Why are you a Democrat?

Politics and religion
1

QT3 is easily my favorite site, not this specific forum, but the site in general. I knew it had a liberal tilt, but it wasnt until I was poking around in the wee hours of November 3rd that I discovered just how anti-Bush/pro-Democrat it was. And its not just QT3, its all of my gaming sites. USENET. Here. Consolegold. Probably even GameFAQS. Maybe the Internet in general.

So what I want to know is, why? Why do you all think the way you do? Explain please. Feel free to post general stuff, as well as anecdotal stuff. Please try not to flame or let the thread disolve into finger pointing or personal attacks. And if you are a pro-Bush guy or a Republican, you can chime in with the same kind of stuff. But really I just want to try and wrap my head around why I am such a minority here since we all seem to have a love of computer games in common.

I will post some background info about myself in case some of you are wondering the opposite, ‘Why are you a Republican?’

I dont consider myself wealthy, and certainly no one in my family is filthy rich. I grew up in a single parent home in Houston, Texas on my mom’s school teacher salary and my Dad’s $400/month child support. I did a lot of socially ‘liberal’ things as a kid and young adult. I boozed my way through high school and state U, and did just about everything else in between.

I have been a non-registered Republican since I could vote, and out of college I made 20K doing tech support for a local ISP. I make about 80K a year now doing IT work for a software company and my wife is a stay at home mom. I am not sure if I will ever make a lot more, but if I do, I want to keep as much of it as possible. The government took, all things considered, ~30% of my income last year. That is plenty.

I was raised Catholic, but do not consider myself religous and do not attend any kind of organized services outside of Christmas when we humor my mother. I am against gay marriage because I think that homosexual behavior is unnatural and a genetic defect that should not be celebrated, or prosecuted. I dont feel that homosexuals raising children is in the best interest of society.

I am against affirmative action. Racism is a problem the world over, and certainly an issue in the US, but giving preferential treatment based on race solves nothing and, to me, only engenders continued ill will. My wife is half Korean.

I own guns, but have never been hunting. I dont think guns are evil, or that legislation will solve the problems inherent with gun violence. Criminals disregard laws by nature and more laws will not change that. If I had a magic wand that could magically remove guns AND gun violence, I would wave it.

I have always been pro-military. I think Reagan was a great leader and in defeating the communist Soviet Union did more for humanity than any other single person, ever. Currently I am at odds with the Middle East, and to be frank, Islam, as I think it is a dark age philosophy that will forever be at odds with the West. I do not for a second see how someone like Arafat is treated like a hero by the media. I also do not see how a clear thinking human being could embrace the slaughter of innocent men women and children (terrorists, suicide bombers, beheading contractors/volunteers, etc) as a path to righteousness or salvation.

I am pro death penalty. I wouldnt say that I am anti-abortion, but it seems clear to me that it is ending what otherwise be a human life. I think the alternative of an unwanted child being raised by a crappy parent or the state is worse though.

Anyway, I think I touched on my views of most of the hot button ‘conservative’ issues. Feel free to go into as much or as little detail as you want in responding to my query. I really am curious to know what kinds of things are shaping you guys’ opinions.

olaf

2

Let’s see:

  • I was raised perfectly boring middle class, but I knew quite a few poor people who were getting the shit kicked out of them, and had their lives destroyed, by forces that would have been a minor annoyance if society didn’t devote itself to blaming them for the problems that happen to anyone. So I treat the US faith in markets with suspicion, to put it mildly.

  • I’m convinced, based on my hilariously counter-intuitive personal experiences, that SAT scores & college at best measure the level of education you’ve had, so I think the US meritocracy is somewhat bullshit.

  • I’m making more money than what I know what to do with, but I’m actually only about 75% in the income distribution, so I have an extremely hard time taking the impoverishment claims of those richer than me seriously. I honestly wouldn’t notice if my taxes went up 10%.

  • I’m somewhere on the atheist/agnostic borderline; raised Southern Baptist, I was driven out of the religion by the incredible intolerance it represented in my area towards blacks, gays, intellectualism, and mercy for those who didn’t look and act exactly like you. To top it off, in the area I grew up religion was basically a way for the middle class to pretend it was rich - “sure, we don’t have mansions, but we sure can lord our moral superiority over those drunken (white, in this case) welfare recipients and car repairman!” Once you get the hell shocked out of you by the gap between the values as professed and implemented, it’s pretty straightforward to realize that based on all that’s good and holy about life and the world, and the throes of ectasy you experience from revival-style religious experience - give me a fucking break. God is deeply concerned with shellfish? Who you have sex with? When you prod these people enough, eventually out pops “everything bad that happens to you is because you were previously a bad person.” Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. The one thing my “personal walk with God” told me is that they are totally fucking full of it, and using religion as a filthy, degrading cudgel to climb to the top of the social heap on the broken lives of others, smiling in their goddamn suits and sitting in the front pews, mouthing platitudes about how we’re all God’s children. Then they go home and scream at the mexican guy they pay to mow their lawn, break the union of the workers out at the bottling plant, and insist the resulting moral anarchy is the fault of the newly unemployed themselves.

If God exists, he sure doesn’t agree with Southern Baptistism as practiced, I’ll tell you that. The church still does some good things, overseas especially, but I’d have a hard time telling you that they’re a sweet smell in the nostrils of God.

  • Affirmative action - no idea.

  • Guns - the people who have guns they never touch just around to defend their family, I understand it. The Ted Nugents of the world - I don’t get it. I imagine them as foot fetishists with a violence kick. A world without guns would be a better place, but they like their guns, so whatever, I guess.

