Was quite left leaning, but have slowly been turned off by the left.

[Kakera]

Lol, politics.

[Kokolums]

About a day late to this, but should just link http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...r-generations/

People Don't become more conservative.

Apparently they do according to the image you posted.

2006 Millennials: 34% red
2016 Millennials: 33% red

2000 Gen X: 37% red
2016 Gen X: 37% red

2000 Boomers: 39% red
2016 Boomers: 44% red

2000 Silent: 38% red
2016 Silent: 48% red

Overall, there's more red.

But there's also more blue across the board.

What's really changed is the independents have shrunk in that poll. What doesn't seem quite right since other polls show independents have grown. Not sure what to make of that.

[Torto]

You know, Marxist kind of already implies socialist and left wing, so you really only needed one adjective there. Not to mention that the content of your post is also completely wrong.

I'm aware those adjectives are mostly redundant, but with this forum and everyone's personal political interpretations.......

As to the content, the education systems in the western world is facing a crisis due to the heavy left wing bias. This is not my conservative biased view, but it is openly being discussed because it has become detrimental to education as a whole. When 90% of lecturers view themselves as left wing in the US there is a problem.

[Slybak]

That doesn't contradict what I said. Social orders and hierarchies are a part of an individualist society: since different individuals pursue different individuals, live in different conditions, etc.,

The existence of left-individualist ideologies (liberalism, humanism, etc.) and counter-reactionary individualist ideologies (i.e. libertinism, virtually every form of anarcho-socialism, etc.) would suggest otherwise.

This is because ideology is always goal oriented; it doesn't merely seek to describe what is, but what should be. In this sense, you and rym are both correct that the left is oriented around the goal of equality the right is oriented around the goal of hierarchy, but its important to recognize that everything else is contextual - typically related to the decided-upon means through which ideological goals are to be reached at any given moment. These means can and do change depending on time and place.

Example #1: You're a mid-20th century American industrialist. Your ideological goal is to defend and promote the virtues associated with that identity. You're presently chaffing under the impositions upon large industries by the state enacted in the wake of the Great Depression. You therefor come to see state power as the primary antagonist of your ideological goals, so you devote your considerable resources to creating anti-state political movements. Your name is Fred Koch, early bank-roller of the John Birch Society and father of Charles and David Koch, themselves prime movers among the libertarian right.

Example #2: You're a mid-19th century Russian emigre studying for a professorship in Germany. You hate the ravages of imperialism and capitalism due to their effects on members of your own social circle and your family back home, and take as an ideological goal the destruction of these hierarchical systems. Since these ravages are primarily orchestrated through state power, you've come to see the state itself as the primary antagonist of this goal, so you devote your time and energy to organizing with other like-minded individuals toward the ultimate destruction of state power and, in turn, imperialism and capitalism. Your name is Mikhail Bakunin, and you become the founder of social anarchism.

Koch and Bakunin held wildly divergent ideological goals - Koch far to the right, Bakunin far to the left - but embraced the same means to advance those goals. This is because ideologies are not classified as left or right through the context in which they operate, but their desired end state. The should, not the is.

[Louisa Bannon]

In reality, any chart that places Hillary Clinton so far to the right that there's barely any space between her and Pinochet is concealing more than it illuminates.

Hillary is shit. She used to be a Republican. She and her husband are neoliberals, and during his presidency Bill Clinton might as well have been a Republican for the many things he accomplished for them that they never could for themselves. FWIW, Hillary is also very hawkish.

Further, any politician that talks anything about free markets is talking absolute nonsense. There are no free markets anywhere in the world. Everything is regulated, it just depends which side gets the advantages of whatever new economic policy is sharted forth.

Not sure why any of this is somehow news or surprising.

Edit: reading some of the thread following the quote above is just depressing. Some of the shit many of you believe is literally as if it were pulled out of your butts. The lack of knowledge or any appreciation for just how little some of you know is frankly shocking. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunnin...3Kruger_effect

I should not have been surprised but somehow I always am. George Carlin talking about some of you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOrHoob0n9o

And this why you morons voted for Trump and still think it was the right choice.

[smooshtheman]

About a day late to this, but should just link http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...r-generations/

People Don't become more conservative. Events embed political leaning into people and then not much changes over time. Events like the 2008 recession and the following years under a Democratic president should've pushed people towards Republican, but survey after survey has shown younger people are increasingly more and more liberal then their predecessors.

