How Old Are You?
I went to Greg Gutfeld's Fort Lauderdale book signing for his latest book - The Joy of Hate.
Greg, IMHO, is the Right's Jon Stewart. He is funny and witty. I've shared some of his ideas (the gay bar next to the 9/11 mosque) with the staunchest of liberals, and they agree with him. He has crossover appeal. However, his show is at 3:00 a.m. and the other one (The Five), IMO, sucks.
So, when I went to the signing, I was wondering what I would find. I found a small crowd. Most were over 40, many of them were in suits or at least very well-dressed. And I was the only non-white person there.
I've gotten some insight into some of the people who are regulars on this site over time. There is a good cross section of the right-leaning universe here on Ricochet. There are professionals; the hard working folks who are well versed in history; the religious ones,;the trolls who are looking to ban some posts (such as mine on polyandry) and bash libertarians; the token Brits and Canadians; the immigrants holding on to American ideals; and many in between.
But where are the young, edgy, angsty, future-of-our-country kind of folks? Rob Long converted to conservatism at a young age. Peter and James seem to have been born conservatives. I was a libertarian at 16.
So why can't Greg Gutfeld attract Fort Lauderdale's conservative hipsters to his book signing? Why is the only conservative that attracts the young an old man from Texas, Ron Paul?
We've had some discussions on Ricochet about place, backgrounds etc. But I'd like to have an ageist discussion now.
What is the average age of people on Ricochet? At what age did you become politically aware and have something to say about it? Where are the young conservatives?
I'll start - I recognized that I was libertarian at 16. I am now 45.
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Comments:
Jul '11
Re: How Old Are You?
And a follow up question to the overlords of Ricochet - how do you attract the younger crowd? Surely if they can afford smart phones, they can pay for Ricochet?
Mar '12
Re: How Old Are You?
As an OF, I fear the young, with rare exceptions, are too busy tweeting inanities and that their attention span is too short to engage in any serious thinking, much less putting their serious thoughts in writing. It's much easier to write short TMs or tweets about their inane thoughts, like what they ate for lunch.
Another legacy of the failure of our educational system.
Jul '11
Re: How Old Are You?
Schrodinger's Cat: As an OF, I fear the young, with rare exceptions, are too busy tweeting inanities and that their attention span is too short to engage in any serious thinking, much less putting their serious thoughts in writing. It's much easier to write short TMs or tweets about their inane thoughts, like what they ate for lunch.
Another legacy of the failure of our educational system. · 0 minutes ago
And yet, every time I bring up the need to engage in the education system, I get no rise out of this crowd....
A couple things - your moniker is very youthful. I am thinking that your affiliation to quantum physics did not start when you were over 40. Assuming I am correct, perhaps the young are not as useless / stupids after all.
Second - The youth block votes, and they have strong opinions on many things. Perhaps it's because I am a mother, I refuse to give up on the young. And if education is to blame, then we are to blame for not educating them "right".
Edited on December 2, 2012 at 5:28pmNov '10
Re: How Old Are You?
My beginnings of political awareness trace to my seventh year; I'm 42 now. It was then that my father -- a lifelong Democrat (until recently) and a former professor at University of Michigan Law School -- schooled me on the nefariousness of the feminist Equal Rights Amendment. He furthermore helped me to the realization that Jimmy Carter was a complete dip [-expletive]. The rest is history.
Mar '12
Re: How Old Are You?
Barkha Herman
A couple things - your moniker is very youthful. I am thinking that your affiliation to quantum physics did not start when you were over 40. Assuming I am correct, perhaps the young are not as useless / stupids after all.
Second - The youth block votes, and they have strong opinions on many things. Perhaps it's because I am a mother, I refuse to give up on the young. And if education is to blame, then we are to blame for not educating them "right". · 5 minutes ago
Edited 4 minutes ago
Actually, I am well over 40 and my interest in quantum mechanics is only a few years old. Of course, in my mind I am always 30.
I am not giving up on the young. But, we are facing very strong headwinds. The young are by nature progressive, and, until conservative ideas are seen as progressive, we will not have their support.
