I think the belief that it is necessary for someone to be watched over at all times, or they will do immoral, even violent things, says volumes about the people who believe it.
It is possible to want to leave the world a better place than you found it without the promise of a reward in the afterlife. To some, the reward is in the doing.
I’m only 36, so I suppose I’ve got time to go any number of directions still. But I was at my most conservative when I first became politically aware, and I’ve been drifting steadily to the left ever since. Like a couple others here have mentioned, I grew up with certain advantages that I took for granted. I worked hard and saw my hard work produce favorable results, so I naively assumed everyone could just do that.
The more I see of the world, the more I learn just how good I’ve always had it. For example, I was already quite liberal by the time I went to law school, but I still didn’t really understand what drew inner-city kids to join gangs. I hadn’t given it much thought, and in the back of my mind I guess I assumed it had something to do with wanting to be cool. But then, during an internship, I worked on this case that shook me to my core and still haunts me. A young man was arrested for robbing a liquor store. Because he was a known gang member, he got slapped with a gang enhancement on top of that. But in looking back through his file, I learned the story of how he came to join that gang. As a boy of 12, he’d been sitting on his front stoop playing with his baby sister. A rival gang drove by, and seeing him, assumed he was a member of the gang that controlled his street; apparently he was tall for his age. They shot him. He survived, but no arrests were ever made. The gang he was assumed to be a member of invited him to join, without the usual initiation, since he’d already taken a bullet for them. He accepted. Anyone who wants to tell me they wouldn’t have done the same is kindly invited to shove it.
OP, no one thinks virtue is inversely proportional to privilege. You’re looking at these issues through a simplistic, even childish lens, of sorting everything into “good” or “bad.” The simplest aphorism I can offer to explain the lefties’ position on privilege is “with great power comes great responsibility.” And you are absolutely judging sex workers and women who have abortions; the least you could do is admit it.
That certainly hasn’t been my observation.
I started out as a liberal, despite my father’s conservative leanings, because of the religious eduction I had. Eight years of Catholic elementary school (Gray Nuns of the Sacred Heart), four years of Catholic high school (Jesuits) and one year of Catholic college (Jesuits again).
The Christian values I learned could hardly be described as “hostile.”
Er…I guess I’ll have to shove it.
Yeah, I see the appeal and how, somehow that’s supposed to be some sort of gift… :dubious: I’d be more likely to punch stupid ass person in the face than any other option.
Let’s say that I get Cecil real real angry and he punches you. Do you want to be my friend? I won’t make you buy me a drink! Does that really make sense, somehow?
Do you mind rereading this and telling me if it’s really the best possible analysis you can make of the situation? I’m having trouble believing that’s true.
Dude. This is not about fraternity hazing or random “stupid ass” individuals doing nonsensical, unpredictable things in some bizarro world where you’re personally sparring with Cecil. This is about an ongoing, mortal threat to a child and his family, against which the police are powerless to protect him, and the one group of people who promise to have his back. But thanks for taking my faith in humanity down a peg; I haven’t met many people who wouldn’t give a shit about that kid.
Right.
The police did not protect the kid. Nor his family
The gang offered to give him and family protection.
But but but… Why didn’t the kid just get his daddy to call the chief of police huh? Or why didn’t the kid just write a letter of complaint to the mayor? Huh? Stupid kid.
Obviously, the kid should have just gotten off his lazy ass and solved the gang problem with a musical number in the local community center.
Jesus. Rarely have I seen a better example of clueless privilege and lack of basic understanding. Congratulations.
Elizabeth Warren. Markos Moulitsas (creator of daily kos). Ed Schultz. cenk uygur. Arianna Huffington. David Brock.
The great author John Varley (who posted at this board exactly one time back in the day) said in Steel Beach (paraphrasing) “a liberal is a conservative who has just been thrown in jail. A conservative is a liberal who just got mugged.” YMMV as to how true you find that but it has always stuck with me.
After 9/11, when George W. Bush was suddenly lobbying the international community for its assistance in going after al-Qaeda and the Taliban, *Newsweek *wrote: “if it’s true that a conservative is a liberal who’s just been mugged, then a liberal internationalist is a conservative whose nation has just been terrorized.”