  • The military is a tool, nothing else. The only problem with the US military is that it’s so worshipped in this country that it sets off fascist tripwires in my head, and no matter what evil idea we come up with (help fascists in Central America kill poor farmers! Overthrow democratically elected leaders for the Chiquita banana company! Butcher millions of Vietnamese so officers can get promoted!), people refuse to break out of their nationalist framework and think critically about it. Which is a shame, because the military can be a force for justice - WW2, Kosovo, Iraq if we hadn’t fucked it up. I’m afraid one of these days moral judgements will get so suspended in this area that something truly appalling will happen.

  • Islam (breaking out from military) - they’re pretty much where the Catholic church was in the middle ages. They’ll grow out of it. Unfortunately, our ham-handed policies are based on a total misunderstanding of what they’re about (they hate freedom! Also pie!), so I’m worried we’re just going to postpone they day when they figure it all out by inflaming them. All those guys you hear saying “well, we just need to level Fallujah, then they’ll realize we’re morally superior!” Going to be a long-ass war, I’m afraid.

  • Death penalty - Cops make errors. Judges make errors. Juries make errors. If you kill an innocent man, you can’t take it back. And I think justice should be 80/20 rehabilitation/punishment - that we’re so gung-ho about the death penalty is a sign of what’s wrong with our 20/80 system, where we only reinforce the broken homes and cultural anarchy that’s producing the crime in the first place. It’s kind of hard for the black community to pull itself together when 3 times the number of black men are in college than behind bars. We’re stuck in a cycle of lashing right back whenever they lash out, and it’s never going to end. And did I mention how disturbing it is that US culture considers the universality of prison rape amusing?

  • Abortion - killing a 9 month old child is appalling. Forcing a woman to have a child she doesn’t want, because she’s carrying a one-month old zygote that has about as much in common with being human as a refridgerator is also appalling. There’s got to be a line in there somewhere - maybe it should be 3 months instead of 6? Don’t know, but the viability line is 6, so maybe it’s right as is. The “life & health of the mother” thing is easy for 6-9 months - it sucks, but we can’t demand someone commit suicide for their unborn child. The mental health one is a lot tougher - really not sure what to do. Parental notification - great, just make sure there’s a talk-to-the-judge exception if something seriously fucked up is going down. It seriously creeps me out how often anti-abortion true believers get outraged about “loose woman escaping the punishment they deserve” - I think it says something about some people’s fucked up opinions on sex that they consider pregnancy a “punishment” for sex they don’t personally approve of. Of course, the nine-month unrestricted abortion people are fucking creepy too, but they’re pretty scarce, so you rarely hear from them.

Final random detail: I was a pretty unpopular kid until my last year of high school, literally the “sole dorky smart kid who can’t play sports”, so that’s probably why I weight the opinions and situation of “the person society doesn’t like so much” across the boards. Interestingly, I’ve seen these hints here and there that lots of kids with that history position ended up being libertarians instead - “got mine, screw 'em” mentality? Not sure.

Edit: Boy, I really am a Eugene Debs-style religious crazy without the religion, aren’t I? I kind of realized this years ago, but it’s hilarious to see in print.

3

Like most people I probably inherited my politics from my parents. Dad’s an engineer, developed air traffic control systems, from the midwest with probably overdeveloped critical thinking skills. He met my mom while working for a then tiny company called Hewlett & Packard in California. She’s the daughter of relatively recent immigrants from Ireland and England and being raised in what was already a melting pot of San Francisco and San Jose, and being a weekend beatnik and stock car hanger on, had a variety of experiences and friends that made her skeptical about the racism and religiousity of other parts during the 50s.

When they moved to Virginia, shortly before I was born, it was a bit of a culture shock. I was very small during Vietnam and Nixon’s impeachment but I’m certain that my parents reaction made an impression on me. Later both my father and mother ended up involved in local city politics with my dad elected to city council at one poin.
Personally, it was friends at high school in Northern VA who got me interested in politics. You tended to get a very high proportion of students from other countries there as diplomats kids or dependants from foreign companies with branches in D.C… There was also a relatively large immigrant population though nothing like it is now. It was a bit of a revelation discovering how differently America was viewed abroad, even then, than it saw itself. And I became very interested in those historical nuggets that challenged my notions about the righteous, Nazi fighting, white-hats to a more grey area of great deeds done for good causes and awful atrocities executed in pursuit of chimerical evils. It’s the same moral thread, I came to decide, that’s responsible for both aspects but I became wary of those who claimed such a mandate without compelling, rational, reasons. Seeing Reagan’s smiling paternal face and then hearing about the mass murders of civilians in El Salvador or Nicaragua contributed to the intense skepticism that possesses me today. Over time I fit other examples into the framework like Guatemala, Iran and Vietnam.

I was pretty radicalized, in a naive way, by this experience and went to protests with my friends. And it didn’t hurt there was a girl or two involved. Eventually, I signed up with an environmental group, because it was a paying position as much as that I was concerned about the environment, as a door-to-door political activist. Being on the inside though, and over extended exposure to career activists and protesters, they came to strike me as just as self-righteous and unreflective as their opposite numbers. This wasn’t ordinary people making principled stand as much as it seemed to be folks whose very identity arose from ‘the struggle’ and would likely find it impossible to ever compromise or even understand the people they criticised. There was also, in some quarters, an unhealthy lack of skepticism about the Soviet Union and communism. This would later evolve into the nutty neo-marxist bunch running protests now who are only finally starting to lose control to a more reasonable group. But you still won’t see me in a march run by them unless things get real bad.

