Was there one particular thing that turned you into a full-fledged liberal?

[Pushed To The Left]

I know we have all been influenced my many different issues, but is there one event that solidified your liberal beliefs? In my case, it was the right wing's reaction to the Lawrence v. Texas case, where the "sodomy laws" were overturned. I have always believed that what happens between consenting adults in the privacy of their bedroom is their business and not that of the government. When the Supreme Court agreed, the right wing flipped! Scalia was talking about a "culture war" in his dissent. The right wing talk hosts were acting like murder had just been legalized, the "family" hate groups were up in arms, lots of whining about "activist judges" (definition of activist judge: a judge who makes a decision you don't agree with). The most idiotic thing I heard was from Laura Ingraham: "NAMBLA's happy!". So legalizing consentual adult sex is the same as legalizing sex with children? Amazingly stupid comment on her part. My view on this court decision is that it exposed the right wing and caused them to show their true colors: Against personal freedom and pro-prejudice. (The people that had been arrested happened to be gay, which added to the right wing's vitriol)

I'm not a single issue person by any stretch. But this was the "straw that broke the camel's back" and changed me from a "swing voter" to a liberal voter. It showed me how the right wing wants to stack the courts with conservatives, so these types of cases will be decided based on the Republican party line rather then the Constitution.

[grasswire]

1. yes

I worked for a very famous conservative who was posing as a compassionate Christian. I'm a slow learner -- it took me some months to figure out that hypocrisy was the real name of the game. I was totally, fully radicalized by the experience.

[hamerfan]

2. Not really,

Just the sense of fair play and decency, as well as following the Golden Rule as a personal compass.
dumpbush

[Hubert Flottz]

3. Reality...

[ellenfl]

4. nope. been this way since my early teens.

however, having been single all my life and having to live on a smaller salary (being female), i have known what it is to be one illness away from destitution. in fact, i lived paycheck to paycheck until about 7 years ago and i have been in the workforce for 38 years. my college education didn't help much.

i have always been in favor of community . . . as opposed to each being responsible for only him/herself.

ellen fl

[vote 4 democracy]

5. hypocrisy n/t

[annabanana]

6. The rat-a-tat-tat of assassinations while I was growing up.

As I came to understand each, successive loss, I came to understand the message.

[mike_c]

7. being born....

Other than that, nothing singular.

[benddem]

39. ditto n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

51. same here

[SmokingJacket]

8. Oddly enough, it was back in Carter's day, when I was in elemen. school.

I was just a kid, but I remember how he was mocked when that rabid rabbit chased him in the canoe. It struck me as deeply unfair that a good, intelligent man (and I knew he was one) could be utterly dismissed because of that stupid incident.

And then when he was about to leave office, after working his ass off to get the hostages back, the Iranians let them out as soon as Reagan was sworn in. I remember thinking, Yeah, tell me they had nothing to do with it!!!

So I've been pissed at the Republicans since I was 9. They've done nothing to redeem themselves, in my eyes.

[4nic8em]

9. Yes,

The full-fledged neocons that exist and walk among us.....

[PassingFair]

10. The HEIST of the 2000 elections in Florida.

Took my BREATH away.

I realized that these CROOKS would
stop at NOTHING.

[New Earth]

65. same for me

[mcscajun]

11. Nope. I was "radicalized" the night of the Chicago police riot in 1968

outside and around the site of the Democratic National Convention.

I mellowed out to a liberal over time. :)

[killbotfactory]

12. The run up to war in Iraq

Before that tragic and disgusting farce, I considered myself a "moderate".

[speedoo]

13. Yeah. Vietnam and the 60's Civil Rights Movement.

I served in the Navy back in those days, and the Navy brainwashed me enroute to the Tongkin Gulf.

When I came home in 1968, as the Tet Offensive was underway, I spent a lot of time educating myself on what was really going on, avoiding the riots in NYC, Watts, Chicago and Washington, DC, and watching as MLK and RFK were gunned down.

I changed 180 begrees politically speaking in about three months.

