Were you ever a repub or conserv?

[cynatnite]

Last edited Mon Jun 11, 2012, 09:34 PM - Edit history (1)

I called myself a repub some years ago. It was the Contract with America in 1994 that I switched parties. It was repugnant to me and I quit.

on edit: I was young and stupid back then.

Care to share your story?

[doc03]

1. Fell for the whole RR line of BS back in 1980. Didn't believe he

was anti-union, he was the only president that was a president of a union. The air traffic controllers firing changed my mind forever.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. Yes. IN 1976, I studied in the USSR on an exchange program.

I learned soviet history, russian literature, and the most amazing thing, AMERICAN history. For example, I did not know that the battle between the states was actually a precursor to the Soviet Union, with the north evil capitalists beating on the poor, hardworking socialists of the South. (slavery was the first step to communes, apparently).

When I got back to the US and A, I found myself being a hard core conservative, anti-communist, and worried about the state of our state. I've mellowed since, with Reagan being one conservative jerk too many for my taste. By the era of W, I found myself a complete and total liberal.

For every person who gets more conservative with age, I'd bet that there are some, like me, who do the reverse.

[Cary]

16. Look up Willard Ewart Gladstone.

I bet that exchange program was awesome.

[MineralMan]

3. Nowhere was I ever a repub or conserv.

NT (Neat Trick)

[madmom]

4. Never ever!

[ZombieHorde]

5. I favored the Libertarian Party until I learned the difference between them

and liberals. I think I may have voted Libertarian the first time I voted, or I wrote someone's name in. Either way, President Bill Clinton did not receive my vote, but I am glad that he won.

[SaB2012]

6. My political past is pretty shameful

And I loathe talking about it. It brings up too many bad memories.

[HappyMe]

7. Nope, never.

[noel711]

8. When I was in high school in the early '60s..

I joined the Young Republicans Club...
I'm showing my age now, so be nice.

I joined not due to political leanings,
but it was all guys,
and they were wonderful dates-
treated girls with respect,
weren't afraid to spend a little cash...
and didn't paw or grab.
They were nice guys.
Things have changed.

[corkhead]

9. I am ashamed to admit that when I was 8 I rooted for Archie and hated Meathead on All in the Family

I was a little slow on the uptick at that time. Thankfully, I came to my senses, with the help of Walter Cronkite, not too long after that.

[stuntcat]

45. still love Archie

Maybe it didn't seem this way back then, and to a kid, but watching the show now on TVLand it seems he kinda clowned on the man he was portraying.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

10. I remember the day (not the date) when I began to question authority.

I was 9 years old. I had been brought up a Lutheren but through a sequence of events was sent to live with Russian Orthodox Catholic relatives. They sent me to catacisim where a Nun told us that God was only to be found in the Catholic church. I knew even at 9 that this was bullshit and never accepted anything as an article of faith again. Questioning authority leads to progressive thinking. 53 years later, here I am.

[Motown_Johnny]

11. I considered myself a moderate but the 2000 election pushed me left

and with all the (R)s running to the right I ended up a radical liberal.


Weird.

[Tumbulu]

12. I went through a libertarian

phase while living in Arizona in the early 90's - so many of them there- my goodness- they had an impact on me, but I was registered Dem .

Then I went on a Ayn Rand reading craze while there.... devoured her odd books.... still registered as a Dem , but her tomes really put me under a strange spell, which thank goodness I awoke from. So I can relate to people a bit who get swept up in her frenzy.

Then registered Green for many years, but when Kucinich ran for Pres registered as a Dem and have been one since.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

13. NEVER!

[CrispyQ]

14. Never. -nt

[Liberal_in_LA]

15. no!

[Cary]

17. I am and always will be your liberal.

Live long and prosper!

