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One thing I was told very often when I was younger was "You'll get more right wing as you get older."

Question to the left-leaning users on here: have you found yourself becoming less to the left as you've got older?

Jnei 8 Jan 27
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34 comments

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2

Nope.... never ever again...

5

Not at all. As time goes by and the right wing keeps getting crazier and more fascist, the more I shall resist

1

I'm glad to say that at 28 I've stayed more in the center of things... Many aspects I'm very "Left" on.. LGBT rights, healthcare,immigration and so forth.. However I remain a bit of a fiscal conservative.. I dislike rampant spending or at least the allocation of it towards things we don't need.. For example I was in the USN for the last 5 years and one of the things that always perplexed me was the sheer amount of money used and I often asked is this really that necessary? Do we really need 13 aircraft carriers? Do we need military bases around the world? I'm very middle of the road when it comes to social programs.. Food stamps,medicare, welfare and what have you... I always question, How do we fund these programs for the people that need them and just need a little help but still contribute while trying to cut down on waste and the folks who don't need help but want it? I used to work in a building in NY where they doled out the social programs and you could always tell those who needed a hand Vs. Those that didn't want to work the latter there always burned me up inside because even though I was a working, tax paying citizen they were getting more assistance than I was able to get. and more often than not they had nicer shit then I did.. Nicer homes, phones and some even had cars. Again I believe in these programs and their usefulness(I grew up on food stamps myself) but I feel like there needs to be better policing of them and more to get these folks into the work force if they can actually be placed into it. There needs to be a better way to get help to the people who need help while denying it to those that just want it.

Again very middle of the road in general.. I think both sides have good ideas but they both just go way too far to the left or way to far to the right for my comfort.

I'm a bit less liberal fiscally than I am socially and although I support the programs you mentioned, I would be in favor of overhauling them. Particularly SNAP. I was on food stamps as a child and no candy, soda, chips, cookies or cake were permitted; my mother could buy the ingredients and make cookies and cake but no store bought junk

@SherryMartin Honestly I would also make it a thing where name brands couldn't be bought.. Only store brand... So as to stretch out the usage

2

Hardly and if I haven't by now I don't think I'm going to.

Kimba Level 7 Jan 27, 2018
5

Getting more & more liberal as I am confronted with the Orange One and his ilk......

2

Especially in this day and age of absolute insanity - some of me might be center - but most of me is wa-a-a-y over to the left !

0

I've been center left pretty much my whole life. The older I get and the more I see things, the more I am pushed away from stupid right wing thoughts. Extreme left and right are both crazy mind you, but I've never hovered over to the right wing over anything significant.

6

I worked for Barry Goldwatere's campaign. I worked for Hillary Clinton's campaign. I can not decide if a) I moved right to left, b) I stood still and the nation rolled to the right making it look like I moved, or c) if its some of both?

Ooh I like that

Western democracies have lunged to the right. You could have even shifted slightly right and still become "left". That happened to Malcolm Frazer, right wing prime minister of Australia, deposed a slightly left government at the behest of Gerald Ford. When he died he was a darling of the Australian left. He didn't change.

2

I have found the exact opposite to be true for myself.
I'm still pretty much a centrist, but I do lean to the left a bit.
I don't like extremes, in either direction.

0

Not even a little

0

I did for a while, but living in New Orleans, it was hard to get real news. I wasn't real bad, but I had that thought. When I moved to Chicago it was a whole new world. I became active in left wing causes. I even wrote the campaign song for the candidate running for the 14th district of the House. That district was drawn so red that the Republican didn't didn't have to campaign, yet he won bigly. There's also a progressive radio station WCPT

0

Im the exact opposite, was raised right winged, andi can say im was left wing now 🙂

Kodi Level 4 Jan 27, 2018
0

It is a shame that the country is filled with nut job right wing nonsense on thousands of radio stations. to make it worse, there is FOX TV, which sends out distorted "news" that make it impossible for those who watch it daily to get the whole story. I saw a group of people participating in a fact finding exercise with Frank Luntz. One older guy said that if Trump had done half the thing Obama did, he'd get the electric chair. When Luntz asked the group what they watched, most said FOX. It's really sad what these people are exposed to.

