I grew up very right wing, raised by “Birchers” (google John Birch Society, young’uns) and went to a Libertarian school.
Between the Dope and the Jesus, I’ve made a painful transition to almost-progressive.
If I were still a Libertarian, my brain would’ve exploded when faced with a pandemic, where we desperately need to look out for each other. And need a functioning government.
I’ve become more neutral on the Israel/Palestine issue.
Not quite the same line of thought, but I’ve been tobacco free for ten years thanks to a thread detailing the main points of Alan Carr’s book on quitting smoking.
I was a lurker on the AOL board a few time and have been registered here 21 years. (I still mostly lurk)
I have changed my mind on numerous issues due to posts here. There have been many issues where my information wasn’t complete and some issues that my information just wasn’t true. What I have learned over the years of reading here is to research issues and fact check. I have worked hard at overcoming any confirmation bias I have.
Yes, but in a more gradual way, not some big change after reading something. It’s actually so slow that I wouldn’t even notice except that I sometimes see things I’ve posted in the past (either here or elsewhere). I’ll see myself saying cringy bullshit that I can’t figure out how could have aligned with my values. And then a whole lot of saying things in a way that seem obvious in hindsight would not be helpful.
It makes sense, though. The reason I found this board was Cecil’s article on abortion, and how it opened up to me the idea of a position I could actually hold. I was completely convinced by the pro-life argument until then. I found the SDMB after I clicked to comment on the article. (I never did, though, because the board was still pay-to-post, and I didn’t want to waste my free month until I had something more to say than saying how good it was, letting those pro-choicers who got mad at Cecil know that he really did help.)
This all said, one change is that I’ve fixed the inconsistencies in my beliefs around a lot of topics, and so those are more resistant to change than they used to be. It really is just me applying my moral principles to the situation, and thus you’d have to change my moral principles, or prove that some bit information I had is incorrect.
What especially won’t work are people giving one liners, mockery, or anything other than an actual counterargument. It works the opposite for me: that tells me that you don’t have a counter, and thus I’m more likely to be right.
Boy could we use her now.
Powers &8^]
I used to be quite racist against Americans but this board made me realise that some of you are almost normal ;).
At the risk of being accused of “shouting you down”, this is just silly.
Supporting the right of women to pursue military careers and celebrating their successes is not the opposite of disagreeing with a specific war or with the use of military to achieve certain foreign policy goals. One can do both without being a hypocrite or having to abandon one of those positions. It can easily be argued that the best way to support the troops is not to send them into a war overseas to achieve domestic political goals.
And “opposing traditional institutions like marriage” was only an absolutist position for a tiny fringe; the greater opposition was to fundamental inequalities in the way marriage used to be structured, inequalities which have now been significantly addressed thanks to the “Left”. I was watching a documentary about RBG yesterday; several of her case from her days as a lawyer focused on some of these, including the right of married women in the military to receive the same housing allowance as married men, and the right of widowers raising children to receive the same benefit as widowed mothers. The fact that the “Left” opted to fix marriage rather than ban it is a good thing.
Back on topic: off the top of my head I know my views on gun control and hate crimes legislation have become more moderated and less absolute thanks to discussions here. There have also been a huge number of topics which I came away from with a much, much better and broader understanding of than I had come to them with. Sometimes just reading both sides of the debate helps clarify complicated subjects.
I’ve changed my view on hate crimes legislation not from anything I read here but after seeing it in action. It’s as prone to abuse as feared; no one should be giving governments and police this power.
The US 1st amendment was revolutionary when it was passed and unfortunately is still revolutionary now. Americans don’t know how lucky they are.
It is sadly prone to abuse (as is so much these days) but I’ve become somewhat more agreeable to it in principle, in that certain crimes are committed not solely against a specific person or people but with the deliberate intent of terrorizing a population the victim of the hate crime represents. I think sentencing for such things has never been appropriately considered but the intent to effectively commit small-scale terrorism does need to be considered where demonstrable.
Sorry, I think I misunderstood you. If you’re just referring to adding additional penalties to existing crimes, I don’t have such strong feelings about that. It’s laws against free speech and expression that I mostly object to.
But those aren’t “hate crimes legislation.” Those are unconstitutional censorship! Hate crimes laws are only additional penalties for crimes – crimes under existing laws, like arson or vandalism – that have a racist/sexist/homophobic/etc intent.
Demonstrating intent is hard, but often the criminals in these cases make it easy by actually saying something stupid on the record. Memo: if ya gonna spray-paint swastikas on a synagogue, don’t brag about it ahead of time on FaceBook…which is EXACTLY what some people have done!
As long as there must be crime, thank goodness for really stupid criminals!
Which article? Or which post?
Do note that my personal opinion has softened a bit more, to the level of “it’s between the woman, her doctor, and her God, if any.” But Cecil argues the minimum point where personhood could accrue on a fetus: when brainwaves arrive. And I agree with that.
Hate crimes legislation in America may be only additional penalties, but pretty much no other countries have such strong free speech protection as the US. Here in the UK it absolutely does criminalise speech. But I don’t want to hijack this thread anymore, so let’s leave it.
Germany does the same as to pro-Nazi expression, FWIW.
Same here.
Thank you for sharing this.
America isn’t a race. It’s a rat race?
I’ve had major changes of opinion on significant issues due to my time here.
I was raised fundamentalist Pentecostal and accepted all that I was taught. I would have been a Trumper now and, probably, a fairly extreme one. I was a young-earth creationist filled with righteous hate of gays, women’s rights, bleeding heart Liberals…
I am so incredibly grateful to the people here who gave me a different perspective on life.
The thing I’m most happy to have changed my mind about it LGBTQ issues. It’s so much more peaceful to just accept people for who they are without a second thought about who they date or marry or what their gender is.