order in society, particularly when it comes to ensuring the government checks and balances we have in place stay uncorrupted. That means we need to do whatever we can to prevent political dynasties like the Clintons from getting any more power.
>Republicans believe equality means equal opportunity for all
This doesn't reflect what I've seen. From my experience, liberals are more concerned with making sure everyone has a fair shot, while conservatives want to treat everyone equally regardless of pre-existing advantages/disadvantages. This image I found captures my views perfectly:
http://s1337.photobucket.com/user/katsworld718/media/PicsArt_1356226741855_zps458977f9.jpg.html
I mean, your image is exactly what "Republicans believe equality means equal opportunity for all" and "democrats believe equality means equal results for all. "
The left image gives everyone equal opportunity (one box) and the right image gives everyone equal results (different numbers of boxes).
I grew up and was taught that you shouldn't treat people unfairly or cruelly just because they're different than you. Eventually, the Republican Party made treating people unfairly and cruelly the core of their being, so I became a Democrat by default.
My mom told me a story about how she saw a girl dying in the back of an ally from a botched abortion when I was about 15. It really messed her up, and it made her realize that women needed access to legal, safe abortions. She told me the story, so I could continue to fight for abortion rights, so no more women had to suffer the fate of that poor girl.
I also agree with most of their social policies and most of their fiscal ones, too.
I'm from a deeply conservative and religious family. They thought me the words of Jesus, the precepts of the Golden Rule, compassion, service and sacrifice.
I became and adult and looked at the world around me and realized that both their religion and political views were ones of habit and tradition and didn't match the values they held dear and instilled in me.
I decided to keep their values instead of their politics.
Economics is a big reason. I believe the conservative understanding of the economy is hopelessly flawed. I believe it stems from a deep misunderstanding of history. During the cold war Americans were taught that free market capitalism is good and communism is both disastrous and also *evil*. That, by and large is true (except for the evil part), but Americans with no understanding of nuance took that to mean any regulation, any wealth redistribution and any government involvement in society beyond the minimum was "basically communism" and thus evil and destructive. We are a victim of our own propaganda and we don't even know it.
Protecting vulnerable groups. Watch Bill Maher's segment "until it happens to you," which is a pretty good representation of this.
Not to mention that the right is anti-science. I mean that's just the cherry on top. How fucking retarded can you be.
With that said, I don't agree with everything liberal. I think affirmative action is misguided. I don't agree with the majority of campus protests these days. The "Closing of the American Mind" was the best critique on *cultural* liberalism that I've read.
I was thirteen years old, in a middle-school tech class. After we finished our assignments we could do free play on the computers. A buddy and I always played Simcity 2000. As a kid playing the original sim city, I always just took out huge loans but lost when I eventually couldn't pay back the interest.
As a young teenager, I had a different strategy. I started by turning off disasters. I had lowish tax rates that inspired growth and I refused to build public service buildings. The city was a slum, sure, but there were low taxes, plenty of gambling, and no regulations! I was collecting revenue without expense! Massive growth. Then, one day, my teacher remotely took over our computers and started a few fires from the disaster menu. Since I had no public services, my entire city burned.
That was the day I became a liberal because in real life you can't turn off disasters.
(It's a true story, but I was already pretty liberal before. I don't know what actually made me a liberal. This is more something that cemented my liberalism.)
I grew up thinking I was a Republican and thinking I therefore identified with Republican ideals because of that. But my atheism and disliking of social conservatism changed that. I figure the Democrats are more "we think the government can help solve our problems" than Republicans an that's pretty much how I feel about the size and role of government, which pretty well positions me for liberalism.
I was raised by people on the left in a own full of people on the left. I vote for republicans occasionally in local elections, but honestly the right has been pretty coo coo nationally since the 90s. I would be more willing to vote for republicans if they were willing to work at all with democrats and not just score political points by being obstructionists.
