What made you a liberal?

[raccoon]

My mother was one influence. For someone of her generation (WWII) she had fairly progressive ideas.

The Vietnam War. It dragged on year in and year out, no end in sight, wounding and killing our servicepeople. I wonder sometimes if we'd ever have gotten out of that mess if the American people hadn't turned against it so much.

Your experience?

[LucyParsons]

1. I have a brain.

nt

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Lots of things. Reading, traveling, moving around the country, Viet Nam, Richard Nixon, and

possessing both a brain and a heart.

[blondeatlast]

3. The Gay.

/jk

Actually, my parents. Dad was the son of tenant farmers who's children all went to college, most of them on the GI Bill and mom was the daughter of a railroad union leader. And yes, my son is showing definite liberal traits at 11--like compassion...

[YOY]

4. Travel...lots of it...

and the complete disgust at xenophobic imbeciles that we seem to promote in the USA.

Really once I started comparing the USA and brining up other countries systems even as casual comparison and laws and getting the reply "why don't you move there?" is what set me off.

THat one sunk it. I still dream of the day it is said to my face. I will take some teeth out with pleasure. A lefty on righty version of the curb stomp (this time throughly deserved) in "American History X" is the image in my mind...I can fantasize can't I???

[boobooday]

5. Compassion. Empathy. A sense of justice.

That's the only thing I can figure.

[ngant17]

6. what makes someone normal?

Being liberal seems pretty normal and down-to-earth, to me at least.

The ability to see a bigger picture, or a universalist mentality, all that should help to prevent someone from being a silly rightwing conservative nut job. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of ignorance in the world.

[alfredo]

7. First it was the McCarthy hearings, then the civil rights movement, then

a girlfriend was denied the opportunity to take mechanical drawing because sitting on the stools they use was "unladylike."

[Mist]

8. Thinking. nt

[T Monk]

9. the invasion of Vietnam radicalized me

[magellan]

10. I've always been a liberal and will be till I die

The terrible, unnecessary suffering inflicted on people because of small-minded and selfish individuals has always vexed me.

[RL3AO]

11. Bush

(I was only 11 when he took office).

[klook]

12. Seeing the first black kid in my all-white 7th grade class

get viciously harassed by a racist asshole on the playground.

I'm ashamed to say I didn't attack his attacker that day, but I really took the scene to heart. That black kid later became a good friend of mine.

That day made me think about all the lies I'd been fed. I started seeing the world through different eyes. The choices I've subsequently made are what have made me the person I am today.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

31. I would

recommend your post if I could.

It brought tears to my eyes.

[klook]

36. Mine too

Thanks much.
:toast:

[lazyriver]

13. An IQ higher than 70.

[crim son]

14. My mother taught me empathy.

You can't be a Repuke if you genuinely feel for others.

[lpbk2713]

15. I never really trusted rethuglicans. But what really closed the deal ...

... was the theft of the Y2K Gore Presidency. Since then I have learned a
lot more about them and have become even more resolved in my convictions.

[Breeze54]

16. Republicans!!

;)

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. My parents and John Kennedy

I grew up in a wonderful liberal Democratic family, back when all good Catholics were Democrats.

Nixon was in office when I was in high school and his evil ways also had an influence on me.

Then Ford pardoned Nixon. I will never forgive him for that.

In 1980 Reagan began polluting our country with his crap.

Then the BFEE.

I have never once even considered being anything but a liberal Democrat. And I am further left now than ever. I also despise the Republicans more than I ever have in the past.

[Hydra]

18. Having a single mother

And seeing how the people voting republican treated her.

Friends like that, I don't need.

[barbtries]

19. i believe it's in my nature

i remember wanting JFK for president and i was only 5 years old. i've been an egalitarian bleeding heart peacenik since forever. it wasn't much nurture considering that i grew up in a very racist neighborhood raised by a die hard republican mother - my father was a democrat but he died when i was 13. so, i'd say i didn't become liberal - i just am liberal.

[no_hypocrisy]

20. At age 2-1/2 years a mantra independently developed that I have never stopped declaring:

IT'S NOT FAIR!

My life has been structured on fairness, justice and equity.

Plus, my Mom taught me that life isn't black and white. It's a series of greys.

[stratomagi]

21. Atheism came first. Then...

just living life through that lens. 9/11 and its aftermath sealed the deal for me though.

[underpants]

22. Jesse Jackson

His speech at the '92 Dem convention turned me away from the darkside. As I have learned more and more (thanks DU) about the lib/prog history and ideology I have come to embrace it

[OwnedByFerrets]

23. I have a HEART??

[Mountainman]

24. I grew up going to a liberal Catholic High School (along with Martin Sheen)

Martin Sheen (Ramon Estevez), his 4 brothers, me and my two brothers all caddied at the Dayton Country Club in Dayton Ohio. We went to Chaminade High School, a Marionist high school for boys. We saw how the wealthy lived at the country club and how they treated us and we were lower middle class or poor. My day brought home $60 a week. We were taught what social justice was in high school and were taught that it is part of our Catholic faith to take care of those less fortunate than us. It has never left me as it has never left Martin ( I am no longer Catholic but I still care). If you ask him why he is a liberal he will tell you that caddying at the country club was were it started for him. Also getting drafted and sent to Vietnam help a lot!