[Toots]

69. Vietnam did it for me as well

I realized how much the government actually did lie to the people during the sixties while in Vietnam.

[sammythecat]

14. I had nothing in it.

I can take no credit. I was raised that way from the gitgo.

[GrantDem]

15. Growing up....

My family was a middle class union family. I grew up seeing the benefits of a strong middle class and how important an equally strong labor movement is to its survival. After Reagan fired the ATC I realized that the rightwing attack was aimed directly at us.

So I guess you could say that I have been a Dem since birth.

[Chipper Chat]

23. The Air Traffic Controllers fired by Reagan.

That's what I was going to post. I knew FDR's vision was in jeopardy. I realized that republicans were all about money. I became a liberal.

[GrantDem]

28. Exactly

FDR's vision of a government that worked for the people was put directly in the crosshairs. Reagan's quote "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'". This was the beginning of the assault on the middle class and the demonization of social programs.

[Chipper Chat]

46. Epitomized by Reagan's refusal to deal with aids.

Also his compliance in the transfer of wealth to the upper class.
I am not a Reagan-basher as many here are. I voted for him in '80. On balance I think he did more good than harm and was the right person to lead the country (trying to avoid cliches here)after Watergate and the hostage crisis. Unfortunately goons like Ed Meece, Jerry Falwell, and Jesse Helms dragged their christian-right agenda into Washington with them and sprayed Ronnie with it. His lassiz-faire attitude toward aids was disgusting - how many lives could have been saved if he'd just lunged into it headfirst with some major funds? We'll never know.

[proud patriot]

16. The Exxon Valdez tanker spill cinched it for this GenXer

Also the Movie "The Day After"

[Kermitt Gribble]

17. I've always been a democrat but never involved politically.

The 2000 election and the following appointment of the most destructive being to ever run our country made me get involved.

[HockeyMom]

18. 12 years of Catholic School

Being female (Only child), I didn't want to grow up to be a brainless, baby making, doormat. But in hindsight, maybe there was a method to my parents madness? I would never consider my parents anything BUT Liberal, let alone my Grandma. She made THEM look like right wing Fundies.

[rosesaylavee]

19. There were many moments I could have

changed but was raised in a very conservative area by very conservative parents (both honorable people who I deeply respected and loved).

The incident that snapped my head back was the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas. I was appalled with his performance BEFORE Anita Hill took the stand. At the time, I was isolated in the country with a small baby and NPR. Sat up listening to the whole thing past 'prime time' late into the evening. Heard the NAACP interview him - heard him lie about never having had a conversation or thought about Brown v Board of Education... hhmmm. mmm. Black lawyer that never talked with anyone about the most astounding thing to happen to Blacks in America prior to Civil Rights? Uh. Right. Anita was a brave woman and clinched my opinion about his not deserving the honor of being on the highest court.

The letters to my senators were my first ever asking them to not confirm. One lost the next election because of how he voted to confirm.

I had to turn around everything I had thought up to that time about how the country worked and how the Republicans maintained their power hold. I am still shocked by them - and deeply embarrassed I didn't see through it sooner.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

42. Clarence proved you can perjure yourself to Congress and get away with it

You cannot get thru law school without taking Constitutional Law. It's a required course, it's on the first day of the bar exam, that covers law that is the same in all 50 states and D.C., and of course you have to read Brown v. Board of Education, and Roe v. Wade, and lots of other important cases. Lied and got away with it. I have a Juris Doctor, so I know about this stuff.

That was one of the first times in my life that all the women I knew said "Yeah, I understand why she never said anything until now" and all the men were "Huh? Why didn't she complain about the sexual harassment?". Complete gender divide on that one.

[rosesaylavee]

56. Anita gave that behavior

a name. She did a great service to women every where and suffered a great loss personally to do so. She has my undying gratitude and admiration.

And, I'm not a law student by any means and I was able to see that that was a lie. Couldn't figure out why my Republican senator couldn't figure it all too. Was very gratified that the one reason cited as to why he lost the next election was his vote on this confirmation. Glad to know at that time that I wasn't alone in my thinking.

