I'm curious. How long have you been calling yourself

[socialist_n_TN]

a "leftist". For me it's been 40+ years. I even was a "leftist" during the Reagan years.

I ask because this term seems to be gaining a LOT in popularity during the last couple of years. Did you consider yourself and SELF IDENTIFY as a "leftist" when Clinton was President? Bush I? W? Reagan? Previous to Reagan?

[Warpy]

1. Uh, yeah, when I was 12

and stomping out "BAN THE BOMB" on a beach near Parris Island.

[mitchtv]

2. since 1968

wrote in McCarthy instead of voting HHH

[BlueMTexpat]

6. And your vote is one of the reasons that Tricky Dick won ... n/t

HHH was one of the original liberal Dems

[mitchtv]

10. no balls. no vote

my vote is earned. HHH could have come out againt the war. He lacked the cohones

[Blue_In_AK]

17. I didn't vote at all that year.

I was a hippie living in Denver at the time, so I just watched the Chicago convention on TV. I was SO pissed off, I didn't vote and completely dropped out after that for about four years. Tuned in, turned on and dropped out. It made perfect sense at the time.

[one_voice]

3. I knew I was a Democrat in high school...

to be honest I really didn't hear the term "leftist" much until recently. And the first couple of times it was said with disdain. I didn't follow politics as closely then as I do now. And I'm doing a lot of reading, on things I missed out on.

[sandnsea]

8. A Democrat is generally not a leftist

A leftist, in everyday speaking, is generally more politically aligned with someone like Chavez.

[Davis_X_Machina]

12. Splitter!

Sadly, no one remembers the Front Populaire any more, or the lessons of its fracture.

[inna]

27. typical. :eyes:

And... Viva Chavez btw, since you brought him up.

[sandnsea]

34. Is Chavez a leftist?

Is he a Democrat?

Does he have the same political views as Russ Feingold?

Would Russ Feingold describe himself as a leftist?

Terms have meanings and there isn't a thing in the world wrong with that. And if you love Chavez, yeah you. You're perfectly welcome to be a leftist if you want to be. Nobody said otherwise.

[socialist_n_TN]

40. For once we agree...............

Chavez is a leader that actually tries to do things for PEOPLE rather than corporations and wealthy capitalists. Unlike ALL Republicans and WAY too many people who call themselves Democrats nowdays.

[socialist_n_TN]

43. Now days you are correct. In the past, not so much....

FDR is more alligned with Chavez than a lot of Dems of today.

[sandnsea]

44. bwahahaha

Socialists hated FDR. Read some history.

[notadmblnd]

4. Not only have I called myself a leftie since I was about 3. My entire family calls me leftie

to this day. It happened one day when I was young, my mother denied me a Popsicle and I decided to not only question her authority, but to go against it. The result was a broken right arm when the rocking horse I was climbing on to reach the freezer door bucked me off. They made me write right. However, when I was in the second grade I fell and broke the same arm again. They tried to make me right again but the left was permanently locked in.

[knowbody0]

5. I got a "job" at Left Bank Books

in my young hippy days, it's stuck with me since then. at first I did it to fit in with all the really kool anarchists.

[sandnsea]

7. Never

Democrat, liberal, progressive, fine. Not left and especially not leftist.

[woo me with science]

11. Yes. Democrat or liberal.

Not leftist.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Social Democrat for at least 20 years

could not vote until Gore... does that help?

[Codeine]

13. Since I was about seventeen I suppose. Maybe sixteen.

I'm forty now. I credit music (Dead Kennedys, Subhumans, Crass, The Smiths, etc.) for opening my young eyes.

[mrcheerful]

14. I think people are born with the left gene and as they go through life their beliefs are

reinforced by the injustice they see in the world. I remember thinking in grade school how unfair it was that because her father was injured on the construction job he worked at that a class mate lived in a 1 room shack with dirt floors and no running water, she was picked on for dirty clothes and smelling funny.

Or that the black folks that lived around the foundry near my grand fathers house had to put up with the damage foundry smoke caused, gramps refused to drive to work because leaving his car in the parking lot at work meant he would have to wash his car every day or the ash would eat the paint off, yeah environmentalist before the age of 10.

