This is gonna be a long post 
I just wanna tell everyone here why I am liberal and why I still feel so ardently about my views today. I also wanna hear from all of you about why you are your ideology.
I grew up here in the 7th district on a tobacco farm. I lived a great childhood in which I learned the importance of a good work ethic and the importance of help when one is down. My house did not have electricity until 5 years before I was born (which was 1942, damn I'm old). The only reason that this occurred was due to the Tennessee Valley Authority - one of those great government programs that progressive liberals devised and conservatives fought against. The market here was not profittable for power companies and thus the rural areas of many parts of America were left in the dark due to the greed of the market. It is fine for the market to be greedy, but when the market cannot deliver, I believe that the government should provide. In the 1960s there were several droughts that crippled the corn corp that we harvested. Thankfully the government was there to provide low-interest loans to ensure that my family could stay afloat during our time of need. My family farm still functions today with the help of subsidies and drought relief funds. The farm is as prosperous as ever and I often think that my brother makes more money than I do.
While I loved the farm, I just was not cut out for the farm life. That was my brother's department...Instead, I had the brains and thus my family sent me away to Berkeley. There was no way that my family could afford to pay the tuition so I was able to take out student loans from none other than the federal government. Of course, that was not enough to pay all of Berkeley's tuition, so I had to work as a bartender, a law office clerk, and I always got a piece of the action from the tobacco back home since I worked so hard since I was 8 in the fields. The government once again provided me with a safety-net and a supplement to ensure that my education continued.
My other brother John served in Vietnam and was injured in combat. He was sent back home without his legs or an arm in 1966. This was a seriously terrible time for my family and we could not afford the medical bills that would be required to care for John. But once again, the government was there to help us in our time of dire need. The incident with my brother also created my opposition to the War in Vietnam. I became involved with CALCAV, a religious organization that peacefully protested against Vietnam. Martin Luther King was the chairman of this group and I am proud to say that I had the opportunity to meet that great man in 1967. Peace is the only way that I can see after I saw my older brother John, an athlete, maimed. I just cannot allow myself to send other families' sons and brothers to die in a warrantless conflict such as the one that may occur in Iraq right now.
I grew up here when racism was widespread. I lived in a society that had blacks on one side and whites on the other. I had to live with a father that referred to blacks as coons and the n-word. Segregation was still basically practiced here in the 1970s as well as throughout the South. I just cannot see how twenty years after that, everything concerning race relations is fine. No, no, white people are not racist anymore, trust me, is the view of many conservatives, which was the ideology that defended segregation during the 1900s. I just cannot accept that view especially from people that subscribe to the ideology that attacked the Negro for wanted to swim in the same pools and go to the same schools as whites. In this nation we need Affirmative Action to ensure that racism does not take hold again. It does successfully combine merit with ending past discrimination. Under AA, when people are of two different races or genders and everything else is on an equal basis, the minority or woman is hired. That is not a quota and that is fairness to minorities.
I hold an idealistic belief in helping the poor. Society must attempt to make all members of it productive. Yes, welfare does create dependency in some cases and yes it is abused often, but think about the millions of success stories that do not reach the newspapers or the congressional ledger. We need to reform welfare into a workfare but we cannot completely disband it. Recipients should work 40 hours a week and they should receive credits and the states should have more jurisdiction on the matter. But the program has a fundamentally noble goal that is to help those in poverty. That is a goal that we cannot stop pursuing.
In summary, I am liberal because the government's aid has made my family's farm strong and has helped us during our greatest times of need. It helped me go from being a tobacco farmer to a corporate lawyer and partner of one of DC's largest firms. I believe that racism is an epidemic that has not been halted yet and it will take years and generations more to do so. And I believe that the poor need our help much more than the corporations do. This is the conscience of a liberal and just my humble opinion.
I just wanna tell everyone here why I am liberal and why I still feel so ardently about my views today. I also wanna hear from all of you about why you are your ideology.I grew up here in the 7th district on a tobacco farm. I lived a great childhood in which I learned the importance of a good work ethic and the importance of help when one is down. My house did not have electricity until 5 years before I was born (which was 1942, damn I'm old). The only reason that this occurred was due to the Tennessee Valley Authority - one of those great government programs that progressive liberals devised and conservatives fought against. The market here was not profittable for power companies and thus the rural areas of many parts of America were left in the dark due to the greed of the market. It is fine for the market to be greedy, but when the market cannot deliver, I believe that the government should provide. In the 1960s there were several droughts that crippled the corn corp that we harvested. Thankfully the government was there to provide low-interest loans to ensure that my family could stay afloat during our time of need. My family farm still functions today with the help of subsidies and drought relief funds. The farm is as prosperous as ever and I often think that my brother makes more money than I do.
While I loved the farm, I just was not cut out for the farm life. That was my brother's department...Instead, I had the brains and thus my family sent me away to Berkeley. There was no way that my family could afford to pay the tuition so I was able to take out student loans from none other than the federal government. Of course, that was not enough to pay all of Berkeley's tuition, so I had to work as a bartender, a law office clerk, and I always got a piece of the action from the tobacco back home since I worked so hard since I was 8 in the fields. The government once again provided me with a safety-net and a supplement to ensure that my education continued.
My other brother John served in Vietnam and was injured in combat. He was sent back home without his legs or an arm in 1966. This was a seriously terrible time for my family and we could not afford the medical bills that would be required to care for John. But once again, the government was there to help us in our time of dire need. The incident with my brother also created my opposition to the War in Vietnam. I became involved with CALCAV, a religious organization that peacefully protested against Vietnam. Martin Luther King was the chairman of this group and I am proud to say that I had the opportunity to meet that great man in 1967. Peace is the only way that I can see after I saw my older brother John, an athlete, maimed. I just cannot allow myself to send other families' sons and brothers to die in a warrantless conflict such as the one that may occur in Iraq right now.
I grew up here when racism was widespread. I lived in a society that had blacks on one side and whites on the other. I had to live with a father that referred to blacks as coons and the n-word. Segregation was still basically practiced here in the 1970s as well as throughout the South. I just cannot see how twenty years after that, everything concerning race relations is fine. No, no, white people are not racist anymore, trust me, is the view of many conservatives, which was the ideology that defended segregation during the 1900s. I just cannot accept that view especially from people that subscribe to the ideology that attacked the Negro for wanted to swim in the same pools and go to the same schools as whites. In this nation we need Affirmative Action to ensure that racism does not take hold again. It does successfully combine merit with ending past discrimination. Under AA, when people are of two different races or genders and everything else is on an equal basis, the minority or woman is hired. That is not a quota and that is fairness to minorities.
I hold an idealistic belief in helping the poor. Society must attempt to make all members of it productive. Yes, welfare does create dependency in some cases and yes it is abused often, but think about the millions of success stories that do not reach the newspapers or the congressional ledger. We need to reform welfare into a workfare but we cannot completely disband it. Recipients should work 40 hours a week and they should receive credits and the states should have more jurisdiction on the matter. But the program has a fundamentally noble goal that is to help those in poverty. That is a goal that we cannot stop pursuing.
In summary, I am liberal because the government's aid has made my family's farm strong and has helped us during our greatest times of need. It helped me go from being a tobacco farmer to a corporate lawyer and partner of one of DC's largest firms. I believe that racism is an epidemic that has not been halted yet and it will take years and generations more to do so. And I believe that the poor need our help much more than the corporations do. This is the conscience of a liberal and just my humble opinion.
What a wonderful story! I understand perfectly now why you're a liberal. Your family has been on the dole since you were born, keeping a failing family business afloat with tax dollars - makes perfect sense that you'd support that.
