AMA - Former 25 year Conservative Republican

[SDS]

A little tongue in cheek but....

I'm a former Limbaugh (90’s), Contract with America, Gringrich loving, leftist hating party line conservative. Last democrat I voted for was Michael Dukakis in 1988.  I voted for Gary Johnson in 2016. 

Now in 2018,  I want to see the Republican Party burned to the ground. 

 I am happy to give insights on what led me to such beliefs, how I justified those beliefs during those years, and why I feel differently today.

 I also suspect this topic is the worst idea I ever had. 

[Randall Flagg]

1 hour ago, SDS said:

A little tongue in cheek but....

I'm a former Limbaugh (90’s), Contract with America, Gringrich loving, leftist hating party line conservative. Last democrat I voted for was Michael Dukakis in 1988.  I voted for Gary Johnson in 2016. 

Now in 2018,  I want to see the Republican Party burned to the ground. 

 I am happy to give insights on what led me to such beliefs, how I justified those beliefs during those years, and why I feel differently today.

 I also suspect this topic is the worst idea I ever had. 

You say that 20 seconds after posting that you voted Gary Johnson ?

But seriously, here's a question or 5. What ideas do you now associate with, and groups/people in general? If not, do you feel like you're kinda just floating around out there? 

Which long-held views, if any, do you hang onto, and which did you most enthusiastically toss aside? 

Edited July 20, 2018 by Randall Flagg

[North Buffalo]

3 hours ago, SDS said:

A little tongue in cheek but....

I'm a former Limbaugh (90’s), Contract with America, Gringrich loving, leftist hating party line conservative. Last democrat I voted for was Michael Dukakis in 1988.  I voted for Gary Johnson in 2016. 

Now in 2018,  I want to see the Republican Party burned to the ground. 

 I am happy to give insights on what led me to such beliefs, how I justified those beliefs during those years, and why I feel differently today.

 I also suspect this topic is the worst idea I ever had. 

Not sure I should reply to you topic, might be the worst idea I ever had.  I am a Clinton loving, despite the zipper problem, DLC loving centrist,  a la Sam Nunn...  but I am also pro-Union.  I want to see balanced budgets, reigned in defense spending and an end to free wheeling money wasting contractors used by the Feds.  That being said, I am tired of Nancy Pelosi and the lack of leadership in the Democratic Party and the focus on victim politics.  Too much money currently is held in the hands of the few and it needs to be spread out, preferably through Tax incentives to the middle class if that is even an economic group anymore. Small businesses need to be supported more and not through NFIB because they do not support small businesses anymore, if they ever did.  I am tired of the Religious Right as well.  I am looking for centrists in both parties that I can support with level heads and convictions to lead.   So maybe SDS, we can find something in the middle that can work... though in today's climate, I doubt it.

Edited July 20, 2018 by North Buffalo

[SDS]

Ha.

1. My vote for Gary Johnson was a protest vote. I live in Maryland and the state was guaranteed going for Clinton, so there was no agonizing over my vote. Couldn't tell you a single thing Johnson stood for. Didn't care. Hated the choices presented to me.

2. Ideas/groups/people I associate with: Scientists and data oriented people. Despite being an engineer, I didn't always stay true to my profession, so to speak. "Higher level principles" were very, very seductive to me. God, country, nuclear family, limited government, self-reliance, rugged-invidualism... The thought that I could have a handful of guiding principles and derive all my positions from those had sort of a mathematical elegance to it. I was an ideologue's ideologue. I was principle rich and data/reality ignorant. 

I'm not a democrat, although I will vote for them for the first time in 30 years this November. I'm JAG who wants the problem and desired outcome identified, past solutions analyzed for effectiveness and honest policy that is informed by historical data. So yes, I'm floating around. 

3. Views I've held onto. This one is tough because I have such disgust for the current state of the GOP that I have a ton of doubt in any of my past views. Culturally, I'm still pro-life, but I consider it settled law, even if a new court decides otherwise. The thought of streamlining bureaucracy and regulations still appeals to me, but having corporations writing the regulations does not. Again, honest data driven policy is all I ask. Smaller deficits and responsible fiscal policy has also stuck (although the means of getting there has changed).

What have I tossed aside? The notion that the GOP had a small percentage of bigots and racists in their membership. It was so easy to dismiss the occasional Jesse Helms and David Duke back in the day. We were a party that preached equal opportunity and not outcomes and that principle appealed to me even though it was clear it wasn't working (principle over data). After witnessing the past 18 months, I firmly believe the vast majority of the party are either overtly bigots or their willing enablers. Like George Will, at some point you have to look around and ask yourself if you are comfortable with the company you keep. I watch the polls and I consistently see ~90% approval ratings within the party, regardless of what hateful mess spews from Trump's mouth, for this effing disaster of a President. There's never a backlash from the base. Never.