Even xmas giving time at school was unfair in my eyes, though I accepted the $0.50 gift I got in exchange for my $5 gift wasn't right I knew the kids parents were flat broke, when a kid brings bread and butter in a bag for lunch you know they are poor. Though mom threw fits that I got ripped off, when I told mom about the poor kid mom replied that wasn't her fault. Cold hearted bitch mom was.

[socialist_n_TN]

42. Yeah, I had a VERY refined sense of injustice even as

a little kid.

I still like Chris Hayes' definition as leftie politics as a calling rather than a political belief.

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. Since I was 5 and ran away from home

because I refused to eat canned spinach.
And just a year or 2 later, watched Sen Joe McCarthy on the news and told my Mom he was crazy.

Back then, in the early 50's, I was labeled a "non-conformist". At age 8.
I also am left handed.
Really did not fit in at all with the parental units, I kept "making a scene".


both my sons were born the same way, thank god.

[Blue_In_AK]

16. I've called myself a leftist since about 1967,

but I think the conversion really happened November 22, 1963.

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. I've called myself a liberal since I was a teen.

"Leftist"? More Carter than Che, I think.

[Stinky The Clown]

19. I self identify as a mainstreamliberal. I call myself a leftist or lefty to piss off certain people.

[jobycom]

20. Labels suck.

I have my views and beliefs. Some are more leftist than Che, some are around the Clinton middle. I think most of the ideological labels these days trap people into contradictory views, so I try to avoid them, although I use them when discussing a particular topic in which my views do line up with one label or another.

[Smarmie Doofus]

21. Since 9th grade.

Either Wilson or Taft was president; can't remember for sure.

[paulk]

22. i've never called myself a "leftist"

apparently I am, though, under the criteria defined by the Obama administration.

[TexasObserver]

23. Never. Liberal, Progressive, and Democrat are terms I use.

"Leftists" is a term I expect to hear mainly from right wingers.

[DFW]

24. I don't "call myself" anything

Everyone else sure does, though!

[ibegurpard]

25. less than 10

I used to think I was a moderate

[csziggy]

26. I call myself a liberal - at least since "hippy" went out of style n/t

[Art_from_Ark]

28. When I came of political age,

"leftist" was a term that seemed to be exclusively used for people who hijacked airplanes or kidnapped newspaper heiresses. The term itself seems to have originated from the French Revolution era, when the Jacobins came to be known as "leftists", and the term took on a derisive tone in England. So in my adult life I have generally preferred "progressive" to refer to my political views

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

29. Never, and when the term is used it reminds me of red-baiting. I'm a Liberal and

forever has been.

[JustAnotherGen]

30. First recollection?

About 30 years ago. I'm 37 now.

My mom called us in for dinner and my dad started screaming at the television again. I think it was what? 1980 or 81? I remember asking my mom why he's yelling at the President again. My dad comes into the kitchen to help my mom bring dinner to the table and my parents respond in unison: Because in this family we are leftists.

I pretty much spent my childhood with my parents screaming at the newspaper and television. :rofl:

[Vinca]

31. Since the Vietnam war era.

[Scuba]

32. Right after I returned from Southeast Asia, spring of 1974.

[CTyankee]

33. Way left and proud of it!

Age has its advantages...I'm an old leftwinger...and I couldn't care less about what anybody thinks about it...

[Hell Hath No Fury]

35. I was a liberal at 8 -

when I watched the conventions and picked my Party. I passed go a few years ago and have moved into leftist territory -- I would self identify now as a democratic socialist.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

36. For as long as I have been politically conscious. 1968.

I was 10. There was no sensible answer to my ears which would explain why a man, who had fought for the rights I was born with had been shot on a motel balcony in Tennessee.

To this day, there has been no acceptable explanation. That moment made me who I am. Not a whole lot will change that.

[baldguy]

37. I'm a socialist.

When the RWers scoff, I tell them the GOP's dirty little secret: They are socialists, too. But, while I think everyone should chip in so that everyone can benefit, they believe that everyone should chip in so that the few wealthiest of the wealthy can benefit - in the hope that the rest of us will get a few meager scraps to fight over. And we should be grateful for those scraps.

The GOP's just got a different kind of socialism, that's all....

[Tom_Foolery]

38. I've been a Socialist since I was 16, and I'm 50 now.

[slackmaster]

39. I never started, and I doubt that I ever will

:hi:

[ThomWV]

41. I've never called myself a "leftest". I am a Democrat, pure and simple

[Initech]

45. I went to an anti-Gulf War rally when I was 11.