On topic, I was much more conservative when I was younger, but as I became more educated and entered the workforce, I've become way more "left". I think it has to do with working with people who came from many different backgrounds/upbringings and understanding why some people are who they just are. Combined with higher education and just knowing there are problems in society that could be fixed with some political will. I still believe in free markets and that capitalism is a good thing and is a force that pretty much impacts everything about our lives. I just don't ever for a second believe that big corporations will look out for their consumers over their own interests and because of that SOMEONE (government) needs to be there to regulate their activities.

To say ,"people dont become more conservative." and to mean it literally is pretty wrong by any standard, thats like saying people dont become more liberal...and they certainly do.

"Events like the 2008 recession and the following years under a Democratic president should've pushed people towards Republican, but survey after survey has shown younger people are increasingly more and more liberal then their predecessors."
- How about 8 years of Obama ending with a Trump victory says your wrong again.

"On topic, I was much more conservative when I was younger, but as I became more educated and entered the workforce, I've become way more "left".
- Do you mean to say that as you went through school (not notorious for pushing liberal leftist views on the youth or anything at all) you picked up on some of your liberal teachers beliefs that just sounded really good? Going through college and getting your first job shouldn't by any means make you comfortable what you think you know, if you were smart and educated and had real work experience outside of restaurants you wouldn't be claiming your on the left...maybe youve just been taught to be a worker your whole life who knows.

"I still believe in free markets and that capitalism is a good thing and is a force that pretty much impacts everything about our lives. I just don't ever for a second believe that big corporations will look out for their consumers over their own interests and because of that SOMEONE (government) needs to be there to regulate their activities."
- 99% of Democrats and Republicans both agree you need a mixture of free and fair markets thats just common sense tho and anyone with a "higher education" would agree as well...and when did a big bad corporation become a charity/authority figure? thats the capitalism you just said you believed in, I know its hard to swallow but nobody but you is in charge of your life and governments job is spelled out in the constitution. Dont like it? move away. Dont wanna move? Accept America for what it really is and sit down, its not a democracy its a Constitutional republic.

[God8010]

When you're young you only have you to account for. When you grow older you see the repercussions of action with an existence that has to consume resources but you still only have you to report to. You see the injustice, you see the strong and the weak. Your compassion (if you have it) makes you "feel" things. You still have you to report to.

Once you have a child, maybe a disabled family member or become disabled yourself. Something happens where the problems that surround you become something you reporting to yourself cannot solve. The problems that surround you can affect something in your life that means more to you than you mean to yourself, you project projection. You give in to your fears and act accordingly. You conserve the risk liberal lips can cause in confrontation.

It happened to me too

[Kokolums]

The existence of left-individualist ideologies (liberalism, humanism, etc.) and counter-reactionary individualist ideologies (i.e. libertinism, virtually every form of anarcho-socialism, etc.) would suggest otherwise.

This is because ideology is always goal oriented; it doesn't merely seek to describe what is, but what should be. In this sense, you and rym are both correct that the left is oriented around the goal of equality the right is oriented around the goal of hierarchy, but its important to recognize that everything else is contextual - typically related to the decided-upon means through which ideological goals are to be reached at any given moment. These means can and do change depending on time and place.

Example #1: You're a mid-20th century American industrialist. Your ideological goal is to defend and promote the virtues associated with that identity. You're presently chaffing under the impositions upon large industries by the state enacted in the wake of the Great Depression. You therefor come to see state power as the primary antagonist of your ideological goals, so you devote your considerable resources to creating anti-state political movements. Your name is Fred Koch, early bank-roller of the John Birch Society and father of Charles and David Koch, themselves prime movers among the libertarian right.

Example #2: You're a mid-19th century Russian emigre studying for a professorship in Germany. You hate the ravages of imperialism and capitalism due to their effects on members of your own social circle and your family back home, and take as an ideological goal the destruction of these hierarchical systems. Since these ravages are primarily orchestrated through state power, you've come to see the state itself as the primary antagonist of this goal, so you devote your time and energy to organizing with other like-minded individuals toward the ultimate destruction of state power and, in turn, imperialism and capitalism. Your name is Mikhail Bakunin, and you become the founder of social anarchism.

