I WAS moderate. Am I now a (shhhhhh) .... liberal????

[TexasSissy]

I hope this isn't a vanity post. I thought maybe others had had this experience, or that it might provide some useful info re DU generally.

I've been a registered Democrat for about 30 years. I voted for Reagan (the first time). I usu. have voted for the person, not the party. I don't recall why I registered Dem. in the first place (interesting, since my parents and siblings are either Republican or apolitical). I considered myself a moderate. I voted for Gore in 2000, of course, but I wasn't crazy about him (he did have some issues in that campaign).

However, since Bush has taken office, and since I started participating in DU, as well as a bipartisan forum (& lurking in a Repub forum), I find myself getting more and more, well.....dare I say the word? Liberal.

I'm still not far left, not progressive. I still hold some not so liberal positions on a few issues. But the more I am exposed to the Republican way of thinking, and to the type of people they seem to be, and the more I am exposed to the ideas of other Democrats and to liberals....the more I find myself agreeing with the liberals and not wanting to be associated with the right. And the more I realize what Bush has done to this country in the last four years, the more I realize that I do not want to vote for a Republican again....ever!

My question is....if I feel this way, wouldn't you think that Bush's policies and the actions of his party members have caused others to tilt to the left, also? Or is it only because I was a Democrat to begin with?

My second question is....don't you think the Dems have a much better grasp of the Internet thing? I mean, the Repubs don't have anything nearly as great as DU, do they? Freerepublic.com doesn't have many members, and the format is pitiful. Is that the best they have?
:headbang:

[seabeyond]

1. i htink it is helping taking the liberal word back

i have never been a huge participant in the democratic party. i have donated this year, i have a sticker on car, and i call myself a liberal out loud to anyone and everyone, lo lol and i am really not that liberal. oh so funny

yes. i have been independent. not repug, not dem. told kids this year, democratic party needs me to be a democrat. just the way it is

[Yuffi]

2. Probably

If bush gets a second term Hitler would be considered a moderate.

The repubs are moving more and more right, and as such more and more people will become "moderate" or "liberal" who were previously not considered such.

[rfranklin]

3. Yep, you nailed it...

The perverted wingnuts have taken what was just considered common decency a few years back and labeled it as "leftist" and "liberal," promoting the Gordon Gecko creed of greed and selfishness as normal behavior.

[troubleinwinter]

8. I'm in the same boat.

I used to be considered a 'moderate', and have voted for both Rs & Ds and some others. I am registered as "Decline to State (party affilliation)", as allowed in California, so I do not belong to any political party, but am a registered voter.

I am now called a 'liberal', the Republicans have gone FUCKING OVER THE MOON FUCKING INSANE RIGHT.

I have decided that friends don't let friends vote Repub. Course, I have been unable to find one friend or family member that is voting R this time. Everybody is vehemently opposing Chimp, and enthusiastically supporting Kerry. Except one R, who will ABSOLUTELY NOT vote Chimp, but feels he may not be able to bring himself to vote K. Ahhh... don't worry, we're workin on him!

[Anarcho-Socialist]

9. Welcome to DU, Yuffi!

:hi:

[Kathy in Cambridge]

10. Welcome to DU, Yuffi!

You nailed it. 10 years ago I was a traditional Democrat. My positions have barely changed and now I'm a pinko commie leftist? It's indicative of how far RIGHT the political parties have shifted and it scares me.

[glarius]

4. Degrading the word "liberal" is mainly an American thing, I believe

In my country liberal is a perfectly acceptable word (so far, at least). We even have a political party that calls itself The Liberal Party of Canada. They are the ruling party at present and have been in power more than the conservative party.....Tell the people who bad-mouth you for being liberal to look the word up in the dictionary....I bet they won't find one synonym that is anything but good.....Liberal is a GOOD word!...:)

[Kanary]

13. You're so right...actually, in many countries, "liberal" is waaay moderate

Among many other things we need to learn, a biggie is that we need to start listening more to people in other countries, and understanding their view on life and politics.

That could go a very long way towards rehumanizing Merkins!

:toast: to Canada!

Kanary

[realFedUp]

5. When the middle is now right of Buchanan

liberal means sane.

[deadparrot]

6. Like others have been saying...

in truth, you could be a moderate, but since the Republican party has been hijacked by the far, far right, you've been pushed more and more left. Those who are truly "conservative" are appalled at the Bush administration.

[Eloriel]

7. Shhhh, HELL! Shout it from the roof tops!

We have to reclaim that word. We've made a good beginning, I think, but there's more work to be done.

I'm still not far left, not progressive. I still hold some not so liberal positions on a few issues. But the more I am exposed to the Republican way of thinking, and to the type of people they seem to be, and the more I am exposed to the ideas of other Democrats and to liberals....the more I find myself agreeing with the liberals and not wanting to be associated with the right.

My guess is that if you fully understood the issues you think you're still more conservative on, you'd agree with us on those too. You might consider researching some of them, just for kicks.

And just remember:

A Day In The Life of Joe Republican
Thanks to Karin for sending this our way

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards.

He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.

All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too because his employer needs to offer competitive benefits to hire the best people.

Joe prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

Joe drives to work in one of the safest cars in the world because some liberal fought to raise safety standards and emission controls.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with good pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some Liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC up to $100,000 because some liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from greedy, unscrupulous bankers like the ones who ruined the banking system before the depression.

Joe needs to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republican's might still be sitting in the dark!)

He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home.

He turns on a radio talk show, the host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn't tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day)

Joe agrees, "We don't need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, I'm a self made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have".

============

I noticed this marvelous piece first posted somewhere in this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2170559#2171584

[bread_and_roses]

11. GREAT STUFF! That "day in the life"

says it all. I am bookmarking this so I can crib from it. Thanks.

[high density]

12. Same thing here

The first election I could cast a vote in was 2000, where I voted for Gore but I didn't register myself in any political party. I didn't care for politics at that time, nor was I excited about either of the candidates, but I knew that Bush was an imbecile and VP Gore had proven himself over the Clinton years.

I thought that too much of one side or another was generally not a good thing. While I was in college, I started leaning a bit to the right, probably because I was watching too much Fox News (I watched O'Reilly pretty regularly) and CNN. Especially in the fall of 2002 up to the start of the Iraq war, I was convinced that Saddam Hussein was a problem and I believed my government and media that the "smoking gun" about Iraq's WMDs would be "a mushroom cloud in NYC."

By "mission accomplished" time I was already very embarassed that I had allowed myself to be misled like that. Since then I've been drifting to left and I'm now at the point where I'd consider myself a liberal. In January 2004 I registered as a Democrat so I could participate in the primary contest, where I happened to cast my vote for the candidate that Michael Moore had endorsed. If somebody had told me in 2002 that I was going to vote in the Democratic primary for the same candidate as Michael Moore, I would have laughed at them.

I've grown really tired of the Republicans in the White House and the congress. I like the ideas of smaller government and less spending, but those ideals of fiscal responsibility left them a long time ago. They're now clearly the religious crazy party mixed in with some wars for the neocons and welfare for the rich and big business.