Is anyone interested in describing how their political and or world view has changed since early adulthood? If so, it would be very interesting to hear. Let's try to flush out some lurkers here too. Lurkers feel free to log on and hold forth. Oh, and if you're still a young adult, it would be interesting to get your current political perspective.

No change Theadbare. I was an 1848 Marxist 40 years ago and still am -- still searching for Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

How 'bout you?

Not a huge change, Apres, but am less enthralled with macroeconomic models whose proponents use phoney appeals to altruism, to sell them to the masses. Am also an admirer of Marx, insofar as his analysis of maturing capitalist economies, croneyism and trickle up economics goes. I've always been flat out skeptical of ideas that sound good on paper, but don't work out in the real world. What is an 1848 Marxist? Say as opposed to a 1948 Marxist?

If you're still searching for truth goodness and beauty, you'll find it, in some measure. It beats the void of cynicism and nihilism.

Threadbare,

I have never changed...I vote from the heart ever since I was of voting age....I have no particular allegiance to a party...

Unfortunately the past several terms,,,,I seem to have always voted for the lesser of two evils which seems to be a pretty common decision point for many I know....

Right now though, politics is a pile of sheet...A steaming heap...also the media controls minds far too much imo...it's almost like we are a society of Stepford wives who have some microchip planted in our skull by these wretched shllls on fair and balanced channels...

All I see and hear is mudlslinging...lies...special interests...vile spitefull tactics...and most importantly this cycle...."no discussion of the real issues"...NONE..no talk about "our future"...just bullsheet...no concrete plans but rest assured we will get news on...defamation of character....slime ball gutter politics....Manchurian Candidate games...."talking points".."flip flops"..."sun tans"...while body bags come back from the middle east...

And now when the "issues" REALLY matter outside of the "war", we get "controlled debates"....wtf is that...democracy ? Thats horsesheet....All I ask for is an "unbiased non media influenced election to allow people to make a choice ..."free to decide based on their own asumptons"...not told what the assumptions are....before or after the fact....also fugg the poles....more irrelevant horsesheet...

For "both" sides it remains a game of ... big money...corruption...grandstanding...dirt as far as the eye can see,,,in adddition...our financial system reeks of bannana republic..call us a roman empire..or whatever one wants to call it...it's tragic...sad...frustrating....and spiraling out of control...so this election boils down to a question of "freedom" to me....healing...courage,,,level headedness,,,not neccessarily even the best man or "candidate" for the job which no way in hell I'd want anyway,,,,a man with a brain that will try...we ain't gonna win a war on terrorism imo....it will be with us always...also theocracies can not be "forced" to become democracies....

Say what you will but I have some innate sense that tells me this election probably is the most important our "lifetime" and our kids lifetime because it will shape the way government will "control" our lives for decades....in my view...most people are asleep at the switch for the wrong reasons and many are as divided as I have ever seen but no poor people will vote and they are the biggest influence on elections from a populaton standpoint and the most "screwed"...thats 30 Million Amricans...if we keep it status quo, it will be a road to ruin imo...it's just an opinion..nothing more...it won't get better...

...and thats what I expect, a Shrub win, because the "media" will elect the president...not the public...the poodits will say shrub won if he picked his nise on stage and spewed a ten foot arc no splash wretch into a bucket next to his podium when an inadvertant "unscripted question" was tossed his way....five minutes "before the debate starts he will be declared the "winner" becasue he stuck to his "talking points"....five minutes after he will be raised on a pedaistal....

To me personally...This is election not about one man vs. another....it is about what the "future" of our country will look like after it is determined who the winner is.....throw out the issues...it's a bullsheet...who keeps promises...this is far deeper and more complex than any era I have ever lived thorugh.... is it's about what happens "after" the fact"...typically I am very disnterested in elections but not now...this one means too much...

This election is about hope and I truely love my country but hate what state it is in now and where it's heading....

As far as I am concerned....if we get a lesser man with a good heart and good intentions we will survive...And thats not saying that will happen...it's just a worst case scenario,,,,Maybe we will take it up the backside and suffer and a "better" republican will emerge in 2008 but the guy we have now scares the sheet out of me....again it's just gut instinct....

I'll take the pain but know we at least still have a democracy if we have a shift in.power...if we maintain our course as we are we are doomed...Also politics as it was will never be the same because there will no longer be two parties....it will take decades to break the mold or maybe it will lead to anarchy based on how many pissed off people ther ae in the world today who's futures areited to crucila issues...Heck...my real estae agent wnet to CHina for stem cell treatmet as her son who's 37 is dying.....unfortunately there are a lot of angry people out there but many won't see a voting booth....

I voted for Shrub last election because I disliked Gore at "the time" but I voted for Clinton the term before...Today I say I was wrong....I opposed the Iraq war from day one...

In all honesty...I don't think I have ever been more concrened over the outcome of an election as I am now....I truely beleive people are asleep at the switch and have no clue whats coming if we remain status quo...this election is about freedom...democracy...freedom of choice....which in my view is slipping away every day and it's media driven...not issue driven....

Unless Kerry hits a hot button in the debates,,,I am not looking forward to the next four years,,,

Have I changed in the way I view things ? Hell yes...and I can tell you exactly when it started for me ...1996....this moral hazard world we live has never been the same since the mania took off and it is the centerpiece of our society...our life line of whats left of our country imo....Politics sucked in the late 80's and early 80's when I went into the work force but it was tolerable..now it's toxic and destructive economically and in regards to our own freedoms...it's slipping away....

I miss feeling proud of what we stand for and all that pops into my short term memeory is "maniia" , "greed", and "corruption".....how we got here I also point to one other man...Al Leeson....and every cronie who aided and abetted him....it runs deep as the pacific....