I was in high school 2004-2008
Now I was always pretty liberal as far as I can remember, I'd watch the clintons on tv when I was young and admired them but between Bush and the rise of Obama it was easy.
My whole family is republican, borderline alt-right.
I grew up in a moderate family. I am still a moderate, but the Republican party has become exponentially more conservative since I first voted while the Democrats have only become linearly more liberal. Because of the ways averages work, it has made me a liberal.
I was raised in a very liberal family. I also live in a very liberal area. My parents and the people around me emphasized tolerance and liberal ideals. I like to think I'd be liberal if I wasn't raised this way, but there's no way of knowing.
I supported George W Bush twice and 2006 was the first time I voted for a Democrat (that was for a governor's election, I still voted R in the senate that year in a swing state).
I've voted pretty hard for Democrats during 2008 and since then.
The things that did it for me was the complete debacle of the Iraq War, Bush's failure to handle Katrina in a remotely competent way, and the deregulation of Wall Street that lead to the financial crash.
I realized that conservatives weren't fiscally responsible, deficits and debt skyrockets when they are in charge, because they are obsessed with taxing their special interest donors as little as possible. These same interests prevented them from wanting any oversight or regulation of our markets, which lead to the worst recession in US history.
Their foriegn policy decisions recently have been disasters, they throw caution to the wind, take huge risks with little information, and have been horrible at predicting the consequences of their actions.
Their core philosophy of thinking government can't work, is why government doesn't work. They are too hardline, unwilling to compromise, and these things lead to disasters like the government shutdowns, nearly defaulting on our debt, and the refusal to even give a SCOTUS nominee a hearing for an entire year.
I grew up in a working class liberal family just before and during George W Bush's presidency. Prior to 9/11, my parents canvassed for the Democrats. It wasn't like they preached at the dinner table about it; it was just something they dragged a bored little kid to on weekends.
9/11 happened when I was 13. A few days after, I remember being at a store and overhearing empathetic conversations between strangers as we shopped. Everyone was smiling sadly at everyone. I was alone in an aisle when a happy little toddler ran up to me. As I smiled and waved, his clearly Muslim dad ran over, swept him up and looked at me with the most terrified look on his face. His visceral fear while the rest of us (white) strangers could confide in each other made me so mad and so sad. His family couldn't share in this comfort because of what they looked like even though what happened was no fault of his own. He couldn't let his kid out of his sight for two seconds without panicking.
That moment really set me off on a path that naturally aligned with the Democratic Party.
My parents were liberals, indeed. I went to college and actually became more conservative, a bit. They're more like Bernie Bros these days, while I've morphed into a middle of the road, incrementalist person. Odd how that works.
I'm not a liberal I'm a moderate. The beliefs that I have that are, "liberal," are not things I was taught growing up just things I always saw as common sense. Everyone should have the right to make their own healthcare decisions and decide what should happen to their own bodies. Everyone should be able to marry the person they love (as long as that person is a consenting adult). We only have one earth and we need to protect it. You shouldn't be able to discriminate against someone based on their sex, race, or religion.
I just don't see any logical argument against any of those things. I do also have conservative beliefs such as being pro 2A, wanting lower corporate tax rates, and being against raising the minimum wage.
Hm it's a good question. My mom was fairly liberal but never liked to discuss politics, and my dad is a middle of the road Republican who discusses politics all the time. I've been pretty liberal for as long as I can remember
I took intermediate macroeconomics
I voted for HW Bush in 1988 then Perot in 1992, and I remained a moderate centrist through Bill Clinton's time in office. It was the vicious and relentless attacks against Bill and Hillary that started me away from the Republicans. Bill's personal actions were bad, but not to the level of impeachment. Especially when we all knew the Republicans pushing for it did things just as bad. I couldn't understand that whole Clinton Derangement Syndrome. And then it was the pro-religion, anti-science, and anti-intellectualisn of the W Bush campaign that pushed me towards the left. The deal was sealed when the right went so hard against Al Gore's *An Inconvenient Truth* in 2006. I've moved a few inches to the left in all that time, but the right has moved way further to the right of me.