I have also tossed aside the notion that tax cuts bring in more revenue. We tried it. It failed. Let it go. I tossed aside the notion that poor people/minorities just need to work harder and their poor decisions and unfortunate circumstances aren't my problem. Thanks to cell phones, I witness how they are treated by our institutions of law enforcement and justice. The data shows how they are stuck in a poverty. 

And lastly, the notion of the growing economic pie and everyone has a chance to get their piece. Ugh. Just look at the data. The concentration of wealth is awful for society. And I live in this society. We all do. The fact that 60% of Americans say that they would have trouble paying a $400 emergency expense is disgusting. That bill is going to get paid some day and it isn't going to be pretty.

[North Buffalo]

While we differ somewhat on pro-life... the rest I agree with... though I would add the extreme left is just as bigoted in their own way.  The extremes of both parties, I learned in back in my political science days tend to meet on the other side of the circle.  It is not a continuum.   The hard part is finding folks that stand for those principals mostly with some compromise to practically get there incrementally.  It is not going to happen overnight.  Working now in another field, the medical field and seeing first hand how the poor and even the working class are stuck in their rat cage is eye opening.  Many do not even see that they are truly stuck or have a clue with a little help to get out of their prison... and they trust so little it is hard.  Often all the medical folks do is put band aids on with little hope for a cure and don't get me started on the drug companies.

13 minutes ago, SDS said:

Ha.

1. My vote for Gary Johnson was a protest vote. I live in Maryland and the state was guaranteed going for Clinton, so there was no agonizing over my vote. Couldn't tell you a single thing Johnson stood for. Didn't care. Hated the choices presented to me.

2. Ideas/groups/people I associate with: Scientists and data oriented people. Despite being an engineer, I didn't always stay true to my profession, so to speak. "Higher level principles" were very, very seductive to me. God, country, nuclear family, limited government, self-reliance, rugged-invidualism... The thought that I could have a handful of guiding principles and derive all my positions from those had sort of a mathematical elegance to it. I was an ideologue's ideologue. I was principle rich and data/reality ignorant. 

I'm not a democrat, although I will vote for them for the first time in 30 years this November. I'm JAG who wants the problem and desired outcome identified, past solutions analyzed for effectiveness and honest policy that is informed by historical data. So yes, I'm floating around. 

3. Views I've held onto. This one is tough because I have such disgust for the current state of the GOP that I have a ton of doubt in any of my past views. Culturally, I'm still pro-life, but I consider it settled law, even if a new court decides otherwise. The thought of streamlining bureaucracy and regulations still appeals to me, but having corporations writing the regulations does not. Again, honest data driven policy is all I ask. Smaller deficits and responsible fiscal policy has also stuck (although the means of getting there has changed).

What have I tossed aside? The notion that the GOP had a small percentage of bigots and racists in their membership. It was so easy to dismiss the occasional Jesse Helms and David Duke back in the day. We were a party that preached equal opportunity and not outcomes and that principle appealed to me even though it was clear it wasn't working (principle over data). After witnessing the past 18 months, I firmly believe the vast majority of the party are either overtly bigots or their willing enablers. Like George Will, at some point you have to look around and ask yourself if you are comfortable with the company you keep. I watch the polls and I consistently see ~90% approval ratings within the party, regardless of what hateful mess spews from Trump's mouth, for this effing disaster of a President. There's never a backlash from the base. Never.

I have also tossed aside the notion that tax cuts bring in more revenue. We tried it. It failed. Let it go. I tossed aside the notion that poor people/minorities just need to work harder and their poor decisions and unfortunate circumstances aren't my problem. Thanks to cell phones, I witness how they are treated by our institutions of law enforcement and justice. The data shows how they are stuck in a poverty. 

And lastly, the notion of the growing economic pie and everyone has a chance to get their piece. Ugh. Just look at the data. The concentration of wealth is awful for society. And I live in this society. We all do. The fact that 60% of Americans say that they would have trouble paying a $400 emergency expense is disgusting. That bill is going to get paid some day and it isn't going to be pretty.

 

[Randall Flagg]

Wow. Sounds like a quasi-religious shift as well, that's really heavy/huge.

I can't even really imagine how that feels.

[Randall Flagg]

Musing on point 2, something I grapple heavy with in discussions with smart conservatives in my life is the role of those (Judeo-Christian) higher values in America. I firmly believe in the Enlightenment-driven view of natural human rights and the way they are upheld in the west. I also recognize a historic role that J-C philosophy played in their development. It can be argued to me without counter that this is a fundamental and necessary part of the values, that without J-C beliefs it doesn't hold up on a mass scale in practice. I can't "win" these debates because I'm not knowledgeable enough, but I'm also grappling with the fact that I don't believe almost any claim of these religions outside of a few things I think would be obvious without them, and I think that those principles don't need all the extra baggage, they stand on their own. 

