When did you convert to your political ideology????

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Until six months ago i was a staunch left wing. But the modern day substitutes for left wing 'progressive' politics have disaffetced me.

It is probably closest to the truth to me to say that I am a left wing by nature...I believe people can only live meaningful lives with a proper state in place, and that the inequality arising from capitalism destroys social justice and leads people to the conclusion that they are important.

ASnd that last line might give you an implicit clue to this disclosure: I do have some right wing tendencies. I think people in themselves are unimportant, to the extent that everyone has a role to play in creating a strong, healthy state where there is one definite ruling power. This state should be the raison d'etre; I want to ensure it is the most important thing in people's lives, as opposed to meaningless self-money powered advancement.

Getting rich, entirely self obsessed and on your own stupid lifestyle is the downward spiral.

I used to be a socialist.
I was initially well, pretty much clueless about politics.
I became a socialist after a couple factors that I won't get into.
I'd been a market socialist though, and did not like the idea of immense state control.
I went to a "socialist conference" at Columbia University in a van with a couple of Marxists.
The people there were completely insane.

I suppose that I should note that at 14-15 I began considering my positions, seeing politics as more than a line and no longer inclined to call myself "leftist." I'd begun thinking about affirmative action, gun control, and abortion, and taking rather different positions than the people on websites I hung out with, if still more authoritarian than not.

I began reconsidering my position economically. By about a year and a half later I was baiscally a libertarian, though the shift had happened gradually as I re-examined one issue at a time.
Another half year after that, I was finally willing to actually call myself a libertarian, and was looking at things from a perspective not of "greatest good" or "most fair" but "what business does the government have with their nose in this.

I suppose that I'd always been libertarian really. Never liked group work and a lot of things traditionally supported by "liberals" as I'd used to call myself, such as community, government power, and the draft, inherently grated against my natural inclinations. I'd always admired libertarianism, but didn't think that I could make myself be so selfish.

Then I realized that A. I'm selfish anywhen and B. a lot of "selfish" inclinations, such as refusing to give one's life for the state or refusal accept something that the majority believes in, aren't selfish, however some might say so.

I'd also refused to call myself libertarian for a while as I dislike political labels. They's be useful, except that they're almost univerally abused. However libertarian has a a real meaning, and it works, so I use it, and if somebody wants to think that that means "Ayn Rand worshipper," "libertine," "reactionary," "radical," "nutcase,"(though these two do work), "moderate," or some other such, well, that's their problem, not mine.

I'm not sure how long I'll be willing to call myself such though.
Libertarianism is on the rise, spawing the ascendence of "libertarian" think tanks and political vessels, and increasing numbers of dogmists who don't think.

Since as far as I'm concerned libertarianism about individualism and free thought and action, and libertarian dogmas are inherently antithetical to this, I may have to come up with a term to distance myself.

Not necessarily.

There are a number of people I've seen refer to themselves as "onservative."

First there are those like George Will, "fiscal conservatives" who tend to be moderate on social issues.
These people are not doing well, nor have they done so since Calvin Coolidge.

Similar to this group are those like William Buckley and Antonin Scalia, fairly free-thinking, and economically libertarian, more moralistic but of the belief that government should nevetheless be small and unobtrusive. They themselves are doing well, but getting little of their agenda passed.

Then you have the so called "neocons" whose really sole platform is an agressive foreign policy. Hawks. Were doing well, still seem to have the ear of Bush but have lost the support of Congress.

Then there are religious zanies in the south like Pats Robertson and Buchannan. Bush is throwing them some bones on a few issues, with homophobia and some welfare programs, but generally they're disgusted with him.

Then there are those who I know I used to think of when I heard "conservative" the "dittoheads" who listen to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and Ann Coulter. If they ever have an independent thought I'd be surprised. Since they think whatever these pundits tell them to think, I suppose that you could say they're happy.

Then there are the "Reagan Democrats" higlynationalistic, and very moralistic but don't even make much pretext of religion, industrial workers, the "NASCAR dads." As long as the "enemies of America," such as Democrats (though they are often Democrats themselves) are unhappy, they're happy.

Back a bit to the New Englanders, so called "moderates" such as Olympia Snowe. I don't really know what to say about them aside from that they're all different.

Obviously, labels don't work and my divisions are arbitrary, and exclude a lot who use the lable (some libertarians I've met used it at first, unaware that there was a better term) but this should I hope give some idea of how meaningless the lable "conservative" is.

Without asking what somebody means when they call themselves "liberal" or "conservative", you really have no idea what they mean. Then I've observed countless meanings for "socialist" and likewise for "moderate" at least two for "progressive" and several for "anarchist" and "libertarian," though in the latter two cases qualifiers are generally used ("individualist anarchist," "libertarian Marxist").

I much prefer it when people describe their views to trying to lable themselves.

Some things would be better if they were "gone with the wind"

I find myself rather authoritarian in my political beliefs, some aspects are left-wing (legalisation/decriminalisation of prostitution and marijuana) but I find other views are very right-wing (increasing defence expenditure). I also believe that a monarchy and aristocracy gives a nation an important focal point - a living icon, if you will.

I have trouble with the idea of said aristocracy ruling, but I for one tend to think it might be better than the current rampant corporations robbing everyone blind. So I guess I am something of a feudalist.

