Just sitting here thinking to myself about random stuff as always, and one thing that often reaches my mind is: how is it that so many different people converge into a similar political mindset, yet people who lived very similar lives hold such stark differences. So naturally, the question I pose on here is to inquire how we Kossacks became liberals. This isn't to ostracize in any way those of you who are centrist/moderates to even conservatives, neither those of you who lean farther to the left of "liberal" (I probably am somewhat of a libertarian socialist myself) as this is not my intent; rather I simply recognize what this group most represents.
Naturally there are many different reasons, so here's a sample of generalized reasons that most will probably fit into one way or another, noting that many are not mutually exclusive. One could have grown up with two liberal parents, so you took on their political views. On the other hand, you may have had two staunch conservatives and you felt some sort of conflict in it. Some just always had a world view that leaned to what we categorize as "liberal", or instead we had some sort of conversion episode. Others still may have been politically indifferent or unclear for the longest time, and thus somehow on the journey of life got there.
I specifically stayed away from discussing the issues in the last paragraph for I mean this to be more abstract and thus inclusive since they vary from person to person in order of importance. So let me share with you how I became a liberal.
I would say that on economic issues I just grew up into it for the most part. My family as well as my neighborhood were and still are (I'm still only 21 and live at home when not at university) working-class, and I still feel the effects of an economy going down the tubes (at least for the vast majority of us) in my student loans. I knew many people, albeit not in my own family, that had union jobs and thus benefited from the struggles of the past for better pay and conditions that many of us have also shared in such blessings in some way. I grew up knowing many of people who lived paycheck to paycheck and were deathly afraid of so much as getting sick in economic insecurity, and many who are afraid of their social security being insufficient and eventually being taken away entirely. I currently depend heavily on federal aid to help pay for my studies, so I see first hand the necessity for a government that helps facilitate upward mobility for all while also giving us some sort of safety net in case the worst happens.
My social views are a little more complex in their making, as I can say they don't really fit my family's. I suppose I was one of those kids who grew up holding strong the alleged values of our country: liberty, equality, and justice. In that I always found it important that we fought against the injustices of racism, sexism, homophobia, and even against benign differences of religion; that we sought to change a foreign policy that claimed to want to spread democracy but instead killed people and set up and SUPPORTED fascist dictators in the Middle East and Latin America; that as much as we loved our country, we had to recognize our sins and accept that often times we are indeed NOT number one, as we currently are far from it with regards to the environment, education, upward mobility, rights for gays, health care, etc. While I can say I for the most part always held these views, it was not until my high school years that I really started to form them in a nuanced way. Perhaps it was the realization that saying aloud that all insert oft-oppressed minority group should die or something else awful was disgusting, or maybe a history class that told me about our role in South American death squads. There of course is no one answer, as no one thing can shape every issue.
But this is why I ended up as a liberal, and am curious to hear your story too, even if you happen to make it into a short version. Then again, it's a Saturday night so what else do you have to do? ;-)
Oh and early apologies if this is better suited for an Open Thread, but it seems like it's that time when there aren't really all that many new diaries coming in and I thought it was constructive in that the topic is about why we are as we are.