in 1987 When I was 13 Morton Downey Jr, the forerunner for both Jerry Springer and Rush Limbaugh had a television show where he would be every night berating feminist, African Americans and every other liberal he could find, some of who I am sure he paid to be a liberal on his show and I loved it. I was 13. Here was this man going after all of the bogeymen I believed were keeping me a poor white kid living in the suburbs down. By the time I was 16 I began to moderate my views though I still considered myself a "Republican" and was set to register as such. By the time I was 18 and able to vote I was very much a Democrat. But even now when I am almost twice as old and twice as liberal I find my views on many subjects going further to the left the older I get.
There is an old joke that is about as funny as swine flu that goes if you're under 30 and you aren't a liberal you don't have a heart If you're over 30 and you're a liberal you don't have a brain. family members would tell me when you get older you'll change you'll see the light. They're right I have. I am no longer against a woman's right to chose, I am no longer in favor of the death penalty, I no longer view feminist and civil rights advocates as professional victims and I don't find homosexuality to be some affront to morality. These are all views that I have found myself becoming more and more in tune with the liberal point of view in the last 20 years. if one get's more conservative as they get older when does it happen?
Finally look at the conservatives we deal with everyday on the net and to be fair we are discussing the absolute worst trash that claims Conservatism as their own. What do 2008, Rev Jerry, Mark Noonan and his stooges, Houndypedophile, G-Dawg, Ranger Bob in all of his forms have in common? They are all 12 years old. Oh sure calendar wise they may be in their 30's, 40's 50's or 60's but in truth they are 12. They have never formulated their thought process beyond that of a 6th grader and their maturity has been stunted a result. Conservatism might just be for those who grow older but never grow up.
I once took one of those online surveys that put your political views on a graph and it said that I was a 78-22 Liberal meaning my views are on the liberal side 78% of the time. Maybe I'll take when I am 70 and be a 78-22 conservative but somehow I doubt it. I'll probably be 90-10 liberal instead.
3 comments:
I don't think this particular bit of urban-legend "wisdom" holds water, either, Count. For one thing, I think it's predicated on the assumption that one's personal well-being/financial state is the issue that trumps all others with advancing age. Whereas there are plenty of examples - look at the volunteer population, for instance, a hefty number of whom are retired - to show that with age also comes a desire to give back to the community and a heightened awareness of the social contract connecting, and ideally supporting, us all.
As to the trolls' mental age, you may be on to something. They're stalled somewhere in the middle of Piaget's third of the four cognitive stages and never managed to achieve the abilities of rational deduction and multi-perspective thought.
Heck - you could argue that a lot of them are still Stage 2 or even Stage 1.
Well maybe I should have kept that up as proof. Like I said many Conservatives grow old but not up.
Might have known the self-styled "boy genius" couldn't resist this topic, Count. So predictable!
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