feisty_in_ohioOctober 17, 2006 21:47:34

Since the attack - when I found out my Mom was correct (again). That my generation would be attacked and half of us would be too damn stupid to hold the attackers responsible. I'm not interested in the whining - get off your backside and take care of your damn problems. I think I'm off the scale. Geez! My soapbox is out.

wonderful breakdown of all your leanings as you have aged some. You are not on a soapbox in my opinion, just clearly rational.

remember when I came here? I was much more moderate about things, slowly but surely I am drifting further to the right.

Welcome to the dark side of the force, brother.

My God, because of you, I see the Light. Thank you, I am CURED!..

I do like your sense of humor!   

don't want to be right at everything. I just want people to at least understand why the other side think they are right, and the merit in their ideas.

that pretty much decribes how everyone feels except the extreme left and extreme right. but our points tend to get buried because they just repeat themselves over and over while the rest of us "have shit to do."

when I hear: "You'll see, if the Democracts are elected, they'll rise taxes!" I simply can't help to be despressed. I mean, that's demagogy at it's best.. But funny, more often and least, it's the conservative that charges the liberals of demagogy..

the extremes of both parties do that to each other. anyone who pays attention knows that some democrats have a problem with the tax cuts that were given to millionaires and billionaires. the republicans claim it stimulates growth, creates jobs, etc...the other side says it takes away vital money and increases debt, which hurts everyone else.

my positions on that would take another article or 2 at least. but you are correct in knowing that no democrat has suggested that they want to balance the budget by raising taxes on anyone earning less than 200,000 dollars a year in their campaigns. in fact many have called for tax cuts for "the rest of us." and elimination of tax for more poor americans.

but that doesn't stop the punditry from repeating it over and over again. the difference now is that there is a track record on this administration and it is poor. people are tuning out the pundits.

it will be interesting when 5 of the biggest pundits are given carte blanche on the white house lawn next week..i expect the rhetoric to get more outrageous. it also leaves me wondering about "equal time." it may or not be a requirement of the administration (i really don't know where the law stands there, i'd havve to look it up, and like a lot of election law, it's probably fuzzy at best) but you would think maybe some decency is in order and a few liberal hosts might be invited to participate...oh yeah, i forgot who we're dealing with. they don't like fair fights, they prefer to put the fix in by just shutting the other side out.

my positions on that would take another article or 2 at least. but you are correct in knowing that no democrat has suggested that they want to balance the budget by raising taxes on anyone earning less than 200,000 dollars a year in their campaigns. in fact many have called for tax cuts for "the rest of us." and elimination of tax for more poor americans.

That gives me a thought for an article. When I write it, we can debate this issue there.

Hmmm.

I'd say that it depends.

How were you raised? What has your life been like? What are your beliefs?


(So on and so forth.)

Once those are answered, then i think you could answer your question as every person/life is different.


I hope i made sense.

~Lucas

The usual pattern does seem to be for people to move a little rightward as they get older. Of course, the explanation you accept for this depends on where you are on the political spectrum. Rightwingers think this happens because people finally 'wise up' and become more realistic, jettisoning unrealistic utopian ideas; left-wingers think that people just lose their idealism and reforming energy with age.

As a militant moderate I think that there is truth in both sides of the equation, but I lean slightly more to the right on this. While many young people are fired up by idealism, often rooted in the very best of motives, they have not always learned the life skills of tolerance and mutual respect. Therefore their left-wing views are sometimes expressed in a shrill and hectoring manner, eager to lecture, unwilling to listen...

However, contributors who point out that the right can also be intolerant, extreme and crazy are perfectly correct. I think there is a very simple explanation for this. It has been pointed out above that the US uses the word 'liberal' in an unusual way to refer to the whole spectrum of the left, rather than to the centre and (mildly) centre-left (i.e to the 'right' of socialism) as most of the rest of us understand the word to mean. What is less often noted is that the US also uses the word 'conservative' in an unusual way. In most parts of the world, conservatives are located on the centre-right, supporting free entreprise, liberal democracy and a belief in the value and usefulness of long-standing institutions. Reading this forum, it strikes me that some self-labelled American 'conservatives' are actually right-wing radicals, and therefore it should come as no surprise that they indulge in the same extremism, intolerance and single-mindedness as their left-wing cousins.

As to my own life trajectory, it has been a gradual evolution from the hard left to "militantly wishy-washy moderation". I think it unlikely (but not impossible) that I will move any further to the right because my present viewpoint seems best to suit my character and intellectual propensities as I have come to understand them. However, never say never!

An interesting post and a revealing question. Thank you MM.   

Reply By: SilentPoetPosted: Thursday, October 19, 2006 Oh, and MM in about 9 months give or take - if you are ever in the LA area (If everything goes as planned), La mia sede è la vostra sede. (My home is your home, i.e. if you ever are in the area, you're always welcome to stop by.) You're one of few people i like here. Just being honest, not brown nosing. Peace, ~Lucas

thank you for the kind invite lucas, but I live between frisco and sacramento about 350 miles from la

thank you for the kind invite lucas, but I live between frisco and sacramento about 350 miles from la

Everything looks like it will be LA, but even then, i might head to the bay area. So, who knows.

Best of luck in life.

~Lucas

Anonymous)QohelethOctober 20, 2006 15:07:44

I'm not a regular reader here, just dropped by after following a link to a different post on this blog from somewhere else. But I'll chime in all the same I've moved from conservative (~18yo) to right-leaning libertarian (~24yo) to left-leaning libertarian (~31yo) to libertarian-leaning pragmatist (now, 35yo).

thank you for dropping in, reading and commentating. ya all come back now ya hear?