Interesting. I’ve always been conservative, so have trouble understanding the whole liberal thing.
When I was politically educated by the TV, I was a Liberal. When I discovered Rush in ‘89 or ‘90, I became more conservative. When I became a father, I was here to stay.
I do have difficulty with folks, even FReepers and even my mom, sometimes knee-jerk into “there oughta be a law” stuff that would be anti-freedom.
I see with new eyes these last couple of decades.
I’ve always been conservative too, but I became even more so after I worked for a contracted government agency that worked with mothers on welfare. Parts of my job I loved, working with the children, but it angered me to see these women with nicer cars than mine, $300 weaves, manicures, gold chains, etc. and they were on welfare. Some of the women had a mutual father, he would have 5-6 women with as many children as they could have, and they would collect every gov’t assistance plus the new “crazy” money for their kids. They knew how to work the system. Ironically, many of the people that worked there went from liberal to conservative, not all, but a good deal. You got to see up close and personal what your tax $$$ went to, and it wasn’t pretty. Such waste.
Ditto on that. My favorite story as a child was "The Little Red Hen" where the hen did all the work growing wheat and making bread with all the other animals refusing to help until it was time to eat the bread. In elementary school when we did group projects I heard the words "We want Karl in our group so he'll do the work" as the real life version of that story. Those same words now echo in my head every April 15th.
It probably wasn't until Reagan's second election that I was politically aware enough to put together a coherent argument why I supported him. Too bad I was a few months too young to vote for him then. However, the belief that people are not the servents of the government stuck with me.
I stumbled upon one example that has worked well with several of them. The difference between two TV shows. "Whale Wars" and "Deadliest Catch". Whale Wars is all about feeling good about what you are doing and being "committed" to the "cause". The Steve Irwin is crewed by the biggest bunch of incompetent boobs to ever sail the seas. Every episode they almost maime or kill someone because of their incompetence. Then you flip over to Deadliest Catch and the Time Bandit is opie fishing in 45 foot seas with 50 knot winds and it is 8 degrees and they are having a blast - even after 40 hours of nonstop agony. Why? Because they are making money and living the dream of adventure.
Free market at it's best with dedicated competent crews and feel good at it's best with a drug addled Captain who is dedicated to promoting himself using the whales as the vehicle. Makes me sick.