How I Came be Where I Am Politically

It’s always interesting to discover how people come to a point in their lives. No one ever just wakes up one day Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian. I had a long evolution to become where I am today. Being a teen of the 60’s didn’t leave a lot of news choices. Back then the three television stations often signed off at midnight. Back then I have to admit being a Liberal Utopian.

One thing the current generation doesn’t remember is the Fairness Doctrine. At the end of the local news we would often hear counterpoints to some political statement the station had made. As a child of the 60’s I heard from peers how bad the war and other things were. I heard how “the man was down on me.” To a teen and young adult anarchy seemed a good choice. We knew the war was bad because the men in expensive suits telling the news told us this.


It was not until 1988 as I was scanning the AM radio band did something change. I discovered Rush Limbaugh. Until that day I had heard every TV and radio program basically telling the same things. I wanted something different, something that was more inline with how I saw the world. I didn’t know the difference between the political conservative or liberal. I was sure I was a liberal thinker.

Time marched forward and I still thought of myself as a liberal person. Even through Reagan I didn’t see myself different, but I knew Rush was right about so many things. Rush used common sense that was lacking in all the other media sources.

It was just a few years after discovering Rush that I became a Libertarian. It didn’t take long for me to become disillusioned by the Libertarian Party. In the mean time, more and more conservative talk radio appeared, and that’s when the learning really began. They showed me a world I never knew existed. I began to understand what the conservatives were saying, or they just shifted a little to the libertarian point of view. I’m not sure which happened. I clearly learned there was far more to the conservative movement than the Christian Right and being henchmen for big business.

I wrote this a while back in reply to the question, “How I became a Fox News watcher.”