Commenter QOD

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1. RSmitty says:

   April 22, 2009 at 10:15 am

   Not an event, but motherly influence. My mother is a “respectful” Republican. She holds views that even I don’t agree with, but she has never been disrespectful of an opposing opinion and am not exaggerating. She always would take the time to hear someone out and try to understand the point(s) being presented. If she couldn’t be swayed to another opinion, she’d at least explain why, but rarely turn it into an argument.

   So, I was raised by a Republican (who was NOT a Reagan supporter) and exposed to those views, but was instilled with the belief and understanding that my opinions are equally important as others’, or differently put, no more important than others’.

   Kumbaya, bitch. 😈

2. Von Cracker says:

   April 22, 2009 at 10:18 am

   Good question.

   I would say three events….

   Willie Horton-College-Monica.

   Horton made me realize where the racist fucks reside “They’ll rape all your white wimmin!” Hello! SS! [southern strategy]

   College gave me a deep understanding of our legal and penal history. Even though our systems can be considered relatively exceptional, it was easy to realize how unbalanced and prejudicial it was and still is. I have a BS in CJ, minor in Poly Sci.

   Monica – Exposed the blatant hypocrisy of the Right….the massive stupidity. The Right’s reliance on cultural war wedge issues to convince a large amount of Americans to vote against their interests, in a Jedi mindfuck sort of way….

3. RSmitty says:

   April 22, 2009 at 10:24 am

   VC’s got a point. Early college most definitely pulled me leftward, to where I am easily center-planted right now. Then the ’92 election came around and I totally developed my understanding of one-methodology-only party modelling sucks.

4. Miscreant says:

   April 22, 2009 at 10:37 am

   I first became interested in politics when I was 18, after having a one-nighter with an aid who worked for Sen. Vance Hartke (D), Indiana. She was 7 years older than me. Maybe that’s why I still like to bone Democrats.

5. anon says:

   April 22, 2009 at 10:45 am

   Childhood during the Vietnam war… too young for the Kennedy/King assassinations to have much effect on me though. Watching Walter Cronkite read the body counts. I was pretty oblivious to the anti-war protests as a child but I devoured the literature in college as recent history. The Kent State shootings made a big impression on me. I was among the first group called when draft registration was resumed in (’79?). I blew it off hoping they wouldn’t catch me, but eventually I got a sternly worded letter and I registered.

   Before MLK was shot my family used to go to downtown Wilmington all the time for shopping or just to stroll Market Street. After the National Guard occupation we never went.

   During the Reagan Adminstration I first became aware of “homeless” people. Before that they were called hobos and associated with the Great Depression, always in the past, not in modern America. I was living in NYC when the Reagan cuts emptied the mental institutions. To be fair, there was also a liberal movement to get people out of institutions and back into society. But as far as I am concerned, Reagan invented the homeless.

   Living in NYC during the “Bonfire of the Vanities” era… crash of 1987 was real panic. Constant state of amazement how people were suckered in by Reagan ‘s phoniness.

   When Clinton took office everything just seemed to get better. Maybe it was just my time to settle down, but that is when I got a real job and started to be able to afford a life.

6. anonone says:

   April 22, 2009 at 10:50 am

   My life.

7. Truth teller says:

   April 22, 2009 at 11:31 am

   The killing of John, Bobby and Martin, The fact that right wingnut’s words do have consequences

8. Unstable Isotope says:

   April 22, 2009 at 11:39 am

   For me it was mostly the Clinton Wars while I was in college. There’s a few events that stuck out at me:

   – Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas
   I was in college and we were all watching on TV. It was the first time I really realized that I was completely out of step with everyone else there. The major sentiment was “if it was so bad why didn’t she just quit,” while I was arguing that she shouldn’t have to quit it was a problem with Thomas. That was also the first time I was told I was going to hell because of my political beliefs.

   – Monica/impeachment
   I knew, of course, that the religious right was hypocritical because I grew up in the Bible Belt, but I guess it was the first time that I saw them really exercising the levers of power for purely partisan reasons.

   – 2000 stolen election
   The time when I felt the biggest frustration and really the first time I ever wanted to get involved in politics

   – 2003 run-up to Iraq War
   This was the time when I really saw how compromised our media was and probably the time I felt most alone. Again, I was one of the few arguing against the war. Most people I knew were either pro- or indifferent.

   – 2004 discovery of the blogosphere
   In 2004, this is the first time that I found a whole community of people that agreed with me. I had been working in a mostly male, mostly baby boomer workplace for a while so I felt kind of alone.

9. anon says:

   April 22, 2009 at 11:46 am

   Continuing #5…

   It was the Clinton impeachment that made me swear never to vote for another Republican for the foreseeable future.

   After that, GWB’s phoniness (“Tax cuts for everybody who pays taxes”) and the Swiftboat thing just kept my anti-GOP fires burning.

10. Kilroy says:

    April 22, 2009 at 11:57 am

    Vietnam, assassination of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King , Kent State, the bitter racial hate associated with desegregation and all the fucking lies about ducking and covering your heads in the hallways of your elementary school to protect yourself during a nuclear attack.

