Were you a feisty liberal kid?

[m-jean03]

When I was in fifth grade there was this Republican kid Keith, and me and my friend Cameron were the Democrats -- we were the most politically informed of all the kids so the teacher used to pit us against each other, and we'd get so mad at each other --- but it was sooooo much fun!

Were you a flaming liberal at a young age or did you come into your views later in life?

[Kamika]

1. I had no clue about politics until the last election

I was a serious bimbo before the last election (I'm 22).. man..
If you had asked me I would definetly have said I was a republican though, but I had no clue what Clinton was..


I would slap my younger self if I could

[EstimatedProphet]

2. Yup, sure was

I was politically aware at an early age (pre-teens), likely because my dad kept bringing home other college students to hang out.

[goobergunch]

3. I'm 16

And I've been a liberal since at least age 5 (I can vaguely remember being happy that Clinton was elected in 1992), except when I supported impeachment in 1998-9.

[Pithlet]

That's the first election I voted in.

I voted for Clinton. This is my first official "I feel old" post.

Edit: Ths was in response to goobercrunch post#3. I don't know why it didn't show up that way.

[MercutioATC]

4. Nope, I was a Republican kid...

I was a poor Republican when i was a kid...once I made money I became a Democrat.


How screwed up am I??????

[stepnw1f]

5. I was Liberal however,

I was too busy keeping myself from getting my face bashed in, while growing up in the city of Boston. Didn't really know I was a liberal.

[rucky]

6. 7th grade political debate in social studies class

teacher told the liberals to go to one side of the room & the conservatives to the other side. It was me against the rest of the class.

[cedahlia]

30. I shared a similar experience

Only it was 12th grade American Government class, and I would occasionally be joined by a goofy stoner friend of mine who was apolitical but wanted to offer moral support...that was on the days when he came to school, which weren't often, though, so it really was me vs. the rest of the class! Ah, good times. :-)

Incidentally, my teacher was a conservative, but I think he really respected me for being brave enough to challenge the whole class and win the debates.

[lcordero]

7. Nope, I was(still am) a vicious leftist

[Mass_Liberal]

8. yes

and still am. Socialist 14 year old. I'd like to think I've been progressive since the day I was born :evilgrin:

[IronLionZion]

9. nah I was a Republican who didn't care

until the 2000 election when I was supporting first McCain and then Gore. It wasn't until this summer that I changed my registration to Democrat.

[MrSlayer]

10. Much later in life.

I bought all the Repug rhetoric because I was brought up that way. Through life experience I decided they were wrong.

[Lizz612]

11. Oh yeah!

I begged my mother to let me stay up in '92 but I was 7 and had school in the morning. I remember loosing a penny on a bet on the St. Paul mayoral election where Sandy Pappas lost to Norm "The Weasel" Colman. And man was I bitter! I worked hard alphabetising for that campaign!

[Djinn]

12. was a leftie in the womb

before I even knew what politics was I had certain beliefs namely that money shouldn't determine your ability to get a decent education and health care and that the people who work tend to be more productive to society than those who happened to be born to the right parents.

As a 10 year old my favourite book was Animal Farm. I've been voting since way before I turned 18 - I knew tonnes of older people who didn't give a shit so they just let me decide for them (note I didn't committ fraud THEY voted I just suggested)

I would have been suspended from High School when as a 40kg spit of a girl I got into a fight with our resident Neo Nazi (looking back I think poor Rodney was just looking for attention in his Union jack shirt, braces and swastika badges, he'd been a no account nerd for most of his schooling and atleast this way people knew who he was) but the teachers all kind of wanted to smack him too so I just got told off.

Both my folks are lefties but out of 4 kids only 2 are what you'd call interested in politics so I think a bit of nurture and nature comes into it.

[not_in_my_name]

13. Definitely a feisty liberal kid!

My father was a lifer in the Navy and we got into it big time during dinner many moons ago about Viet Nam when I was a mere wisp of a lass - he ended up serving me a helping of mashed potatoes directly to my face!

[m-jean03]

20. Welcome to DU, not_in_my_name --

I can so relate -- I was lucky that many gatherings with my extended family didn't end up the same way. I used to go hide in the garden and read which was very cold at Christmastime.

[not_in_my_name]

23. I still "hide" in the garden

but now, it's my garden and everything grows wild and free!

[Lostmessage]

14. To say the least...I gave my pet pig a shower one time.

I use to play trampoline on my Mom's couch and it was in front of a picture window and I jumped so high I went through it. I had to have 150 stitches and my Mom fainted that day.