It wasn’t until I got out of high school that things started getting really bad for gamers. Scarey stories in the press, the religious right completely out of hand and banning books, in some cases burning them had been going on for a while now though at the time I saw this as trivial compared to the bigger life and death issues in the world. But with my newfound perspective and redoubled skepticism, I got involved. At least, here, I certainly understood what was going on. At first it was just writing letters to various papers in response to negative stories. My experience with the activists had taught me what not to do. Avoid shrillness, avoid assuming everyone knows what you’re talking about - just state your case but toss in those arguments that will make your point and make anyone inclined to think do so. Who knows if it had any effect but I felt better. Towards the waning days of my involvement, late 80’s or early 90’s, I’d finally made it to college in Richmond. While not really politically active the “gamers rights” group I was involved with needed a spokesman down there, stat, after some nutcase teen running an RPG killed a child involved wiith it. That’s when I ended up on TV opposite Pat Pulling for a local news station. Not in the same room, unfortunately, but in spliced together clips of seperate interviews.

And after college I tended to just ignore politics. Nothing very much interesting going on and, when there was, my skepticism kept me quite insulated from my instincts to get involved. It wasn’t until the attempt to impeach Clinton came about that the “What the fuck?” side of my brain once again overwhelmed the “Not my problem” side. Catching up on what was going on convinced me that the religious right were at it again. Several of the groups behind the initial lawsuit were, ayup, conservative Christian political operations. And here I thought it was safe to go back into the water…

I’m not a Democrat largely because I’ve got a gut instinct that both party operations are much like the activists I got involved with before - so into “the struggle” that they may not really grasp the issues with all the integrity the issues deserve. So, instead, I’ve found a place that accomodates both my outrage and skepticism. I’m a Southern independant. And yes, I have not only voted for but worked for Republican candidates when I was convinced they were either the lesser of two evils or had extremely important positions that needed to be advanced even if I didn’t agree with everything. But largely, I’d have to say I tend towards liberal and could be counted on, especially in this insane climate, as a safe Democratic vote.

Edit: I should add that while I steered clear of politics during my college years my curiousity about social morality and international politics led to taking courses on both Russian and German history. I figured that by understanding how a society evolved into totalitarian absolutist states, on a human level rather than in abstract economic, moral or philosphical terms, I’d have a better idea of what it was about America that was different and why we fought Communism and Nazism so zealously. What I learned confirmed my skepticism about ‘absolutes’ and moral certainty without rational justification.

4

Interesting topic. My father was a physicist and my mother was a school teacher. They grew up in the depression and saw first hand the effects of poverty – in fact, my father didn’t quite graduate from high school, but was able to win a scholarship to the University of Chicago anyhow. After fighting in WWII, the GI Bill allowed him to get his doctorate. (Long slow process, as he was also working at the time, raising kids.) I’m the last of 4 kids, and substantially the youngest. By the time I was a teenager, my father had switched to being a Republican, angered by the unindexed income tax and what he perceived as the lies of the Democrats who wouldn’t index it. My mother, who saw the effects of poverty every day where she taught, remained a Democrat. My maternal grandparents, whom I was very close to, also remained Democrats; my grandmother was active within the league of women voters.

Values: My father become an alcoholic around the time I was born, so our household was a little on the chaotic side. Nominally we were unitarians, but we almost never went to church. Education was heavily stressed, and we all ended up being National Merit Finalists and getting post-graduate degrees. (I got a doctorate on an NSF fellowship and other graduate school fellowships.) We were middle class but not rich. While I often wished for a more stable home life, I don’t remember ever feeling materially deprived. When sober, my father was one of the most generous people I’ve ever known. I still remember (and try to emulate) his habit of stuffing his pockets with dollar bills around Christmas-time so that he would never pass a Salvation Army bucket without putting something in. He used to tip the garbage men when he thought the cans were too heavy. Etcetera. Another thing my father taught me was to prefer mercy over justice. He used to say the we should all be grateful we didn’t get what we deserved.

In my family, the elder two brothers became lawyers and made truly appalling amounts of money. The other two of us merely make very good amounts of money. I’m with Jason on this: I cannot imagine how those making what I make can claim to be devastated by higher taxes. That’s just greed. Sure, we’d all like to have more money. But there is more to life than that.

My wife came from a liberal Catholic family; her mother was/is active in Catholic charities, etc. She had abandoned her Catholicism before I met her, but she retained her deep belief in helping others. That empathy is one of the characteristics I most cherish in her.

I had always been an agnostic. I’ve read the bible (more than once), and have to say that coming to it as an adult I found most of the Old Testament appalling. The synoptic gospels are much better, but there was no way I could consider becoming a Christian. Recently, while struggling with other issues, I found my “higher power” in the Goddess. I’m a sect of one (although my wife is pretty supportive) and I like it that way. ;-)

I’m a Democrat (at least compared to being a Republican) because it reflects my values: personal liberty, respect for the fact that people are different, and compassion towards those in need. I see the Republicans as being a much more prescriptive party – “Do It Our Way!”. But every person is different, and I don’t think one solution fits all. Moreover, I value compassion over justice.

I oppose the “Drug War” because it doesn’t work, and diverts money from actually doing something effective – helping people quit who want to quit, and making others healthy enough to resist the lure. This despite an extreme personal aversion to drugs and drug users (I don’t even drink).