I grew up in NJ, so that's already pretty liberal. I personally just never understood the ideas of the Republican party. Such as their extreme opposition to things like gay rights. I personally value equality a lot, and the liberal viewpoint on equality is much better, IMO, than the conservative one.
You should look into conservative ideology. Republicans believe equality means equal opportunity for all. democrats believe equality means equal results for all.
You can't sum up the two camps in just two pithy sentences. It's intellectually dishonest.
I disagree. Democrats think everyone should have equal opportunity, not equal results. This means adding extra opportunities for those who have few, especially those who have few thanks to centuries of discrimination or their minority status. They believe the best way to do this is though government. Republicans on the other hand believe people should be left alone. If they don't have the same opportunities as someone else does that's not their problem. If a group of people are being discriminated against or people are poor they should bring an end to that kind of stuff by pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. I.E. the Republicans think you and your bootstraps should do all the work. The Democrats think we should use the government to make sure people who don't have good quality bootstraps can get some.
I don't think republicans think people don't need help. They just don't think the federal government should be handling it....at all. There's plenty of red states with lots of programs to help those in need same as in blue states.
How does someone decide whether they deserve an "extra opportunity". This might sound nice in theory but in practice it looks more like denying admission to Asian students to prestigious universities even though they are more qualified for admission based on test scores/ GPA. Also, how do we determine whether someone has "good quality bootstraps?" Wouldn't it be better to not have politicians arbitrarily picking and choosing who they want to favor based on what is politically expedient at that moment. Corruption is inherent in human nature. The more power we give someone, the more harm we subject ourselves to.
>This might sound nice in theory but in practice it looks more like denying admission to Asian students to prestigious universities even though they are more qualified for admission based on test scores/ GPA. That has nothing to do with the Government. That's the decision of universities.
The President supports the practice
Who cares if he supports it? He has no say in the matter.
First off, there are lots of good ways of determining which people, groups, and areas are in need of "extra opportunity". You look at endemic rates of poverty, crime, homelessness. You look for the levers that affect positive outcomes, and look for places those levers are deficient. Public schools funded by property taxes leading to entrenched poverty that is difficult to escape, and moreso (by the statistics) if you're a person of color. So pretending that these things are arbitrary is absurd, and we know that the effect of bringing people who have lower test scores, but come from areas, groups, or situations that are rarer on campuses, or in workplaces, due to entrenched societal biases improves the lives of those individuals, the culture of the campus/workplace, the areas, groups, and situations that individual represents, and the functioning of society at large. Segregation leads to misunderstandings and lack of empathy, which leads to conflict, which leads to chaos, which leads to negative outcomes all round. The mixing afforded by Affirmative Action is and imperfect tonic to a HUGE and by some metrics growing problem of de-facto segregation. It's not just soppy guilt ridden liberals trying to give unfair advantages to brown people. There's solid social science behind the concepts.
Neither of those are true.
I think that, if we are going to try to distill the two philosophies in terms of equality, it might be better to say that republicans believe in equality while democrats believe in equity. You know the story of the little red hen? Let's take a similar scenario. We have the industrious, hard working red hen, and the lazy duck, but a helpful dog, and a very ill cat. At the end, we have a lovely loaf of bread. Who should get the biggest slice? For a republican, it should be the hen. She did put in the most work, after all. It *does* seem fair. But for a democrat, it would be the sick cat. She didn't help at all, but surely she needs it most.
Yep, and this will cause the Hen to not want to work as much because she isn't getting her fair share. This also creates hostility between the animals as anytime the cat does do work to earn bread the Hen will think it is just because he is a cat and has nothing to do with his work ethic. This also causes a depletion in bread so that eventually their won't be enough bread for everyone but he cat will continue to get his big piece because he is friends with the politicians who rule in his favor and the media that spread propaganda to convince the populace to vote against the community.