[kestrel91316]

25. An obviously conservative veterinarian refused to hire me for kennel

work when I was in HS because I lacked a penis (well, those were not his exact words). When I said I had hoped to become a veterinarian some day, he scoffed and said women didn't belong in the profession. This was in 1973.

That's when I became a feminist and a liberal. That's when both my parents became feminists and liberals, too. And my sister. That vet got the four-for-one deal.

[hamsterjill]

26. Many things

Before I was old enough to vote, I think the issue that had the most impact on me was Roe v. Wade. I have always felt that control over my own body was a fundamental right, and I've never understood anyone trying to take that right away. If a woman doesn't want to have an abortion, she shouldn't have one, and there should be systems in place to support that choice. But if a woman chooses not to have a child, THAT should be between the woman and her doctor and it simply isn't anyone else's business.

I grew up during the Viet Nam war and saw many young men, thankfully, coming home from their tours - but they weren't the same. The damage of the war was done to their bodies, their minds and their souls and it could never be reversed. These boys were the ages of my older sisters. I also saw rich young men who didn't serve because they knew how to beat the system. And although I was too young to really understand all that was happening, I was savvy enough to know that war should always be a last resort.

As I matured, I found a division in this country between the rich and the not-so-rich. Bet you can guess which side of that issue *I* was on, huh? I saw so many rich kids getting ahead, while the rest of us worked our asses off to simply keep up - with no hope of ever, really, CATCHING up...guess it made me cynical to a degree. And I've seen the same sort of things happening now that I have a daughter who is entering the workforce. It's all about who you know, who your daddy knows, etc. And I don't like that. I don't like that it comes down to petty things like breeding instead of important things like ability, qualifications and integrity.

I could go on and on, of course, but that hits some of the major items for me.

I've never voted for a Republican in my life.

[fed-up]

27. Oz-heart, brain and courage (and a tendancy to live in a fantasy world to believe change can happen)

that sums it up

but really having

my mother take us precint walking and working on recall elections when I was in elementary school
my father read Arthur Hoppe & Jack Anderon at the dinner table during the 60's-70's

then reading Steinbeck, Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis in High School to name just a few

[Winterblues]

28. When I was a child I attended Church twice a week

I was taught to care for our fellow man. I was taught the teachings of Christ which in every detail is the very definition of Liberal.

[Contrary1]

29. The Conservatives...That about covers everything. n/t

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

30. The Sermon on the Mount

I tell my Republican mother, "If you didn't want me to take this crap literally, you shouldn't have taken me to church!"

[OutNow]

32. I'm Sticking With the Union

My dad and most of his brothers were union members in Pennsylvania. I learned at age 10 that rich people vote for republicans and working people vote for democrats. In 1960, at age 10, my dad (who was not the most tolerant of people I must admit) explained that he was voting for JFK, even though he was Catholic, because of union endorsement.

I have never voted for a republican.

Later, the Vietnam War experience, Watergate, etc. moved me farther to the left. Counter to prevailing wisdom, I think many people my age have not become more conservative as they got older; in fact the reverse may be true.

[YankeyMCC]

33. Education, Reading, Family members in Unions

growing up in the One Party state of Massachusetts. ;)

[zonmoy]

34. Somehow I ended up empathic rather than sociopathic

and I somehow managed not to get my empathy fucked up by using it to love a sociopathic god. The kind of god my evangelical/fundamentalist upbringing told me I had to love and obey.

[Z_I_Peevey]

35. My coal-mining, union-organizing, ditch-digging,

Roosevelt-supporting Okie ancestors.

That, and having a brain and a heart, and using both.

[eShirl]

37. basic human decency

[Jane Austin]

38. My church and school.

I actually bought all that stuff in the Episcopal Church about Jesus dying for ALL our sins, suggesting that we are all God's children.

And the reason we only use the first (or Christian) name when praying for someone or at a person's funeral - God knows us all, and loves us all, and sees us all as equal - fancy or humble last names notwithstanding.

Oh, and that part about helping the "least" is the same as helping Christ, himself - I bought that, hook, line and sinker.

And at school, they read us the Declaration of Independence. I bought it.

In junior high, we studied the Bill of Rights, and again in high school.

I had wonderful teachers who passionately believed in the Bill of Rights - both Baptists, both women, one of whose brother was killed in WWII and the other who spoke with a deep, deep South Carolina accent.

This was in the fifties and sixties in deep East Texas in the public schools.

My grandmother, for another influence, would have nothing to do with anyone who discriminated against Blacks, and would determine their position before she would have any personal or business relationship with them.