Koch and Bakunin held wildly divergent ideological goals - Koch far to the right, Bakunin far to the left - but embraced the same means to advance those goals. This is because ideologies are not classified as left or right through the context in which they operate, but their desired end state. The should, not the is.

That's one interpretation of history.

The republicans argue that the super rich mostly sit in the democrat party, and that in order to prevent a revolt, the super rich divide the poor into the "middle" class and poor. Then the super rich simply ASSERT from their posts in the democrat party that they believe in equality (when they do not), and that the republicans are racists and therefore their opinions are invalid. This way the poor vote democrat but just make things worse for themselves because they just voted in the super rich. As further proof, the republicans point out Obama won in 2008, taxed the poor with Obamacare, bailed out the super rich and the banks, and inequality got worse.

In this world view, the republicans are actually fighting for the poor, and the democrats are the super rich that must be defeated that hide behind shields of false claims of equality and multiculturalism to attain power.

Left and right are strictly defined as:

Left: the super rich who are hiding from justice behind shields of (1) calling everyone not on the left a racist and (2) calling everyone not the left a classist (rich also defined as power, as the left controls all the corridors of power: media, education, urban centers)
Right: the poor who the left are trying to divide between middle class and poor who are falsely defined as racists and classists, who are trying to bring justice on the left.

[Garnier Fructis]

That's one interpretation of history.

The republicans argue that the super rich mostly sit in the democrat party, and that in order to prevent a revolt, the super rich divide the poor into the "middle" class and poor. Then the super rich simply ASSERT from their posts in the democrat party that they believe in equality (when they do not), and that the republicans are racists and therefore their opinions are invalid. This way the poor vote democrat but just make things worse for themselves because they just voted in the super rich. As further proof, the republicans point out Obama won in 2008, taxed the poor with Obamacare, bailed out the super rich and the banks, and inequality got worse.

In this world view, the republicans are actually fighting for the poor, and the democrats are the super rich that must be defeated that hide behind shields of false claims of equality and multiculturalism to attain power.

Left and right are strictly defined as:

Left: the super rich who are hiding from justice (rich also defined as power, as the left controls all the corridors of power: media, education, urban centers)
Right: the poor who the left are trying to divide between middle class and poor who are falsely defined as racists and classists, who are trying to bring justice on the left.

[Garnier Fructis]

It's always a bit surreal to see people who constantly demonstrate a single-minded zeal entirely detached from any real substance accuse others of being indoctrinated or brainwashed.

I seriously question if any of these idiots have ever been to university, because that looks absolutely nothing like my university experiences.

[Captain N]

I seriously question if any of these idiots have ever been to university, because that looks absolutely nothing like my university experiences.

Well considering that a majority of the people that are speaking the nonsense Nixx addressed have been blindly supporting Trump on these forums since Day One would it surprise you? I mean they would reflect a majority of his voters.

[xChurch]

I always find it curious when people cite other members of a group they consider themselves part of as a reason for leaving said group. It's not like you have to interact with any liberals or agree with anything a liberal says.

[Fojos]

Which is funny when you look at how the highly educated lean more left than they do right.

Not that strange considering how many get an education in some completely useless area of humanities (like gender studies). The traditional courses that actually add something to society tend to be more right-leaning (or liberalism, not liberal regressive left).

[Theinquisition]

Not that strange considering how many get an education in some completely useless area of humanities (like gender studies). The traditional courses that actually add something to society tend to be more right-leaning (or liberalism, not liberal regressive left).

You mean to tell me gender studies isnt a legit field of study? /s lol

[Allybeboba]

So for most of my life I would have identified as been fairly left leaning and open to moat things. But i have felt in the last few years that the left is just not for me anymore. Special interest groups, identity politics and lack of direction has turned me off. Now I do not identify with the right either and feel I am closer to the center.

I am for universal healthcare and taxes to pay for services and infrastructure. But i do not like how both the right/left continue to make laws to protect us from ourselves. I am also angry about the right and left are invading our privacy.

Have your politcal prefernces changed recently as parties change and become seemingly more extreme?

Always going to have "laws to protect us from ourselves".
A few examples are seatbelt laws and motorcycle helmet laws. And even bicycle helmet laws for children. All of which didn't exist when I was growing up. We are better off because of the regulations though.

[purebalance]

well typically as people get older, get a job, and work for a living, they become more and more conservative.

