When Did You Start Paying Attention To Politics?
POSTED BY: deepgirl187
UPDATED: Friday, December 6, 2024 04:01
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Quote:
Originally posted by deepgirl187:
And what was the catalyst for it? Was it a parent? An article in some some newspaper? Discuss.
I was probably around eleven or so. Bob Dole came to the high school and we had this huge rally. I remember being annoyed that I was forced to be present, especially considering the fact that I wouldn't vote for the guy even if I was old enough to do so. I only started actively taking an interest a few years ago, but that was the first time I probably started to consider the idea as more than an abstract concept that didn't effect me.
On the other hand, my mother always likes to relate the story of how at four years old, I proudly told her boss that I was voting for Dukakis. So maybe it was earlier than that.
I guess it depends on what you mean by paying attention. I’ve had a political opinion since maybe late in High School, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t paying attention to anything. I used to be a real hardcore liberal type. I used to say stupid stuff like Republicans are racists and Communism looks good on paper. But in my late years of college or certainly by the time I started graduate school, I started reading pretty widely about history and politics and it occurred it me that I’d been full of crap since I was 17. After I started paying attention to politics, my point of view changed pretty dramatically, and I started to realize that Republicans aren’t racists and Communism really doesn’t look any better on paper then it does in practice.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Politics as a force of government and social change, I was interested in starting around middle school, derived from school assignments. I knew all the Presidents and which I'm related to, delved into my geneology (hot topic after Roots) back to 1604, learned about the forces, causes, politics pushing populations to different continents, learned all the English Kings back to 700's, etc.
Politics as it effects our lives?
Couldn't really understand or get into current politics with all the BS public school teachers fed me, but finally got exposed after high school and opened my eyes.
I probably would have registered to vote on my 18th birthday if I could have.
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In 9th or 10th grade, I got into a lively discussion over oil, the price of oil and the supply. It wasn't politics per se, but more about the global economy as well as man's use of natural resources. To the surprise of most here, I was on the 'green' side, stating that the supply of oil on the planet was finite, and that we were mere decades from running out of oil.
That was 27 yrs ago. I've done an about face from my naive, young , tree hugging days. While certain figures in science had a great influence on how I see humanity and the earth's eco system, I've come to see what our fonders of this great nation , the United States of America , were really talking about when they spoke of freedom. Of course we had 'civics' in school, where we were taught HOW the Gov't works ( idealy ) but what was never explained - that i can recall - was how Right and Left were formed, and what they were suppose to mean. Probably a good thing, I don't know.
I proudly voted for Ronald Reagan in my 1st Presidential election, back in '84.
"Hillary tried to get a million dollars for the Woodstock museum. I understand it was a major cultural and pharmaceutical event. I couldn't attend. I was tied up at the time." - John McCain
It is not those who use the term "Islamo-Fascism" who are sullying the name of Islam; it is the Islamo-Fascists. - Dennis Prager
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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I became interested in politics on November 22, 1963....the day Kennedy was shot. I was 10 years old & in the fourth grade. At 2:00 pm the teacher, Mrs. Deitrich, left the room for a while & then came back & said we could all go home. Kids outside were saying that Kennedy had been shot and was dead. It didn't mean very much to me I remember.....I walked home as I always did and as I approached my house I saw my mother sitting in her car in the driveway and she was crying. The whole family talked that night about what had happenned, and it was the first time I can remember being cognizant of Washington DC and politics.
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What a cool topic!
I remember laying in bed when I was in grade school (circa early to mid 70's) listening to may father and grandfather arguing about various things, usually religion or politics. I used to make up arguments in my head supporting or refuting whichever positions they were taking. I always wanted to sneak down the hall and join in, because they were missing so many relevant points. 
Later, in high school, I became interested in philosophy and politics in earnest after reading two books, back to back, that each have had a profound influence on my life. The first was Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Immediately after reading that, I read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. The juxtaposition of such radically different world views has framed much of outlook.