I think abortions are awful. Once upon a time, I worked with a woman who had already had three kids. She was a clerk and was barely surviving. God knows where the father was. Then she got pregnant again. She just couldn’t afford to have another kid. As it worked out, she had the baby and gave it up for adoption. Her kids asked her why she was giving the baby up… she had to tell them she couldn’t afford it. Can you imagine how her existing kids felt? Every time there was a money crisis in that family (often), they are going to wonder “maybe mommy will have to give me up too…” I’m not saying she made the wrong choice; that was for her to decide. But sometimes there are no good answers, and I think the most humane choice is to leave it up to the woman to decide. (I would have more sympathy for the “pro-lifers” if they actually wanted to provide funding to help mothers raise their kids in a decent way.)

I’ve know a fair number of gay people. They just wanted to be free to live a normal life, as happy as they could make it. Is that so wrong? I don’t see any evil in two men sleeping together. (Then again, pretty much any kind of erotica can work for me, so… I’m probably suspect. :D) I find it extremely ironic that in a country where “lesbian” erotica is so popular, people could be so homophobic.

I live in a state where they want to tell you how many vibrators you can own. This is insane. Yet another part of the “Christian conservative” worldview.

Finally, it appalls me that people could think “Creation science” is somehow on an equal footing with evolution. In general, there is an increase in “know-nothingism” in this country, and I think Bush and other Republican candidates are pandering to it. I hate that.

I could go on, but it’s already too long and it’s enough to give you a reasonable feeling for where I’m coming from.

5

Dear Olaf:

You know, thank you for bringing this up. I’ll wager that most of us liberals & moderates have a devil of a time not only understanding why our gaming brethren are such die-hard conservatives, but why a majority of the country voted for Bush. We are stunned. So, your “bio” helps explain things.

I think where you live and what you are exposed to has a lot to do with it. I have two women friends who are singers, but they live in Ohio and Tennessee, respectively. And have grown up in the MidWest and South, with husbands who are Republican. They, of course, are heedless Bush supporters and in no way do their artistic careers inform their decisions. Most artists I know are extremely tolerant, open-minded, and liberal.

I’ve always been a bit of a liberal, but I struggle with death penalty issues and crime, quite honestly. I used to walk down the street to work and see the morning sun shining on the Empire State Building and say to myself, “I am living in the capital of the world, at a time when the USA is totally dominant, financially, culturally, and militarily. Like Rome, Cordoba, and Alexandria in earlier centuries. Cool.”

But my watershed moment that really opened my eyes came when I went on my honeymoon to Lebanon with my Lebanese-born wife. I had always been pro-Israeli and saw nothing wrong with that (I am pro-Jewish but an agnostic.) Well, what I saw and read in Lebanon crushed my illusions not only about Israel but about America. It was a bit like learning that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. A year later, and I was watching the towers in my city fall. And, though I was outraged and grieving, I was more outraged that the American people were allowed to believe that this came as a bolt out of the blue, and that America was an innocent viciously attacked. Viciously attacked, yes, but not innocent.

So my feeling is that many Republican and pro-military men who feel that America can do no wrong 1) are working out personal issues and insecurities through hyper-macho, masculine militarism 2) are insecure about America being over-shadowed by other nations (though how could this happen?) and will support as many wars as it takes to rid themselves of this insecurity 3) aggressively hide from facts, reason and logic, not to mention that Bush bugaboo, history, and 4) look upon other cultures, religions, and races as THEM, as something to be confronted and overcome, as we have seen with Islam and France.

Since people who believe as you do make up a majority of the country, all this scares the crap out of me. It CAN happen here.

End of Part I

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6

Unlike some others here, I have inherited nothing from my parents in regards to politics. Neither of them were interested in the American political system, and I voted for the first time while both of them were in Ireland.

I consider myself a loose democrat, in that of the major parties they are the closest thing to ideal we currently have.

Here are my issues:

I believe in progressive taxation. The more you are taking from society, the more you have depended upon society to achieve, therefore the more of that money should be put back into society.

I believe in equal rights for all people, equal protection for all people. The Republicans have been taken over by evangelicals, which do not believe in equal rights and equal protection.

I believe in fiscal responsibility, not spending more money than we make, and doing away with our current system of corporate welfare. We need to turn over decisions which made corporations into people, and start charging the officers of these places with criminal misconduct. It sends me into a blind rage to know that there are Enron higher ups that are not locked up.

I believe in social welfare for those that are unable to take care of themselves. This goes two ways, welfare dries up if you aren’t making a committed effort to make it on your own. The retarded, the severely handicapped are exempt from this and should be taken care of. We are the richest nation on the planet, there is no excuse to have any homeless people.

I believe in the strict seperation of church and state. Again, republicans have become puppets of the evangelicals and are doing away with this necessary system. Most of Europe has figured out that church and state do not, and can not mix with good results. Even though many European nations have official churches and official recognition of a relationship, they often have signficantly less intertwining than we do. It is a great irony.

I believe in the rule of law, and that the courts will look after us better than any other agency. The fact that the slur of “activist judges” is thrown around by Republicans makes me angry. These judges are the protectors of all our freedoms. Republicans seek to take these freedoms away, democrats do not.

Finally, I see the Republicans as an organization of religious criminals. Now, there are quite a few real live conservatives in the party (which will probably break the party in two) that I would not mind running things, as they are more concerned with ensuring we have a good economy and not putting forth our hand into other nations and destroying them, but these conservatives are in the minority now. The Bush crime family has repeatedly shown that it is incompetent and dangerous, and only looking to increase it’s power and monetary assets. Bush has shown that he doesn’t care about everybody, only his constituents, and has completely alienated me.

Democrats build bridges, Republicans burn them down. Democrats seek even compromise, Republicans seek unilateral decision without regard to their contemporaries. I see Republicans as having a great disdain for our cherished liberties and our processes, as they willingly and maliciously subvert them to attain and retain power.

