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this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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Asklemmy
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When I was first becoming an adult (in the USA), I got into politics from talk radio. I became staunchly libertarian, perhaps a bit conservative learning. Over the years, as I started to gain more life experience, started to actually think about certain issues some more, hear more opposing viewpoints, and actually see how stuff played out over time, I slowly began turning more liberal. These days, I would say that I am left of center and mostly align with the Democratic party for voting purposes.
This is precisely my experience. I am a recovering big L Libertarian (in the USA sense). Now I'd say I'm liberal, slowly moving more left.
That’s interesting. I kinda did the opposite. Was raised in a fairly liberal house and went to college.
But as I got older and gained experience have drifted more towards some almagamation of a libertarian mindset. Libertarians suffer severely from a “no true Scott’s man “ thing. So i politically don’t really have a home and it depends on a candidate. And if you ask many they may write me off as an opponent or undesirable based on a single policy stance.
Overall I feel the government means well but often doesn’t DO well or implement well as thus I am more hesistant for social programs as I get older. Like I’m not one of those races are theft people but just that government should keep to very specific and targeted programs and not try and be a regulation solution for everything. Only regulate when it’s clear a market can’t do so itself and negatively affects the people, like in banking.
But when it gets huge and unwieldy things go south quick. Like healthcare for all would be awesome, but then you look at how Medicare is ran or the VA and I get big time squirrly feelings.
Similarly with things like gun control. The theres no legislation that will solve the cultural issues that lead to all types of gun deaths. And what legislation is out there, even at the state level is often totally based on false premises and thus doesn’t solve the issues they intend to.
So just like I feel abortion is a deeply personal choice and if someone is self aware enough to know they won’t be a good parent they should make that call, especially if the alternative is the government having to raise kids (cause foster care is a mess). I feel similarly about gun control.
In most things I probs lean left on the American spectrum. But honestly there are few in our current political system that I can point to an be like “them, I really like them!”
Yeah, I can see how you might arrive at some of those things. I think in general a lot of people want mostly the same things, but by looking at a problem from a slightly different angle, you can arrive at largely different conclusions. Just as one of the things you stated, you think the government often doesn't do a good job at the things it does. I can agree with that to a certain extent. However, I don't believe that it is just intrinsically because the government is crappy at doing their job. I constantly see opponents fighting against these very institutions, trying to defund them, trying to make them ineffective. So yeah, its kind of hard for stuff to be done properly when certain people are trying to dismantle you every step of the way. But to that point, maybe the very fact that this is possible is proof that the American government doesn't work well? I'd still think a functioning government is something worth working towards though.