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When did you become interested in politics and why?

angrycarpenter

angrycarpenter

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Where do political beliefs come from? It's not like they really teach them in school judging by the varied spectrum of political opinion around here. I theorize that for every political junkie there was a singular event that grabbed your attention and led to this obsession with all things political.
I was sitting around the other day trying to remember when I started paying attention to politics and how that shaped my beliefs and opinions. For me the event was pretty easy to remember.

It was August eighth 1974. I was ten years old and we lived in a suburb of Fort Worth Texas. I was out in the yard throwing the football with my brother when my mom ran out the back door and yelled "Get in here right now!" Well we drug our feet and eventually made it in there. Mom said something is happening on TV that has never happened before and will never happen again and for our own good we must watch it.

On the screen was the face of Richard Nixon. Of course I knew who he was, I only had a little kid's understanding of things but I could tell something was different this time. I can still see his sweaty face and tearful eyes and the sound of his shaky voice as he announced his resignation. After that it seems like I started paying attention to the news when Uncle Walt was on and reading books on politics long before they were required in school.

This was my first picture of what a politician is, A sneaky liar who ran and hid when confronted with proof that he was a sneaky liar. I suppose it was one of the things that made me a democrat.

What was your first time, the event that made you one of the poor souls that thinks boring old politics is a worthy pastime?
 
angrycarpenter said:
Where do political beliefs come from? It's not like they really teach them in school judging by the varied spectrum of political opinion around here. I theorize that for every political junkie there was a singular event that grabbed your attention and led to this obsession with all things political.
I was sitting around the other day trying to remember when I started paying attention to politics and how that shaped my beliefs and opinions. For me the event was pretty easy to remember.

It was August eighth 1974. I was ten years old and we lived in a suburb of Fort Worth Texas. I was out in the yard throwing the football with my brother when my mom ran out the back door and yelled "Get in here right now!" Well we drug our feet and eventually made it in there. Mom said something is happening on TV that has never happened before and will never happen again and for our own good we must watch it.

On the screen was the face of Richard Nixon. Of course I knew who he was, I only had a little kid's understanding of things but I could tell something was different this time. I can still see his sweaty face and tearful eyes and the sound of his shaky voice as he announced his resignation. After that it seems like I started paying attention to the news when Uncle Walt was on and reading books on politics long before they were required in school.

This was my first picture of what a politician is, A sneaky liar who ran and hid when confronted with proof that he was a sneaky liar. I suppose it was one of the things that made me a democrat.

What was your first time, the event that made you one of the poor souls that thinks boring old politics is a worthy pastime?
Click to expand...

I didn't know that these things were called "politics" at the time, but I've been interested in political issue since I can remember.
 
All my life. Grew up on science fiction, and there is no more political a genre of fiction to be found in all of human literature.
 
Probably when things started to go south in Iraq. It was the first time I was old enough to read and understand the news, and for some reason, the President (to me, a vague but perfect authority figure in a mystical faraway land) had done something wrong and we weren't going to win the war we were supposed to win for a long time, if ever.

I was a Democrat for a little while then, but when I saw the national debt (eight trillion or so at the time) and realized I'd have to pay it someday, I became Independent.
 
When I was in the 7th grade and rumors started that "The Twin Brothers Fell"

After-School, I spent the rest of the day re-watching large buildings crumbling and people running.

A few months later, I watched the CNN live-feed of Iraq getting blown to hell (while I was sitting in my boxers on my bed, with the light off [so my parents wouldn't know I was up past my bed-time]).


I never knew "Why?" and I wanted to learn it. I became interested in politics because it answers the "Why".
 
When I realized that the only way anything ever changed was through politics and the political activism of the people united behind a cause. I think it was 1964 there was a Vietnam protest in Times Square. I went with an aunt and a couple of friends. After that I protested everything. That was when i became political and have been ever since.
 
Korimyr the Rat said:
All my life. Grew up on science fiction, and there is no more political a genre of fiction to be found in all of human literature.
Click to expand...

I hadn't really thought of that but you are absolutely right. I grew up reading Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlien. I loved spaceships and lived and breathed nasa and the space program. I think Star Trek probably bred a lot of progressives. Good point!
 
Thread's been done before.

I've been political for as long as I can remember. Thank my dad for that, he regularly talks about that kind of stuff, in such a logical way that almost all of my views come from him. He could probably have become president if he had any ambitions at all, and wasn't born in Cuba.
 
Hippie history teacher pissed me the **** off.
 
Probably around sixth/seventh grade, it was around that time that I realized politicians say one thing and then stab you in the back when it comes to rights and policies, couldn't get enough of the subject after that.
 
angrycarpenter said:
Where do political beliefs come from? It's not like they really teach them in school judging by the varied spectrum of political opinion around here. I theorize that for every political junkie there was a singular event that grabbed your attention and led to this obsession with all things political.
I was sitting around the other day trying to remember when I started paying attention to politics and how that shaped my beliefs and opinions. For me the event was pretty easy to remember.

