For instance, I am a secular, lefty liberal and currently live in a secular, liberal, blue city. I feel comfortable here, but I think it has also made me a bit apathetic. I grew up in the rural south, in a small conservative town, and I think that opposition helped me define what I believe, why I believe it, and pushed me to act on those beliefs. Here, I feel like I’m in an echo chamber. I recently realized that I’m starting to define myself more and more by the beliefs that don’t fit in here. I moved here purposely to be somewhere more in line with my beliefs, and now it seems I’m looking for ways to not fit in. Or maybe it is that I can see my beliefs more clearly when they are in contrast to what is around me?
San Diego is a conservative city…and I’m a liberal. But it’s “old style” conservative. Military and business, not Tea Party hijinks. We do have an ultraconservative presence – we were home to some of the earliest abortion clinic firebombings. But, mostly, this is a comfortable town for both liberals and conservatives.
Regardless of my own beliefs, I’d much rather live in a liberal neighborhood than in a conservative one. The schools are better, the food is tastier and the chicks are hotter.
I’m a classical liberal, limited government power, freedom-oriented kind of guy, and I live in China, so the vast majority of people here don’t share much of the same spirit as I have.
It doesn’t really affect me because to each his own, you know?
No idea. People around here don’t talk about their religion all that much.
I think of Australia being a generally secular country, but many people would argue that’s not the case, with some statistics to back it up. It’s very cosmopolitan, with a lot of recent immigrants from very religious countries, but for all I know they’re running away from it, or readily adapting to Australia’s famously easy-going attitude towards religion. So who knows really?
Question is, then who do you argue politics and social issues with? Like years ago when everyone on the left hated Bush the argument wasnt IF they hated Bush, but who hated hated him more.
But that also brings up a point of what if your in say a solid democrat area, then what good is a voter registration drive if a republican doesnt even have a chance?
And on other issues, what good would it do to have a march or rally around an issue if that issue is already part of law in your community?
Hard-right, affluent, Reagan Republican here. I prefer few-to-nonexistent gun laws, severely limited welfare/safety net, locally controlled schools, zero income tax, and draconian punishment of criminals including the frequent use of the death penalty.
Looking over to the right at my location… I think I’m in the right spot.
I’m strongly secular, classically to neo-classically liberal, economically center right, mildly libertarian. a supporter of both religious freedom acts and SSM, and a strongly foreign policy focused Republican. When the party platforms come out next summer I will strongly disagree with a large chunk of both of them. There will be another big chunk where they are closer to my views but still miss the mark. In several cases i will disagree with both parties stand on the same issue. There’s no place in the US that matches my views closely.
People are people though. I don’t feel a need to agree with everyone about everything in order to deal with them. Being in a fictional town of people who all believed almost what I did would be boring anyway.
No, I’m very liberal and I live and work in very conservative environments. My boss routinely refers to our state government as communist and he joked that since governor Brown signed the assisted suicide bill, it gave him hope that all democrats will go ahead and kill themselves.
I just keep my views to myself, especially when it comes to him.
I’m pretty liberal, queer, and grew up in a Pagan household. My state is considered liberal, but I live in a small, conservative lumber town. It was a problem when I was a teenager because I was stuck here, but now that I’m older it’s not an issue. The people I associate myself with are like-minded, and most live in the city 30 minutes from me.
I’m socially liberal, tend to vote Democratic, but middle of the road economically and becoming mildly isolationist as i age. Also an Agnostic A-religionist. Live in North Alabama, with a Baptist Church every mile, so I don’t tend to make a fuss about it, but never have had a problem not going. Being the city has both the US Army (usually pretty conservative folks) and NASA (scientists tend toward liberalism, at least in terms of religion (IMHO) means a lot of different views, but everybody, even the churches, seem to be fairly mellow.
Somewhat, in that I’m probably more centrist than most people around me, who either seem to fall into super-liberals who constantly post “Black Lives Matter” stuff, gun-control stuff and anti-GMO/pro-organic food stuff on Facebook, or they fall into the retard redneck category and post global warming denial/anti science stuff, religious glurge, pro-Ted Cruz crap, pro-gun stuff, and pro-cop stuff. It seems like around here, you have to pick sides and buy into all the crap of whatever side you choose.
I fall somewhere in between- I’m not a gun control person, I think Ted Cruz should be fed into an industrial shredder, I think black lives matter, but so do cops’ lives. Global warming is a clear and present threat that we caused, organic food is idiotic, GMOs are the best hope we have to avert famines and starvation, I’m religious, but not terribly outgoing about it, and I’m very pro-science and rational thought.
I’m a fairly liberal athiest. Bernie Sanders matches my views pretty closely.
I live in Columbia, Missouri. It’s a college town (MU and two smaller colleges). It’s a liberal town by Missouri standards. But it’s surrounded by vast stretches of rural, very right-wing areas. Here in town, there are Sanders lawn signs all over the place. But not long ago I saw a guy in a white supremacist shirt in the grocery store, and a neo-Nazi group a few miles from here likes to advertise on the local Craigslist.
IRL, I’m reticent to discuss religion and politics. I mostly come to the SDMB for that.
I am a radical free thinker. (That’s not a specific school of thought, it’s a pair of adjectives and a noun).
I came to the New York City area in 1984 to maximize the possibility of finding other people with views more like mine, and also to be in a place with a lot of intellectual diversity so that even if I couldn’t congregate with others who held the same opinions & views that I did, I would not be in a place where people expected everyone to think the same way.
The latter has held true, the former mostly has not. My beliefs don’t particularly match those of others aorund here, but people are used to a wide range of nuts and fruitbats and holders of unusual viewpoints.