0

Brought up as a moderate, fiscally conservative (small r) republican … ‘what’s happened’ is the right’s become so extreme (here in the US), though little’s changed within me - it appears I’ve become ‘more liberal’ by simply standing still!

Beyond politics, I’ve long heard the same, and agree.. Becoming a parent shifts your perspective (as it should) like nothing else. Your freedom to be reckless is replaced by the ultimate in responsibility. And when considering what they’ll be ‘exposed to’ in life, no doubt more concerned than if it were still ‘just you’...

I’ve watched some friends go off the deep end, though.. The weird part being, they’d been the most reckless to begin with … now they’re teaching ‘sunday school’ classes, coaching little league teams or are ‘scout leaders.’ Guess only those having known them before ..know where the bodies are buried... 😉

Varn Level 8 Jan 27, 2018
0

Nope. Quite the opposite in fact.

BUT. There were some unusual life events that had a hand in it

I have noticed that my formerly wiccan liberal mother became a xtian although I wouldn't call her all that conservative

1

As a young man who knew only the southern bible-belt culture, I was politically conservative, because I did not know any better. I am not stupid enough to go back to the right--ever again.

2

I think that was true of the Boomers, who protested the war, and yet elected Ronald Reagan to office twice. I think that because they did it, they just assumed that the rest of us would. But we live in a world where the opportunities once experienced by a middle class have gone away, and aging has meant added struggle. I suspect that this is no longer the case.

Totally agree.

This gets me as I lived through the change. In the 60s there was a military draft and a war to make it real... Protests and hippie culture EXPLODED. Then came the all volunteer army in 1975, poor and disadvantage still felt the draft - an economic draft (!), rich kids had no fear of losing their college degrees and job prospects, as we have continued to have war every decade since. We have been in Afghanistan 12 years, in and out of Iraq and bombing and drone striking like it’s alright... How much of a protest has there been?

0

Personally, I was not very political in my younger years, but as I've gotten older and more concerned about such things, I'm pretty middle-of-the-road now. But, I cannot abide the current political climate in D.C.

0

I hate even being a passenger in a plane

2

I was pretty right wing when I was younger. The older I get the more left I turn.

Thank goodness I opened my eyes.

5

Exactly the opposite.

I'm probably further left than a far thing can get.

We are social animals that are at our best when we support each other and work together to a common aim. I am a staunch supporter universal healthcare and universal basic income.

0

Less EXTREMITY is what happens. On BOTH sides! But you probably become more firmly entrenched as you do...

Ungod Level 6 Jan 27, 2018
4

70 this year and still an anarchist, if I had the health for it I'd be marching with the gang, been on more U.k. demo's than I can count (or remember these days) - loved it all!

That answer gets you an instant like and follow 🙂

I think I have found a new role model!! Thank you!

2

In fact I've "become" more left. The more I've learnt, particularly about economics and the origins of capitalism, the less I've been able to reconcile that knowledge with the lemming-like drive of the Chicago School toward the catastrophic destruction of capitalism. One of the great ironies of the last forty years has been that the voodoo economics of Reagan and Thatcher, employed in Thatcher's case to remodel the society in which she claimed not to believe, have massively enriched part of society whilst gradually impoverishing the very people who funnel the money to the wealthy. The rich are eating themselves, they just don't know that yet.

0

I consider myself to be center leaning. Even though I call myself a Democratic Socialist of the Bernie Sanders persuasion. I wouldn't say that I've becoming less left leaning. I prefer to think things through before I make a decision on where I stand. Sometimes when something comes up in the news and I think about it some and I tend to change my view.

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