It was August eighth 1974. I was ten years old and we lived in a suburb of Fort Worth Texas. I was out in the yard throwing the football with my brother when my mom ran out the back door and yelled "Get in here right now!" Well we drug our feet and eventually made it in there. Mom said something is happening on TV that has never happened before and will never happen again and for our own good we must watch it.

On the screen was the face of Richard Nixon. Of course I knew who he was, I only had a little kid's understanding of things but I could tell something was different this time. I can still see his sweaty face and tearful eyes and the sound of his shaky voice as he announced his resignation. After that it seems like I started paying attention to the news when Uncle Walt was on and reading books on politics long before they were required in school.

This was my first picture of what a politician is, A sneaky liar who ran and hid when confronted with proof that he was a sneaky liar. I suppose it was one of the things that made me a democrat.

What was your first time, the event that made you one of the poor souls that thinks boring old politics is a worthy pastime?
Click to expand...

High school, and because Rush Limbaugh got me interested in politics.
 
Ikari said:
High school, and because Rush Limbaugh got me interested in politics.
Click to expand...

My first job was pumping gas at a station my dad ran a shop at. They always had Rush on the radio, so even today I associate the sound of Rush's voice with a solid work ethic. It was a part of the example set for me.
 
angrycarpenter said:
What was your first time, the event that made you one of the poor souls that thinks boring old politics is a worthy pastime?
Click to expand...

9/11 and then further on the Iraq war, became politically active soon after that.
Watching Blair lying with a straight face in the House of Commons about WMD's is enough to make anyones blood boil.
Was also highly amusing watch PMQ's soon after in which anti war MP's had verbally attacked Blair resulting in expulsion from Labour party.
Oh and Question Time is very interesting and enough to make Politics fun.
 
When I married and it became in our economic interest to do so.
 
When I was around 13 and began rebelling against religion, which led to social liberalism. Therefore implanting my social standpoint today.
 
High school-college age is when I became increasingly interested in politics. Also from reading opinion editorials in my local newspaper
 
Mine was very young my mother was the Sect. for the Dem in the State of Maine while on my dads side my 2nd Cos is Sen.Olympia Snow R Maine so I was introduce to all side of the political spectrum. Both my parents taught my sister and I to always weight are political idea's and never to follow the party go with your beliefs.
 
Junior year in High School I was in a great Christian School and of course this being the fall of '04 it was a presidential election in a conservative school. That was part of it. Well, fast foward bout' a year or so, driving up to College listening to 1510 WLAC AM in Nashville on the way up to Vol State I would listen to Rick And Bubba and Rush Limbaugh would be on the car radio when I went to lunch and just started listening to him.
 
Well it started January 2008. I didn't have the chance to vote when I was 18, because it was too late... and I didn't care then. I used to just followed what my parents said "Bush and anything dealing with republicans are bad" but I couldn't give any sort of reasoning. Then I met my girlfriend and she introduced me to the "right." Then we started discussing politics and well hearing more and more about the left just made more sense to me.
 
For me I would have to say back in the days between Carter, and Reagan. Growing up in Lansing MI, a good GM Union town, early on I would have to say I was more liberal. Fresh out of school, and my head filled with the inequities of the disparity of the rich vs. the poor.

Ah, the care free days of blaming everyone else for my problems......:cool: Then came Carter's folly and hand in destroying the American economy, remaining feckless as a leader concerning the hostages in Iran, and basically siding against Israel, a country I always had sympathy for considering that they were surrounded by enemies from the start.

Then came Ronald Reagan.....The hostages were released immediately! and I thought woah! this guy has a pair.....I listened to him speak of America as a place where the rest of the world was in admiration, and that we had something special here. Unlike what you hear today with the constant drone of how badly we suck! Reagan made you proud again, he made you feel like as an American, anything was possible. And he showed the world through strong diplomacy, and a strong military that we were the super power in the world!

Things on the jobs, and income front got better under Reagan as well. And as I served that President with 6 years of my life in the Army, I realized that I wouldn't have done that for Carter. I started paying more attention, and noticed a striking difference between the parties in this country. To me the Republicans were standing for self accountability, and responsibility. The Demo's then, as now, had a message of 'let the government take care of you', 'hard work that achieves wealth is unfair.' I made my choice.

I am free, I have the freedom to succeed, or fail on my own, and if I do fail, it is my failing, not anyone's fault. In that vein, if I succeed, it is not the purview of anyone to come in and take what I have succeeded in so that they can feel better. Let them earn it, as I had to earn it. I don't want anyone taking care of me from cradle to grave either. Just a fair shot to succeed, or fail, live or die, buy what I want, when I want, from whomever I want......

I see that disappearing....Sadly.


j-mac
 
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