Were you ever a dittohead or a republican?

[UdoKier]

Were you ever a dittohead or a republican?

I was - 1989 to 1994.

What a shithead I was then.

[liberal N proud]

1. My brain is configured differently than repukes

I care about other people and their future.
It is not about the here and now and me.

[ewagner]

2. There was a time

in Florida where Republicans were the party of change against the old, segregationist south....and against Johnson's war in Viet Nam...

obviously, things have changed.........

[yardwork]

3. I've always been a Democrat, but I got complacent and moderate

I believed a lot of the lies about the Clintons. I got irritated with fellow liberals and started talking about the need for fiscal accountability.

Then W came along and slapped me right back into reality. I've been radicalized.

[Maat]

4. When I was in my early 20's.

The best job I could get was working for a certain defense contractor making Stingers in SoCal - in Accounting. All I heard was how great Reagan was for the country. I wasn't that politically aware then.

Being a therapist-intern and a social worker woke me up.

BTW, where did those Stinger shoulder-fired missiles end up? Hmmm..... see rumors on the Internets.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Always been a Green, but was a bit naive about politics and figured

that I could slack off if the right people were in office.

WRONG!

-----------------------------------
Would Jesus love a liberal? You bet!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/

[sandnsea]

6. Always a Democrat

But saw the backlash coming back in the late 80's. Around the time the seat belt laws were passed. There's only so much nannying a person can take. If we are the mommy party, which I don't buy, but if we are; we didn't learn the rule of being a good mommy, pick your battles.

[immoderate]

7. Other. Objectivist.

In college I picked up Ayn Rand and Russell Kirk and that branch of libertarianism. Civil rights, anti-war, and women's movements woke me up, especially when the racists and fundies jumped on board with the Republicans.

--IMM

[MercutioATC]

8. When I was younger and poor, I was a Republican.

Now that I'm older and financially stable, I'm a Democrat.

That's backwards, isn't it?

[quiet.american]

9. What happened?

To UdoKier,

Would be sincerely interested to know what got through to you to change your politics?

[UdoKier]

10. Short version

My dad was in charge of the regional Dept. of Labor, wage hour division, so I watched as he tried to make sure employers paid their employees (in El Paso, there were a LOT of violations) while dealing with Reagan's budget cuts, hostile labor secretaries and government shutdowns. I was pretty much a liberal democrat, outraged by Iran/Contra even though most of the white kids at my wealthy high school were Reagan lovers. I took a lot of flak for supporting Dukakis/Bentsen from EVERYBODY but my dad.

But after that, I was delivering pizzas and started listening to that pig back in 1988, and was slowly won over. ( I still remember him playing the Darth Vader theme music for Gorbachev Updates!) and I swallowed his line until about 1994. I noticed that Bill Clinton was elected, and rather than things going to hell as Limbaugh predicted, they got better!

So I started to get BOOKS - no, not "The Way Things Ought to Be" or that fake enviro-science book by Dixy Lee Ray that Limbaugh likes to promote. No, I read "The Grapes of Wrath", Chomsky, history books - Zinn - all kinds of things to get a different perspective on things.

Marrying a foreigner and spending five years living overseas broadened my horizons too. When I came back, Limbaugh was STILL repeating the same moronic catchphrases as when I left.

Raising kids also makes you look at things like dead soldiers, war, etc. differently.

I think growth as a person tends to make you more liberal. Stagnation in human development tends to make you more reactionary and rightwing.

[quiet.american]

14. Thank you

...for that great reply. It's great to hear from one who decided to think for himself, rather than stick with the path of least resistance.

As Randi Rhodes would say, "you, sir, are a real man." :) (I'm assuming you're a guy, sorry if I'm wrong!)

[Roland99]

11. I was a "Michael J. Fox" Republican

;)

In my formative high school years, Family Ties was the hot show and I identified with his character on that show. Plus, I hung out with the future doctors, lawyers, CPAs, etc. We were pretty much a Young Republicans group.

[Lone Pawn]

12. I was a neocon before they were popular.

And yeah, I mean foreign-policy only. More an extension of Kennedy-era thought. I saw the future being an American-Chinese rivalry, and I thought the neocons had better ideas as to outmanuvering Beijing. However, as they became more and more obsessed with Iraq and turning the Mideast into an economically-dependent neocolony region, I began to have hesitations, especially as they allowed China to gain an incredible advantage vis-a-vis the national debt and Chinese borrowing. And then came 9/11. And they overextended themselves. They focused entirely on staying in political power. And while I thought that when it came to the mideast stability project they at least recognized that the area would become more and more destabilized as oil reserves ran low, they fought this campaign like they fought the cold war. And it makes sense: the guys in charge were all cold war veterans of the pentagon and state department. Of course, I was pissed off that Bush seemed insistent on increasing our reliance on mideast oil, rather than trim back so we could step out of that hellhole when it collapsed. And so I stopped being neoconservative.