Ag

In 1986 I was a hardcore conservative. Hated Phil Donahue, Jim Wright, Lloyd Bentsen, and especially Tip O' Neil. A few years later, out in the world, realizing that all my beliefs about life and existence were crap, I began a swing to the left. Became a "marxist." A few years later, I saw how PC bullshit was making totalitarians out of formerly warm and fuzzy hippy commie types, and realizing my true nature--contrary--I rejected that crap as well. Anarchy is the only viable position for me now. The state is the beginning and end of most problems. Centralized capital accounts for the rest. All of it is based on the love of money, an inescapable, biologically hard-wired instinct. Like Solomon, I believe there is nothing new. We are witnessing the death of one empire--the U.S.--and the rise of another--East Asia. China and India will rule this century. Why? They are accumulating gold while the west pisses theirs away. Nothing new here. Just another microscopic, synchronic mark on the crawl across infinite time.

We, as a species, are trapped in a system of false dichotomies. Dialecticts, dualism...whatever. It's all the same pile of Platonic or neo-platonic dung. Until the species accepts this and becomes willing to try something different, we will get the same, bloody results. Thank Hillary Putnam and those of his "garbled-Quine" ilk for the coming swing back to foundationalist, essentialist slaughter. Outside this system, or "paradigm" lies an unreality of endless and limitless possibility unbounded except by the inability to imagine more possiblity.

Getting better at the art of allowing. I think. I hope

Not the ideal thread for this, but I gotta let fly.......

WHO WAS THE F#@!%?+ IDIOT MORON WHO DECIDED THAT THE MISERABLE
WRETCHES WE'RE TRYING TO REFORM AND REHABILITATE SHOULD HAVE A
MOTHERF#@!%?+& 'BLOCK PARTY', WITH US MILITARY PERSONNEL HANDING
OUT MOTHERF#@!%?+& CANDY, TO CELEBRATE A NEW F#@!+? SEWER SYSTEM?

DID NO ONE CONCEIVE THE MOTHERF#@!?+& POSSIBILITY THAT THE TERRORISTS/INSURGENTS/GUERRILLAS/WHATEVER-THE-F#@! MIGHT
JUST CONSIDER THIS ONE HELLUVA F#@!?+ OPPORTUNITY TO WRECK
BLOODY CHAOS AND MAYHEM, KILLING LOTS OF LITTLE CHILDREN IN
THE PROCESS!

IT IN NO WAY ABSOLVES THE GOAT-F#@!?+*& FECAL MATTER OF THE
HUMAN RACE WHO ACTUALLY SET OFF THE BOMBS TO SAY-"WHAT A
MOTHERF#@!+?*& STUPID, ASININE IDEA! WE SUPPOSEDLY HAVE
THE VERY BEST OF OUR 'GREATEST MILITARY IN THE HISTORY OF
THE WORLD' ON THE SCENE AND THEY GO ALONG WITH THIS IDIOCY!
'HERE KIDS, HAVE A LOLLI....OH, SHIT'. THAT'LL WIN HEARTS AND MINDS!

JESUS TAPDANCING CHRIST!!! MOTHERF#@!+?*& DRUNKEN, RETARDED
SEWER RATS WOULD EXERCISE BETTER JUDGMENT!!!!!!!!!

WHAT A F#@!? WORLD!!

Very interesting, Ags Nightmare, good to hear from you. I didn't know you voted for Bush, though it didn't seem like as scary an idea back in 2000. I agree that the media is absolutely key when it comes to doing a breakdown of power. A (somewhat) free media used to provide a bit of a check and balance against govt. power. Newspapers, radio and televison were businesses that looked after the commercial sector by shining a critical light on anything that might give govt more power. That's why newsmen went ape during the McCarthy era. Now that there's a symbiotic relationship between commercial corporations and govt. it's not the least bit surprising that media appear to be calling the shots. Clinton's regime ushered in this political new age with the passage of the telecommunications bill. We've been living a very blinkered reality for quite some time. Remember all of his blather about inclusiveness and his "big tent" philosophy? You can still see canvas flapping whenever guys like John Edwards, a Clinton clone opens his mouth. Stay positive, stay upbeat. Ony sling mud if you absolutely have to, and always avoid offending our corporate sponsors. We're all in this together.

The Clintonites undermined necessary adversarial relationships, creating the neoliberalism that is so compatible with neo conservatism and a media that is so in lockstep it appears to be either in command or taking direct orders.

Anyway, I digress. Currently I'm very interested in the Utopian societies that sprung up during the Industrial revolution in response to rampant poverty and the inability of the individual to rise above his/her station. People grouped together, quit the coal mines or cotton mills, bought land collectively and survived. None of these Utopian societies ened up actually Utopian, but they beat the Distopia that most of these people came from. With peak oil and peak water and all the attendant future challenges we face, I think people are going to have to revert to tribal lifestyles again. The problem with this is there are so many rules, regulations, covenants, zoning restrictions, at the present time that make this next to impossible. Interesting dynamic--forces individuals and groups into anarchy or libertarian left.

Grinner. The "progressive" left have become a complete pain in the a**. That PC control freak stuff, the psycho-babble, the focus on "cleverness" at the expense of frank wisdom. I have no use for these ninny, limo liberals.

Machinehead-thanks for sharing, Man A rejectionist, but not a reject.

Grand Poopercycle. Good rant. Jesus tapdancing Christ. That image fuels the imagination. Wonder if he'd dance with Bo Jangles, then break out the loaves and fishes.

Apres, Sounds like Kant was a bit pessimistic. I prefer the optimist philosopher, Kan, myself. My God, what a groaner.