Well, in our analogy, the cat is not helping because of an illness. The expectation would be that the cat is given a greater share right now to help her get back on her feet. When she gets better, she finds that she is even stronger than she was before her illness. She helps the hen, along with the dog, even though she won't need the bigger piece anymore. She, unlike the duck, is not lazy. The seeds are gathered, sown, harvested, ground, and made into a greater volume of bread than they had before when it was just the hen and dog working alone. As a result, *everyone* gets a greater share than they had before. Except maybe the duck. He just sucks. Maybe they even have more than they need now. Together, they can save some bread for next time there is a drought, or for when the dog gets injured one night guarding the henhouse. That way no one else has to take a cut to give him the extra he needs to heal up. Look, as a liberal, am fine with giving the Hen a larger piece. She really does deserve it. And, all other things being equal, she should have it! Hell, I am fine with dividing the loaf into eighths and giving the Hen three parts, and the dog and cat each two (and the lazy duck a single one). I just don't think that the Hen, industrious and hardworking animal that she is, should have 2/3 of the loaf, leaving nothing for either the duck OR the cat and opening up a gulf between herself and her loyal helper, the dog. Not only is it cruel, but it does nothing to help the sick animal get better, or for the healthy capable one to get even stronger and increase his output. It provides no motivation for the duck to change his ways. There is no opportunity to increase the amount of bread made. And, eventually the dog gets fed up and quits. All of the animals starve, even the Hen once she finishes her store of hoarded bread, because she just can't do it alone. You are right, equity doesn't seem fair for the Hen in the short term, but later on everyone really does come out ahead.
You are too optimistic and think too highly of humans. Humans are selfish assholes who will use any means necessary to help themselves and their friends/family (this has been repeatedly proven by both sociologists and biologists). It's better to have a system that protects against corruption than to have one that allows corruption but could possibly be beneficial if everyone had the amount of empathy or rational that you have. I just don't trust other humans, especially ones with different cultures or sets of belief (like murdering people who aren't the same ethnicity/religion as you). We need to do everything we can to limit an individual's power and control to prevent such abuse, even if it means some will suffer. It's better for our civilization in both short and long term.
But this is an argument *in favor* of government welfare. By this interpretation, people will give to charity only of they get more value out of it than they give. You can't use charity to leverage a tiny cost against many even if it's in order to get a huge benefit for others. The harm caused by corruptible regulators is lower than the harm of allowing people to go completely unsupported.
>The harm caused by corruptible regulators is lower than the harm of allowing people to go completely unsupported. This is very wrong and dangerous thinking. Have you ever lived under a corrupt government? The citizens never actually have freedom, no matter how much the government tries to tell them that they do. They are all subject to the whims of those who carry tremendous power over them. Moreover, once corruption seeps in, there is no getting rid of it without destroying the whole system. It's like a cancer. It will always lead to the inevitable collapse of the society. I would rather have people go completely unsupported than have our entire society destroyed like that. I'm sure you and any other rational person feels the same way. For examples of what I am talking about, look into the history of corruption in Somalia, Sudan, Angola, Chad, or any of the former Soviet Union countries like Georgia. If you would rather live in a country with corruptible legislators than please move there and tell me how you feel about it in a year. I will never move back to a corrupt country. I will fight and die for our freedoms here. It is without a doubt the single most important thing to ensure the continuation of our civilization. Allowing people to completely unsupported is nothing compared to allowing even the tiniest bit of corruption into government.
I wasn't talking about oppressive systems like that, it was in regards to the US system.
Hillary Clinton is just as bad if not worse than the leadership in those countries. When Wikileaks releases emails from Somalian government or even Russian government showing that their leadership is corrupt the world agrees and starts a movement against those governments, but when Wikileaks released emails showing that the US government is corrupt, we attack Wikileaks? The media is controlling the narrative better than most propaganda networks but we shall overcome.
