Home-grown or convert?

[Mercy Not Sacrifice]

Have you been a liberal ever since you can remember, or are you an ex-conservative/libertarian/other?

 

[Rainbow Mage]

I've pretty well always been a liberal, but not a Democrat, a true liberal.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I really wasn't raised into politics, but I was raised to have conservative values. But sometime after I ditched Christianity, I began to acquire more liberal views on life.

 

[*Anne*]

im not a liberal so ha!!

Look at your poll now.... Tainted by my conversative blood muwhahahaha!!

Heh...

 

[DeitySlayer]

After I dropped religion at 15.

 

[KatNotKathy]

My parents have always been pretty liberal, but I was an uptight ********* pseudo-libertarian racist until I actually started paying attention to the world outside my own head. Now I make my parents look like fascists.

 

[ZooGirl02]

Well, I grew up Southern Baptist and so I was pretty much a conservative until later in life when I chose to become more liberal.

 

[Smoke]

My family was staunchly Republican on both sides. My mother's older sister became a Democrat in the 1960s, my mother's uncle was a Democrat, and my grandmother steadfastly refused to say whom she voted for. But by and large, the Republican Party was identified with all that was patriotic and all that was good and right about America. People talked about my aunt as if she were insane, and my grandfather used to say "they oughta take all the Democrats out behind the barn and shoot 'em." (He must have been thinking of a big barn.) You didn't question the war, but it was agreed that Nixon would handle it better than Johnson, and those Nixon girls were nice, respectable girls, not running around with movie stars like the Johnson girls. I remember my Uncle Zack saying that "Nixon might have been a crook, but he was my kind of crook."

All that crap was drilled into me early. I was born and bred Republican. I remember running through my Aunt Nellie's yard in 1964 with my stuffed bunny in my hand yelling "Goldwater for President!" By the time I was twenty, though, I had joined the Libertarian Party, and within a couple years I was out of there and farther to the left. I probably wasn't a full-fledged liberal till I was in my late twenties, but since then I've been getting progressively more and more liberal. Now I'm so liberal that nobody I like seems to have a chance of being elected to major office.

 

[Madhuri]

Hmm, asking this of an Australian is a bit tricky because the conservative party is actually called Liberal Party.
But I am a liberal person who does not like the Liberal Party because it is so conservative

 

[Father Heathen]

Hmm, asking this of an Australian is a bit tricky because the conservative party is actually called Liberal Party.
But I am a liberal person who does not like the Liberal Party because it is so conservative

Odd. Why would they go with such a misleading name?

 

[Madhuri]

Odd. Why would they go with such a misleading name?

I am not sure. Maybe when the party was developed it had liberal ideas for its time. But I'm not sure.

 

[Mercy Not Sacrifice]

My family was staunchly Republican on both sides. My mother's older sister became a Democrat in the 1960s, my mother's uncle was a Democrat, and my grandmother steadfastly refused to say whom she voted for. But by and large, the Republican Party was identified with all that was patriotic and all that was good and right about America. People talked about my aunt as if she were insane, and my grandfather used to say "they oughta take all the Democrats out behind the barn and shoot 'em." (He must have been thinking of a big barn.) You didn't question the war, but it was agreed that Nixon would handle it better than Johnson, and those Nixon girls were nice, respectable girls, not running around with movie stars like the Johnson girls. I remember my Uncle Zack saying that "Nixon might have been a crook, but he was my kind of crook."

All that crap was drilled into me early. I was born and bred Republican. I remember running through my Aunt Nellie's yard in 1964 with my stuffed bunny in my hand yelling "Goldwater for President!" By the time I was twenty, though, I had joined the Libertarian Party, and within a couple years I was out of there and farther to the left. I probably wasn't a full-fledged liberal till I was in my late twenties, but since then I've been getting progressively more and more liberal. Now I'm so liberal that nobody I like seems to have a chance of being elected to major office.

Yep, that sounds like 20th-century conservatives. Glad you got to taste some fresh air.

 

[RedNeill]

Im 22 & ever since I became aware of politics etc at around 15 I have been Liberal, although like other members I tend to lean further to the left the older I get. Im always rather un-ammused at how close to the centre our "Liberal" parties have got in the UK though, which leaves my full support behind the Lib Dems unfortunately they are not likely to get sole power for a long time I reckon.

 

[poseur]

Well, my mom was a major Clinton fan and I followed until late in high school when I realized that Clinton was a right wing neo-facist (and his wife is even more of one). I could probably be described as statist until close to adulthood. I was pro-life, anti-gay, and pro-religious indoctrination. But I was an environmentalist and a liberal in most of the economic issues I understood.

Once I started moving left socially Free Speech TV and Amy Goodman were the main forces behind my shift to the extreme left.

 

[Ordeet]

I see the transition to rigid conformism to a liberal mindset as a sign of maturity. People who conform are usually not thinkers and their minds are generally uneducated or immature.

I was rather apolitical until I got into college. Then seeing the way that some religious conservatives on my campus acted, I began to move more and more away from that.

 

[Midnight Pete]

I have both conservative and liberal values. As fas I know, this is the result of my natural temperament and how I was molded by my parents. I am generally apolitcal.

 

[AuroraWillow]

Being liberal is one area where I've retained the "beliefs" I was raised with. I wasn't necessarily raised strong political values, but the values I was taught coincide with liberal ones.

I did, however marry into a fiscally conservative family. Luckily they have the same ideas about social justice as I do.

 

[Revoltingest]

I get to sneak into your thread & vote cuz I'm a Classical Liberal.
Always have been....even before I knew my taxonomic label.

 

[tumbleweed41]

Came to my senses later in life. (OMG!!! I Voted for Bush the First!!)
Now a Socialist Liberal.

 

[poseur]

Well, by modern standards Daddy Bush would be viewed as too liberal to be a Republican. The Republicans already booted out Chafee and most other New Englanders from their party. And they are gunning for Snowe and Collins who they consider too liberal to represent their party.