[L0oniX]

18. I was totally against Clinton ...I still blame him for loss of jobs and the repeal of Glass–Steagal

[immoderate]

19. Libertarian in mid '60s...

I was a teenager. First got caught up in high school and considered it a style choice. Seriously. I supported Kennedy, but then moved over to Goldwater. I assimilated some Ayn Rand Objectivist bullshit. I was always for civil rights, but against federal intervention. But I grew up in integrated neighborhoods.

As I got closer to draft status my thinking about politics expanded. Gene McCarthy woke me up. The Berrigans, the Yippees. And I marched for George McGovern, maybe the smartest man to ever run for president.

--imm

[NNN0LHI]

20. No

My first memories of politics was JFK and have been a Dem ever since.

Don

[jp11]

21. Before I knew better I thought I was 'conservative' ish about certain issues

but always was a democrat it was more so that I was misinformed about what 'liberal' meant ie right wing smear. So I felt 'conservative' was a better representation of of what I felt where that was often touted as being 'sensible/reasonable'.

Only after time did I discover what conservative meant to republicans even back 10+ years ago when it was 'sane' compared to today it still wasn't me. As well as discovering what liberal really meant opened my eyes to better understanding what I believed and how it fit into our stupid system of disconnected politicians blah blah rant.

Basically not being engaged in politics and skimming the surface of what the media doled out I, incorrectly, thought what I knew conservative to mean to be more accurate than liberal to describe some of my positions.

[RebelOne]

22. Never, have been a Democrat since I was old enough to vote.

The first time I voted was for JFK for president and have voted Democratic ever since.

[ErikJ]

23. Brought up in very Conservative family-

My Dad was an MD and my mom had 8 kids. They were both from rural S Dakota and very conservative especially my mom.
I got a degree in biology and became environmentally aware which turned me against the GOP in my 20's.
My mom died when I was 11 but Dad ended up voting for Kerry in 2004 which surprised me.
My oldest sister is extremely liberal and my only bro is too.
All the rest of siblings are still very conservative.
Maybe it has to do with education?
My oldest sister, my bro and I all did very well in highschool and college and the others were C and D students in highschool.

[Blue_Tires]

24. I used to be "moderate" in my younger years

[TheKentuckian]

25. Meh...close was kind of a "sensible centrist" type in the 90's

Of course, I wasn't nearly as "sensible" as that sort is now but I had some economic nonsense drilled in that made me believe that capitalism just needed the right regulations to be broadly beneficial and was a bit more trusting on military matters.

[libinnyandia]

26. I grew up in a small midwestern town that was overwhelmingly Republican but I ws always a

Democrat. For years I thought my two brothers and I were the only Democrats from that town. When I opened a facebook account I found out that some of the kids I grew up with are liberals too.

[Speck Tater]

27. I was "moderate" and voted for people in both parties.

Including Reagan, for Gov of Calif.

Then everybody shifted so far to the right that without really changing my political beliefs I find myself to be way out on the left wing.

[Quantess]

28. No.

Mostly because I have always been a social progressive. The social conservatives always seemed like backwards, repugnant, cavemen to me.

[DLine]

29. I was..... I was dumb

First election i voted in was 2000 and I actually voted for W. Other than assuming everything Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity were telling me was right, I don't know what the hell I was thinking. I slowly made the turn between 2004 and 2006. By 2008 I was a solid left of center.

[DFW]

30. Never a Republican, always conservative, but never "A" conservative

There's a difference these days between being conservative and being "a" conservative, because the extremist American right has hijacked the meaning of both "conservative" and "liberal."

As far as what "conservative" means in English, yep, that's me. One first and only wife, two well-adjusted daughters, no drugs, not even nicotine or alcohol, no debts, no religion, have worked for the same outfit since I was recruited (1975) out of college, no fancy house, car or clothes, and I don't fly first class (unless they upgrade me, which happens maybe once every ten years).

