How has your political views changed during your lifetime?

I was a registered democrat the first time I voted many years ago. As I have grown, learned and matured I have become far more conservative but hold no affiliation with any party.

Its actually a lot of fun to listen to the mindless children ranting and knowing that in years to come they'll look back and think "What was I doing? What an idiot!"

I was raised in a liberal household, and my grandmother's side of the family have been staunch Labour supporters seemingly forever, so those are the views I adopted from an early age.

Since then, however, age has somewhat soured my idealistic naivete. Although I am still nominally a Labour supporter, that's only because not enough other people vote for the Lib Dems to make it worth my while supporting them.

At present, I'd say I'm a socialist, if only because every political party that gets into power in a democratic governmental structure tends to slowly swing farther and farther to the right the longer they stay in power (if they're not there already).

It's Fixed, And You're All Being Fooled. Try Reading Between The Lines Some Time.

From the first election that I voted in (local) in 1971 I stayed a conservative Republican, until 2003 when one of my son-in-laws challenged me to read the Patriot Act and prove him wrong. I read it and found that so much of what I believed the Republican Party had been saying about it was wrong, that alone did not turn me against the Republicans. It was when I started trying to get other Republicans to read it for themselves and judge for themselves that I saw what the Republican Party had really become. I was verbally and physically attacked but still kept to my Republican roots. It was only when a Republican Committeeman shoved my daughter down the steps at the courthouse while trying to shut me up that I became an enemy of the Republican Party. Now I research and decide on my own which candidate to support with the sole exception that I REFUSE to vote for any Republican.

I remember seeing my parents applauding the killings at Kent State, and generally in favor of violence against hippies, and I accepted that with only a small second glance. I remember thinking peace was bad.

I was 12 in 1976 when I was very impressed by Ronald Reagan with his attitude that government should be small. I believed that the environment was too big to be damaged.

By 1979 I had seen some rivers on fire, experienced overcrowded dangerous schools,mysteriously leafless summers in the woods, losing friends to car accidents, and three mile Island melted down in our neighborhood. I was not so sure that a laissee faire attitude toward business was working well in Pennsylvania. In fact I was pretty well horrified.

The experience of trying to help meant being ridiculed and sidelined by most of my family. Keeping quiet has been necessary for getting by and keeping a job.

In the 80's I moved to Hawai'i and couldn't help but notice the soverighnty movement, along with the history of aggression that the US has in it's quest for territory and global dominance. I began to question how my people became part of it. I uncovered a dark and sinister history of genocides and geographic displacements. I no longer can call myself an American without deep reservations. I would not have been in favor of this.

I feel rejected and frightened by the people who think of America as their nice home country and pretend not to be able to understand my misgivings.

I don't think mine ever really have. They've fluctuated a bit but not that much. I totally agree with thecharleslloyd - we're both British so you have to take this from the Brit point of view, but yes - government is about doing what is best for the country and managing the country properly. The way it is here, you will get so many who vote just because of what they get out of it, and socialist parties like Labour will always appeal to losers who get a lot out of social security - but where does that get us? In deep debt, that's where, unless you raise taxes sky-high to pay for it. Which is where Labour go wrong, just as they have this time.

Just to explain a bit - the UK as a whole is far to the left of where the US is. The Conservative Party is slightly to the left of Democrats, and Labour and the Liberal Democrats are even further to the left of that. There is no main British party that compares to the Republicans at all, apart from the most extreme Conservatives.

thecharleslloyd mentioned the Thatcher government of the 1980s - I really liked her ideas. Of course there is a temptation to vote for whoever makes you personally better off, but if that causes the economy to collapse, where does that get anyone in the long run? I'd rather go for what is best for the country as a whole, even if it's personally painful in the short term (which the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher certainly was). She was an incredible woman and got it absolutely right in terms of seeing the national economy as just a housewife's budget writ large. I remember her saying you can't spend money you haven't got, and if you borrow it you have to remember that at some time you have to pay it back.

The Conservative Party she led has moved somewhat to the left-wing since then, but the principles are still the same. It's all about what works. Conservatives have never had an ideology or an underlying philosophy and I rather like that. Sometimes stuff will get thrown around about "I don't like them because they're all rich posh toffs" but I don't care about that. I really don't care who is running the country as long as they're actually competent.

To give a bit of personal history - my granddad (mum's father) was a really intelligent man, a carpenter by trade but loved word games and I played cards with him a lot - even such complicated card games as Canasta and cribbage - I really miss him even though he died 23 years ago, but that's inevitable, he'd be 105 by now! - and yet he was totally blind about politics. He always voted Labour "because they're for the workers". My parents always voted Conservative - my dad is dead but my mum still does. They came from the working classes and follow in a long tradition of working class Conservatives who actually understand how things work.

My views have changed with age, but politics has undergone a metamorphosis. I would be considered Conservative in the 80's and indeed voted for Reagan and Bush. I want the same from my government now that I wanted then, yet conservative means something completely different now. I think conservatives have lost their minds.

It has got stronger. when I was in Thatchers days i supported her party, I thought Liberal in the Tony Blair days and in the Gordon Brown Days I went straight back to my party. Government is a management team spending our tax. I vote for a good management team. When you have children and you look at the late 80's when the youth had it all, I want that for my children. I now vote for a party that would give my children the same and in the nest part of my life I will do it for my grand children.

It's become more and more socialist/labour seeing the disasters of a tory government in the past and no doubt to come.... thecharleslloyd and greybeard need to wake up and pull their heads out from their arses!

I was a registered independent, that changed when bush decided to invade a nation that was no threat to this country.