The Collective Quarter-Life Crisis

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1. 
   

   StellaThomas Creator
   StellaThomas · Aug 20, 2017

   NB - I am NOT starting this thread to start debates, just to have a chat about where people's views lie on the spectrum
   
   Ah. Politics. How do you guys feel about it? That it's a civic duty to be interested, or best not to get involved?
   
   I'm pretty left-wing, though Ireland has no mid-left really; we did have the Labour party but they're kind of a shambles. Instead, I vote for/support the Green Party, whose first priority is the environment which I approve of, and most of their other policies are mid-left and I like that. I'm also pro-refugee, which I would say is quickly becoming one of the hottest political questions in Europe over the past few years.
2. 
   

   BluesClues
   BluesClues · Aug 20, 2017

   1. Civic duty, for sure. If you're not interested, you might not realize just how much politics affect your life and the lives of others. Get involved, for sure - I'm not saying you have to join a party, attend protests, campaign for people, campaign yourself, but keep yourself informed and be sure to vote.
   
   2. I have no party affiliations, and frankly the two-party system we have makes me angry, not least because people are always either a) voting blindly for their party no matter what it does or b) scared into voting for their party out of fear of "the other guy," even if their party has done nothing good for them in living memory.
   
   That said, I'm definitely liberal. Or progressive, if you like. Or socialist, if you're the kind of person who considers people like me socialist. Whatever, there are worse things to be.
   
   Basically it just boils down to "I care about people and would like everyone to have access to the kind of healthy, comfortable upper-middle class life I'd like to have."
3. 
   

   Holysocks
   Holysocks · Aug 20, 2017

   Yeah I think it's important to be informed about politics at least a little. I also think it's very very important to be informed about BOTH sides of things: if you're leaning to a certain political stance, find out why other people are leaning the other way because believe it or not humans are very similar, and you might actually find yourself agreeing - even a tad - with other people that you never thought you would have.
   
   In Canada, which is where I live, the parties don't seem as divided as in the U.S- sure, if you believe that the Conservatives you like the conservatives and if you like the liberals you like the liberals. But it's not like... idk. Politics are a practical thing here; you vote because you're thinking about the future. You're thinking about how one party getting in will mean you keep your job, etc etc. That's probably how it works other places two, but idk.
   
   I'm somewhere in between Liberal and Conservative. I've voted green before.
4. 
   

   Meshugenah
   Meshugenah · Aug 20, 2017

   I am... complicated about politics. It's funny, actually, because my brother used to be so anti-political everything and is now far more into it than I ever have been, and I'm becoming far more disillusioned with the entire thing than I ever thought I could be.
   
   As for were I fall, I'm basically too conservative for liberals, but too liberal for conservatives. I refuse to be part of a party, but I rather despise the democrats in my state, mostly because they run so much of the majority of the state and are running it into the ground because no one checks them (or has the ability to. Bullet train to nowhere, anyone?). There's also some north-south animosity because the south likes to steal all the water from the north, and yet we're the only ones who seem to be under water rationing (not counting the farmers in the valley, that is). California is not the "liberal utopia" people seem to think it is, and that includes people that live here that completely have their heads buried in the sand.
   
   ANYWAY. Basically I can piss off an entire room of people that disagree about politics in three statements or less.
5. 
   

   Lauren2010
   Lauren2010 · Aug 20, 2017

   I'm a registered independent which, in the US, means I don't have any party affiliation even though I've only ever voted democrat. (In the US you generally declare a party affiliation when you register to vote, which only affects which party's primary elections you're able to vote in.)
   
   The way the US has been, I definitely look a lot more "left" than I would probably classify myself. (I opted not to register with one of the main political parties for a reason!) I'm a big fan of compromise, which has been more or less absent from our political system.
6. 
   

   BluesClues
   BluesClues · Aug 20, 2017

   @Lauren2010 I'm also independent! I've voted for both parties plus third-party candidates in certain elections, although these days I vote a lot more Democrat than Republican.
   
   But I also know there are several states where you can't vote in the primaries if you're independent, which???? Doesn't sound dodgy at all, especially since more and more people in the U.S. are opting to remain independent.
7. 
   

   Lauren2010
   Lauren2010 · Aug 21, 2017

   @BlueAfrica thats one of the nice things about Ohio! But yeah it's not everywhere. I guess it just depends on how invested you are in primary elections.

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