Republicans are deeply immoral, and are taking on increasingly fascist ideals which disturb me greatly.

7

Now, I’d like to discuss some of your issues, if I may…

I have been a non-registered Republican since I could vote, and out of college I made 20K doing tech support for a local ISP. I make about 80K a year now doing IT work for a software company and my wife is a stay at home mom. I am not sure if I will ever make a lot more, but if I do, I want to keep as much of it as possible. The government took, all things considered, ~30% of my income last year. That is plenty.

Well, I could go on and on about taxes, but I think this view that “Bush puts money in your pocket” end stop is extremely short-sighted. There are many other issues to deal with here. I say this as a lawyer’s husband, and we have received a great tax cut ourselves. But all the OTHER taxes have gone up to pay for it, and we have seen the closing and cutting of basic infrastructure in NYC. I would MUCH prefer to have my money go there or, as Clinton suggested, to homeland security than to us. I might have to cut back on games or books, but maybe our ports will be that much safer.

Think about it. Say there is a soup-kitchen/rehab/job-training center in your neighborhood. Bush cuts taxes, and so the county cannot cover the costs of the center. It closes, and all of sudden unemployment and crime is on the rise. Now, the Republicans call for harsher sentences and more police, without seeing the connection. And this is one poor, poor example.

I am against gay marriage because I think that homosexual behavior is unnatural and a genetic defect that should not be celebrated, or prosecuted. I dont feel that homosexuals raising children is in the best interest of society.

Wow. What to say about this? I think, honestly, that you didn’t learn those terribly bigoted things through life experience. You can have no clue if gay parents are good or not, or that they may be better parents than you are. You learned these things at an early age because people around you thought it was just fine to demonize gays and to cast the worst of apersions. So, now, you have grown up judging a whole swath of Americans simply because you are ignorant and it bothers you not at all. That you will teach your children, as the song goes, "You’ve got to be taught, before it’s too late…to hate and fear, " depresses me deeply. You are probably surrounded by closeted (as in gay) gun-owners, Republicans, warmongers, and bisexuals whom you never would imagine discriminating against. Some of your best friends I’m sure have hidden thoughts that would appall pure little you. Where on earth did you learn this?

I am against affirmative action. Racism is a problem the world over, and certainly an issue in the US, but giving preferential treatment based on race solves nothing and, to me, only engenders continued ill will. My wife is half Korean.

My brother married a Chinese-American, and I married an Arab American. So we are all in the same boat, as it were.

But as for affirmative action. We’ve been slave-trading and discriminating against blacks for, let’s round down, 300 years. We have disparaged their culture, their education, and their communities. But now that we as a nation have come to our senses, people like you say, “that’s enough help and preferential treatment.” After 300 years? Solves nothing? Engengers ill-will? With whom? People from the South who wish the Civil War had turned out differently?

I own guns, but have never been hunting. I dont think guns are evil, or that legislation will solve the problems inherent with gun violence. Criminals disregard laws by nature and more laws will not change that. If I had a magic wand that could magically remove guns AND gun violence, I would wave it.

I don’t think guns are evil, either. I think they are too prevalent and the “criminals” issue is a red-herring. It’s not about criminals having guns. They always will if they choose to. It’s the country being awash in guns, and then everyone’s surprised and outraged at the next school shooting. What do they then blame? Video games.

I have always been pro-military.

Why? Wherefore? What does the military do for you? What is this militarism in this country? I don’t get it! And I say this as a player of wargames and a great reader of military history.

I think Reagan was a great leader and in defeating the communist Soviet Union did more for humanity than any other single person, ever.

“Ever” is a big word. The Soviet Union wasn’t the threat it was cracked up to be. I’ll give Reagan credit, but just for that much. “Ever.” Wow.

Currently I am at odds with the Middle East, and to be frank, Islam, as I think it is a dark age philosophy that will forever be at odds with the West.

Olaf, I gotta level with you and you may not like it, but you seem to have set up your life where you have a lot of “enemies”: gays, communists, people benefitting from affirmative action (who would be…?), liberals, and Muslims. You are at odds with the entire Middle East? With every country? Every person? With every tenant of Islam, with every sect? You know enough about this great religion to disparage it in this way? Again, where did you learn these things? Fox News? Pal, I’ve BEEN there, and being at odds with the entire Middle East and Islam reminds me of Al-Qaeda members who are at odds with Christianity and the West.

Do you really want to live your life this way, so un-educated, so intolerant, judgmental and fearful? Is this how you want to raise your family? I think you would have been a lot happier in 1930’s Berlin.

I do not for a second see how someone like Arafat is treated like a hero by the media. I also do not see how a clear thinking human being could embrace the slaughter of innocent men women and children (terrorists, suicide bombers, beheading contractors/volunteers, etc) as a path to righteousness or salvation.

For your information, Arafat is NOT being treated like a hero by the media. Not at all, and I say this as someone who follows closely the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But Sharon is a far-right war criminal who is as bad as Arafat if not worse. You just have to open your eyes to see it.

Again, you’re another American who still believes that whatever America does is 100% right, whatever it is. OK, so we don’t behead people. We do and have used terrorism, napalm, bombs, car-bombs, snipers, death squads, rape and torture to further our own ends. So, to say that we never do ANYTHING objectionable is childlike. Did Abu Ghraib not show you anything?

I am pro death penalty. I wouldnt say that I am anti-abortion, but it seems clear to me that it is ending what otherwise be a human life. I think the alternative of an unwanted child being raised by a crappy parent or the state is worse though.

