political views being influenced by environment...

[Andee_G]

I'm fourteen so I interact with kids most of the time. In talking with others my age about politics and such, it's started to bother me how much their political beliefs are influenced by parents. 99.9% of the time the person in question has nearly identical views as their family. It happens to everyone and there's not much that can be done about it. It just bothers me that we can be influenced by it so much. I consider myself liberal more than conservative, as do my parents. I know that if I grew up in a very conservative republican household my views would probably be completely different.

[TexasF355F1]

I really appreciate seeing someone so young being so open-minded. To me that's shows your parents are doing a very good job in raising you. It also tells me that your not so quick to shew off any views that oppose yours. You're open to hearing someone else's opinion. So kudos to them and you.

I think to an extent environment does play an important role. I do consider myself conservative, and my parents are as well. But I've analyzed for many years our differences. I would actually goes as far to say that I'm closer to a moderate than an actual conservative. My dad is less conservative than my mom, but my mom is very religious which may contribute to her being extremely conservative.

I think this will be a good thread. I don't think I've seen you in here before so I hope you stick around and share your thoughts and opinions and continue to expand your knowledge and beliefs.

[YogsVR4]

Your home environment influences a great many things in your life. Politics is no different then others. I also agree that its good you're interested and have done some independant thinking.

I will leave you with this. (its an old one) Its said to be under thirty and conservative means you have no heart. To be over thirty and a liberal means you have no brain. Which is basically the dividing line of when people have money and when they don't.

[Cbass]

If you don't have money and you're conservative, you have no brain as well.

Excellent case in point here. My friend's father is from Alberta, which is pretty much the Texas of Canada. Very conservative, and his dad, being a career military man and an Albertan is predictably very conservative. The day this friend of mine became eligible, he applied for welfare, and since then has held three jobs, working maybe 16 months total between all three of them, over the last 5 years or so. He gets his political views from his father, and is always going on about how Stephen Harper should be the prime minister, and how the Liberal Party are all a bunch of left wingers, and the Tories are the only ones who know how to run the country, etc. It's so ironic, it's comical. To be fair, the guy has a mental condition and can't really work a regular job, but regardless, it's still funny.

I agree very much that if you're exposed to political viewpoints at an impressionable age, you're likely to adopt them. My parents always voted NDP, and they always told me WHY they voted NDP. In my particular riding, the battle is NDP vs Tory for the Federal Parliament seat, and NDP vs BC Liberal(neocons, very different from federal Liberal). My parents were always frank with me that matters of social programs are much more important to the NDP than they are to the Tories, doubly so for the BC Liberals. As social programs are much more important to me than tax rates, I vote NDP. The maximum tax rate you can pay in Canada is 26% federal, and around 10% provincial, plus pension and EI deductions, so at most about 40% deduction, at the highest income level. If I'm making enough to be in that bracket, that doesn't brown me all that much. In fact, at that point I think I'd be much more concerned with the welfare of those who weren't in nearly as advantageous a situation as myself, but then again, that's just me, a bleedingheart liberal.