I am sure I will be blasted a bit and that is okay. One of the things that makes our country great diversity. My first time Voting I did vote for Carter. Yes I did for one reason I was sick of the so called good ole boy politics and he gave me hope at the age of 16, In saying that by 17 I knew I had been sold a bill of goods. So I get why the young voted for Obama I really do all those promises of transparency, bring back the good ways etc...etc..This time around I knew better. I hear so many of the young people so disillusioned now, as I was..
I have always leaned more towards conservative side of things. rarely Jumping off and voting Dem but I have and I have actually abstained from voting on something because I couldnt in all good intent vote.
The Problem I have today is both parties sicken me to the point, at times I would be ashamed to declare either one.
Am I a true Liberal ? No not in a million years am I a true Conservative and here is the quandry... I lean that way and yet there are so much that they stand for that I know I am not.
So what am I ?? An American that truly loves her country, that is very concerned for her country and doesn't see a light at the end of the tunnel.
We the country is slowly but surely stripping what this a great country. To where there will be nothing left that our Fore Fathers fought so hard and died for..
Sorry Red not meaning to hijack the thread..
This is very similar to my experiences as an American.
I began life in the fifties, growing up on heroic stories of how America saved the world from both Fascism and Communism, entirely out of the inherent goodness of our hearts, and our ideals of Freedom and Justice. I remember seriously wondering how awful it must be for all the people growing up in other countries, to know how dweeby their heritage was.
But then in school here, I was abused by the people who claimed to represent The American Way.
Anyway, that primed me to listen when people in the seventies started talking about how much of our history had been manipulated by propagandists, and how we really weren't the fabulous nation so many leaders and Hollywood movies made us out to be. So I thought for a while, that I must be a left wing liberal freedom fighter.
But the self-proclaimed freedom fighters of the left, proved to be every bit as much self-deluded and selfish as the right had been, and every bit as oblivious to their own iniquities as the Centrists had been, so I left them behind as well, and struck out on my own.
I haven't been a member of a political party since. Every year, I listen carefully to all the claims politicians make, and use my best guesses based on experience, as to what twist they've put on what they really believe in, if anything. Then I vote for whoever I decide is least likely to directly assault me or my friends and relatives.
I guess wrong a fair amount, simply because modern politicians have so much help hiding what they are really all about, and because, as I learned along the way, the structure of government itself, can end up allowing negative forces to have more say than positive ones.
I think I'm conservative, because I want the least amount of interference between each other that we can have, while preserving each other's freedoms.
That's far from simple, in a world where so many people think that it's an imposition on their freedom, if they are prevented from using government to force the rest of us to live as they want to.
This year, I find something here and something there that each candidate says that I like, but I also find things every one says, which makes me draw back in dismay.
I might need on of those Dungeons and Dragons multi-sided dice to take with me into the voting booth, to figure out what to do come November.
Obsession by Calvin Klein
