Cain
Straussian
Sometimes I go months without reading these boards, plus I didn't bother searching for relevant threads, so I don't know if this has been done before quite so directly. I do recall topics asking if you inherited or rejected your parents political beliefs. This deals with that but emphasizes formative experiences and political awakenings throughout life. If you did grow up making your own granola, and calling your parents by their first name, cool. Or if 9/11 "changed you" (like Dennis Miller), or the Bush administration changed you (Michael Lind?), or the war against "Islamofascism" changed you (Christopher Hitchens), a co-worker got you thinking, a book, and so on. Where you were, where you are, and why. Keep it relatively brief, hitting only the highlights. Your post should not be longer than mine because what you have to say cannot possibly be as compulsively interesting. Also, I will delete any and all off-topic meanderings.
In junior high and the beginning of high school I probably would have considered myself a Goldwater Republican, even though I didn't know Barry Goldwater. It was more of a reaction to my parents centrist, but firmly Democratic Reagan-hating politics. That slowly changed and evolved as I started high school and began looking toward college. Although a Dole rally (in Orange County, CA) was the only function I have ever attended for a political candidate, I knew while there that Clinton's policies and ideas appealed more to me personally.
In my last two years of high school I got into humanism, Chomsky, and Zinn In college as an undergrad/grad student until today there has been an uneasy internal tension between more radical, visionary left-wing ideals and liberal Rawlsian egalitarianism. This can sometimes be seen in issues of _The Nation_, specifically the contrasting politics of Eric Alterman and Alexander Cockburn. The former is a fairly typical Paul Krugman-loving, Ralph Nader-hating NYC liberal, while the latter enjoys bashing U.S. foreign policy (esp. with respect to Israel), the Democratic Party (esp. Bernie Sanders and the late Paul Wellstone), but maintains everyone should be able to own any type of gun she pleases, and global warming is a hoax. I tend to consciously identify more with Cockburn, finding him more interesting, voting Green, and being repulsed by most Democrats.
In junior high and the beginning of high school I probably would have considered myself a Goldwater Republican, even though I didn't know Barry Goldwater. It was more of a reaction to my parents centrist, but firmly Democratic Reagan-hating politics. That slowly changed and evolved as I started high school and began looking toward college. Although a Dole rally (in Orange County, CA) was the only function I have ever attended for a political candidate, I knew while there that Clinton's policies and ideas appealed more to me personally.
In my last two years of high school I got into humanism, Chomsky, and Zinn In college as an undergrad/grad student until today there has been an uneasy internal tension between more radical, visionary left-wing ideals and liberal Rawlsian egalitarianism. This can sometimes be seen in issues of _The Nation_, specifically the contrasting politics of Eric Alterman and Alexander Cockburn. The former is a fairly typical Paul Krugman-loving, Ralph Nader-hating NYC liberal, while the latter enjoys bashing U.S. foreign policy (esp. with respect to Israel), the Democratic Party (esp. Bernie Sanders and the late Paul Wellstone), but maintains everyone should be able to own any type of gun she pleases, and global warming is a hoax. I tend to consciously identify more with Cockburn, finding him more interesting, voting Green, and being repulsed by most Democrats.
I share your fondness for the ancients, though I prefer Aristotle to Plato.