Death penalty. What if they’re wrong? What if it was you unjustly jailed? I’ve wrestled with this myself, but I keep coming back to “what if it was me?” I’ve never known police injustice or brutality, but I’m white, upper-middle class, and not likely to. You?

Anyway, I think I touched on my views of most of the hot button ‘conservative’ issues. Feel free to go into as much or as little detail as you want in responding to my query. I really am curious to know what kinds of things are shaping you guys’ opinions.

Actually, I would love to know what has shaped your opinions. I think you are very far from a “live and let live” philosophy and I’d love to know how an otherwise intelligent and inquisitive person can so easily demonize, loathe and fear thousands and thousands of people. You don’t seem to be asking very much of yourself, and allowing your “worser angels” free reign.

8

I grew up in a staunchly conservative household in the middle of West Podunk, WA. (Specifically, Adna WA.) I attended church willingly and was actually baptised, although I don’t think I ever REALLY believed in God – I just liked being around the people at my mom’s church. I did consider myself a pretty strict Republican, though, and actually thought Limbaugh was funny until I turned 16ish and started to realize just how rigid and intolerant the local conservative mindset was. As a result, I slowly began to liberalize, although I resisted it even in college, until one day I pretty much woke up and realized that all the conservative values I had touted had been systematically debunked as either hypocritical or selfish.

My views are largely similar to Jason’s, although my reasoning on the death penalty is different – I support it in concept, but am apalled at how very poorly we apply it.

I also agree with him on taxes: I make good money, enough to put me well into the top bracket of the middle class, and, quite frankly, I could easily handle another 10% in taxes taken from me and still live exceptionally well. (Note that I’m married with a daughter, and my wife is currently a stay-at-home mom.) I don’t get why the wealthy get so up in arms over progressive taxation – in the end, they benefit the most from a stable, productive society. Something about being obsessed with money makes the obsessor demand a strange accountability for every cent, or something. I just can’t fathom it, myself; an inability to understand the fetishism of the wealthy will probably keep me from ultimately joining their ranks, I suspect.

I’m exceptionally socially libertarian – as long as your freedoms don’t cause harm to family and friends, GO FUCKIN CRAZY. I’m aware that it’s not always black and white, and that the damage of certain freedoms can’t be measured in the immediate context, but I’d rather err on the side of permissiveness rather than fascism. You wanna practice gay Islam with your nine male wives? As long as it isn’t on my property: have fun!

In the end, I’m sure my inability to understand the religious drive of folks will put me in some sticky situation, but them’s the chances you take.

As for the apparently all-encompassing paranoia over Islam: I agree that Fundamentalist religion of ANY FLAVOR is a very bad thing. I work with a number of “Islamists” who are very peaceful people who are as appalled at the crazies from their religion as I am about those in the loony wing of Christianity. Poverty and a harsh environment breeds Fundamentalism, and I believe that if we continue to let our poor get poorer and their lives get worse, we’ll start to see a similar sort of extremism. Slow, steady Westernization is the answer to that region’s Fundamentalist issues, not outright warfare and fiat. The “War on Terror” is simply going to HAVE to be fought slowly and patiently and through the spread of Westernization, not by “killing them damn camel jockeys.”

9

Edit: Decided against my flippant response.

I grew up in Texas. I feel like I CAN’T belong to the Republican party because I am female and I am atheist. I don’t like their stances on women’s issues (pay equality, single mothers, abortion) and I really don’t like their stances on church and state seperation.

Beyond that I do believe in progressive taxation and that the government should provide a safety net for people in need. I believe education needs to be radically overhauled and that vouchers to private schools is the wrong way to go. I love my homosexual friends and I want them to have all the same rights with their partners as heterosexual couples can get. And that the state really shouldn’t be in the business of caring what kind of consentual sex you enjoy at all.

10

I shall address your main points here:

I did a lot of socially ‘liberal’ things as a kid and young adult. I boozed my way through high school and state U, and did just about everything else in between.

What does “liberal” have to do with drinking/drugs? I am highly liberal and I don’t drink, smoke or do drugs of any kind. My roomate is extremely conservative and he drinks frequently.

The government took, all things considered, ~30% of my income last year. That is plenty.

Agreed, and I don’t even think Kerry would have made you pay any more. Hell, if you believe him he would have had you paying less. Most liberals would argue that we are not really for higher taxes for most people. Liberals thing that we should have a more progressive tax system (and, imho, Trickle Down economics is total bullshit. Look at evidence, gap between richest and poorest grows larger every year) because it gives a more even playing field for everybody. Seriously, does Bill Gates need 500 billion dollars?

I am against gay marriage because I think that homosexual behavior is unnatural and a genetic defect that should not be celebrated, or prosecuted.

There are tons of genetic defects. My heart is totally fucked, for all intents and purposes. Should I have this held against me? Gay people at least need access to civil unions if only so they can properly get access to each other’s medical decisions and for tax purposes. What is really the problem with this? It will not affect you ever.

I dont feel that homosexuals raising children is in the best interest of society.

I used to agree with you on this one. Then I saw how many kids sit in orphanages unadopted. In my opinion, if the people are good people, a kid would be 1000x better under their care then in an orphanage. Would you really argue that a kid would be better off sitting in an orphanage then at least with people who truly care for them?

I am against affirmative action. Racism is a problem the world over, and certainly an issue in the US, but giving preferential treatment based on race solves nothing and, to me, only engenders continued ill will.

Certainly, AA is something that does need to be eventually eliminated. But if you look at current salaries, wage gaps and college admissions problems, we are not yet at that point. Again, this has to do with a level playing field. Currently, that field is very tilted.