As to education, I think trying to change the existing system is beyond us. We need an alternative to public education run with conservative principles. I would advocate abolishing all public schools.
Edited on December 2, 2012 at 5:45pmJul '11
Re: How Old Are You?
@Schrodinger's Cat Assuming you are right leaning, at what age did you become that (you don't have to tell me how old you are now).
As I mentioned, I became a libertarian at 16. I was never a "progressive". I know of many others. As a parent of two teenage kids, I meet my fair share of the young, some very intelligent and others of various interest and seriousness.
My kids are conservative, and have been most of their lives - even though the little Christian school I send them to turned squarely against Christianity due to the hypocrisies of the Christians in charge.
I did not force my belief system on to them. Conservatism appealed to me, and my kids intellectually at an early age. So, it can be done.
Why isn't it, then? Why does it not appeal to the young masses?
Oct '10
Re: How Old Are You?
I'm just turning 70. Can't help that. I watched the 1952 Republican convention. I was 9 years old and very politically aware. I began delivering a weekly newspaper that same year, although I had been reading the newspapers since I was about 6. I'm simply politically aware. My parents weren't particularly engaged. Dad was a Democrat union guy, and mom always seemed Republican.
To your question; Young people aren't particularly conservative because they, as with the majority of young people, are products of the zeitgeist. Most follow the direction of their peers, and a much lower number either rebel against it, and even fewer maintain their individuality and decide who they are.
The zeitgeist within Western civilization is of exhaustion and self indulgence. If you will, it is the Democrat party platform and apparatus. Young people are a product of this culture.
America began at a time when the zeitgeist was conservative and believed in the Creator God. People weren't necessarily very religious, but did share a common world view which is called Western Judo-Christianity. Americans shared a common goal; greatness. Read Deuteronomy 30:19. Choose Life!
What is the common view now?
Mar '12
Re: How Old Are You?
I have always been a conservative, mainly because my father and mother were conservatives and I grew up in a affluent conservative community. In 1964, the school I was in had a straw poll on the election and Goldwater won by 2 to 1. So, I guess my conservatism runs in the blood.
I will say that until recently I was a fiscal and foreign policy hawk conservative. Social issues were not a great concern. As a recent convert to Catholicism, the social issues have become a preeminent concern for me.
Jan '11
Re: How Old Are You?
I found that I'm somewhere between conservative/libertarian when I was 15. I'm now 27. I grew up in northern VA, so it seemed like everyone else was liberal. My dad was not very political, but he definitely was a Republican. For the most part I read a lot on my own to discover conservatism. I definitely didn't learn it in public school (they actively tried to get us to dislike the Republican party) - but I am starting to think the only way to move the country in the direction we want is to get involved in education.
Jul '11
Re: How Old Are You?
@raycon and lindacon - The funny thing is, both my kids, who went to a local Christian school are staunch anti abortion (my son even in the case of rape and incest). But they are not Christians. The Christian school managed to teach them the value of human life, but couldn't convince them that gays don't have a right to marry.
This tells me that positive messaging will work (don't kill an unborn child) where as negative messaging won't (I have the right to marry but you don't).
The bottom line is that they understand personal responsibility - Christian schools are good at teaching that, where as in public school (they attended for 1 year), the message was always to find a scapegoat.
Jul '11
Re: How Old Are You?
What led you to that realization? Did you have other young friends who thought the same?
Jun '11
Re: How Old Are You?
I am 54 and though of a basically conservative disposition due to my parents' influence, did not pay much attention to politics till at least my early 40s. Being a mother of teenage children, in conjunction with alarms sounded by my older and wiser sister, attuned me to the dangers of degeneration of the general culture. Some run ins with lawyers in the 90s and early 2000s convinced me that the court system had been hijacked by looters using the cloak of "justice" to camouflage theft. But with TARP in 2008 and every minute since, I have suspected that the whole country has been similarly hijacked.
In other words, it took a lot of life experience to make me pay attention. When I was thirty I was only thinking about getting through the day- job, kid, house- and only knew what I heard from mainstream sources.
Jul '11
Re: How Old Are You?
Jojo - how about your kids? Are they conservative? Do they know / understand / follow politics? Are they likely to influence other kids in their age group?