One time my Mom was teaching me to swim in the pool and I jumped up and down in the water and I broke several of her teeth out.

Another time I was testing a ketchup bottle at a store and I shook it up and it exploded in her face.

At one of my birthday parties we were playing musical chairs and I sat on a boy and I wouldn't let him up. He looked like John John Kennedy and I was only 6 years old.

I use to tackle boys at School and make them kiss me and then I would let them go.

[flamingyouth]

15. I attended anti-Vietnam war protests in my stroller

Of course, my mom was pushing me. But my heart was in it, really! :silly:

[Lizz612]

24. I was in my stroller

When my beautiful wonderful mother got into a verbal fight with a pro-life outside a Planed Parenthood. Mom, I love you!:loveya:

[Bertha Venation]

16. Hah!

I was a fundamentalist evangelical Christian until young adulthood.

I do remember my first foray into politics, though. I attended public school from '68-'81 in Southern California. In 1977 I started high school, just out of an elementary school where I was involved in the music program. I learned what Prop 13 would do to our schools and worked against it.

Fat lot of good it did me. Greedy, shortsighted Californians.... rasser frasser....

[solinvictus]

17. Youth for Reagan

Nope, I came by my current views because of Chimp. I'm still fairly conservative on some social issues, but nowhere near the extent of a decade ago.

[corporatewhore]

18. A feisty liberal in a Fundie School eeks!!!

school teacher called zoo lady on a feild trip a satanist because she said evolution was possible

[salinen]

19. Dad was Nixon/Goldwater man

I listened to rock and grew my hair long. He hated my liberalism even though I had no idea what a liberal was. Poor fucker never gave up the crusade, and died very unhappy.

[corporatewhore]

22. My mom took me out of the school when teach said homosexual were going to

rot in hell

[carols]

21. I was always just cynical

which prepared me nicely for any political affinities which encouraged questioning authority. Also prepared me for a career in software testing, but that's another story :-)
Carol

[scarlet_owl]

25. Yup. I was in the Young Democrats.

[Laszlo_Hollyfeld]

26. Not really.

Most of the folks around here are pretty liberal, and I don't remember any of my grade school teachers encouraging kids to argue about anything, politics included.

When I got to be a bit older I remember watching high school debate teams go at each other. The Young Republicans always seemed the more tightly wound, board up the butt kind of people. The liberals always seemed to be the reasonable ones.

I guess that means I've always identified more with liberals.

[Wonder_Cow]

27. hell, I [i]am[/i] a feisty liberal kid

I'm a junior in highschool, my friends (liberal) have gotten into some great arguemts with groups of conservatives. Of course, they out number, out weigh, and (probably) out gun us so my friends try to keep debate calm.

Theres so many conservatives at my school, it pisses me off. We even have a patriot club.

[Djinn]

28. it's a bit scary

the amount of posts I've seen from young DUers who seem to be in the minority at school is a bit weird to me - in Australia the fundie kids would be a tiny minority, a lot of cool kids here probably grow up to be the worst kind of reactionary freaks but being one when you're under 18 seems almost criminal

[2Sailsgirls]

29. Does Sophmore year of high school count ?

if so then i was libral as a child. Really the only time I have ever considered myself a republican was when i was a little kid and talked to my dad about politics and how to end unemployment and he said that my plan made me a republican? Kinda odd, Huh?

[Ellen Forradalom]

31. Hell yeah

I worked at our local McGovern campaign office when I was nine years old, addressing and stuffing envelopes.

[LastKnight]

32. not was I AM

in my 'rebellious teen' years and im as far left as the come without being communist...

-LK

[blondeatlast]

33. In HS I went through the de rigeur "socialist" phase.

I've wised up just a bit, but not much. On paper, it's still a good idea.

[AlFrankenFan]

34. Since I was six

Right now I'm in 8th grade, and I didn't really get in to politics till I was in 5th. But when I was with my dad when I was six, as usual, he was listening to Rush Limbaugh blame Clinton, the year being 1996. My dad tried to give me a Dole button, and when he asked why I didn't want it, I replied, "I don't like Bob Dole and I don't like Rush Limbaugh, they're big bullies! I like Clinton cause he's a Democrat!" And of course this was like poison to his ears, and he punished me.

In 5th grade we held a mock election, and I got to be Al Gore, a kid named JT got to be Bush. I overwhelmingly got support from my class and won the mock election.

And even today, except for me and about three of my friends, kids still ask me, "What are you talking about?" and the only things they know about politics are either the ideas their parents implant in their heads or what they learn from me. Always during jazz band I talk with my music teacher, whom by the way is a Repub, and make fun of the government and Bush.

