The fact is that any of us could have ended up being freepers...

[MrScorpio]

Only we're all lucky that our parents weren't blood relatives.

[Demeter]

1. Mental Illness Isn't Always Genetic

nor economically deterministic

[TexasProgresive]

2. I'm not sure what you mean but

I come from several generations of liberals - thank you very much.

[Kellerfeller]

6. It was a joke

[WingDinger]

3. The truth is, many of us would be, if we had cash.

Sad but true.

Lord Balogh
The purpose of economic theory is to make those who are comfortable FEEL comfortable.

James K. Galbraith
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.


Upton Sinclair
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it

[DefenseLawyer]

8. I grew up upper middle class

by high school my father was dead and my family was eventually utterly broke. I worked and borrowed my way through school. Now I'm middle aged and back to upper middle class in terms of income. I was a liberal when I ate ramen and I'm a liberal now. It's what makes sense to me. I do agree that there are examples of people who got money and seem to have become greedy bastards, but I would argue that they were probably always greedy bastards they just didn't have a means to express it.

[Incitatus]

15. True, in some cases.

It is true that people born into money are more likely to be Republican, but Democrats who jump classes from lower or middle to upper class are more likely to stay Democrats.

In the last election I believe it was 52% of people with incomes over 200K voted for Obama.

The majority of DU members are way left of center. Our votes are a lot more about social justice and voting for a Republican just for the chance of a tax cut isn't something I think liberals would do just because they become rich.

[Chorophyll]

16. I think being uninformed and scared trumps having cash in the case of most Freepers.

On the flipside, I know some fairly well-off liberals (not the 1%, but doing okay) most of whom have become even more liberal over the last decade. There are all kinds of variables at play: religion, education, where you live, personal history, etc.

[Arkana]

4. It scares me to think that it could have happened to me.

I'm close to my parents and they shaped many of my political opinions. They're both raging liberals, so it turned out all right--but if they were diehard conservative nutjobs, I'd probably be on that other site trashing all of you right now.

Yikes.

[madmom]

5. Not necessarily true.. my parents are boths very

apolitical, they don't know a repug from a dem. I, on the other hand, am very involved politically and have been since I first registered to vote at 18. In fact my mom thought I was a republican and asked me what something michele bachman had said meant. My brother also has no use for politics.

[CoffeeCat]

7. I come from a conservative, Catholic nut job home...

My father was so conservative that he railed against the Americans With Disabilities
Act, because he was angry that the government mandated that he make the restrooms
in his businesses accessible to the disabled. Never mind that my mother, his wife,
had polio and will likely be in a wheelchair in her twilight years.

My father used to make fun of the homeless. He used to make fun of me for caring
about the homeless and the poor. He once asked me if I'd like to go for a ride
in his Porsche, "to see how the other 95 percent live."

My father was a bigot, unable to even hold a conversation with anyone who was
not white. He literally would leave the room. He once told me that he did try
so hard to hire an African American person--but they were lazy. He operated
businesses for thirty years and only hired one non-white person.

I remember when I was eight, my father telling me that I wasn't allowed to be
angry in our house. I told him that was unhealthy--and I smashed my Snoopy
garbage can and said, "See. It's ok to be angry. You get it out and then you
feel better."

I knew there was something very, very wrong with them when I was in elementary
school. When I was ten, they left me home alone and I caught a National Democratic
Party telethon on television. I called in and donated $10. My father practically
blew a gasket. I knew then that being a bigot, an elitist, a selfish fool and a myopic,
cruel human being--were not for me.

Some of us grow up in hell--raised with "conservative values" and some of us escape.

[MissB]

11. You turned out great.

[Zalatix]

13. He was Catholic and making fun of the "95%"? Jesus wept.

[shanti]

9. shoot

i only recently found out that my maternal grandfather was a repug. my mother, however, is a blue dog dem, but she's the only one that became so out of her siblings, and this was in john bircher orange county. this was probably due to my father, who was always a dem. i've voted dem since i was able to, 1974.

thanks, dad!

[Motown_Johnny]

10. If I had different parents, I would not be me

so then I could not have ended up as a freeper, since I would not exist.


I think

Therefore I am not a freeper

[Bigmack]

12. I don't think they can help themselves....

...I think they were born that way.

There's been some posts and articles stating that Repubs have lower IQs.

Since IQ is no measure of diverse cognitive functions, it shouldn't be used to measure most political attitudes, but a broader study of cognitive functions and political attitudes - like the original below - certainly is valuable in understanding why people think as they do.

The original study.....
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/23/2/187.full

Take a look through it. It's well documented, and it makes it pretty clear that cognitive abilities are directly related to political view. This is something I've been thinking about - and reading about - for a long time. I don't think people can help being what they are. I think that brain development is different in different individuals, and some cognitive functions are favored over others. Then there is organic brain differences from prenatal causes... alcohol, viruses, nutrition... Then there's genetics.. Some people have a good sense of humor, and others don't. Some people have musical minds... or mechanical minds... and others don't.

I think... from the study above, and from lots of others I've read... that some people are born conservative or liberal. That fits generally with evolutionary theory. Nature seems to favor a broad array of behaviors to test which are advantageous for survival. In exaggerated terms, Conservatives are selfish and Liberals are altruistic. Nature wants both of those traits, because both are advantageous for species survival. A population totally selfish or totally altruistic is not a good survival strategy. Maybe Nature wants us to squabble over liberal and conservative ideals... makes for a (somewhat) middle road.

Think of the families you know who are all conservative except the one kid who is an anarchist. Or the liberal family with the kid in the Aryan Nations. The other kids didn't go that way, but the one did. Genetics... people are different, even with the same parents.

There are differences, clearly, between liberals and conservative that goes beyond belief systems. There's a really interesting Ohio State study of the Steven Colbert show and the perceptions of the humor on it... "...conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism."
They don't get his humor because they lack something... some cognitive ability.. that allows them to understand irony and satire. It doesn't make them "stupid".. it just means they can't understand those abstractions. It's the difference between "concrete" thinkers and "abstract" thinkers.
http://hij.sagepub.com/content/14/2/212.abstract

[Zalatix]

14. When you're rich and your parents are rich you probably don't even meet the 99%

It's logically hard to imagine understanding their concerns.

This is what makes the eye of the needle analogy so accurate.