I can only speak for myself as a former Democrat, but I’m embarrassed at how closed-minded I was in not listening to any conservative sources. I was in an echo chamber. Doing my part now to take in a variety of viewpoints, & make up my own mind instead of going along with the any party’s narrative.
I can only speak for myself as a former Democrat, but I’m embarrassed at how closed-minded I was in not listening to any conservative sources. I was in an echo chamber. Doing my part now to take in a variety of viewpoints, & make up my own mind instead of going along with the any party’s narrative.
I am a liberal at heart but I do not know what party I belong to. As a former refugee from the Soviet Union, as a young person I was for all sorts of freedoms and against censorship. During Obama years I became independent. Then I registered as a Republican to make a difference in the election. Then I returned to being independent. And then I had to register as a democrat to vote in the NYC mayoral election democratic primaries to make sure a crazy progressive did not win (there were a few of them on the ballot). I am politically homeless as I hear from many centrists, and there is no party affiliation that makes me comfortable. Everyone has moved to fringes. Let’s be honest, not many of us with common sense are left.
In NYC, in order to keep the Democrats from going totally woke, it helps to be an enrolled Democrat. That being the case, on a national level, there are plenty of so called Reagan Democrats who voted for Trump twice and would vote for DeSantis, and who supported both Moynihan and DeAmato as senators , who would vote for Schumer in a primary challenge from the left , vote against Gillibrand , who would vote for real Republican challengers to both and probably vote for a Republican gubernatorial candidate as well.
What the hell more can you do? Seriously; you looked in a mirror and decided to grow. That's laudable.
The fear I have is of having conservatives becoming smug. I don't need any 'I told ya so' shit; lord knows there's a L O T of shortcomings on that side of the aisle as well.
I really would appreciate seeing someone who's a conservative admit a view they used to hold that is now patently wrong. I'm not going to point any out; I'm hoping for some courage.
Instead of a 'See? Told ya so?', I'd appreciate much more a sort of 'Whoa, I hear ya. I used to think XXX and YYY was absolutely right' kind of attitude.
Hmmm. That’s a tough one. After being gaslighted for years and treated like absolute idiot scum because of my conservative views (I’m just too stupid to understand why I’m wrong…) by every liberal/leftist I’ve ever encountered, that’s a big ask. Not because I lack humility, but because I tried to have reasonable discussions a thousand times and was treated like I wasn’t worthy of even being heard. You tell me if you would then immediately jump to humility the minute they finally are shocked out of their mindset and see exactly what you were saying all along…
You posted this a few days ago and I sat on replying b/c I had to wrestle with being honest.
My first inclination was to virtue signal and say all sorts of bs about how it's better to be noble and generous and all sorts of crap like that.
But the truth is I wouldn't, and I didn't want to admit it.
Nahhh...
If someone (other than one of my kids) admitted to me that I was right and they were wrong over a socio/political topic we hammered each other over, one that I had been subjected to ridicule or worse about...
Nahhh...
I'd pound on 'em. I'd have a lot to get off my chest, and I'd let 'em have it.
Wow. Thanks Jim for your honest and thoughtful reply. I didn’t really expect that! ;)
I do wish human nature was more noble, and that we could automatically be kinder to those who finally see. But something about your comment sort of demanding generosity when little has been given got under my skin, lol.
But I hope that we all keep trying to reach higher, and lead by example no matter what side we’re on. I’ll keep trying, but can’t promise that a few “I told you so’s” won’t slip out now and then, haha!
I’m so happy to have so many former liberals (and others!) waking up to some of the things I’ve been shouting from the rooftops about for years. Happy to have you all, along with all the great contributions you will make!
Yes! I'm definitely a "classical liberal" who believes staunchly in freedom and open-mindedness and I am ALWAYS up for a discussion of any issue with good-will, logic, and humility by all parties. But my friends and acquaintances have simply not seen what I started to see happening to our country and our society in the past few decades and they have reacted with complete disgust and refusal to hear even the tiniest point that might go against their assumed narrative. I mean the TINIEST point. I told my oldest friend a year ago that I was getting very concerned about Paypal and credit cards denying people financial freedom based on their viewpoints and she hung up on me and didn't speak to me for a year. Then she called out of the blue and acted like nothing had happened!
And yes, there are definitely ways that my views have changed to become more to the Left side of things. For instance, even though I am a career prosecutor, I have seen too much to have the complete faith in policing I used to have, although I am still an overall strong supporter of law enforcement. I also was never in favor of heavy sentencing in some cases, and strict 3-strikes application no matter what the individual circumstances. I'm more than willing to admit that, and more.
But that river only runs one way and all of us who want peace and normalcy in our public lives again are drowning.