But "a" conservative? Today, in Foxese, that designates a frothing-at-the-mouth, hate-driven, fear-driven, privilege-craving, gun-loving, violence-prone, emotionally unstable fanatic right-wing Republican. No, no, no, it ain't me, babe. Not now, not ever.

[hfojvt]

31. in some ways I think I still am

socially conservative, that is. But economically liberal, sorta the inverse of Clinton. I like things like progressive taxes and investment in infrastructure and poverty reduction programs like head start and Liheap and SNAP, and the EIC.

My story is that I grew up in conservative state, South Dakota, with conservative parents. My dad's dad was a Republican who hated FDR with a passion. My mom's paternal grandfather was a staunch Democrat, but he also died about 30 years before my mom was born. That's about all I know about family political beliefs.

I remember waiting at an airport to see RFK in 1968 when he visited my home town to pay homage to Hubert Humphrey, who was a local boy. The Humphrey Drug store in my home town was owned by his family.

I remember the election of 1972, when I was 10. At first I was supporting McGovern because I saw his yard signs while I walked home from school. Heck, he was our Senator, and we visited his office when we went to DC in 1975 or so.

But then I saw him on TV saying that the space program was a waste of money, and after that I hated him. As a ten year old boy, my sun rose and set on the space program.

I was pretty shook up when Nixon resigned. He had lied to me, but I still supported Ford. I stayed up late watching election returns in 1976, hoping that Ford would come from behind and pull it out. When I went to bed, it was still undecided. I remember watching the debates and sorta thought Ford got the better of Carter. Carter was attacking him for his vetoes, but Ford came back with all of Carter's vetoes as Governor of Georgia, and that really damaged his credibility in my eyes.

Once Carter was elected, the M$M spent four years tearing into him, probably especially in SD. As I wrote a few weeks back, Carter ended some water projects in western SD and somebody in the Carter administration made snide remarks about SD, like "Who cares about SD, nobody lives there anyway." At the time, I was also listening to Ronald Reagan on the radio. He had a little one minuite show that I probably heard every day, and to my teenage mind he seemed knowledgeable and sensible.

I watched all the debates and was contemptuous of Carter and supportive of Reagan. I was surprised that Kennedy did not win the primary though. I thought Carter was very unpopular. I did not consider myself a partisan though. I supported Reagan not because he was a Republican, I tried to evaluate both candidates. The same with the Senate. I did not oppose McGovern because he was a Democrat, nor really because of what he said about the space program 8 years earlier. I basically voted against McGovern because he already had 3 terms and I thought that was enough. I was 18 and he had been in the US Senate as long as I was alive. As far as I was concerned, he was no longer a South Dakotan, he was a Washington DC person. And he proved that for me - after he was defeated he did not come back to South Dakota to live.

I thought I was evaluating each candidate on his/her own merits, but I noticed that I voted straight ticket Republican, and I was prety happy with Reagan's big win and control of the Senate from the "Dumbocrats".

Then came college. I went to the liberal University of Minnesota and read the liberal Minnesota Daily, including the semingly liberal James r Lileks, of whom I was a huge fan. Somewhere in there I began to turn. I read some Studs Terkel, although I cannot remember much other history or political reading. I was reading more science fiction/fantasy than politics or economics. I was taking mostly physics and math courses.

Probably a big thing that turned me was facing reality. The reality of ME having to find a JOB. But some other things happened as well. I personally did not like Mondale, but Reagan basically fumbled and bumbled in some of the debates, so he lost my strong support, although I still did not like the alternative, who had the taint of Carter on him, and the Ferraro pick seemed like a cheap ploy.

One other huge thing was Jesse Jackson. He blew me away with his 1984 convention speech, although I did not want to admit it. I also thought he was pretty cool as host of SNL. Then I got a job, with the Military Industrial Complex when by that time I considered myself a socialist, although I am not sure how that happened or really what I meant by it. I cannot remember what I was reading at the time in that regard. I do remember reading Hans Kung's "Does God Exist?" as well as my roommate's textbooks on European History and anthropology. The Vonnegut came later, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman and EF Schumacher and Howard Zinn much later, during graduate school after I lived for a year in the woods trying, without any success at all, to grow my own food, although I did keep from freezing to death (probably helped significantly by my dad's chainsaw).

