I keep thinking about how so many people's political views are formed throughout their lives, often starting with very early childhood experiences). Whether they caused you to agree with your parents' and families' views or to reject them completely.
And as the Dem party moves forward I believe we need to understand WHY we believe what we do, which I think in turn helps us more effectively make the case why our stance is better for the country than the other guys'.
I'd love for dKos posters to contribute and I'll happily synthesize and re-post as a "here's why we're Democrats" diary.
So I'll start. My parents moved here as adults from Europe. They spoke no English when they got here, but learned along the way. They had lots of friends already here, so the transition was an okay one.
As an immigrant, finding good work is hard. My dad did it, and unions had a lot to do with his being treated fairly. As a result, as my parents became citizens and started to vote, they were Democrats because unions supported Democrats.
My parents were never openly political, but I learned a lot by osmosis. Here's what I learned from my parents:
- Democrats care about every day people. Republicans care about rich people.
- Republicans are cheap. They'll do anything for a tax cut (this, btw, was used to explain why a beloved uncle who I generally respected could vote for Republicans)
- Abortion is a tragedy, but sometimes people need that option. The best thing to do is to help people not get into the situation where this comes up (their non-wonk version of safe, legal and rare).
- People who are gay are born that way, so anything that descriminates against them is wrong. It's who they are, and they're not doing anything wrong. Move on.
- The Papacy was for many years a political power in Europe, and often extremely corrupt through the years. What Jesus and the Bible say is true, but that doesn't mean we blindly follow everything the Pope says. He's human, just like the rest of us.
- The idea of Republicans being "socially conservative" is stupid. My parents live a very conservative life -- married to each other for many years, faithful to each other, pay taxes, live within their means, etc. Being socially conservative is not useful to describe people because lots of Dems actually are very conservatives in their own lifestyles.
That's what I remember about what I learned from my parents. Your turn.