So, why are you a Democrat anyway.

[TayTay]

Just one of those, this is why I'm here threads.

So, why are you a Democrat anyway? Born that way or a convert? Came from Repub stock, but got away.

Why?

[jillan]

1. Born into a family of them...but...

When I was 4 or 5 - my mom told me that I told her that I wanted to give my piggy bank to the poor children.

I guess I'm a democrat because I care about people, all people. All animals (except snakes!) All over the world. I believe in equality. I don't judge people by race, or sexuality. I am not a prejudiced person* I believe in fairness, justice. Money and material things are great, but that's not what is important. I am anti-war. I believe in SCIENCE.
And I am not a NASCAR fan lol!

One area I don't fit into the norm of the democratic philosophy is I believe in the death sentence. Actually, I would like to see the punishment fit the crime, especially when it comes to child molestors, and murderers.

*actually I am becomming prejudiced... I'm with Dean... I don't like Republicans or anything they stand for

[elshiva]

2. Born Yellow Dog Democrat. Both parents.

What is there not to like?

[Siyahamba]

3. I don't know if I'd be considered a convert

The Democrats were the natural choice for me when I moved to the US.

[jillan]

5. where are you from?

[Siyahamba]

11. Canada

Long before I moved to the US last summer, I knew that the Democrats were the correct choice.

[jillan]

14. What part of Canada?

I love B.C. My sister-in-law has family in Toronto.

Now why are you here? This is a time for Americans to go to Canada, not the other way around:rofl:

[Siyahamba]

17. Manitoba

Now why am I here... I get comments like that all the time. Sometimes I even get a flat-out "Go back to Canada" which is very insulting.

I met my partner, he was from the US, and it was easier for me to move to the US than him to move to Canada.

[whometense]

4. Born in a blue state,

raised in a blue state. Family a pack of northeastern libruls. I was registered as an independent till this past year, though (I just liked keeping my options open - it's not as if I'd vote for one of them).

[wisteria]

6. Repub stock-got away!

Oh, and I can't help myself,I just have to add the statement below because it always comes to mind when someone asked me why I'm a Democrat. This is actually a quote from an old TV program-Superman I think. Anyway, here goes,
I'm a Democrat because they "believe in truth, justice and the American way."

[fedupinBushcountry]

7. Born into it

Born in Blue New York, and a very Democratic family, my grandfather was chairman of the Democratic party in his town in Ohio. Was 10 when John Kennedy was elected and of course we loved him being Irish Catholics. I remember my little brother pulling his red wagon around filled with Kennedy bumperstickers and buttons.Was devastated when he was assainated, still to this day I think the Repubs were behind it. Met Bobby Kennedy when I was a freshmen in high school he was running for Senator, was absolutely floored when he was killed. I guess I have always been a Kennedy Dem, but now I am a proud Kerry Dem.

I could never ever be a Republican, and I don't know why people are. Republicans are I,I,I, and Democrats are WE, a community of caring individuals who don't want just for themselves but for everyone to enjoy life to the fullest.

[Pirate Smile]

8. I'm from a (usually) "cancel out each other's votes" family. My Mom's

side is Irish Catholic Democrats, always identified with the underdog, disgusted with the social Darwinism that seems to be the other sides view of life.

My father is an Independent who leans to the right but is the Libertarian type, not a religious/social conservative. The religious RW men freak me out. Strong ICK factor. Most men I've known aren't like that.

I (obviously) agree with my Mom on most things politically but I heard both sides growing up.

[rox63]

9. Born into conservative family, got away

Even though I was born and raised in very-blue Massachusetts, my family was politically conservative. My Dad was a Goldwater Rethug, and the rest of the family voted the same way. They tended more towards the Libertarian end of Rethuggery, and were not part of the religious-right. In fact, they were a strange mix of Catholics and atheists. Even though neither of my parents were practicing Catholics, they sent me and my brother to Catholic schools for the full 12 years of grammar school and high school.