What I'm really saying is that I am still trying to wrap my head around higher principles in general

[LTS]

10 hours ago, Randall Flagg said:

You say that 20 seconds after posting that you voted Gary Johnson ?

But seriously, here's a question or 5. What ideas do you now associate with, and groups/people in general? If not, do you feel like you're kinda just floating around out there? 

Which long-held views, if any, do you hang onto, and which did you most enthusiastically toss aside? 

As though a vote for the candidates of the Democratic or Republican parties was any more intelligent.  At the very least both of those candidates had proven how unqualified they were for the position.

I mean, unless you are counting just how entrenched they are in the political machine and nothing more than puppets.  In which case, yeah, they were both qualified.

[SDS]

4 hours ago, Randall Flagg said:

Wow. Sounds like a quasi-religious shift as well, that's really heavy/huge.

I can't even really imagine how that feels.

If that is a question, then sort of. Born and raised a Polish Catholic. I got Confirmed as an adult. However, much like my departure from the GOP - the Catholic sex abuse scandal was enough for me to exit stage right. Again, it is up to me to choose the company that I keep. If the existence of a conscious means I am without a party or a church, then so be it. In fact, it has been VERY liberating. No more diversions, no more "what about what your guy did?", no more sweeping things under the rug.

I've extracted my identity away from professional manipulators. 

[Randall Flagg]

3 hours ago, LTS said:

As though a vote for the candidates of the Democratic or Republican parties was any more intelligent.  At the very least both of those candidates had proven how unqualified they were for the position.

I mean, unless you are counting just how entrenched they are in the political machine and nothing more than puppets.  In which case, yeah, they were both qualified.

Oh, I'm just messing around. I think Gary is goofy so I like to rib at him. 

[LTS]

42 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

Oh, I'm just messing around. I think Gary is goofy so I like to rib at him. 

All the pot he smokes.

[jsb]

4 hours ago, SDS said:

If that is a question, then sort of. Born and raised a Polish Catholic. I got Confirmed as an adult. However, much like my departure from the GOP - the Catholic sex abuse scandal was enough for me to exit stage right. Again, it is up to me to choose the company that I keep. If the existence of a conscious means I am without a party or a church, then so be it. In fact, it has been VERY liberating. No more diversions, no more "what about what your guy did?", no more sweeping things under the rug.

I've extracted my identity away from professional manipulators. 

Enjoyed the read and I could also say I'm also on board. That bolded part is liberating. I've gone from being a Republican to being ashamed of the party it has become. I would never have admitted to its biased nature until the present administration took hold. I've always been tolerant of the Christian Right not because I ever fully agreed with it but because I do believe everyone is entitled to their beliefs, but the hypocrisy that they have taken on because of their current status is nothing short of mind boggling. 

I still believe you make your own world financially and we need to be responsible in what we can afford to take on, so being a Democrat just isn't in the cards anymore for me.

[Randall Flagg]

I find it interesting that my journey is probably polar-opposite. I'm not a self-identified conservative, but 6 years on college campuses with more coming has completely disassociated me from the left. I used to hide from other views, purposely blocking other takes on facebook, twitter etc, skimming fast past arguments I don't like, jumpy and nervous. I've cast that aside and realized that it's okay and important to not be sure about things and to seek other people's takes in THEIR OWN words. Doing so on my trips back home and with the content I read/watch has made me realize the opposite of you guys - I had assumed all republicans were racist and bigots to some degree, and I discovered that this isn't anywhere close to true, and that every single argument that I assumed was blanket-default- "ist" "ism" "phobic", upon actually listening to the nuance of discussion for the first time in my life, wasn't even close. 

This of course does not mean that there aren't terrible people over there, and on all sides. 

A liberating freedom from the opposite side. We have probably settled next to each other right in between.

[Eleven]

21 hours ago, SDS said:

If that is a question, then sort of. Born and raised a Polish Catholic. I got Confirmed as an adult. However, much like my departure from the GOP - the Catholic sex abuse scandal was enough for me to exit stage right. Again, it is up to me to choose the company that I keep. If the existence of a conscious means I am without a party or a church, then so be it. In fact, it has been VERY liberating. No more diversions, no more "what about what your guy did?", no more sweeping things under the rug.

I've extracted my identity away from professional manipulators. 

You have a 1:1 vowel to consonant ratio in your last name and you expect us to believe that you have Polish heritage.  Whatever.

What do you do for religion after leaving the church?

[MattPie]

On 7/21/2018 at 8:15 AM, Eleven said:

You have a 1:1 vowel to consonant ratio in your last name and you expect us to believe that you have Polish heritage.  Whatever.

What do you do for religion after leaving the church?

Fun fact: my last name is both a Polish dictionary word and 1:1 in consonants and vowels.