Are your political beliefs different from your parents'?

there couldn't be two more different people on the face of this earth than my mother and myself!! she's pretty strongly conservative.

to her dismay, i'm pretty much smack in the middle, and depending on the issue i'll lean either left or right.

my dad is more uh, laid back, and his beliefs are closer to my own... which is funny since i didn't know him growing up.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ Oct 19 2006, 11:41 AM) [snapback]335097[/snapback]</div>

No and yes.

(I think you should have added religiosity to your question. Again mty answer would have been yes)

jared2: have you finished the Dawkins book yet?

 

My beliefs and my parents' beliefs are very similar (liberal). So are my wife's beliefs. Her parents' beliefs are slightly different (conservative on some issues, slightly liberal on others, very liberal on a few).

I arrived at my own set of political views based on my own life's experiences. I think my wife was the same way. Our parents definitely shaped our personalities and morals, but not necessarily our political beliefs.

 

My political views are the opposite of my parents. I really have no clue how anybody can believe something just because they were brought up that way, unless they never really examined those beliefs.

One reason my views turned out so different is I asked my parents why they were what they were and they had no answer really other than what amounted to being comfortable with the views of their parents.

 

My beliefs and my parents are opposite. My folks were conservative Republicans and I am what they refer to here in MN as a Wellstone Liberal.

But to be fair, I can't say what their beliefs would be today (mom died in 1987 and dad in 1989), they were what many would refer to as traditional Republicans. They both condemed the McCarthy-ism era and felt the GOP put up with the John Birch society far too long. Dad was also getting very disilusioned with the GOP during the Reagan administration, he felt that they were getting away fron the Republican principals, primarly fiscal conservatism, I can't imagine what he would say today with the neo-con influence (but most likely it couldn't be printed here ). The main thing dad taught us regarding politics was the importance of forming our opinions based upon our own independant study of the issues and not basing them on what someone told us. In that regard there were never any hard feelings due to differences in beliefs, rather we had many really good discussions on political matters and allways came away with a great deal of mutual respect for each other.

 

My mother was apolitial and areligious, my father apolitical and atheist. My grandparents were small business, 'traditional republican' types -- mostly anti-tax more than anything else, although Fed repubs have been consistently pro-Israel more than dems, and that mattered a lot to them.

The two party system just does not offer me an easy choice. I tend to vote without regard to party affiliation locally based on my priorites of environment, fiscal responsibility, and education, so long as it does not lend support to the national repub movement, which I despise based on its platform of corporatism, guns, imperialistic fascism, anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality, and fiscal irresponsibility.

So I am not pro dem, but am most certainly ANTI-repub.

 

I'm a staunch Republican. Both of my parents are Democrat (although my mother doesn't count, as she's still a Norwegian citizen). My wife is an extreme liberal Democrat (with a few seriously Republican undertones...).

 

My mother was the one parent who raised me. My father was almost never around, though a series of father figures were. She's a liberal in most ways, but centrist in others. She and I used to talk philosophy and politics alot when I was younger (I was a strange kid). It was a great bonding experience for us, but also helped me on my way to becoming a critical thinker (and, I suppose, allowed me to develop a belief system separate from hers).

I'm an odd duck, in that I can't be pinned to a Left or Right philosophy, so I call myself middle of the road for lack of a better term. I'm disgusted with both major parties in America, and what I've learned of the other parties hasn't impressed me much. So, I'm a man without a party.

I have a friend who's mother votes Republican only because she was raised Republican. I don't understand that. How dim a bulb do you have to be to so cavalierly give your vote to one party "jest 'because daddy done it"?

Vince

 

My father was a liberal capitalist, who believed that with government regulations to protect the poor and the little guy, capitalism was the best way to organize an economy. He always voted Democrat, but always as "the lesser of two evils," never out of support for what they stood for.

My mother was a Communist who left the Party out of disillusionment with the un-communist actions of the Soviet Union, as did many others. She has been an activist for social and racial justice all her life, and still is.

I received no religious indoctrination. My parents were atheists, but permitted my sister to attend church during the period that she decided she wanted to. They believed in allowing us to make up our own minds.

I differ most from my parents in being a pacifist, which they were not. I believe I was most influenced in this by Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

I'm a Democrat. The only one in the family. Both of my parents, my brother and my sister are all Republicans. I thought my mother was a Democrat for years but recently learned she is registered Republican and has been since Eisenhower.

That is not to say my parents identify with the current Republican party. In fact they don't vote the straight ticket but consider each proposition, candidate and issue separately on it's own merits. (Well, except maybe my sister who is a sheep.)

There never was much political discussion in my family so we basically all found our own ways.

Now....my Father is a Catholic but hasn't taken communion since he was married in a Lutheran church to my Mother. We were all brought up Lutheran, but my sister (youngest) converted to Catholicism, is married to a not sure what and is raising her kids Catholic. My brother is still Lutheran but is married to a Catholic and the children are being raise Catholic.

So there you have it.

BTW my Dad is the first of his generation to get a bachelors degree. I was the first of my generation to get a university degree, followed by my brother. My sister only has an AA from Coleman College. My Mother only has a high school equivalent and some community college classes. My brother is an Air Force Academy graduate and has a masters in business administration. I have a BA, an MA and am working on a second masters in Library and Information Science.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ Oct 19 2006, 03:17 PM) [snapback]335202[/snapback]</div>

Actually we don't have political discussions. We are very accepting of each others views. She even accompanies me to political functions. We went to go meet Bill Frist a few months back, and I was jealous because he spoke to her more than me (they're both physicians)!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ Oct 19 2006, 10:11 AM) [snapback]335123[/snapback]</div>

Just ask the (Ragin Cajun) James Carville and Mary Matlin. I didn't think two more divergent political views could live together for so long.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Matalin


Wildkow

p.s. BTW I'm an independent and my Mom was strongly Democratic. On the other hand it's hard to tell what my Father was he never voiced an opinion, but he was military and served in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam so I would say Republican.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ Oct 20 2006, 10:07 AM) [snapback]335621[/snapback]</div>

Maybe because all you hear is the negative stuff from the MSM, while the real story is that re-enlistment rates are up.

Wildkow