Started out on the right (worked for Ford/Dole when in Jr. High), started moving to the left after high school, and now am pretty much a socialist.
My folks were Roosevelt Democrats. FDR and LBJ were sainted in my house, and I went along with that from birth (1969) until around 15. Reagan’s ideas simply made sense to me.
In college (87-92) I became a Bellamy Socialist: Everyone does what they want to do and earns an equal chunk of the national output. That seemed fair.
After college I realized that most people are essentially lazy vermin who want the most gain for the least effort, and thus my contempt for liberalism was born. I became a staunch anarcho-capitalist, figuring that any system with no supports would cause the dead weight to die and allow everyone to seek their own level of satisfaction.
For the past decade or more, I’ve accepted that there is, if not an outright need, then at least a use for severely and strictly limited government (roads and bridges, national defense, etc.). I still don’t support entitlement programs for any but the disabled who cannot actively contribute satisfactorily to their own well being. I oppose affirmative action programs as oppressive to the groups they purport to help and believe that if you are able bodied you should not receive any assistance from your fellow man, other than help that you directly solicit and directly receive, such as charity.
I’ve yet to find a rationale for entitlement that is fact-based, rather than emotion-based, and I do not hold to stealing from the citizenry at gun point because it might make one feel better for having “solved” a problem that was likely at least partly caused by government to begin with.
While the edges of this set of belief has soften, the core has only become more certain over time and through dedicated social and economic study.
So now, I’m staunchly liberal on social issues (abortion, same sex marriage, drug legalization- anything to do with consensual personal behavior) and staunchly conservative on economic issues. They add up to the same thing: Keeping the government out of individuals’ lives and letting them succeed or fail entirely on their own merits.
How about that the government should help people get back on their feet? Say you’ve been a taxpayer for 20 years or more and suddenly find yourself in difficulties?
My entire family has been extremely conservative.
I was always somewhat middle-of-the-road but as I get older I become more liberal politically.
Born, raised, and continuing feminist. Which in my case means I’m much more aligned with the liberal side than the conservative - but that the liberals piss me off fairly often, too (mostly having to do with not going far enough), and while the conservatives are almost always wrong, they sometimes reach the right conclusions for the wrong reasons.
On what issues?
Age 16-20: Christian Righty Republican Rapturist Zionist 95%-ProLife Bircher type
Age 20-22: Christian Righty Republican libertarian milder-Zionist 95%-ProLife post-Bircher post-Rapturist
Age 22-30+: same as previous but throw in some dalliance with Christian Reconstruction and at Age 27 another shot at Birchism but just for a year
Age 30 to present 47: softer version of all of the above
In high school I was conservative, but started moving solidly towards the center by the end of high school and early college. I find that I tend to reject whichever extreme I’m currently talking to… which is usually liberal (still being in school with 20-25 year olds) but every now and then I’ll find a conservative to piss me off.
Always been a leftie. In fact I won’t move back to the UK as I find that everyone is too far to the right for me these days.
Growing up under Thatcher will do that to you.
No. I’d been a regularly employed professional for nearly 15 years and got laid off at the end of the .com burst.
It took me 3,000 resumes and 2 years to find another professional position. In the meantime I worked as a cab driver, free lancer and laborer to cover the bills until I could get back on my feet. I didn’t ask for or take a penny from the government, and I can’t advocate for anyone else to do it either.
In my youth I was a card carrying left wing nut. I am shocked at how conservative I became as I grew older.
I think there are some things that you only understand as you get older. And it has nothing to do with intellegence, it’s simply about passage of time.
When you’re young you feel you can change the world, by the time you’re 40 you learn to accept what you can’t change, because you won’t be here forever.
For instance, when I was 20 I couldn’t never understand how people could cheat on each other, romantically. I was like “Well just get a divorce.” But now I understand WHY this can happen and why divorce isn’t the answer, always, sometimes but not always.
I also learned to “understand” something does NOT mean you condone it.
Eh.
Have always considered myself fairly moderate but am somewhat more liberal now than in previous years, though still comfortably within the moderate-conservative label.
Youth: Son of a right wing hate all Democrats racist misogynist businessman veteran. I am sure that I was a reflection of that.
College: USMC reservist gun-nut right-wing anti-gay conservative. Then I started to get to know individuals of groups that I thought I hated, and discovered that I didn’t hate them. I started to learn more about the abuses by the police during the war on (some) drugs. I began my distrust of BOTH parties and any strong government.
Post-college: Small “l” libertarian. Very fiscally conservative. Non-interventionist. Still a gun nut. None of your business what I smoke, drink, shoot or screw - and it is none of my business what you smoke, drink, shoot or screw. Environmentalist (didn’t care when I was young on that one). Registered Republican. Will vote for almost anything that takes power away from the Federal government.