By 1988, I was a registered Democrat voting for Jesse Jackson in the Wisconsin primary and then for Dukakis in the fall. But I expected him to be a front runner in 1992, and I did not like Clinton. I considered Clinton to be a DINO, and voted for a socialist worker candidate in the 1992 election. I considered Bush Sr. to be a moderate compared to Reagan and didn't mind if he got re-elected (which I knew my vote might help make happen). Even in the 1990s though I voted for the moderate Republican Scott Klug for Wisconsin - twice. Each time it seemed to me that the Democrats had worse candidates. In retrospect though, that was probably foolish because that supposed moderate just became a rubber stamp for Gingrich anyway.

In Iowa, I became more involved, although I never even got to see Gore much less meet him. I had been writing occasional letters to the editor since the late 1980s, and in 2000 I got involved doing phone banking on election day after I went to hear a speech by the Governor in Charles City. Then in 2004, the Democratic headquarters was right next to a place where I shopped, so I started volunteering in the headquarters and became a precinct person and then treasurer in 2008 and a candidate in 2009, 2010 and 2012. I did a fair amount of volunteer work in the 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010 elections, trying to defeat Ryun and re-elect Boyda and help the rest of the ticket.

But that does not mean I will be in 100% agreement with "the party". In fact, I had to laugh because I witnessed a vociferous argument between our chair and our vice chair over gun control. I was laughing thinking 'that's my party - a herd of cats'.

[renate]

39. wow--you really put a lot of thought into this!

I'm very impressed by your memory of the names and events that shaped your beliefs. You really questioned your own beliefs and changed them when it seemed like the right thing to do; I admire that. I have to admit that I have never had to sit down and think about being a Democrat or a liberal; it's in my DNA and every brain cell and I can't imagine ever being anything else.

I couldn't help noticing that you said James Lileks was a liberal; my sister in Minnesota says otherwise. I wonder whether he's changed his political beliefs--or maybe my sister is wrong, or perhaps he's just not as liberal as our family tends to be so he seems conservative to her--but like you I am (regardless of his affiliation) a huge fan.

I'm bummed that McGovern said the space program was a waste of money. I hadn't known that. Oh well--nobody's perfect.

[hfojvt]

54. well, Lileks was from North Dakota - a bastion of conservatism

much like South Dakota. I think he had to write like a liberal to be part of the Minnesota Daily, but after that found more money and perhaps his true leanings in being conservative. I actually called him when he was living in DC and asked him about getting his column in the local paper. I also sent him an email bemoaning his conservatism, but never heard back. Somewhere around my house, if I still have it, I have a box of his columns from the Minnesota Daily. I was joking with him that I could perhaps publish them as "Lileks, the early years". He was like "Oh Lord, you could probably blackmail me with that."

I thought it was funny stuff. One I remember was "Diary of a bad conservative" which was sorta 1984 style humorous prose. He was writing that conservatives all got lobotomies and that was why Reagan's head wobbled, because they put the counter-weights in wrong after his lobotomy, but then the hero of the story, after losing his conservative faith, gets a forced lobotomy.

As for McGovern, remember that is what I heard as a ten year old boy. His answer was perhaps more nuanced saying that we had serious problems in the USA that were more important than yet another moon mission. But I heard it as blasphemy.

[Blue_In_AK]

32. I've never thought of myself as a Republican or registered as one.

I've always been registered a Democrat. But I have voted for a few Republicans in my lifetime because they were better candidates than the Dem. I think the last time I voted for a Republican was back in the early '90s. The only person who ever dared run against Ted Stevens was crazy as a bedbug, to the point of being a real joke, so I voted for Ted until the Greens started running someone I could vote for in good conscience. Ted was a Republican, of course, but at least he didn't have aversions to working with Democrats, and he and his staff did come to my aid on certain issues on more than one occasion. He was pro-choice, among other positions that you don't see Republicans taking these days.