[Warpy]

20. Realizing at a very early age that no Repuglican had ever

done anything for a working person at any time.

Roosevelt founded national parks as a playground and nature museum mostly for the upper middle class and higher; he busted the trusts because their power was beginning to rival the governments. Neither directly benefited ordinary working folks.

[jilln]

21. It was a movie about the Beatles, conversation about homosexuality

I've been a huge fan since I was a kid and I used to stay up late to watch random old movies about them. One of them has a scene between John Lennon and their manager, Brian Epstein, where John admits to him that he knows Brian is gay, and he says something like "In this world, any love is good love."

I was too young to ever have really thought about it, but it made sense to me and that's the point when I really started paying attention to how people are mistreated for stupid reasons.

[sweetheart]

22. birth

some lights are blue

[JohnnyLib2]

24. It wasn't a choice; I was born that way.

But my Dem parents and admiration for Eleanor Roosevelt early on helped steer things. I can't think of any second thoughts over the years.

[shanti]

55. same here

nothing "happened" to make me liberal. i was a lib from the get-go. first person i ever voted for was jerry brown, the quintessential liberal.

[msedano]

25. up close & personal

i was a high school orator in the 1960s. among the contests i won included "americanism" speeches for the american legion. several of the sponsors represented such groups as the walter knott liberty lobby, the john birch society, as well as the american legion. they told me stuff like how how amazed they were that i spoke such good english. i caught that all my life. these old guys would pal up to me and invite me to their meetings outside the aegis of the legionnaires; in my mind they wanted to show off their trained mexican. not paranoia, this was the tenor of the times.

much as these guys hated communists and communism, they never caught on. the opening lines of my senior year speech went, "a specter is haunting america, the specter of communism". what really turned me off about these guys is typified in one of the legionnaires. he owned the local soda shop. as a boy, some of my most bitter experiences came out of that fellow. after a movie, when we had a few quarters, my brother and i would stop in for a fountain drink. the guy would serve us then tell us "finish your drink and get out of here." we were happy to be served at all, so we obeyed. this same guy told me after a big win, "anytime you want, come on by the shop and let me treat you to a free soda." i never accepted his generosity.

i knew to be on my guard with people from this side of town. in fifth grade, when my family moved to the preponderantly white side of town, i was delighted to be invited to a girl's birthday party at the local skating rink. i was impressed that white people could do stuff like this. the week of the party, the girl phoned me to disinvite me. turns out the family learned mexicans were not allowed in the skating rink on saturday mornings. i don't know how her family arranged it, but later that week they told me my presence would be allowed. i had no pride and attended.

but i cannot say life in a segregated town led me to my set of political beliefs; it's more of a birthright i share with all chicanas chicanos.

http://labloga.blogspot.com
http://readraza.com/hawk/index.htm

[CTyankee]

27. I grew up in Texas with that shit. That hit home. I was radicalized by racism

as a kid in Dallas in the 1950s. Segregated schools, buses, movie theaters and drinking fountains didn't make sense to me. I wanted to go north. I finally got free and went to college in the north. I never came back to live.

[aikoaiko]

26. Nope, being a liberal always seemed to make sense.

[we can do it]

29. Women's Rights Marches, Billie Jean vs Bobby Rigs While I Was In Grade School

I think that was what started it, my dad's work with his union, wondering why nixon got pardoned, ray-gun firing the ATCs, the piss-poor economy after I got out of college, moral majority hypocrisy, -lots of things just reinforce my beliefs.

[depakid]

30. Ronald Reagan

Simple as that.

[Johnny Appleseed]

31. Bush has me leaning this direction though I'm independent...

voting for the candidate, platform, then party.

[Minnesota_Lib]

32. Nam, the civil rights movement and the '68 Dem convention.

[etherealtruth]

33. Believe it or not ...

Being raised Roman Catholic. My parents interpretation of Catholicism, the Catholic community in which I grew up and the Catholics that I knew embodied liberalism. I may have left Catholicism way behind but I hold on to the sense of obligation to world around me.

I know many may want to dispute this, but it was, in fact, my experience.

