Note: Lola was kind enough to offer her blog to post on. However, I decided to post this here. It's somewhat a touchy subject - politics - and I wanted a place where I can be honest, without upsetting a whole bunch of people, however I don't thinks people will be too upset.... Also this is not a blog post about trying to change anyone's opinion. This is just a post about how I came to have mine. So thank you Lola for giving the incentive to write this.
Let me start with a quote often attributed to Winston Churchill,(but was not said by him)"If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain."
This was quoted to me by my uncle my Freshman of college. I remembering being extremely irritated by his remark, at that point I was an ardent liberal and his remark did not sit well with me. My family had emigrated from the Soviet Union when I was very young and I saw first hand how helpful the welfare system was (within a year of being on welfare my parents both had jobs). Sure I has some qualms about things like Affirmative-Action, believing, like my father did, that when the system is unfair you have to work twice as hard to prove yourself; but who was I to judge the experience of black Americans?
In my mind being a liberal was being a good human being. It was about taking care of the poor, being understanding and open minded, it was about freedom - letting people decide personal issues for themselves, taking care of the environment, and it was about abandoning the old for the new(aka being hip).
On the other hand I equated being a Republican with being greedy, close minded, racist, meddling in personal affairs, prudish, and needing to constantly conform to a specific ideal. Republicans were evil and I did not understand how they lived with themselves.
Yes, I was very naive and somewhat simple minded. You might chalk it up to my youth and inexperience, yet I have met many adults who thought/think exactly as I did. I should also mention that I grew up in a Boston suburb and went to school in Boston. Most of my professors reinforced my long-held beliefs. Almost everyone I knew was liberal and when I encountered someone who was not I was bewildered, especially if I liked the person.
I remembering learning that a friend's father, who I admired and loved, was a Republican. I couldn't believe it. This rational, warm, and caring man stood for everything I despised. I couldn't reconcile the it. Another time, I became friendly with a girl in one of my literature classes. She was really cool and we ended up going to see Ibrahim Ferrer from the Buena Vista Social Club. Somehow on the way back she mentioned she was a Republican. Again I felt confused, she was cool and like the same things as I did, yet she was a Republican? After that I didn't pay much attention to her. I was still nice and cordial to her, but I had no further interest in furthering our friendship.
However, the year I went to college three things happened which would have significant effect on how I thought.
1) 9/11
2) The start of the 2nd Intifada against Israel
3) For the first time I had a boyfriend and he was from the South and was Libertarian
Most people would call me a 9/11 Conservative. Someone who changed how they saw the world after 9/11.
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