[Raine]

33. I registered repub in 1972 when I was eligable to vote. I was repub till 1979 or 80 when I

switched to Democrat. I was never conservative though, I was a moderate repub so were my parents. After Raygun took control of the party when he ran for president all of us became Democrats. We wanted nothing to do with the conservatives in the repub party.

[trixie]

34. NO!

[Pyrzqxgl]

35. No

I first registered to vote in 1960 & voted for Kennedy as a Democrat. My father registered to vote in
1930 as a Democrat & his Father before him. I had a brief fling with The Peace & Freedom party over
the war in Viet Nam but became a Democrat again in time to work for Bobby Kennedy & ultimately
vote for Humphrey. Since then I've never failed to vote and always for the Democrat.

[turtlerescue1]

36. There was a group of us Dems.

laughingly decided to re-register as GOP, hope was to get enough of us that they would foolishly spend fundings with no return. Likely a little too much smokin and jokin at the time.

[Luciferous]

37. Never- I grew up in a very liberal household, maybe that had something to do with it.

[laundry_queen]

55. It probably did.

I grew up in a conservative household - although not american brand conservative - Canadian conservative which meant they hated religion and loved their single payer health care. Still, they were typical hypocritical authoritarians who wanted 'their money' to themselves and screw everyone else. Anyone who didn't believe the same thing they did were roundly trashed as "idiots, losers, dumbasses" It was an abusive household, but when you were apt to agree with them on a political point, you received many accolades about your degree of intelligence. So, in a way, I was pretty brainwashed. Agree with them - you were golden. Disagree with them, you were called all kinds of names and your intelligence was called into question. As a child who was always looking for approval I always agreed with them.

I remember coming home from school once and telling them we did a political quiz that was questions about our core values and I discovered I was a Liberal (big L). My parents were PISSED. "YOU are NOT a LIBERAL" my dad bellowed.They were actually going to make a big stink at the school about them 'brainwashing' their kid. They only didn't because I begged them not to and told them the teachers and students would hate me (they thought being cool was pretty important )

In my first election I voted for a far right party. Looking back now, I really was just parroting what my parents had told me. Actually a friend of mine and I both discussed this and he ended up voting a little further to the left than I did (one party over, lol). He is also now very far left. As he said, most of us don't know what the heck we are doing when we are 18.

I then moved in with (and had babies with) a 'redneck'. It was only after I started having babies that my views shifted. Lots of people online challenging my world views on different non-political message boards. The *second* after 9-11 that I heard "attack Iraq" I just knew everything I had ever been told about the right was all crap and it was all a lie. I shifted very far to the left after that and never looked back

I think moving away from my parents and being allowed to form my own views helped. The internet was the MAIN factor in everything. Information was key.

[NoPasaran]

38. Not only No but HELL NO

I used to be a socialist until I admitted that humankind's socialist future would be something future generations would see.

[ashling]

40. I think I know what you think you said,

but I don't know if you realize what you said actually means

http://www.supaproofread.com/article_info.php?articles_id=62

[cynatnite]

42. Big double oops...

[ashling]

43. The post that I replied to

Where you ever a repub or conserv?

uses the word "where" - generally used to indicate physical presence -

I don't know, maybe you meant what planet were you on when you were a conservative.

Or I guess you could have been asking about a mixture of several fruits cooked to jamlike consistency with sugar and often garnished with nuts and raisins.

So sorry I misunderstood

[cynatnite]

44. Okay, I'm going back to my rock and living under it for the next millenium...

Sorry, I was feeling rather pathetically sorry for myself.