OOOh ... Ronald Reagan made sure I would NEVER be anything but a liberal

[many a good man]

35. RCC's Social Gospel made my family liberal, too

I, too, have left the Church, but the values instilled by the social Gospel remain. Faith alone won't get you into Heaven, but Acts of charity will. The Beatitudes. "What you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me."

I also remember the moment I became a liberal - and it was tied to my Irish Catholic upbringing. I was 5 years old riding in the car down Broadview Road when a news report came over the radio about a local KKK rally. I asked my Mom "Mommy, what's a Ku Kux Kan?." She told me they are people who hate people just because they are black, Jewish, or Catholic. Being a Catholic, I was furious that someone would hate me not because of me, but merely for the fact I was Catholic. Ever since that day I have empathized for the downtrodden, the marginalized, the outsiders.

[etherealtruth]

36. Maybe it's "us" Irish Catholics

It seems we had very similiar experiences with RC

Peace

[many a good man]

34. Taxes

I was a starving student working my way through college during the early Reagan years when I read a newspaper story that said "300,000 taxpayers with gross incomes of $300,000 or more paid $0 in taxes last year." I had just completed my tax form and found that I owed the government $1,500 and I didn't have a pot to pee in. Eating rice with ketchup for months on end. It struck me that something was seriously wrong with our political system.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

37. I was a "Red Diaper Baby" but the Civil Rights movement did it for me.

And, a 4 year stint in the marines made me anti-militarist, anti-nationalist.

[Initech]

38. It was definitely the way the 2000 elections were STOLEN.

That was the one event that made me wake up and realize that the government is nothing more than a bunch of criminals who will stop at nothing to get their way..

[PADemD]

40. The Contract on America and Bill Clinton's Impeachment

[pitohui]

41. yeah ronald reagan EOM

.

[BlooInBloo]

43. Yah: humanity.

[zonmoy]

44. breaking away from my families fundamentalist religion

and my figuring out that I was gay after that pretty much confirmed my decision on that matter.

[upi402]

45. yes, it keeps the ears separated

brain on, eyes open

[UTUSN]

47. FDR & Eleanor n/t

[WiseButAngrySara]

48. Civil Rights movement and my beloved Dad; a genius who is

always right.

[alfredo]

49. Two things because I can't remember which one

affected me the most.

A high school girlfriend wanted to be an architect, so she signed up for an architectural drawing class. They rejected her because they sit on stools in the class and that would be "unladylike." She had to get a lawyer to get the right to take the class. They treated her like shit.

A black family moved into our town. It caused a lot of controversy. One night someone threw dynamite into the house, destroying it.


both incidents hurt deeply.

[OutNow]

50. Frank Rizzo

It's hard to say exactly, there was so much stuff going on in the 60s counter culture that pushed me away from the 50s leave it to beaver life, but much of that was passive. I think the day I "flipped" to become an activist (maybe a better word than liberal) was when Frank Rizzo and his Philadelphia gestapo police department raided the Black Panther headquarters and made all the people he "captured" stand naked in the freezing cold for hours to make sure they didn't have hidden weapons. This was a national effort to stamp out the BPP (as we learned later from FBI files), but it touched me at a level that I can still feel 40 years later.

It still feels great to say "Free Angela, Free Erica, Stop the War On Black America". (And it is still true of course).

BTW - Frank Rizzo was a Democrat and good buddy of Nixon.

[Maat]

52. Well, in high school, it started with the fight for reproductive rights ..

and equal opportunity in the workplace for all (in the 1970's).

Then, I lost my way and became a "moderate Republican" in the early 1980's, working for the Defense Industry. Then, I realized that we were peddling instruments of death around the World, went back to school, got my Master's, and went into mental health and social services (and came into contact with many's hard reality). I became a Democrat, and am proud to say I voted for Clinton.

I have not returned to the Evil Side since.

[nealmhughes]

53. The Clash. Specifically thier Combat Rock tour. Changed my life.

[lpbk2713]

54. *Camelot* made me a Dem at an early age.

I've been tweaking and fine tuning ever since.