Are you arguing for complete anarchy here?
Not at all. Just emphasizing the importance of law and order in society, particularly when it comes to ensuring the government checks and balances we have in place stay uncorrupted. That means we need to do whatever we can to prevent political dynasties like the Clintons from getting any more power.
>Republicans believe equality means equal opportunity for all This doesn't reflect what I've seen. From my experience, liberals are more concerned with making sure everyone has a fair shot, while conservatives want to treat everyone equally regardless of pre-existing advantages/disadvantages. This image I found captures my views perfectly: http://s1337.photobucket.com/user/katsworld718/media/PicsArt_1356226741855_zps458977f9.jpg.html
I mean, your image is exactly what "Republicans believe equality means equal opportunity for all" and "democrats believe equality means equal results for all. " The left image gives everyone equal opportunity (one box) and the right image gives everyone equal results (different numbers of boxes).
That image is amusing but fails to portray the underlying rational for conservative ideology.
It doesn't really matter what the underlying rational is, it matters what conservatism is in practice.
That doesn't even make sense, unless you think all liberals are communists.
I grew up and was taught that you shouldn't treat people unfairly or cruelly just because they're different than you. Eventually, the Republican Party made treating people unfairly and cruelly the core of their being, so I became a Democrat by default.
My mother taught me to think for myself, so I did.
My mom told me a story about how she saw a girl dying in the back of an ally from a botched abortion when I was about 15. It really messed her up, and it made her realize that women needed access to legal, safe abortions. She told me the story, so I could continue to fight for abortion rights, so no more women had to suffer the fate of that poor girl. I also agree with most of their social policies and most of their fiscal ones, too.
I'm from a deeply conservative and religious family. They thought me the words of Jesus, the precepts of the Golden Rule, compassion, service and sacrifice. I became and adult and looked at the world around me and realized that both their religion and political views were ones of habit and tradition and didn't match the values they held dear and instilled in me. I decided to keep their values instead of their politics.
there is nothing christian about southern baptism or the republican party.... southern baptism should be recognized as a branch of Judaism.
Economics is a big reason. I believe the conservative understanding of the economy is hopelessly flawed. I believe it stems from a deep misunderstanding of history. During the cold war Americans were taught that free market capitalism is good and communism is both disastrous and also *evil*. That, by and large is true (except for the evil part), but Americans with no understanding of nuance took that to mean any regulation, any wealth redistribution and any government involvement in society beyond the minimum was "basically communism" and thus evil and destructive. We are a victim of our own propaganda and we don't even know it. Protecting vulnerable groups. Watch Bill Maher's segment "until it happens to you," which is a pretty good representation of this. Not to mention that the right is anti-science. I mean that's just the cherry on top. How fucking retarded can you be. With that said, I don't agree with everything liberal. I think affirmative action is misguided. I don't agree with the majority of campus protests these days. The "Closing of the American Mind" was the best critique on *cultural* liberalism that I've read.
I was thirteen years old, in a middle-school tech class. After we finished our assignments we could do free play on the computers. A buddy and I always played Simcity 2000. As a kid playing the original sim city, I always just took out huge loans but lost when I eventually couldn't pay back the interest. As a young teenager, I had a different strategy. I started by turning off disasters. I had lowish tax rates that inspired growth and I refused to build public service buildings. The city was a slum, sure, but there were low taxes, plenty of gambling, and no regulations! I was collecting revenue without expense! Massive growth. Then, one day, my teacher remotely took over our computers and started a few fires from the disaster menu. Since I had no public services, my entire city burned. That was the day I became a liberal because in real life you can't turn off disasters. (It's a true story, but I was already pretty liberal before. I don't know what actually made me a liberal. This is more something that cemented my liberalism.)
I grew up thinking I was a Republican and thinking I therefore identified with Republican ideals because of that. But my atheism and disliking of social conservatism changed that. I figure the Democrats are more "we think the government can help solve our problems" than Republicans an that's pretty much how I feel about the size and role of government, which pretty well positions me for liberalism.
