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What would it take for you to change your ideology?

Slartibartfast

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As an individual, what would it take for you to change you philosophy to something else?

Would it be some new data, a new insight, or something else? What would it be?
 
I can't guarantee that I will not some day go senile and believe something stupid but in order for my ideology to change I would have to get a new set of moral beliefs.

Or imperialism and capitalism would have to provide justice, equality and decent standards of living for all - something which is unlikely to happen.
 
I can be bought: $5M
 
a mass restructuring/disruption of soceity along the lines of a post apocalyptic world would perhaps do so.

If there were drastically fewer people and the infrastructure was no longer operational I could see a huge benefit to be had for small pockets of survivors to live together communally to pool labor, resources and abilities.
 
Nothing, I value full liberty not picking and choosing like the other two do.

Nothing for me either. I prefer living in the real world and not the idealistic dreamland Libertarians do.
 
As an individual, what would it take for you to change you philosophy to something else?

Would it be some new data, a new insight, or something else? What would it be?

For me it was a slow examining of how I felt on a variety of issues when Palin first hit the scene. I loved her, I thought she was awesome. I always claimed to be Republican and sided with it blindly, purely for lack of political interest. She seemed like a gem. I was actually quite proud for short while after her acceptance speech, I was energized - it was awesome.

So when she came out I wanted to know more, my interest grew. Up until that point politics in my world was something my parent's never discussed in front of us kids and I always considered it to be a mature-adult thing and hardly considered myself a mature-adult.
I suddenly had interests and questions: What exactly did the Republican Party stand for, what was their platform and goal for office and the future of our country?

I started reading and paying more attention to the news and so on. The more I read, though, and the more I watched - the less I agreed with things they valued or favored and approved of.

My growing political knowledge led to me learning more and then realizing I didn't really support who I claimed to support.

But my changing stance didn't really swing me Democrat, either - I'm floating in the middle. Often times I agree with Democrats on certain issue but other times I solely agree with Republicans . .. and the Green Party and so on, so forth.

So I spent quite a long time actually learning more about 3rd parties. Who were they, who was running, who could I support without a psychological and personal tussle.

I've yet to decide - but I do support 3rd party candidates for various things. This next election, if the Tea-Party keeps it up and Obama keeps pissing me off - I'll likely vote Libertarian or Green. Though they seem like complete opposites of each other they still reflect my mix-up more ideally than the Reps or Dems.

Because no one seemed to be on my page at that time I spent a long time actually reading all the parties political platforms and started to compile in a table of all the things they said they supported, agreed with, disagreed with and were actively against.

One of these days I intend to finish it. Overall - I despise the 2-party system and would like to actually change everyone's views that "a 3rd party vote is a wasted vote"
 
I used to be a Libertarian, and before that an anarchist. I abandoned those belief systems when I realized that they simply could not provide for the well-being of society in the way that a strong and active government could. Then, I was a Liberal until I realized that a society cannot function without moral character and that the State was necessary to instill moral character in the people.

In order to stop being Fascist, I would have to be convinced that the government can provide neither the necessary services nor the strong moral character necessary for a healthy society. As far as I am concerned, when we fought against the Fascists in World War II, we won the war but we did not win the argument, especially as the Allies were forced to adopt many Fascist policies in order to defeat the Axis. Likewise, I will not consider the failure of democratic governments as a rebuke against my political beliefs, because I do not believe in democracy.

The most effective way to cause me to change my ideology would be for me to take an active leadership role-- not necessarily dictator-- in a Fascist government and watch it collapse from influences other than an impossible war against superpowers.
 
As an individual, what would it take for you to change you philosophy to something else?

Would it be some new data, a new insight, or something else? What would it be?
new insight, i imagine. or cash.


seriously, not much could change me politically. i don't vote for individual people or parties as much as for what i think they might accomplish. i am actually pretty moderate, and to me compromise isn't a bad thing.
 
proof
.......
 
Equality, prosperity and environmentalism would all somehow have to be implemented successfully and efficiently by the government for me to become a true Leftist.
 
Likely would need to be some massive life changing or world changing event that caused me to completely alter my world view and principles, as a lot of my political views are based off these.

Granted, this is definitely possible. I saw my mildly hawkish libertarian leaning father turn extremely hawkish conservative with neo-con leaning security views while maintaining his libertarian social and economic ones post 9/11
 
I don't think of myself as having an ideology -- certainly not one easily recognized by others, anyway.
 
I have always played the devil's advocate.