[m-jean03]

42. Hey man, you sound really cool -

I know what it's like to be the socially concerned geek. It sounds like you are having a lot of fun with your politics. We would have been pals in school, I think.:-)

[Breezy du Nord]

35. Just the other day I got into a heated debate

over abortion with a girl in my social studies class. It was very fun.

[Cush]

36. Pierced my ear in 4th grade (w/ rat tail)

We were at Kings Dominion and I saw a baby with an earring, asked my mom if I could get one, and she said yes. Then I bleached my bangs in 7th grade (I was a litte skate rat)

I guess you could call this "liberal behavior". I was even told "that jocks are better than punks"

Oops, forgot the 10th grade. We were in Manassas at the time, and jsut about all of my friends were Republicans (one even had that Bill Clinton Watch that went backwards...Rush Limbaugh thing) so I took a lot of flack when I had a Clinton/Gore button on my backpack

I'm 26 y/o right now.

[ldoolin]

37. I was the kid who...

...used to circulate petitions in *elementary school* demanding kids' lib and various changes at the school. Most of the other kids didn't know what a "petition" was.

I was a bad, bad, naughty, radical rabble rouser. Must have picked it up from my McGovern-voting parents or something.

[Arugula Latte]

38. I was a feisty liberal teenager

As a kid I was a Repub because Mom & Dad were (in their defense they were pretty moderate and went Dem. for good in '92.) What turned me was that piece of crap Reagan. I found him appalling (still do) and I was so disgusted that my parents voted for that stupid moron. (Mom only did it once.) James Watt was my personal bette noire. Dad and I would get into it a bit at the dinner table. But, the wingnuts went too far and lost them over abortion, school prayer, and the environment. To my parents' credit, they always thought organized religion was a bunch of malarky, fairy tales, and brainwashing.

[silverlib]

39. Yep - a liberal

In the 7th grade, I argued with against capital punishment and was punished by having to write a 10,000 work essay about my views. I don't think the teacher thought I would do it, but I did. Today, I was talking with a friend who is seventy and he topped me greatly. He was raised in Utah and during the war there was a Japanese "camp" a few miles outside of town. He told he teachers and classmates that this was no better than slavery and he was ashamed of his country. He was in the fifth grade and by the time he was through, his school administration negotiated with officials and were allowed to bring Japanese children into his school. This made my measly 10,000 word essay about my stand on capital punishment seem pretty wimpy. Although he also stood for the Indians, who were brought off the reservations during the war to help in fields, he wasn't able to make any changes. He says that some were forced to live in pig sties with cardboard covers.

[dawn]

40. I was anti-establishment..

Since the age of 13 when I got into punk and gothic music. (those were the days, eh?) I wanted to grow up and be an anarchist. tee hee.

When I was 18, I registered as a member of the Peace and Freedom party. I was probably one of the only members in my small town, but I liked that party because they wanted to legalize weed. (my priorities at the time I suppose).

I changed to "Decline to State" and then to the Green party. I became a Democrat when I was 28, about 5 years ago.

But yeah, I've always been left-of-center.

[Seldona]

41. Always was a liberal. But scrappy.

I recall one time I was walking home from school and I saw a football player tossing one of the special eds kids books into a creek.

I was about 2/3 his size, but put him right on his ass into the creek. :)

About 10 years later I am at a local tavern, and someone taps me on the shoulder.

It was the kid whose books were tossed into the creek.

Only now he is about 3 times my size and a Marine.

I didn't buy another drink all night.

He still makes a point of stopping into our coffee shop when he comes into town.

I just love that story.

[annonymous]

43. I was politically unaware as a kid.

I did not get interested in politics until election 2000.

[Edge]

44. Heh...fiesty is an understatement...

I had ADHD...so I was much worse.

[DS1]

45. I was a feisty Anarchist more than anything else

[skippysmom]

46. absolutely!

In 1972, at 6 months old, I attended my first political rally. There are pictures of my dad holding me, with an "I Love McGov" sign in the background.

In 1980, at age 8, I was one of only a handful of kids who voted for Carter in the school's mock election.

In 1982, at age 10, I was asking the priest at CCD all sorts of questions as to why women couldn't be priests.

In 1988, at age 16, my application essay for college focused on why women got the short shrift in sports.

And in 1992, at age 20, voted in my first presidential election, for Clinton.

[geniph]

47. When I was eight years old,

I told a priest that Transubstantiation was ritual cannibalism. Does that answer your question?

[beyurslf]

48. I went to a small private Christian school

In 1992, I was the only person in the whole school who "voted" for Bill Clinton.