Since then I've managed to keep attuned to the "questions-without-answers" world of Salinger, while respecting the dictates of rigorous logic embraced by Rand. Neither view offers a complete picture of life and I've always enjoyed the contrast.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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In '73 when I was thirteen I got this feeling that I was going to Nam, so I stared digging for the real reason we were over there...then a lull after we got out, then (this sounds SO shallow
) Steven Segal's Above The Law was what really shook me out of my complacency. All of a sudden my mild distrust of big government was catapulted into active anger for the s**t they pulled, pull, and plan on pullin'.
Not just in America, ALL governments.
Don't like the beast's natureisall
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Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
In '73 when I was thirteen I got this feeling that I was going to Nam,
Saw alot of thirteen year old draftees from your neighborhood?
Mine was the Carter-Reagan debate. I was six. I wanted to watch something good, Mom and Dad were watching the President and the other guy. I liked the other guy...
H
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Quote:13 + 5 = dead or wounded for no good reason. That was the view from there.
Originally posted by Hero:
Saw alot of thirteen year old draftees from your neighborhood?
When my dad told me we were there to stop communism (got the domino theory early) I thought either he was lying, or my government was nuts. Of course it was the latter. And that was without knowin' about Phoenix or Mkultra or the rest.
..the easier it is to stop up the drain Chrisisall
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I never used to care much for politics...being your standard breed of American taht believes so wholly in the condition of our system and that there are people out there fighting the good fight for me, that things were well in hand.
It wasn't until about 4 months before the election of 2004 that I got interested...and not really because of the presidential race.
Once in a while I'd try to justify sitting on my ass and doing nothing by flipping over to the cable news shows, as if they were educating me on something.
What I started seeing scared the crap out of me. Not the stuff they were covering. It was how they were covering it. It was the language the anchors and pundits were using. From my very narrow, American history indoctrinated perspective that I was sold back in school, these guys didn't sound like the "live and let live", "let freedom reign", righteous, humanitarian, reasoned voices of our nation that I expected.
There was so much reactionism, so much fear mongering, so much crap that made me feel like I'd fallen down the rabbit hole, or into one of the many sci-fi books or movies with their scary visions of distopia, I felt like the world had become alien to me.
Well that was distressing, and it made my skin crawl to watch any of the cable news channels, but I guess I tuned in to be disgusted once in a while.
One time I caught Jeanine Garaffolo on O'reilley giving it to him about his style and that of the media in general, and it sounded like a voice I'd been missing from the mainstream, so I looked her up and found out she'd been on the radio for about a year. Started listening to her and the surrounding programs,
and what I heard echoed and clarified the concerns I'd been having about the main-stream "liberal" media, I'd been listening to.
So then I got really scared, listened daily and often, both to air-america and the cable news, and was often infuriated and demoralized by the media's inability to cover vetted stories that seemed like they should be damned important to Americans.
I've watched a slight shift in coverage with the debacle that was Katrina and Olbermann's growing popularity, and a distinct matriculation of more liberal offerings into the diatribes of conservative pundits after the 2006 elections, and that's a bit of a relief amidst so many things that seem terrifyingly desperate,
but that's very little of anything, and I'll be paying attention from now on.
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I've been aware of world politics ever since the night I watched The Day After, by myself, against my parent's orders(they were out of the house that night, I was babysitting). The few minutes I watched scared the %$*& out of me. I realized then that there were people outside this country who could atomize me, and I had no control over that. And since my parent's house was in the approach to the local airport, every jet ehat came in for landing sounded to me like a cruise missle coming in to destroy everything I loved. I was so relieved when the wall came down, and that threat "left".
As for politics, I started becoming more aware as I got closer to 18. My parents encouraged me to register. At first I voted republican, like my parents, but now I am a solid moderate, or more to the point, unrepresented. Neither party have had anyone worth voting for in years. It's sad to vote for the lesser of two idiots. And deciding which is the lesser idiot is hard work.
So my political opinion is this: politicians are to blame for the state of things. It doesn't matter what party or philosophy they subscribe to, once they get in power the only goal is to stay in power. Fund-raising, compromising, deal making, back scratching, etc. The system's broke and we suffer. 
Oh and the presidency is a smoke screen to hide the true people in power.
"It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense." - Mark Twain
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