I can only speak for myself as a former Democrat, but I’m embarrassed at how closed-minded I was in not listening to any conservative sources. I was in an echo chamber. Doing my part now to take in a variety of viewpoints, & make up my own mind instead of going along with the any party’s narrative.
I am a liberal at heart but I do not know what party I belong to. As a former refugee from the Soviet Union, as a young person I was for all sorts of freedoms and against censorship. During Obama years I became independent. Then I registered as a Republican to make a difference in the election. Then I returned to being independent. And then I had to register as a democrat to vote in the NYC mayoral election democratic primaries to make sure a crazy progressive did not win (there were a few of them on the ballot). I am politically homeless as I hear from many centrists, and there is no party affiliation that makes me comfortable. Everyone has moved to fringes. Let’s be honest, not many of us with common sense are left.
In NYC, in order to keep the Democrats from going totally woke, it helps to be an enrolled Democrat. That being the case, on a national level, there are plenty of so called Reagan Democrats who voted for Trump twice and would vote for DeSantis, and who supported both Moynihan and DeAmato as senators , who would vote for Schumer in a primary challenge from the left , vote against Gillibrand , who would vote for real Republican challengers to both and probably vote for a Republican gubernatorial candidate as well.
What the hell more can you do? Seriously; you looked in a mirror and decided to grow. That's laudable.
The fear I have is of having conservatives becoming smug. I don't need any 'I told ya so' shit; lord knows there's a L O T of shortcomings on that side of the aisle as well.
I really would appreciate seeing someone who's a conservative admit a view they used to hold that is now patently wrong. I'm not going to point any out; I'm hoping for some courage.
Instead of a 'See? Told ya so?', I'd appreciate much more a sort of 'Whoa, I hear ya. I used to think XXX and YYY was absolutely right' kind of attitude.
Hmmm. That’s a tough one. After being gaslighted for years and treated like absolute idiot scum because of my conservative views (I’m just too stupid to understand why I’m wrong…) by every liberal/leftist I’ve ever encountered, that’s a big ask. Not because I lack humility, but because I tried to have reasonable discussions a thousand times and was treated like I wasn’t worthy of even being heard. You tell me if you would then immediately jump to humility the minute they finally are shocked out of their mindset and see exactly what you were saying all along…
You posted this a few days ago and I sat on replying b/c I had to wrestle with being honest.
My first inclination was to virtue signal and say all sorts of bs about how it's better to be noble and generous and all sorts of crap like that.
But the truth is I wouldn't, and I didn't want to admit it.
Nahhh...
If someone (other than one of my kids) admitted to me that I was right and they were wrong over a socio/political topic we hammered each other over, one that I had been subjected to ridicule or worse about...
Nahhh...
I'd pound on 'em. I'd have a lot to get off my chest, and I'd let 'em have it.
I'm not proud to admit this, but it's the truth.
Wow. Thanks Jim for your honest and thoughtful reply. I didn’t really expect that! ;)
I do wish human nature was more noble, and that we could automatically be kinder to those who finally see. But something about your comment sort of demanding generosity when little has been given got under my skin, lol.
But I hope that we all keep trying to reach higher, and lead by example no matter what side we’re on. I’ll keep trying, but can’t promise that a few “I told you so’s” won’t slip out now and then, haha!
I’m so happy to have so many former liberals (and others!) waking up to some of the things I’ve been shouting from the rooftops about for years. Happy to have you all, along with all the great contributions you will make!
Yes! I'm definitely a "classical liberal" who believes staunchly in freedom and open-mindedness and I am ALWAYS up for a discussion of any issue with good-will, logic, and humility by all parties. But my friends and acquaintances have simply not seen what I started to see happening to our country and our society in the past few decades and they have reacted with complete disgust and refusal to hear even the tiniest point that might go against their assumed narrative. I mean the TINIEST point. I told my oldest friend a year ago that I was getting very concerned about Paypal and credit cards denying people financial freedom based on their viewpoints and she hung up on me and didn't speak to me for a year. Then she called out of the blue and acted like nothing had happened!
And yes, there are definitely ways that my views have changed to become more to the Left side of things. For instance, even though I am a career prosecutor, I have seen too much to have the complete faith in policing I used to have, although I am still an overall strong supporter of law enforcement. I also was never in favor of heavy sentencing in some cases, and strict 3-strikes application no matter what the individual circumstances. I'm more than willing to admit that, and more.
But that river only runs one way and all of us who want peace and normalcy in our public lives again are drowning.
Frankly, I don't see humility as a valued concept in our society any more. I remember when it used-ta.
Even GW had humility in his flub the other week, saying Iraq when he meant Ukraine.
Yeah, I saw that. I said I was Dem, but I did vote for him. Despite what they all say, I wouldn't change it.
But man oh man does it go along way, huh?
Yup.
That would be out of character for real conservatives who are actually interested in getting back to work.