I was once a liberal myself, but living in Israel and 9/11 jolted me out of my liberalism, and I have been conservative ever since. What also moved me towards conservatism was witnessing the increasingly leftward drift of the Democratic Party. I have also come to the conclusion that the conservative view of human nature (that it is depraved) is much more intellectually tenable than the liberal view that human nature is good. I have also become a conservative in realizing that despite all of its faults, the market is a much more sane and functional way to handle economic scarcity than an elitist state bureaucracy. In foreign policy, I came to realize that there are bad guys out there who want to destroy democracy and Western civilization, and it is necessary to fight them. During the Cold War, there was Communism. Now we have Islamofascism. In Israel, I have seen what Islamofascism has done--charred remains of busses, blown-out store fronts, destruction of market stalls, not to mention 9/11. I continue to be pained by the existence of poverty in the United States, but I believe that a large factor in U.S. poverty is the deterioration of the family structure due to absent fathers in the inner cities, and drinking in Appalachia. I also get sick and tired of the ideology of victimization, and the emphasis on group rights (as opposed to individial rights) so prevalent in the U.S. Left. This is why I have become conservative.

I currently belong to the religion of respect.

I respect the fact that i have but limited knowledge of the nature of things.

i respect the fact that it will likeoly be a lifetime struggle to find the truth.

i respect and expect respect in due regard to my respectful ignorance

I suppose my political beliefs started forming in high school. I tend towards authoritarianism because I like law and order (not the show) and because people are very flawed. The main flaw in the people I saw was their corruption and corruptability. Ultimately I wanted a totalitarian state to correct the flaws in them, to make them moral and pure and save humanity from the corruption that flowed through it. I did not trust capitalism due to the greed that created it and that it fed. I have cooled down a bit though. I guess I realized that no society could ever be perfect and gave up the ideal. I still end up being socially conservative but I understand that some level of capitalism is necessary especially to maintain a powerful nation. I guess I end up being a republican that hates the anti-scientific nature that republicans seem to advocate. Oh well, politics is full of bad things anyway and it is not that big of a deal.

Hmm, victimization I agree is a lamentable ideology but can you explain how the left puts group rights first, in the US?

When I was in high school, I was a good little liberal, just like the public school system wanted me to be. I hated the US government with no clear idea why.

9/11 changed that. No matter what spin the leftists put on it, no matter how much they claim it was deserved, I saw it, and will always see it, as an attack on our freedoms. These freedoms, the right to talk garbage about my government without being arrested and tortured, all things I'd taken absolutely for granted and never been able to see what life without them would be like. After 9/11, I went hard conservative. I became highly jingoistic, all for killing everyone who wasn't expressly on our side, and I argued in favor of dropping nukes on Afghanistan and then dividing the country up into 30 acre lots and giving the lots and a mule to black families in America, so they'd finally get their promised 30 acres and a mule from when slavery was ended.

After a year or so of that kind of conservativism, I realised how insane it was. So I decided that rather than take a "side", I'd examine every issue independently.

Right now, I think I'm most closely aligned with the Reform Party. I think something in the US government is fundamentally broken, but not so broken that it couldn't be fixed if the US citizens would wake up and vote for someone who isn't in the Good Ol Boy's political club. Otherwise, I'm extremely anti big business, because I view big business as destroying the middle class. I believe in social security, but I think it's in need of being completely revamped since it punishes people on it for trying to get ahead.

If the Democratic party stood for what it supposedly does, I'd vote for them, but I see them as having all the bad traits of the Republican party plus the desire to make everything a government subsidiary.

I've always hated politics. And I am no political buff, to say the least. I've only started talking (well, "complaining" might be more accurate) about politics since it won't leave me alone.

I would be much happier if I could have continued to pretend politics was just something that had a spot on the 6 o'clock news. But since I'm on disability and have lost my insurance due to the Bush administration mentality, I can't ignore it any longer.

Though I still try to watch as little news as possible because it just makes me angrier and angrier. Greed, lies, and hypocracy. Politics has always been this way, but it just seems more obvious these days.

I am a Independent in a political sense.

Hmm..
I Think the closest I've ever come to "converting" to a political ideology was when I was 11, and the Zapatistas came out of the mountains in Chiapas and stood up for themselves and their people. I was enthralled. I wanted to know what they were doing, why they were doing it, and what would happen when they'd done it.

Now I run a worker-owned anarchist bookstore, and I near-violently despise most activists and anyone who enjoys "talking politics". I'm not sure how those two things run hand-in-hand, but I'm not sure how most of my dichotomies work themselves out in my head, so I guess it works just fine.

The political bottom-line, to me, is to act. to live. to do things in and for your community, to build things that you want to see. Who you vote for, or the method with which you destroy your ballot aren't the important parts. The people in power are negligible. The thought of consenting to giving someone power to make decisions for you and your community is somehting I can't quite grasp. I guess that's why I ended up with the title "Anarchist". I'm a control freak. I want to have a say in the way society is shaped. I can't understand why anyone wouldn't, why they would just vote for a party and let it go at that, let them determine what was going to happen around them.

It's entirely possible that growing up in a "Canadian Reform Party" (see: Christian Conservative) family, and being most affected, politically and personally, by a group of masked indeginas from mexico who shunned all possiblity of political power has left me marred for politics. I hate them all. The rightists, the leftists, the centreists. Direct-action is my creed.


Also, I miss having Francophones running canada's federal government. I miss Chretien and Adrienne clarkson running around having dinner parties and wearing silly hats. That was the best part about politics. I also miss politicians accidentally swearing at each other during debates. Those were the best parts of Canadian politics.

I think I'm rambling a bit here, though. First-post spewing and all.

I'm an Independent.

The Republicans are stupid in the sense that they think they know what America wants but don't really know.

The Democrats are stupid in the sense that they can't jump on what the Republicans don't know.

Frankly, I don't know what to make of it. Politics is just a bunch of idiots claiming to be knowledgeable.

I was 24 when I finally figured out that the Libertarian party best represented my views. Previous to that, I had voted for Republicans and was even a member of the College Republicans. I tend to vote for the Libertarian candidate for every post, and when there is not one available on the ballot I usually vote against the incumbent.