Eh I've had a job for quite some time and would have stayed left if they didn't go complete nutjob and pretty much are at the point where they'd consider slavery for all cis gender white men. I might get an out for being gay, but at this point the left has even turned against gay white men as well.

[cuafpr]

i used to more middle but the left tends to push me to the right...

[Gurluas]

You have been tricked. Was it the left who voted in a billionaire into office, as an example of the working, blue collar? As much as one wants to claim Obama won on identity politics, he won when a turd sandwich could have beaten a republican, to the point that republicans started calling them selfs tea party. The RNC didn't have the economy as its own topic in their platform nominating McCain, as three banks failed that same month and we had reassuring Bush White House lawn speeches of a self fixing economy.

Yet, Trump won while the economy was booming, unemployment was below 5% and we were breaking Dow records on nearly weekly basis for a couple of years. Billionaire running as the working class, over the out of touch Obama, who grew up middle income to a single mother. Hillary, who also didn't grow up with a silver spoon in her mouth and had to bust ass from middle income. Yet, it was they who pushed identity and not Trump? You got scammed...

I'm not even USAn so I wasn't referring to US politics. The oppression through harassment is happening all over Europe as well.

Here are some examples of what I mean:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/s...sit-on-the-bus

And then you have the case of Paolo Roberto who got harassed by hundreds of people for making this joke 'Boobs prove that men can focus on two things at once', which apparently is extremely offensive and feminist and he should be punished and whatnot.

And then you have people being fined for eating Bacon near Muslims, or being called racist or nazis for criticizing Islam. In many ways, this PC development is as bad as an authoritarian state. Free speech gets killed by a crowd mentality of easily offended people who'd silence anyone they disagree with.

And leftist political parties are having people who agree with such attitudes among them. That is very damaging to the Left and it's why I'm starting to distance myself from the mainstream red parties even if I agree with the basic Socialist ideology.

[Slybak]

The republicans argue that the super rich mostly sit in the democrat party, and that in order to prevent a revolt, the super rich divide the poor into the "middle" class and poor.

No Republican office holder or party leader actually argues this. The stated ideology of the Republican Party towards the non-wealthy is social engineering via formal double standards; that the poor are deservedly poor because of their lack of any number of imagined virtues, to the point of possessing imagined vices (too lazy, too stupid, too libertine, too black, etc). Only by aping the imagined virtues of the wealthy can the non-wealthy excel, so a particular social order, in which the already wealthy are permitted to retain their privileges while the non-wealthy are coerced into subservience through threatened or actual economic despair, must be legally maintained.

The essence of this social order is "Anarchism for the Rich, Deprivation and Despotism for Everyone Else." The wealthy get a low tax burden and little imposition from the regulatory state. Everyone else is put at their mercy, left to devour one another in a meritocratic "rat race" in which basic subsistence is rationed out to the deserving. In practice, however, this meritocratic ideal is a bold faced lie. Any social order in which basic rights are predicated on private wealth, particularly inheritable private wealth, can never be meritocratic.

Then the super rich simply ASSERT from their posts in the democrat party that they believe in equality (when they do not), and that the republicans are racists and therefore their opinions are invalid. This way the poor vote democrat but just make things worse for themselves because they just voted in the super rich.

While there are certainly any number of classist Democrats, this doesn't argue against my thesis.

You assume that the Democratic Party is an organization that considers the anti-capitalist left a valuable constituency. It doesn't. Largely because, as an organizational force, the American anti-capitalist left is riddled with idiots who have little means of exercising mass political power, much less acquiring it. This is largely the result of the destruction of various anti-capitalist movements and institutions during the first and second Red Scares at the hands of the state. Prior to that both the Democratic and Republican Parties were less ideologically consistent on issues relating to capitalism (or any other issue).

Rather, the contemporary Democratic Party primarily concerns itself with "smoothing over the rough edges" of capitalism via the regulatory and welfare state. To the anti-capitalist left, this makes them dangerous compromisers and sell-outs. To the Republican right, this still makes them enemies of their social engineering project; the regulatory state stands in the way of the "Anarchism for the Rich" part, while the welfare state stands in the way of the "Deprivation and Despotism for Everyone Else" part.

[shadowdasher]

i used to more middle but the left tends to push me to the right...

Same here.