I own guns, but have never been hunting. I dont think guns are evil, or that legislation will solve the problems inherent with gun violence. Criminals disregard laws by nature and more laws will not change that. If I had a magic wand that could magically remove guns AND gun violence, I would wave it.

Agreed on that point. However, I think at least most mainstream liberals would agree with me that we do not want to see the elimination of guns. Rather, we simply feel that there are too many guns that are made with the sole use of being able to kill PEOPLE. That, and many guns are far too easy for criminals and unstable people to get. You can’t make guns go away, but you can at least try to make the system safer.

stuff about islam and the middle east

Hey, at this point I agree that Islam in general is pretty crazy. However, I would argue that trying to kill them all is not exactly the solution. I am personally not exactly sure what the best way to do this is, but I really feel that our best bet would be to try and convert them with using, as the old proverb goes, “with honey instead of vinegar.”

I am pro death penalty.

Two reasons not to be pro-death penalty. Too many people who have been executed have found out after they are dead that they were innocent. This is BAD. Very bad.

Secondly, did you know it costs more for taxpayers to have somebody executed then it does to keep them in prison for life? Fucked up, isn’t it? But that is the way it is. So, solely from an economic standpoint, we should keep them alive.

I wouldnt say that I am anti-abortion, but it seems clear to me that it is ending what otherwise be a human life. I think the alternative of an unwanted child being raised by a crappy parent or the state is worse though.

Here, refer back to the thing about gay people not being able to adopt.

Also, from an athiest standpoint, I have no problem with an abortion before the point at which a baby can feel pain. After that point, I get very squirmy about it. However, as you said, the alternative is either going to the orphanage or living a hellish life.

Btw, sorry I didn’t bother to look up any hard numbers for this. You’ll have to take my word that I have seen the facts on these and I am correct when I say things like the amount of money it costs on the death penalty thing. I was in debate throughout high school so we dealt with all this stuff quite a lot. (and just for reference, I am now 3 years out of high school and in college now)

11

I’m a Democrat because I’m a[size=6] [color=blue]liberal.[/color][/size] But I fall moderate on most foreign policy/economic issues.

Strictly speaking I’m a fiscal conservative. I believe in fiscal responsibility but progressive taxation. But I think the Republicans haven’t been fiscally conservative since Reagan. They dropped that ball. Social conservativism sickens me. I’m left-wing on most social issues however - okay, with some libertarianism thrown in there. Bah, labels.

12

Why am I a Democrat.

  1. Republicans increasingly court the religious right to a degree which IMO threatens church/state separation. As an atheist, I find it hard to throw in with such a party.

  2. In the abstract, I strongly believe in some type of social safety net. To me, the whole point of a society is to have some risk pooling, to have mechanisms in place whereby the stronger can aid the weaker who have fallen on hard times. This will lead to some parasitism from the slackers and good-for-nothings but I’d call that an acceptable price of doing business.

The degree and extent of such a safety net is problematic, and something I’m not clear about. The fact that I have a lousy grasp of economics makes it hard for me to engage in the debate as meaningfully as I’d like to.

  1. There is a perception that Democrats are weak on national defense, but many of the great warmonger presidents of the 20th century (Wilson, FDR, Johnson, Truman) were Democrats. We seem to be a warlike people, whether by nature or by circumstance thrust upon us, and we will go a-bombing whether a donkey or an elephant occupies the White House. That’s not to say I approve or disapprove of the warmongering, but that it seems to be a wash no matter which party you choose. A true Peacenik Party doesn’t exist in the US except marginally (Greens? Buchanan’s Reformers?) and that is just the way it is at the moment.
13

I’m still confused by the idea that you have to be pro-Republican and pro-Iraq to be pro-military.

It’s a pretty safe bet that most of us support firefighters. But they don’t fight every fire the same way.

In some cases, where there is property to protect and lives to save, and they can do so without unreasonable losses, they will go into the fire itself, risking their lives, and protect the base structure of the building on a floor by floor basis.

In other cases, where there’s no lives to save and the building itself isn’t worth the risk to the lives of the men they will simply contain a fire and allow it to burn itself out.

If there’s a condemned building on the outskirts of town that’s been abandoned for years, should I support a Fire Chief who makes the wrong call and forces his men into a building that’s falling apart, putting their lives in serious danger, possibly killing them?

No, I can still support firefighters and disagree with the soundness of the decisions of the man in charge of them, just as I can support the men and women of the US Military, while thinking that Iraq was a strategically bad idea in the long run, and certainly a waste of money and lives in the short run.

14

I am pro-military, and I support our guys and girls 100% In fact, I support them so much I hope we do everything possible to make sure they are only used when necessary, and when they are used, they are given equipment and intelligence such that they have the minimum possible casualities. Bush has shown enormous disregard for the military in this extended occupation.

Edit-

Also, evidence indicates that a child reared by a homosexual couple is not different from an average heterosexual reared child, except for a few minor things like:

Males reared by lesbians tend to be less promiscuous.
Females reared by homosexual males tend to be slightly more promiscuous. However, they tend to have a far lower pregnancy rate and experience fewer STDs. I’d chalk this up to the bad sex ed in some of the more backwater regions.
Males reared by a gay couple, and females reared by a lesbian couple don’t have any measurably different attitudes towards sex.
Both genders tend to experiment in homosexual sex, yet they don’t self identify as gay with any greater frequency.
Both genders tend be more tolerant, both in regards to homosexuals and other races, and have a greater frequency of inter-racial relationships.