[rpgamerd00d]

57. The 2000 sElection

Plain and Simple.

[wicket]

58. The 2000 election

n/t

[DireStrike]

59. WMD lies

I think I could have gone either way. I guess I kinda owe it to the brazen lies of bushco and all the sycophants who cheered for his blatantly false worldview that I'm a better person today. Thanks, freaks!

[marions ghost]

73. if the war had "gone well"

and WMD lies were successful, there would have been a lot of people still in the dark about this administration and their proponents. I hope there are many out there like you who have realized what a heinous crime it is to take a nation to war on false pretenses.

[QMPMom]

60. I grew up during the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam era and then Watergate happened.

Those events have formed my total political outlook.

[mondo joe]

61. I think not. As a poor gay catholic kid in the early 70's I certainly had

enough going on to lead me that way - in the end I don't know if it's those factors or just who I am.

[GumboYaYa]

62. A good friend contracted AIDs in the eighties. I had recently

visited him and was very aware that he was dying a slow painful death. That evening on the news the press secretary for Reagan was on talking about the new "gay cancer". He made a few jokes basically saying who cares if a bunch of gay men die slow painful deaths.

I cared. I have been a devout liberal Democrat since that day, despite the fact that I was raised in a Republican household and prior to then never questioned the Republicans.

[marions ghost]

63. Having a lot of Republican relatives

made it real easy. As a child I could see that the Repug bottom line was claiming the right to grab as much as they could and never mind being fair about it. I also saw that nothing they had would ever be enough for them. They always needed more. They measured people by their property and social standing. This seemed ridiculous to me. So at an early age I thought Repugs were pathetic narcissistic grubbers and still do. In fact nothing Repug leaders have done in recent times surprises me. They are ruthless. I often hear it argued that the NeoCons are not TRUE Republicans, ie. real old-fashioned conservatives...but my relatives have supported the NeoCons all the way, so I don't accord them some "better Repuglican" status. Neo-conservativism is just an extreme expression of what they were ALWAYS about.

Liberalism (or whatever you want to call it) is where the intelligent, perceptive, and more integrity-prone gravitate.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

64. Yep - George W. Bush

[AwakeAtLast]

66. Well, DU helped me realize that I was a liberal

I tried to hang on to the Independent label because I felt I would feel trapped by one party. After reading DU for a few months and being able to debate and learn, I came to realize that I have always been liberal, I just didn't realize it. Now I know that I am not trapped by one party, I am empowered by THE party!

Great question, BTW. :hi:

[Lost-in-FL]

70. Same here...

I was an Independent until I discovered DU. I thought I was a Libertarian... can you believe that??? :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

I found DU looking for the DNC website. I am glad I found ya'll!!

Another thing was the crazy religious animosity that started post 9/11 and racism.

[EFerrari]

67. Identifying with the black people marching and not with the haters.

[bluewave]

68. Bush betraying me in 2000 after I cast my first vote

I was already a social liberal, and his words were honey to my ears: reduced military presence in other countries, fiscal restraint, etc. Then he turned 180 after 9/11. The racism, the lies, anti-gay rhetoric, and the fearmongering. I thought Compassionate Conservatism meant socially progressive views while disengagement from imperialistic ambitions and balancing the budget. It was the exact opposite. By the time he delivered his infamous "Axis of Evil" speech I knew I had tossed away my first vote at 18 years old.

I have never (since 2000) and will never vote Republican again. I thought we could have a perfect President after Clinton. I didn't realize selecting president was selecting the lesser of two evils. Oh yeah, this is my first post. Hi everyone!

[conscious evolution]

71. The first Gulf War

I was in college during that time.One of my roommates was a penpal with a former nieghbor of his.She worked for the Kuwaiti Times and was writing him 6 months before Hussien invaded Kuwait.Only She was writing about the real reasons for the war.Then when poopie bush came out saying that hussien was just trying to steal the oil so he could control the worlds oil supplies I knew that was a big fat lie.
I have never trusted a repuke since.

[Shakespeare]

72. The Lorax.

It started with tree-hugging and just went from there. ;-)