Not for conservatives, apparently

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We've got rules and maps and guns in our backs, but we still can't just behave ourselves. Even if to save our own lives, we are a brutal kind. The Shins

A man who is not a liberal at 16 has no heart; a man who is not a conservative at 60 has no head. ~ François Guisot (1787-1874)

What about those of us who are neither?

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I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.

Or both? I guess that means that some of us are headless AND heartless. And some have both.

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I love the smell of napalm in the morning...It smells like victory.

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Bugalugs: "people join the military because they are stupid and gullible."

Talk to Francois about that, it's not my quote.

It's often credited to Winston Churchill, but in fact he is not the source of the quote.

I do think there is a lot of truth to it. I find myself becoming more conservative as I get older and have more life experiences. Part of it is that I see the end results of some of the idealistic social experiments that the U.S. engaged in during the 1960s and 70s, and wow, haven't they worked out well for us?

Not so much.

Liberals are like..."there's a problem, let's change things." And that seems good, but then as you get older you realize, "but yeah, if we change something, we might just screw things up worse." I've started to believe that government can't solve many social problems.

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I love the smell of napalm in the morning...It smells like victory.

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Bugalugs: "people join the military because they are stupid and gullible."

I was a socialist in my teens, but once I got to the real world and saw my first paycheck I became a conservative quiet quickly. That being said living in New York made me quiet progressive on social issues, living in New York as the Planes hit , made me quiet conservative (Pre-emtive strikes and all that good stuff) on foriegn policy.

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"True Freedom is the Freedom to oppress others"

Ideology: Self Preservation.

My parents were liberal but didn't really discuss politics. There one political mantra that they infused in me was "all people are equal, and you should treat all people regardless of any demographic factors with kindness, respect, and how you would want to be treated."

This of course all lead me to be an ultra conservative. I wrote several High school papers on business moguls, with my longest and most researched paper being on Ross Johnson who was involved in the RJR Nabisco deal.

I would frequently call people commies or pinkos and argue with liberals endlessly.

My views began to change, as I got closer to getting my first degree. I changed majors many times, and found my self frequently drawn away from business, math, and economics, and into philosophy, sociology, and political science.

My first degree ended up being in political science, and during my final year, I made a total change to basically a die hard liberal.
My biggest influence, which several of you will misread or not understand, was Marx. I was not swayed by his political arguments, but by his economic histories and explanations.
The mantra that I basically hold today, that I got from Marx is:

Economics explains everything.

So I began to work on my masters in economics.

During this period I taught school at the poorest school district in Texas. This further influenced my politial ideology. I realized that there is a lot more at work than typical conservative mantras of "work harder, your failures are your responsibilites".

When your 11 years old and people are threatening to kill you, and your family is forcing you to stay home from school to make drug runs, it has a profound affect on your ability to "get an education".

After I completed my masters and began teaching basic eco at the college level, I spent a lot of time doing research on various subjects. I did the very boring economic research to keep the boss happy, but I did a lot of independant research on political issues.

The more research I did, the more grounded and convinced I became in my current ideology, which is a strong social liberal mixed in with some conservative and ultra free market economic ideologies.

After years of being bored to tears reading government reports and teaching comparative advantage for the bazillionth time, I made the jump back to high school. Where my days are spent trying to get HS seniors to apply critical thinking to a variety of issues.

Because I maintain total political neutrality, and the students are counting down to the last day of school, where I agreed to share my views with them... I have become less of an ideologue and more of what I consider to be a realist. Meaning I don't bash for the sake of ideology and I don't praise for the same reason. If Bush says he doesn't play golf to honor the troops, then I comend him for it. If dems falsly accuse McCain of saying he wants a 100 years war, I call them on it.

Ixtellor

P.S. I forgot to mention I am a hardcore elitist and consider most posters here to be morons and ideologues.

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George W. Bush "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building"

Blasphemy is a victimless crime.

I find this interesting, because in one of my college classes, we discussed party affiliation. There is a lot of material that proves the point that people generally start off very liberal (teens, early 20's). In time, with experience and exposure to life in general, they usually swing over to a more conservative perspective.

Ironically, after reflection, I find that I fit this mold. I was VERY liberal in my teens. Of course, this was also due to being under constant influence by school, and spending my teenage life in the "extravagant 80's." Once I joined the workforce, and those "bills" started appearing in my mailbox, my liberal happy-go-lucky views started to change.

Today, I consider myself a libertarian in regards to domestic issues, and a stark conservative regarding international issues. I believe "personal responsibility" is more endangered of extinction than polar bears. I believe that our enemies respond to only one thing, which is force. I believe that 2/3 of "handicapped" people aren't really handicapped. I believe that 3/4 of "poor" people aren't really poor. And I do not completely trust ANYONE, because of the state of human realities today.

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"It's the rich people's fault they earn more." - Makedde

So true. There is nothing like working with the children of the poor to disabuse you of a lot of conservative mantras. I am still somewhat conservative economically, but I tend to be socially liberal and a foreign policy hawk. I see a lot of idiocy on the far sides of both parties. The truth is generally somewhere in the middle of what we're being told.

And yes, it always comes down to money.

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I love the smell of napalm in the morning...It smells like victory.

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Bugalugs: "people join the military because they are stupid and gullible."