When I was in the Army and all around me were strongly Republican, I always wondered how the less fortunate would fare. I also wondered what the problem was with alternative lifestyles - that is their business. I liked the strong national security of Reagan. I disliked the social conservatism. I got into many good arguments.

When I entered college I went to a small liberal arts college. Professors and students alike were pretty liberal. They were anti-war and favorable toward socialism. The liked the government paying for the less fortunate without limit. They wanted to cut the defense budget to pay for these things. They were intolerant of conservative viewpoints. They branded such as illiberal, therefore immoral. I liked the social and lifestyle acceptance of liberals. I did not like national security or fiscal policy. I got into many good arguments.

Having been through these two institutions, I was left with no firm ideology. I was fiscally conservative and socially liberal with a desire for a strong national defense. I can't stand the moral posturing of the Republicans, especially when so many of their leaders are caught in uncompromising positions. Hypocrites. I can't stand the social programs of the Democrats, trying to take from the rich that earned it and give to the poor who sit on their ass (there are exceptions to this - people that truly need assistance and they should get it). And it turns out most of the Democrats are rich. Hypocrites.

So I decided not to vote. For 12 years I skipped voting. It wasn't until 2004 and Iraq hung in the balance, that I voted for Bush to continue. Of course, he made a mess of everything else, but I voted for Iraq and Iraq got turned around. That met my need.

Now I am a Whig. We don't have an ideology which forces bad principles upon me. I can be fiscally conservative and socially liberal to my hearts content. Neither party is fiscally conservative anymore. We so badly need them to be so we can scale back the entitlements of liberals.
 
i don't think i'd change my core ideology, the nuances of it are in a constant state of flux as i learn more, and hear different views, but my core beliefs are solid.
 
i don't think i'd change my core ideology, the nuances of it are in a constant state of flux as i learn more, and hear different views, but my core beliefs are solid.

That's pretty much my take on it too. My goals are set in stone, however, the means to achieve those goals will change as I learn more.
 
In order to change my views, someone would have to present a solid argument, complete with objective evidence and solid logical reasoning, that the views I held were factually wrong and that the new views were factually correct.

So far, nobody has been able to do that.
 
Nothing for me either. I prefer living in the real world and not the idealistic dreamland Libertarians do.

That 'real world' you live in has two majority parties every 2, 4, and 6 years seeking to be the party which presides over the destruction of a once great country. They have ammassed massive budget deficits. Their governing policies stifle independent growth of industry, reward crippled and dependent pets, and punish those that demonstrate an ability to excel. Now...maybe you dont like the idealistic dreamland of the Libertarians (and I agree...the Libertarian party needs reform and ive said so many times) but are you REALLY happy with YOUR current reality...and a budget deficit that is prohjected to reach a point in the next few years that we wont make enough as a country to pay off even our interest on our debt?
 
A withdrawl of accumulated education, work ethic, freedom, and self-motivation.

I used to be Republican, and then realized that they didn't really adopt a minarchist standpoint. They cared way too much about if you were being "moral" and had almost a fascist way of enforcing it.

Conversely, I never have been or will be a liberal because I was raised latchkey, put myself through college, became well-educated, and turned into a cog in the employment machine. Liberals spend more time bitching about the problem than engaging a solution.

I couldn't be a socialist or a communist because I've actually taken economics courses at the collegiate level and don't apply subjective bullcrap to classical theory. I also don't have a problem compensating people by worth. If you think a janitor has the same societal value as an engineer, you're a f'n idiot.
 
I would say that most of politics is two people with the same goal arguing about different means to get there. That makes many of my political beliefs willing to change with circumstance. I honestly could care less whether our economy is run as a command economy or anarcho-capitalist utopia, provided that it actually works well. Certain beliefs do come down to pure ideology, but who can say what it takes to change them?
 
I would say that most of politics is two people with the same goal arguing about different means to get there. That makes many of my political beliefs willing to change with circumstance. I honestly could care less whether our economy is run as a command economy or anarcho-capitalist utopia, provided that it actually works well. Certain beliefs do come down to pure ideology, but who can say what it takes to change them?

What would you say those common goals are?
 
Something apocolyptic most likely would have to invalidate the existing reality for me to change. I have these core values that are here to stay and even in some new Mad Max world I'd have to weigh survival with these values. It might be that I'd change to survive but in some slight variation of today's daily life - fiscal and social conservativitism is where I'll be. Whether or not that leans a bit towards libertarian optimism or to some other leaning - the core will most likely stay the same.
 
For that "natural cooling cycle" that global warming skeptics have been predicting for decades to actually, you know, happen.
 
no
i die a member of the tea party
 
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