Note: I'm 16, and my parents are voting for Hillary no matter what I say, so I don't have any particular important opinion. I support Secretary Clinton. I support her for president, not just because she's a woman but because I feel like Senator Sanders has less experience in terms of foreign policy, and I disagree with his stance on gun control, and how he had a state's rights attitude towards marriage equality, including, apparently to the point of- not wanting to support it in Vermont because it was politically difficult? (i'm not sure about this, and i'm also dubious about some of the claims his supporters have said about Secretary Clinton. The candidates themselves have mostly avoided mudslinging- their supporters? Nah). I think there are places where Senator Sanders is better than Secretary Clinton. He is far more outspoken about income inequality, and he doesn't give off the same try-hard vibe Clinton occasionally (often) does. But I still support Secretary Clinton over Senator Sanders. And yet a lot of people on here who I consider clever and worldly and knowledgeable and who are far more impacted by stuff like income inequality than I probably ever will be, as I am the son of a formerly quite wealthy WASP family, support Senator Sanders. I identify as a Socialist. I think that an ideal society would probably be run a bit more anarchicly. I think that the prison system and economic and racial systems of this country are fundamentally broken. But I still support Secretary Clinton, in the little meaning that that has. I've also noticed a double standard in how people talk about Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton. Because Secretary Clinton could not have the shtick of disheveled Grandma. Because that would have killed her political career decades ago. And I don't think that I'm buying into the bullshit though, either. I'm not supporting Secretary Clinton because I'm too dumb to see through the fact that she has in fact changed a lot of her opinions to be more progressive. Does supporting her make me a bad person considering so many people on here support Senator Sanders, and talk about Secretary Clinton supporters as some monolith of older people who desperately want the corporations to stay in power? This is probably not that coherent and I'm sorry if I'm upsetting one. /flails.
Nah, you're not a bad person for disagreeing on politics. It is a bedrock of the concept of democracy that one should be able to disagree with people without thinking they are Evil and Should Die. Therefore, if someone is disagreeing with you about an election, it is not because they think you're Evil and Should Die, it's because they think you should change your mind. (In theory. In practice, it feels like the current political climate has started deliberately fostering Evil And Should Die, and that's a damn shame.) Whether you decide to change your mind is up to you. I'll personally primary for Sanders, but I don't actually think he'll win - I'm doing so because his continued presence pulls the political frame of reference further to the left. So his actual views on foreign policy, gun control, etc. don't matter very much to me.
nah, you're good honestly, you seem like you've educated yourself and luckily, liberal ain't a religion, so I'm pretty sure it's hard to be a bad one I'm pro Sanders, but opinions are just opinions, even in the political sphere a lot of my personal bitching about clinton comes from backlash about "oh only young idiots like sanders, haha let's laugh at the next generation", which is kind of. a thing anyway nah you're good
Yeah- that's something I've actually pointed out as not a very good thing to say to some of my fellow HC supporters. It's just- for example the northfield crew, for lack of a better term, has been talking about how Clinton is hollow and Sanders is genuine? While honestly um- from what I've looked into he's done quite a bit of policy shifting himself, too? bleh.
See, that's a reason that makes sense to me. That's something I believe to be positive when it comes to Sanders, because the political frame of reference needs to be pulled farther left, especially, to paraphrase my history teacher, because we need to bring economic and class issues, specifically, back into the forefront of american consciousness. I'm personally sick of this idea that there's this big conspiracy against Sanders. No. There isn't. Most of the coverage I see, even in "establishment" sources, is about how Sanders, months on, actually has a pretty good chance of winning. Also I'm pissed he's called Planned Parenthood "the Establishment"
I don't think you're Doing It Wrong, but even if you were, you'd still have like two years to sort out how to do it right with no obligation to have the Perfect Beliefs in the meantime. Btw, I think your original post is missing something you meant to add - after "including, apparently" there's a parenthetical and then the sentence ends.
Seebs has finally given up on saying they're a Republican? @seebs -- you always sucked at being a Republican.
You do you. As long as you keep educating yourself and thinking critically then who cares if you are a "good" liberal or not. I am pretty sure you're more educated than a lot of people are on the candidates anyways (which is a sad and scary thought- that people vote mindlessly) I remember being 16 and my political opinions were basically edgy "Politicians are evil I don't care they are always lying anyways and Bush is the worst why the fuck did people re-elect him again?" so I think you're already a step ahead of the game
I mean to be fair to 16 year old you, from what I learned of Bush he wasn't so great? i mean I was 8 when he left and have grown up liberal, so I have no idea.
As a New Englander and now Vermonter, I can see why a lot of liberals dislike his stance on gun control. Guns are a different thing here in the hilltowns. There's a genuine subculture of hunters out here. I wish that we'd focus a little less on Controlling Guns (since tbh a lot of the illegal traffickers come through here and New York) and a little more on freaking teaching people to use them. We should have at least as much safety instruction and testing with guns as we do with driving, especially since guns only have one purpose: shoot things dead. To the main question of your original post: Aka, "Does supporting [position that is not popular in this community] make me a bad person?" Hell fucking no.
I'm sort of connected to the hunting subculture through family? My family has been around New England for awhile, at least, and my uncle hunts pretty regularly. and yeah, teaching people to properly handle guns is important, but I think there's a difference between showing someone how to properly use/clean/take care of a weapon, and teaching young children how to use machine guns and the police being armed with military grade stuff? There's a difference between hunting and self defense (which I definitely understand- I'm a lot less anti-gun than some of my friends, actually) and I don't know. The way a lot of people treat guns in this country. Because even if the gun control was on the level of "you have to keep your ammunition separate from your guns" that'd be... better? Idk. And thank you for the reassurance, because idk. Y'all are Older and therefore More Intelligent, so obviously I Must Be Wrong or something.