When I was younger, I didn't know any other libertarians, and so I kept my political thought to myself, unless it came up. I defended my positions always, and eloquently imho, however I was dismayed that in the US, so few had read / understood their own founding principles.
As I get older, though, I want to engage more younger people. An activist I am not, but I would have liked to have known older women like myself when I was younger.
Apr '12
Re: How Old Are You?
I am 61. I grew up as a liberal Democrat and cast my first two votes for McGovern and Carter. Though I voted for Reagan in 80 I still voted predominantly D for other offices until the mid-90s. Though most of my core beliefs have remained the same over that time, my ideas about how best to accomplish them have changed.
I grew up in a liberal D atmosphere and it takes a lot to change that. I think it is even harder today as the culture makes it much more difficult than it was in the 70s and 80s. The media and the Ds have very successfully associated any non-progressive viewpoints with bigotry, hatred and small-mindedness which allows people to avoid even listening to what you are saying. It is particularly difficult for young people to deal with. Ironically, it means they don't like nonconformists! Kind of the flip side from when I was growing up in the 60s.
Aug '12
Re: How Old Are You?
I was probably born conservative, but I didn't think about it until I was 8. I saw Ross Perot's infomercial on balancing the budget and America's trade deficit, and I thought that sounded reasonable. I am also a child of the Cold War -probably among the youngest who can claim that -I apparently scared my 3rd-6th grade teachers because my creative writing often dwelt on what it was like no longer having a Soviet Union, and what the Gulf War, Somalia, and Serbia foretold. When I was 5 or 6 my church was smuggling translated Bibles into Belarus, and to this day I consider Belarus's government (and Cuba's for that matter) an affront to God, and there is a special circle in Hell reserved for Lushenko.
I say I signed onto the "Leave me alone" coalition, but my time thinking of myself as a libertarian was limited -ultimately, I was not willing to give up the foreign engagements, nor to surrender the social issues, because I don't expect the government to honor any space for Christians to live as they please, and anyway, what good is freedom in Babylon? I'm 28.
Aug '12
Re: How Old Are You?
As for the next generation, I'm a professor of government at a comprehensive state school, but I refuse to turn my class into Conservative Propaganda to offest Liberal Propaganda. I figure striving to teach accurately and truthfully, and to be able to address both sides of a political debate is subversive enough. I'm not doing my students who decry progressive taxation as Socialism a favor if I just say "good job" and move on. They've got to understand why, say, progressive taxes are used, and why they are popular, and why we don't just switch to a flat tax (just to use an example from last week's class on Fiscal Policy) and why switching to a flat tax does not magically solve all problems.
Dec '11
Re: How Old Are You?
He's on fox. Nobody cool listens to fox. Fox will always be the other, the place for conservative no-nothings to get their scoop of daily propaganda by malicious and hateful people.
Its been culturally marginalized.
I am 32
Sep '12
Re: How Old Are You?
I just turned 50. My political awareness began during Watergate, but were heavily influenced by the Carter years (Carter was widely mocked by my peers). I can remember being swayed by progressive arguments as a young teen, but by Junior and Senior year, I was fully conservative.
I can't name any particular event or trend which influenced my decisions; rather, I have always been of a rational mindset, and conservative principles are inherently rational. Liberalism/Progressivism, on the other hand, tend to be buffeted by the winds of emotion. "Tax the rich", "War against women", etc. are all emotional appeals.
Jul '11
Re: How Old Are You?
That is commendable, indeed.
Mar '11
Re: How Old Are You?
I'm 48 and became politically aware (and conservative) when I was 26. The reason? I became a Christian, and as such took seriously the apostle Peter's admonition to be "sober minded" (1 Peter 1:13). Actions have consequences and those consequences often effect others besides oneself. As a Christian serious about learning and deepening my faith, conservatism seemed natural--inescapable, really--to me. In fact, I find the persistent progressivism of many Christians baffling.
Before I turned to Christ I was utterly useless. Not a liberal in any meaningful, knowledgeable way, just apathetic and mired in short term self-interest.
Edited on December 2, 2012 at 9:19pm