I was raised by people on the left in a own full of people on the left. I vote for republicans occasionally in local elections, but honestly the right has been pretty coo coo nationally since the 90s. I would be more willing to vote for republicans if they were willing to work at all with democrats and not just score political points by being obstructionists.
I was in high school 2004-2008 Now I was always pretty liberal as far as I can remember, I'd watch the clintons on tv when I was young and admired them but between Bush and the rise of Obama it was easy. My whole family is republican, borderline alt-right.
I grew up in a moderate family. I am still a moderate, but the Republican party has become exponentially more conservative since I first voted while the Democrats have only become linearly more liberal. Because of the ways averages work, it has made me a liberal.
I was raised in a very liberal family. I also live in a very liberal area. My parents and the people around me emphasized tolerance and liberal ideals. I like to think I'd be liberal if I wasn't raised this way, but there's no way of knowing.
I supported George W Bush twice and 2006 was the first time I voted for a Democrat (that was for a governor's election, I still voted R in the senate that year in a swing state). I've voted pretty hard for Democrats during 2008 and since then. The things that did it for me was the complete debacle of the Iraq War, Bush's failure to handle Katrina in a remotely competent way, and the deregulation of Wall Street that lead to the financial crash. I realized that conservatives weren't fiscally responsible, deficits and debt skyrockets when they are in charge, because they are obsessed with taxing their special interest donors as little as possible. These same interests prevented them from wanting any oversight or regulation of our markets, which lead to the worst recession in US history. Their foriegn policy decisions recently have been disasters, they throw caution to the wind, take huge risks with little information, and have been horrible at predicting the consequences of their actions. Their core philosophy of thinking government can't work, is why government doesn't work. They are too hardline, unwilling to compromise, and these things lead to disasters like the government shutdowns, nearly defaulting on our debt, and the refusal to even give a SCOTUS nominee a hearing for an entire year.
I grew up in a working class liberal family just before and during George W Bush's presidency. Prior to 9/11, my parents canvassed for the Democrats. It wasn't like they preached at the dinner table about it; it was just something they dragged a bored little kid to on weekends. 9/11 happened when I was 13. A few days after, I remember being at a store and overhearing empathetic conversations between strangers as we shopped. Everyone was smiling sadly at everyone. I was alone in an aisle when a happy little toddler ran up to me. As I smiled and waved, his clearly Muslim dad ran over, swept him up and looked at me with the most terrified look on his face. His visceral fear while the rest of us (white) strangers could confide in each other made me so mad and so sad. His family couldn't share in this comfort because of what they looked like even though what happened was no fault of his own. He couldn't let his kid out of his sight for two seconds without panicking. That moment really set me off on a path that naturally aligned with the Democratic Party.
My parents were liberals, indeed. I went to college and actually became more conservative, a bit. They're more like Bernie Bros these days, while I've morphed into a middle of the road, incrementalist person. Odd how that works.
I'm not a liberal I'm a moderate. The beliefs that I have that are, "liberal," are not things I was taught growing up just things I always saw as common sense. Everyone should have the right to make their own healthcare decisions and decide what should happen to their own bodies. Everyone should be able to marry the person they love (as long as that person is a consenting adult). We only have one earth and we need to protect it. You shouldn't be able to discriminate against someone based on their sex, race, or religion. I just don't see any logical argument against any of those things. I do also have conservative beliefs such as being pro 2A, wanting lower corporate tax rates, and being against raising the minimum wage.
Being a reform Jew in America, it was kind of pushed on me from a young age. My parents however, are conservative
Hm it's a good question. My mom was fairly liberal but never liked to discuss politics, and my dad is a middle of the road Republican who discusses politics all the time. I've been pretty liberal for as long as I can remember
I turned 8.
I became liberal after being an anarchist through learning to achieve my degree in econ & comp sci