Disregard that.



on edit: I know better...I really do. I'm so embarrassed I screwed that up.

[ashling]

46. As long as you are truly contrite

and don't hold it against me that I am being an overbearing pompous ass, then I guess we're ok

[cynatnite]

47. Totally...

[yortsed snacilbuper]

41. No way,

never!

[socialist_n_TN]

48. I became a Trotskyist at 20 in 1971.........

and I'm still a Trotskyist today. I vote Dem because there's no other choice.

[Marr]

49. I accepted a lot of right-wing frames well into my twenties, and

called myself an "Independent". You know-- that South Park style, arrogant know-nothing sort of outlook, where you think "both" sides are just oh so silly.

Anyway, one day as I was driving home from college and listening to some right-wing talk show host (Larry Elder, ugh), a caller suggested people read Noam Chomsky before the host very quickly cut him off. I really couldn't imagine why the host was so anxious to cut that off, so I stopped into a bookstore and picked up Chomsky's Understanding Power, which was a collection of essays and talks he'd given. I was fully prepared to skim it a bit and dismiss him as the mirror image of kooks on the right, but after reading a chapter or two, I had to admit that he was making some solid arguments.

I read that book cover to cover in a few days, and I kid you not-- I had a splitting headache for two days after I'd finished. I actually felt physically ill. So many of the positions that I'd just casually accepted, but never actually analyzed (even though they felt somehow incomplete or contradictory), suddenly made perfect sense, and the picture they formed was nothing like the happy little world I'd inhabited a few days previously.

[Solly Mack]

50. Fuck no.

[Rittermeister]

51. Until a year ago I was

I was one of those cool, intellectual, fiscal conservatives who accepted as a matter of course that the wise should rule over the stupid.

[ashling]

52. I am a liberal democrat by blood

My great grandfather was a Texas populist in the 1880's and I grew up on stories of how the farmer's in Texas fed the striking railroad workers in 1886 (might have the date wrong.)
And the Cleburne Convention (as in the Cleburne"byGod"Demands: government regulation or ownership or railroads, telegraphs, and banks -I live in Cleburne) where a farmer from Bonham intoned "if you listen to those other classes you will end up with three rights - the right to work, the right to starve, and the right to die." The radical roots in Texas.

My Dad was a country doctor who was for government health insurance before it was cool (in 1948) and my Mom was a social worker who worked for the WPA and then the Red Cross in Burma in 1944 .... about how the roadside parks in Texas were the product of the New Deal (The Youth Progress Administration headed by a young Texas politician with the initials LBJ) as well as other projects including the one that helped my Dad go to college ....

and about how the campgrounds in our National Parks and State Parks where we spent a lot of summers growing up had been built by an innovative program - the CCC- ...

and listening to my dad's corny (but very realistic) impersonation of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: "The O-N-L-Y thing we hahve to feah' is feah' itself.

and listening to my grandmother talk about voting for JFK ... campaigning for LBJ when I was 12 years old.

and my mom taking us around to the back of the hamburger stand when the lady at the window told the old black gentleman in front of us that he would have to order at the back door. I'll never forget my mom saying "We're no better than he is." I had already known for years never to use the N word.


I remember lots of things like that growing up. I was not told, I was shown that human beings were to be open handed, open hearted, and open minded (whichjust happens to be a definition for "Liberal" in the dictionary.) I read a paper that my daughter wrote in college in which she said that she had learned growing up from watching her father (that would be me )
three things to live by:

1) If its important enough to do, it's important enough to do right
2) Leave it better than you found it, and
3) If you have the ability to help (ie, make a difference) then you had the responsibility to help

Bright kid ... oh, and by the way, everybody has the ability to help.

In short, I could never have been anything else but a liberal/progressive/social Democrat.

[rufus dog]

53. No - I have always had a great Bullshit meter

Hard enough to be a Democrat, no way would I fall for the Bullshit from the Repukes.