FORMER LIBERAL FReepers...I have a theory.

bigjoesaddle

[bigjoesaddle]

I am a former Liberal that voted for Clinton the first time (head droopong in shame), and I wonder how many other people like me there are out there.

Also, I have a theory to discuss. I have NEVER met a person who grew up a Conservative, then switched to the Democrat Party AFTER COLLEGE! Many switch during college, because of the rebellion aspect of going against their "Dads politics", etc, but after entering the real world, a person NEVER switches to Liberal. The theory basicly is that many Liberals, no matter how old they are, are STILL rebelling, and basicly can't see that their ways never succeed.

There is also the belief that "I am a good person, and all I want to do is good for the world and the people in the world, THEREFORE EVERYTHING I BELIEVE IS RIGHT, BECAUSE IT IS BASSED ON "GOODNESS". They don't realise that, just because you are "good", doesn't mean you're "right".

[bigjoesaddle]

Please share your coments, thanks.

[cricket]

"They don't realise that, just because you are "good", doesn't mean you're "right".

. . .the old axim 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions' sums up pretty well, what it is to be a Liberal. . .at least for the naive ones. . .

[Iwentsouth]

1992 was the first time I could vote. That vote went to Clinton since I was a Democrat

1996 became a Libertarian.

2000 finally grew up and became a Republican =)

[cricket]

p.s.. . .so glad you are now 'enlightened' to the political realities and 'freepin' about it as well!

[Cicero]

On the whole I believe you are right.

Freud was wrong about human nature generally, but he had a pretty good grip on the psychology of secular, atheistic modernists like himself.

When I was younger, I found it exceedingly depressing to see so many people dropping out, taking drugs, and "doing their own thing," thinking that they were revolting against custom and convention and everyone over 30, when in fact there was never such a bunch of like-minded conformists in history, all wearing the same clothes, smoking the same dope, and running together like a pack of lemmings headed for a cliff.

[VoiceOfBruck]

I have NEVER met a person who grew up a Conservative, then switched to the Democrat Party AFTER COLLEGE!

My mother did. Well into her teaching career, she got involved in the NEA/teachers' union politics and became a hardcore democrat. It's a source of consternation to me, and I try to avoid discussing anything political with her. It's useless.

But in general I think your premise is true - it's a rare person who switches from light to darkness.

[NativeNewYorker]

I was a liberal until the Democratic Party of New York City and State turned a deliberate blind eye to those commiting murderous racial and anti-semitic violence in my home town of Brooklyn NY in the 1991 Crown Heights riots.

When Dinkins refused to use his police to stop the anti-white, anti-Jew violence, and Mario Cuomo refused to call out the National Guard, AFTER 2 BLOODY NIGHTS, the light bulb went on for me, and I've never looked back.

[Xenalyte]

I have NEVER met a person who grew up a Conservative, then switched to the Democrat Party AFTER COLLEGE! Many switch during college, because of the rebellion aspect of going against their "Dads politics", etc, but after entering the real world, a person NEVER switches to Liberal.

Boy, do you have me pegged. My parents are yellow-dog Republicans, and during my stint at (get this) Houston Baptist University, I turned hideously liberal. (I was a goth too, but that's for another thread.)

I held to the left as long as I could, which was just over seven years counting grad school, but about three months into my real life, I had a road-to-Damascus moment, and I'm all better now.

[NativeNewYorker]

... it's a rare person who switches from light to darkness....

And even Anakin turned back at the end. :)

[KoestlersRedFiat]

I too voted for clinton in '92 (gag!)

But having lived through the antics of Bill & Hill, and the media's excusing their every deed, I turned hard right. Even my parents (moderate Republicans) are shocked when I mount the soapbox.

Hence my freeper handle.

[w_over_w]

Richard Nixon once said "The difference between a Liberal and a Conservative is a Liberal thinks with their heart and a Conservative thinks with their mind". I first voted in 1976 for Gerald Ford. As an Econ. major in college I listened to Jimmy Carter (in the debates) take the unemployment rate, the inflation rate and the prime rate, add them together and call it the "misery index". This violated every sound and reasonable economic principle I was studying at the time. It also epitomized what Nixon was trying to convey. And it's still true today . . . that is IMHO. Good thread BigJoe!

[linuxnut]

Once you get a job, have responsibilities and start paying taxes, chanced are, you become a conservative (or start thinking like one).

[thinktwice]

Growing up liberal means growing up brainwashed, and ... that makes you a Manchurian Candidate liberal when push comes to shove.

IMO, the only conservative cure is the adoption of a rational philosophy; but that is a staggering obstacle because your enemy is within you.

You might try monitoring Ayn Rand threads on Free Republic. That name -- as a search term -- will introduce you to the rational philosophy world.

[Bikers4Bush]

"I was a goth too but that's for another thread..."

Tease.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

"The theory basicly is that [pop psychology deleted]". Even if we assume we're working with good data, there are other explanations. People with a college education tend, on average, to earn more than people without. And the Republican party is perceived as being more friendly to people in the upper income brackets. So assuming that voting patterns bear some relation to self-interest, we don't need much in the way of speculative psychology to explain the data, assuming the data is reliable to begin with.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

One implication of your analysis is that people who are concerned with what's taught in college are having paranoid fantasies about the degree of control liberal academics have over the future voting patterns of the students they teach. Growing up does involve getting over the adolescent urge to rebel. But it also involves getting over the pre-adolescent disposition to irrational fears.

[Archie Bunker on steroids]

I never liked liberals and I always will.

[SamAdams76]

There are a few who become more liberal as they get older (Goldwater gal Hillary Clinton being one) but they are in the distinct minority. It can also be argued that those folks were never conservative to begin with.

I can honestly say that I was a dyed-in-the-wool liberal in my early days. I thought Jimmy Carter was swell back in '76 and thought Richard Nixon was an evil man. In high school, I wore a "No Nukes" T-shirt and a few friends and I talked of joining a commune when we grew up and maybe hitchiking or across the country and "seeing America."

It's funny to think back on those days now, but at least I grew up. Some never do.

[wizr]

If I could have voted for Barry Goldwater, in the sixties, I would have.

But then, during the later campaigns, I saw blue suits behind the Republican candidates, Levies and plaid shirts behind the Democrat candidates. The visuals worked on me.

I considered myself a conserative Democrat. Voted with that party for the last time in '92.

I still hate the political trash that is laid out before us every day. It's tough to decipher. FR helps.

Thanks Mike

[js1138]

I am mostly libertarian (small "l").I vote mostly for people I think are personally honest. Sometimes I leave blanks on ballots (actual undervotes).

My first presidential vote (after returning from Vietnam) went to George McGovern, most out of protest. I hated LBJ more than most of you hate Clinton. I disliked Nixon because I thought he had no personal morals and because he represented for me, all the worst aspects of government -- increased police powers, wage and price controls, massive hypocracy. I saw nothing very conservative about his politics.

My father is a lifelong Roosevelt democrat. It has taken me a long time to accept the possibility of voting Republican. I liked Reagan, but admitting this would have caused cause open warfare in the family.

The 2000 election recount was the final straw in a long list of horrors, that allowed me to argue openly with my family.