Political views you radically changed on

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I think a number of people have viewpoints like this. Where one day they appear to hold particular values so staunchly but then on another day they have reversed all these former views and perhaps denounced them very strongly.

Mass Surveillance: Despite being a liberal I used to approve very strongly of mass surveillance as a means to control terrorism. I simply didn't care about my privacy and didn't feel it mattered for my own civil liberties. This viewpoint changed radically around 2017-2018 after reading more about the Patriot Act, the lead up to Iraq and the potential for warrantless spying to enable widespread government abuse.

Free Speech: I never used to be pro-freedom of speech despite being pro-democracy. I thought limited censorship of freedom was warranted. My perception of this changed after I felt I realized that any censorship could provide a slippery slope and justification for increased government power. Ever since I have become a "Free Speech" extremist for lack of a better word.

Both your (new) views are quite sensible. For me, it's mainly a question of economics - I used to be a libertarian in matters of economics, believing, among other things, the myth that trickle-down effects would ensure that the vast quantities of wealth amassed by the minority also benefited the masses - in cold light of day, this view now seems laughable. It was reading Noam Chomsky, Bertrand Russell and George Orwell that set me straight vis-à-vis socialist economics and the fallacies in the laissez-faire view.

*delete*

Last edited by thinkinginpictures on 17 Jan 2019, 1:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

OP, I also agree your outlook seems sensible.

I was a radical anti-establishment, anti-government liberal as a teen and young man. I grew up during the Reagan years though when both the "establishment" and the government were largely conservative. I lean more conservatively on many things, but I am not, nor have a ever been a Republican (or a member of any political party for that matter). If I had to distill events or experiences in my life that changed my views on certain things I would have to say:

1) Getting my first paycheck at my first job at age 15 and the rude awakening that followed after realizing the amount of taxes taken from my pay. This was not enough to sway me from my views at the time, but it planted a seed of frustration.

2) In my early twenties, working as a security guard in the public housing projects of the metropolitan area that I lived in. While many of the residents of the high rise buildings would have had either no housing or sub-standard housing without having public housing available to them, unfortunately I also met a surprisingly large number of residents that were "gaming the system" and should not have qualified for the housing. These people actually bragged about not having to work, about getting free housing, free food and free money to spend on whatever they wanted (including drugs and alcohol). There was rampant abuse of public funds in this regard.

3) In my mid-twenties I worked for county government for about four years. I was part of a public employee union (it was mandatory as were the dues). Many of my coworkers, myself included wanted to work, do a good job and be productive. Unfortunately there were a surprisingly large number of my fellow government employees that were horribly lazy, completely ineffective and unproductive and dragged down morale in the office overall. Many of them were in positions of control. Without question, in the private sector, such people would have been fired long ago and with good reason. It was nearly impossible for management to fire the government workers because of the union. When they finally fired one of the most incompetent coworkers I'd known they found hidden paperwork all around his office, work that he was expected to complete, that were years old. Stacks of such work. Drawers full of it. I remember him being the most vocal during his time there about "workers rights".

4) Government today has reversed in many ways. The bureaucracy is not "conservative". Not even at my local community level or my state level. At the local level the admitted "liberal" members of the local board are the ones that seem addicted to making as many rules and ordinances as possible. Up to and including recently wanting to pass an ordinance in which private rural landowners would have needed permission in advance to cut even a single tree down on their own property. I am not exaggerating. At the meeting, the most liberal member who also serves in the building and zoning department said that all trees are for the "good of the community" and in a sense then are community property. This proposal was apparently resoundingly opposed by nearly all of the community residents and the proposal was withdrawn. In my experience, "liberal" lawmakers (even down to the local level) want to control, limit, monitor, direct and dictate as many aspects of a person's life as possible for the good of [ fill in cause or reason here ].

5) I think it's natural for a younger person to question as much as possible. I would even say it's healthy in some ways to question authority. When Obama was in office I remember thinking how if I was a teen or young man at the time how uncomfortable it would have felt for me to feel like I loved authority/government, etc. It would have felt as uncomfortable and wrong as wearing a hair shirt.

Interesting topic. Thanks for posting it.

I've only worked in the private industry, but your comment matches some of the critiques I've heard of the public sector. However, don't be so sure that lazy employees in the private sector are fired. A lot of it depends on the company culture. I've worked in places where people (including management) get by doing as little as possible.

What it boils down to is that there's almost always a way to game the system. It's more noxious in public sector because we pay for it with our tax dollars, but I don't think it's a problem exclusive to the public sector. Yes, companies with lots of lazy employees and a bad work culture will eventually go under, but that might take longer than many people think. Plus, it means the good employees at those places will eventually be out of work (as will the lazy ones, but the lazy ones are usually pretty good at making themselves look busy).

Another element (I suspect this is true for most workplaces) is that hard work can actually be penalized. If you start at job and work extremely hard, people will expect you to continue to work that way all the time. This can actually be a problem because if you slow down your output, people will see you as being lazy even though you ordinarily work very hard. I've made this mistake before.

It may actually be smarter to simply work at an average level, only putting in the extra effort during crunch time. My problem is that, if I'm not working, I don't really know what to do, so I'd just keep working, overexerting myself, and creating an unsustainable situation. I used to know how to manage that better, but I somehow forgot over time.

To go back to the topic, I used to be much more conservative (by the '00s, American definition of the term), but now I am probably more a centrist who leans toward liberalism. Trump marked my official break with conservatism, but I'd been drifting for a while before him.

Minimum wage, after something my mother in law told me, I am on the fence about it being raised to $15 an hour despite being liberal. I am aware this can hurt small businesses and make them not want to hire full time employers or make their employers work more hours and not hire more people. My mom in law is concerned that the raise in minimum wage would hurt those on welfare or disability and it will make more of them not work because that is the only way they would keep their benefits and getting their medicine and treatment they need for their condition. They would be forced to abuse the program just to stay on it so they won't be homeless and so they can pay all their bills and live comfortably and so they can keep their health insurance.

Getting rid of all illegal immigrants, yeah I want people to be legal citizens here, but the problem is the way Trump is doing it is tearing families apart and separating them because their partner is a citizen and so are their kids due to being born here, plus this is also affecting people who were adopted from foreign countries and because their parents didn't know they had to apply them for American citizen ship, they are being deported back to an alien country because the new law that passed in 2000 only applied to kids under 18 years of age at the time the law became in affect where a kid automatically becomes a US citizen when adopted by US parents. I can no longer support getting rid of illegal immigrants because of what this is doing. Instead what we should be doing instead of trying to keep people from entering our country illegal and staying her illegally before this even happens. Focus on future illegal immigrants, not the current ones.

I'll spend my "free time" at work working on "soft" or social skills.

I used to think that the government could help people on the Spectrum.

Last edited by BTDT on 17 Jan 2019, 3:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I used to be a fairly staunch conservative all the way up through high school. However, since the Great Recession combined with the fact that I majored in history in college (got my master's in it last month), I've become increasingly liberal with each passing year, even more so since Trump got elected. Had I known the increasingly worldly view I have taken of society would put me at odds with virtually everyone in my family save my paternal grandparents, I would've gone to trade school instead :/ Oh well