Me. I grew up in the south, went to Catholic high school and adopted a very libertarian point of view which I held till the presidency of George W Bush. It was during his administration, built on lies and incompetence, that I had a series of revelations that led me to a hard leftward turn. The first is that the incentive of enlightened self interest had very very little actual real world sway with those in power. I had always figured that the wealthy by and large understood they had an obligation to be a good steward of their employees, natural resources they depend on and in general not kill the goose that lays them golden eggs. Then I watched Katrina, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with attendant blatant profiteering and the 2008 financial collapse. These people would sell their own mothers for another zero on their account balances. The second revelation I had is that while the left was often branded wild eyed idealists with no ‘common sense’ or grounding in how the ‘real world’ works, over and over it was the right wing that put wishful thinking over good public policy. Against abortion? Excellent, provide comprehensive sexual education and free access to birth control. Those are proven methods that work, but are fought against tooth and nail. Why? Religious convictions not based in facts whatsoever. Against youth violence and the drug trade? Pay for after school programs, free childcare and social services… it’s cheaper than the costs of crime and incarceration Every Single Time. Legalize pot, prohibitions do not work and only pour money into the hands of ruthless and desperate people. The right wants none of those things, just more cops and jails. Don’t think the US should be the cops of the world? I agree, let’s cut military spending and use that money for other more productive purposes as we spend more than the next 20 countries combined and are already very safe thanks to the good fortunes of geography, size and nuclear deterrent. But, no… billions upon billions and never accountability. Right wing policies do not work, it’s that simple.
My parents divorced when I was in the 6th grade. The next year, my mother attempted suicide for the first time (I know of at least two other times, as well). My father was one of those macho guys who didn’t want his wife to work, so she had no skills to fall back on when they split. She didn’t even finish high school because she dropped out to get married.
As a result, I grew up poor. We were on Medicaid and food stamps and lived in government housing. We were in the free lunch and free schoolbook programs.
Because of the lack of skills or education, my mother took a job in a fast food restaurant working third shift. Many times, the only food we had was what she brought home that they were about to throw out. She did all that while trying to get her GED and trying to put three sons through school. None of us ended up dead, drugged out, or in prison, and some of the places we lived very well could have changed that.
She went back to school after getting her GED and became a dental assistant. Within a few years, she’d studied up and became a nurse.
I give her full credit for that. That’s an amazing accomplishment. She was also the toughest woman I’ve ever met. 1999, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Luckily, only a lumpectomy was needed. She had the surgery, then checked herself out of the hospital against medical advice the next day. She had me drive her to another hospital because her granddaughter was about to be born C-section, and she was not going to miss that. She went home, took the rest of the weekend off, and went back to work the following Monday. She refused to take chemo. During work, she’d go to the hospital and get her radiation treatment, then go back to work (whereas if I go to the store and the bank on the same day, I need a nap).When she died in 2015, it was a heart attack. I think the cancer was afraid to return.
I mention all this because I firmly believe that her struggle is exactly why I’m a liberal. I know what it’s like to grow up needing that safety net that welfare can provide. I’ve experienced the exact reasons that we need to fund programs that are aimed at healthcare and making sure that all kids have the chance to grow up not wondering when they’re going to be able to eat again. And making sure that they have their own chances to better their situations to break the cycle of poverty and hunger and illness.
I’ve lived it. And I don’t want any other family to have to go through that. I’m perfectly willing to give a few more bucks to the government so that sick people can get healthcare and a hungry child can know that they’re going to have a meal.
My mother used the system the way it’s supposed to be used. My family benefitted from it. I don’t mind paying it forward so someone else can have a chance, too.
Why the fuck would you want to join a gang? I guess I have to shove it also. :rolleyes:
But- they don’t have his back, that’s just the point. They send him to fucking prison or get him killed.
Because they can’t. That’s not their job.
But they didnt, and they can’t, that’s not what they do either. They commit crimes and get their members sent to prison or get killed. *Gangs dont protect shit.
*
OP: I supported Goldwater when I started adolescence. Then I grew up.
If we were in the Pit I do not think it would be entirely unreasonable to call this the least-informed post we’ve seen in weeks — a tough bar to hurdle.
Fortunately Mr. Rat has already been rebuked:
I used to be much more conservative than I am now. I believed in trickle-down economics, tax cuts paid for themselves, social safety net programs were only encouraging laziness, unions were all bad, the environmental movement was a bunch of whackos who were hurting business, the Dems were the party of reverse racism, Bush went into Iraq because they had nuclear weapons…you name it, and I fell for it.
The 2008 financial crisis and the Iraq War’s results that played out between 2003-2008 made me finally wake up. I voted for Romney in 2012, but by then, I was losing hope in the movement. By 2016, I was completely out of Republican politics and suspicious of any “conservative” candidate. Currently, I consider myself a political moderate. I think government has a place in people’s lives where it can help. But I don’t want it so large that it constricts the private sector too much, if that makes any sense.
The conservative movement in the US is a fraud. Their economic and most of their social doctrine is a lie. And they have become a cult-of-personality type movement, and have shown themselves to have no principles. I think there could be a serious conservative movement in the US that could offer another way to govern. But it’s been hijacked. So, lately my votes have been for Democrats. It will remain that way until further notice.
Thank you, survinga. It’s too bad that millions of Americans are too stunted intellectually to figure out what you’ve figured out.
I think Pat Paulsen got it right when he said, “I’m not left-wing or right-wing. I’m more or less middle-of-the-bird.”