Anyway, after years of therapy, I rejected the madness in my gene pool, and embraced librulism wholeheartedly.

[Island Blue]

10. I'm a convert

It's actually a very long story so I'll spare you all of the details. Basically, I was born into a Republican family (remember please that the Republican party of yesteryear was not quite the same as today's Republican party.) I will confess that I voted for Reagan for his second term (my first opportunity to vote and that was my choice?) and I voted for George the I. (Go ahead, flog me now.)

During the rein of George the I, I moved to a relatively more progressive area and became friends with an incredible couple whose liberal influence on me was life changing. I think the straw that broke the elephant's back for me though was the first Gulf War. I was very much against that, and I began to realize more and more that the Republican party did not represent me.

What's even better is that the Republican party no longer has a strangle hold on the votes on anyone in my immediate family! Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude.

[JohnKleeb]

12. Well its so hard to say

but I on my mom's side come from a working class immigrant family, my mom's parents grew up in the depression speaking Slovak and Slovene, grandma and grandpa respectively. They saw poverty and faced it, and they also were brought up as Catholics, and the church's teachings of social justice no doubt inspired them, plus my great grandfathers on that side were coal miners and in John Lewis' United Mine Workers of America so I naturally have great concern for workers and workers rights. My dad's side of the family is German and Irish, his family came here in the first great immigrant wave, and by the time dad's parents were born, they were pretty well integrated in to American society, I dont know where they got their views from but they were raised Democrats, and my Grandfather worked for the National Labor Relations Board, though he grew up middle to upper middle class, he had his eye out for the little guy, he once scolded my father for making a racist remark too. He knew many labor leaders like Walter Reuther of the UAW and Jimmy Hoffa of the Teamsters through his work at the NLRB. I never knew him but my late nana died only this past winter and through her while she was still able memoried, I understood the kind of man my grandfather was. I am a democrat because of the kind of people my family were and what they have taught me. As a little kid watching CSPAN with my mom's mom, I was always told that Democrats fight for the little guy, I guess I took a very natural liking to the party because of that. I am very proud of my political idealogy, ethnic background, and Catholic faith because I feel all those things are a key factor in why I believe what I believe not only politically but about people as a whole.

[paulk]

16. hey, Kleeb

have you ever been to Slovenia?

[JohnKleeb]

20. Havent even left the east coast

So no but I would love to go there.

[paulk]

22. I visited there back in '92

Ljubljana (the capital) was a real cultural hotspot for music.

My wife's mom came from Gorizia (actually she was born in Croatia in an area that was still part of Italy). Gorizia is right on the Italian/Slovenian border.

That area has a fascinating history - changing hands between the Austrian Empire, Italy, and Yugoslavia.

Hope you get to go there some day.

[JohnKleeb]

23. Ljubjiana is where my mom's dad's parents were from

Came here when the Austro=Hungrian empire was still around. Yes, the Balkans really is a very interesting place historically, its really sad though, like I know Tito was a tyrant in many ways but I appreciate that he kept the countries together.

[ginnyinWI]

13. Dem convert here, too

ALL of my extended family (parents and four brothers) still vote Republican, :( some because they are Fundies, and some because they have never really honestly questioned it.

I voted repub until Clinton, and then I just couldn't stand it any more. For some reason I intuitively trusted Clinton more, and voted for him even though I was still anti-choice at the time. Since then I've drifted further to the left, and replaced intuition with logical, rational reasons to vote Dem.

I'm a Democrat because I firmly believe that we, as Americans and also as citizens of the world, are all in this together. People should help each other, not try to destroy each other to get power or resources. And we should save our environment, not exploit and destroy it.

[paulk]

15. probably Vietnam

my family was all Republican - although politics really wasn't a subject that was discussed much. My Mom did say something kind of interesting years later, though. She said, "When you live in a small town like this, you're a Republican - but no one knows who you really vote for once you're in the voting booth".