11. Mrs XStryker says:

    April 22, 2009 at 12:20 pm

    Honestly? It started when I was about 8 and my dad lost his job. He was the controller for a company which was bought by another company without anti-trust hearings (and believe you me, this was a situation where they were necessary). They got around those pesky anti-trust laws by making large donations to the newly-elected President George H. W. Bush. For the next three years of recession my dad, a Cornell-educated BA/MBA/CPA, could not find gainful employment and had to feed my mother and me by working at Radio Shack. We almost lost our house, and it was more than a decade before we were able to dig ourselves out of debt again (haha, just in time to send me off to college and amass more debt). My Dad will probably never be able to retire, and I worry about his health in that regard especially.

    Also, as a Jew, I feel that voting Republican is traitorous to my heritage. The right wing does not respect the separation of Church and State.

    Those are the two big ones.

12. RSmitty says:

    April 22, 2009 at 12:46 pm

    Also, as a Jew, I feel that voting Republican is traitorous to my heritage. The right wing does not respect the separation of Church and State.

    Holy crap (pardon the pun on “holy”)! I am sorry you feel that way, and I really want to tell you that you that many individual Republican’s wouldn’t discrminate. HOWEVER, in spite of that (and that latter point is true), I also am sorry that I can’t argue against you. The party as a whole certainly does emit exlusionary-religious practices.

    Wow. Never thought about that before. As an individual, I don’t – and never will – do crap like that. As a party member, I am sorry.

13. Mrs XStryker says:

    April 22, 2009 at 1:03 pm

    Ditto on the holy crap, RSmitty! No Republican has ever taken two seconds to see things from that point of view, let alone apologized to me for the way the party stands on those issues. You just went up a whole lot in my opinion, even without apologizing for the Kickball comment. (Although, really, didn’t you resign from the party? I don’t know that you necessarily count anymore, haha)

    You know, there are a lot of exceptions to every rule, and I do recognize that not all Republicans discriminate, just as being a Democrat doesn’t mean you’re not racist. It’s just been my experience that whenever there’s a question where G-d’s opinion gets weighed, somehow every Non-Christian interpretation of those words are left out (or indeed, completely disregarded and disrespected) by the Right, and Not One of the so-called Moderates ever think to stand up for us. I’m glad that my statement was able to illustrate that for you.

14. RSmitty says:

    April 22, 2009 at 1:08 pm

    Unfortunately, what a lot of the problem is, and all sides have culpability in this, is that many individuals can’t think beyond the tip of their own nose.

    😆 @ kickball comment. I forgot about that. I’m still not apologizing!!!

    On a different note, did this site (or the comment pages) get a sudden lite-blue tint to it?

15. a. price says:

    April 22, 2009 at 1:14 pm

    Mostly my family experience. My parents are performance artists(musicians) teachers, and very pro union… my dad at one point American Federation of Musicians local president. I also have lived in extremely integrated neighborhoods (racial, religious, cultural etc). Political opinions were never forced on me, but in my parents teaching me to be open minded and accepting of all people, as well as respect for workers over managers, environment over money, and pretty much everything I came to see the Right wing sneer at, oppose, and mock. I’ve said a few times I am a Democrat because it is the best alternative and I like to vote in primaries.

16. Donsquishydishimaharishi says:

    April 22, 2009 at 1:24 pm

    When I qualified for food stamps and was serving my country

17. Another Mike says:

    April 22, 2009 at 2:25 pm

    My dad was a union guy, blue collar as they come. He didn’t talk politics too much, but I know he voted Democrat almost all the time. In high school I had a teacher who supported the GOP; he made some very convincing arguments in their favor. The economy was good and I drifted that way for a while. As I went through college and into the real world, however, I saw that the Republicans really did not represent what I believed in. The Democratic Party seemed more inclusive and tended to look out for the little guy. The Democrats saw things more like I saw them.

    After Lewinsky, moral absolutism and the last 8 years of BushCo., I don’t know that I could ever support a Republican for something higher than state representative. I know there are good Republicans (and bad Democrats), but the GOP brand has about completely lost my trust.

18. anon says:

    April 22, 2009 at 2:36 pm

    When I was quite young my dad took me to the polling place on Election Day… I asked him what were Republicans and Democrats, and he told me:

    “Republicans are for the fat cats; Democrats are for the little guy.”

    Forty years later I am still able to say that to my own son.

19. Dorian Gray says:

    April 22, 2009 at 3:40 pm

    I grew up.

    I remember arguing college professors when I was generally center right. Welfare state was bad, death penalty good, we pay too much in taxes, etc., etc. You see, I had a cloistered private school education. I didn’t meet a Jew until I got to college (which is actually a bit embarrassing). But through college and into the work force I met and befriended Jews, more African Americans, gay men, lesbians, transgendered people as well as many, many people born outside the US (Canada, Mexico, Turkey, England, Pakistan, Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Lebanon, Columbia, and on and on).

    Then I realized we don’t pay too much in taxes and it’s OK if we not number 1 in everything. It doesn’t make you unpatriotic or a commie. When xenophobia and religion cloud your judgment I think you generally run further right. I shed those particular afflictions.

20. MJ says:

    April 22, 2009 at 9:48 pm

    My parents and Hubert Humphrey (although I did stray in 1972 and supported Nixon over McGovern, but only because he took the nomination from HHH).

21. Joanne Christian says:

    April 24, 2009 at 10:04 pm

    Aw shoot. I wish had access to this site when this question was posted. Seems a world ago now to reply. Didn’t want you to think I was ignoring it, just catching up.