Other than that, they aren’t more or less intelligent. They don’t do better or worse in school, or in their careers. They choose the same careers with the same frequencies. They do commit fewer crimes, as do homosexuals in general… but this is another hard statistic to track due to the time it’s BEEN tracked, and you never know how many aren’t self identifying and committing more crimes than usual or whatever.

So, consider that argument thoroughly trashed.[/u]

15

I always want to ask people who advocate the banning of homosexual marriages because it decreases the number of kids raised in good homes if they’d be interested in banning all marriages where the couple don’t sign a contract guarenteeing that they will have at least one child, and are willing to go through an extensive psychological testing program to prove that they could be good parents.

16

Normally I like to stay out of P&R threads, but since you were civil about it, here’s why I think/act/vote the way I do:

If there’s a choice between moral beliefs and personal freedoms, the personal freedoms win. They have to; anything else would be un-American.

  • Alan
17

Shorter liberalism: WE HAT AMERIKKA.

18

An interesting thread. My contribution:

I grew up thoroughly middle class in Southern California. Both of my parents were academics and almost-Hippies. My mother’s from the Netherlands, came over for her Ph.D., met my Dad, etc. etc. I don’t remember wanting for anything serious as a kid, but I do remember that we rarely got luxuries that we thought were necessary. Our household was religious (Presbyterian), but fairly liberal. Education was alway emphasized as critical.

I went to public school through 8th grade, then Catholic all male high school (talk about culture shock!) For much of my time in high school, I was active in my church and was actively considering a career as a minister.

As a teenager, I spent a summer in Honduras and Nicaragua. I played soccer with teens who had multiple gunshot wounds from serving in the military (as conscripts or contras) and with other kids who were recontras, having taken up arms against the government of Nicaragua even after the peace was “settled.” One of the families I stayed with in Honduras had two sons kidnapped by the Contras that they hadn’t heard from in three years. While I understand, intellectually, the need to keep Godless Communism out of the U.S. backyard, the human costs for doing so (particularly since the Nicaraguan socialists tried to ally themselves with the U.S. and were rebuffed before they reached out to the Soviets) were tremendous and borne largely by people outside the United States, while we paid lip service and ordered another round of beer and burgers…

My parents are way to the left of me. I consider myself a moderate (socially fairly liberal, fiscally rather conservative), and have voted for both major parties in Presidential elections. I am, however, scared silly of the social conservatives who are beginning to steer (in my opinion) the Republican agenda.

I firmly believe that the government should stay out of peoples’ lives as much as possible. Hence I oppose any restriction (banning gay marriage) on individual rights, unless it’s founded in a strong social need (for example, I support gun control, but I believe the current system should be scrapped and changed to something where competency determines the level of licensure – similar to drivers licenses, where you have multiple classes of license). I support most of the predictable causes as a result of my belief that government should try to stay out of peoples’ lives.

On the other hand, I’m a fiscal conservative, which means I strongly support limiting deficit spending (or raising taxes when necessary). One idea I’ve never heard mentioned, and that I think might be an interesting solution with respect to social security, is to extend social security taxes to all income, not just the first $73k (or whatever it is). Of course, this would be borne primarily by the wealthy, but it seems a little fairer to me…

Speaking of which, I don’t have the luxury Jason has of having too much money, but a 10% increase in my taxes wouldn’t cripple me. My wife is a social work, and makes about 1/3 of what I do. We just took on about $500k in debt in buying a house, so suddently I’ve got about $3500 tied up each month in house payments – a slightly terrifying thought. I am self-employed, work from home, and recently realized that my wife and I are scraping the “upper middle class” stratum.

I believe both major political parties are fundamentally driven by their bases, which tend to be the extremists. Conversely, I think most voters are somewhere in the middle (or at least I did until last Tuesday… :) ). As a result, I think both parties are largely caricatures of the voters they purport to represent.

19

I am not a democrat.

:evil:

20

I’m not a Democrat or Republican, in fact I can’t even vote yet because I’m still an immigrant and cannot get citizenship for another few years (which I have absolutely no qualms about, despite all the cries of doom and gloom from blue-staters). Like many Brits I was raised in an a-religious household with holdover puritan values, and a great emphasis on looking after the less fortunate in society (think Quaker, but without any of that God business)[size=1]*[/size].

I talked to some of my American colleagues about the very question in this thread. All are very bright engineers near the top of their field. Only one out of five was republican.

First of all the republican: one of the nicest, most polite, and caring people I know. Extraordinarily clever, and completely logical right up to the point where politics is concerned. He is an evangelical christian - and I can’t help but think of him as Ned Flanders to my Homer Simson. Despite the fact that he seems to hold almost entirely Democrat viewpoints on ecomomy and social welfare - he finds it inconcievable that he would vote for a party that he feels represents “values” antagonistic to his religious beliefs. Despite gently pressing him on this I couldn’t get much more info about which ones. I felt the heavy weight of family tradition and religion. I doubt he will ever change his mind - and he is one of those rare people who considers the arguments of others openly.

The democrats: there was a concensus that the reasons for the choice were compassion and logic; oh and that there weren’t many valid alternatives. Two of them had strong religious reasons for being democratic - they considered the values of the republican party to be evil. Really and genuinely evil. They can not understand how kind, rational human beings can associate themselves with (and I quote), “such an unrelenting tyranny of evil against their fellow man, that the GOP promulgates with great force”. They were all incredibly depressed about the election results.

[size=1]*I have no understanding of religion, being raised like many Europeans as a secular humanist - but I respect the fact that it is very important for some people. And I’m fine with that as long as it doesn’t adversely affect me or my family (by pushing Creationism in schools, or damaging sex education initiatives for instance).[/size]