One of my older brothers got drafted and was in Vietnam during the Tet offensive - I was in 8th grade. I had to do a speech in English class - I chose the Vietnam conflict, I think mostly because my brother was there - I hadn't really thought about it, whether it was right or wrong before that. I went to the town library and , over a couple of weeks read everything I could on Vietnam - it's history, the war... and arrived at the conclusion that the whole thing was a major league clusterfuck and that we shouldn't be there. And especially my brother shouldn't be there... So that's what I said in my speech - (and got pretty well ostracized for it).

Johnson was still president then, so I guess I considered myself a "Republican" still - however when Nixon became president and continued the war after promising to stop it - I became politicized - and arrived at the conclusion that my political leanings were on the Democratic side of the aisle. And of course my dislike of Nixon and the Republicans was really cemented by Watergate.

I was pretty vocal about my political leanings (which didn't earn me a lot of love in the shitheel little town I grew up in, believe me). My family thought it was just teenage rebelliousness - maybe some of it was - but over the next 30 years I've convinced every last one of them to vote Democratic - except my father, who went to his grave a fire breathing freeper.

Oh, well...

[ginnyinWI]

18. Men in your dad's generation

don't like to change their minds very much--but it's great that you converted the rest. Wish I could do the same with my family--my dad's a big freeper too, but really has nothing in his head but what rw-talk radio fills it with, nothing original. Still, I was amazed at the anger that got stirred up in him at his age (76), to the point where he called me names and questioned my sanity, etc. It was like he was possessed, temporarily. I don't know what he would have done if he had found out I was a Kerry campaign volunteer and also sent money.
I was in 8th grade in 1965-66, so we must be about the same age. :)

[paulk]

21. I've tried to understand that brand of "conservatism"...

One of the last conversations I had with my father was around seven years ago - he was reading some book - a book written in 1951 - that was a thorough trashing of FDR and the New Deal. I just couldn't understand - why was he reading a book written 45 years ago about events from 60 years ago and still getting all pissed off about it?

I asked him, "Why do you hate FDR so much?" His answer - "Because he was a goddamn socialist".

The weirdest part of it was that during the great depression, my father had worked in the CCC. He'd actually benefited from FDR's "socialism". It's almost like - getting government help didn't fit into his personal "self made man" mythology - he couldn't deal with the clash between the fictional account of his life "pulled up by his own bootstraps" and the reality that he'd made it through those years with help from one of FDR's programs. So he had to reject the whole thing.

It's kind of funny - at the time I thought his wanting to turn back the clock on the New Deal was some strange anachronism. Now we've got the Bush junta trying to do exactly what he wanted...

[JohnKleeb]

26. Damn

All my grandparents loved FDR and especially my mom's parents because they benefitted from his "socialism"

[sandnsea]

19. Born that way

Union, Catholic, Kennedy Democrats. Democrats are for the working people, Republicans for the rich. And even though my dad was more an old time Democrat, I remember asking him why we were in Vietnam when I was around 11, 1968 or so. I'll never forget the sad look in his eyes when he said "I just don't know". And that both my folks were quite impressed with John Kerry, way back then.

[vinessa4freedom]

24. Confessions of an Ignoramus

I was a Reagan kid. And still paying off debts. Why Dem? Because I woke up and started paying attention to politics. I've always been liberal in viewpoint, but I didn't know what being a republican or democrat meant besides choosing between an elephant and a donkey. Honestly. That bad. So there it is, I'm admitting to being one of the things I hate--ignorant. I never knew about corporatocracy, American media propaganda, the true nature of the FBI and CIA, the corporate ties of politicians, the plight of peoples whose lands we rape and pillage, children in this country without medical care (or food in many cases), the fact that honest, hard working people pay taxes for people that have summer mansions and yachts, and on and on and on. When * stole the 2000 election, I knew we were in trouble, and I knew we'd be in a war (although I truly didn't comprehend why) and I reached the point where I realized I had to do something. While canvassing for John Kerry (as a no-party voter) I realized that I could do more from inside the party. Get involved in local campaigns, share the responsibility with those who stand up for what I believe in and commune with people who get it. The last few years have been a steady process of education for me. I returned to college last fall, with the intention of brushing up on my writing skills to prepare to write (fiction) professionally. As of this fall, I am a Political Science major with a concentration on writing and English. Time to use my skills to make the world a better place--just like the democrats I admire who drew me to this party.