Yes, I still believe in American power projection. No, I don't believe it should be done so clumsily and militarily as we did it. Yes, I still think we should be hawkish towards China. No, I don't think we should ever go to war with China. Yes, I think the Middle East will have to be stabilized either through internal or external pressures. No, I don't think we've actually done anything to actually stabilize it since the decolonializations.

So yeah, I was a neoconservative liberal.
No, I've never voted for a Republican presidential candidate.

[Cat Atomic]

13. I used to be pretty moderate, and I naively believed that all people

basically want the same thing: to raise the quality of life for everyone. I actually believed that. I just thought conservatives had different opinions on how best to achieve that goal.

I now realize that some people want to subjugate others, and that "we" can't be determined by looking at a map or a flag.

[dean_dem]

15. I guess I was a conservative...

There's a difference. I think as far as party affiliation goes, I was more of a libertarian. I also used to listen to some of the talk-radio shows, and get "outraged" like a good little sheep. But during that whole Clinton impeachment scandal, it became pretty obvious that the people I thought I identified with originally had completely lost any sense of reason or decency. It wasn't long before I saw that for what it really was.
Not my finest moment, but I saw the light and haven't looked back since.

[Stinky The Clown]

16. I was a John Bircher

I graduated Catholic HS in 1965. The school is was in placed us in class according to ability (to start) and then by GPA (for upper classmen), so I was surrounded by others who actually enjoyed thinking and debating. While we were in a working class area of Connecticut, those I hung with were intellectual. I came to see the basic precepts of conservatism as taught by the old guys in line with my own thinking. Of course, this didn't play well with my parents or family - Depression era, service in WWII, working class, FDR Democrats. But I spouted quotes from William Buckley. I was on fire with my rabidism.

I served in the Navy (volunteer). I went to college on the GI bill. I gradjiated. I got married. I campaigned for Nixon! I thought, at that time, John O'Neill, in his famous debate with Kerry on the Cavett show, was on the right side of the issue.

But ....... I had never felt segregation was right (at age 5, my first "girlfriend" was a black girl, whose name I still remember!). I always felt we owed a real debt to our elders and a part of that was continuing care for them. I never felt the poor chose their circumstances. I was appalled by the overt racism I always saw around me (yep, even in Connecticut, from the time I was aware of it, I saw it).

By the time I was 30, I was pretty conflicted. I drifted more to the moderate in terms of my views. But I continued to vote Republican. Reagan twice. Bush once. And then, listening to him at the 92 convention I heard something that scared the shit out of me. I had long ago left Catholicism, but here was Bush, blatantly pandering to the religious right. IIRC it was about gays, but I'm not sure. I just remember the impression and I recall VERY clearly deciding, during that speech, I would vote for Clinton. I clearly recall saying to my wife, "That's it, George, you just lost me! I'm voting for Clinton." I did that twice - vote for Clinton, that is.

I stayed a registered Republican, however. Until impeachment. At this point, I'm living in Maryland. I was, at the time, represented by that ugly old fungus Roscoe Bartlett. I sent him a fax asking that he do the right thing and oppose impeachment (riiiiight .... a guy with a 100% conservative voting score in Congress). It was at this same time I went to the election board and changed my party registration.

I still find somewhat offensive some of the more egregious "mommy" stuff that dems have wrought on our country. But in the main, I am very happy in this party. It represents more of who I am than the current republican party does.

I am socially ultra liberal (and I guess I always have been). Fiscally ..... I can't say conservative ...... how about "responsible"? I strongly believe we have an actual, moral obligation to take care of all our citizens, particularly those who can't take care of themselves. I believe in a strong national posture, but am not a hawk in the current sense of the word. More in the Teddy Roosevelt vein ... soft talk/big stick.

I also think we need to be much, much more even handed with Israel. I see that single issue as the key to settling this issue with the Islamic world. It is my belief that once we have a sovereign, safe, functional Palestine, the rest will take care of itself. Somebody needs to reign in Sharon and his hard liners. Not to leave a weakened Israel, but to allow the whole issue to finally be settled.

Anyway, sorry to be so long winded, but it was nice to be able to put this in one place. Thanks for the poll!