[TayTay]

25. Wow! That's very impressive stuff

You rock kiddo!

Okay, I'll tell. My Mom was a Republican, as was her father and Grandfather. He was part of the rock-rib Republicanism that infects Massachusetts' North Shore. (Sigh! It goes back generations. MA was a Republican strong-hold until FDR and the New Deal. Then the cities all switched to Dem. But a lot of the old towns stayed Country-Club Republican.) My dad and all his brothers grew up in Cambridge, MA and were lunch-pail Dems. They remember this skinny kid on crutches who ran for Congress in '46 in Cambridge with the idea that it was time for a generation of WWII vets to assume power. That skinny kid on crutches (who I have personal family photos of) won and John F. Kennedy's career began.

My uncles were all union guys and worked at the GE in Lynn. In addition to being shop steward, my uncle was a precinct captain in the Dem Party in Somerville/Cambridge. He and my Dad used to talk politics all the time and I would listen. They talked about the conventions they had been to and how the races shaped up. I just soaked it up. (I heard all about Stevenson, Humphrey, the '56 Dem convention, the '60 race and how my uncle had gone to other states to campaign for Kennedy and so forth.) Tip O'Neill, former Speaker of the US House, lived diagonally acros the street from my Uncle on the Somerville/Cambridge line. We usd to see Tips kids out mowing the lawn and stuff all the time. (Tip was a great man, very old line Dem.)So, I guess I am a lifelong Dem. (And a lifelong player in the conservative/moderate/liberal wars within the Dem Party. Come on, hanging out in The People's Republic of Cambridge? Haning out with Union Dems? My mom is a Repub? Sigh!)

[vinessa4freedom]

27. Love can conquer all then :)

Very encouraging. Did Mom soften to the left a little bit with your Dad's influence? I think the necessity of your diplomatic background serves you well here. You use the skills of mediation well in this group and I think one of the reasons we all love each other so much despite our differences are the voices of reason that come through reminding us that we're all on the same page--even if we're on a different line from time to time.

I took a break for a few days while digesting the most recent bout of skull and bones stuff. I did some research on it instead of just jumping in to defend John. I knew very little about the group and its hard to argue that way. I also got into a few tiffs with conservative (understatement) republicans. There's a great way to celebrate being a democrat!

[TayTay]

28. Blush, blush, why thank you

I will try mightily not to get a swelled up head. My Mom hasn't really been a Repub for a while, but she still hasn't changed her voter registration. Her father was a very powerful force in her life and I think she registered Repub out of duty and devotion.

My Mom voted for Kerry last time. She didn't need me to convince her. She believes that * is a phoney-baloney. (Being a phoney or a faker is the worst sort of insult around here. If someone calls someone that, they should consider themselves very, very put-down indeed. Not being true to who you actually are and being seen as putting on uppity airs is a very bad sin. We still have all those Puritan influences left over here and this is one of them. The other bad sin is not having a self-deprecating sense of humor. Explains a lot.)

[Island Blue]

29. Isn't it strange the Mass. used to be a Republican stronghold

and is now a Democratic stronghold whereas the South used to be a Democratic strong hold and now it's a Republican stronghold? Nothing brilliantly intellectual to add, just a stray observation.

[JohnKleeb]

30. You can thank us Irish Catholics for making Massachuetts Democratic

Well the Italians, Polish, and Portugese too. Yeah it is funny but as the north got more ethnic catholics, the more democratic it went.