[quote=“Chris”]I remember many years ago I went to visit my sister at UC Santa Cruz, which has one of the most liberal student bodies in the US. During conversations with some of her friends, I found myself being condemned for saying things that they didn’t consider “politically correct”. Here they were supposed to be liberals, but they were acting in a way I consider illiberal (i.e. restrictive of individual freedoms). It was an oppressive environment. I told them they have forgotten what it means to be a liberal.
The experience didn’t turn me off liberalism, because what they displayed was not liberalism. The same is true about the idiots who praise Che Guevara or who wear Osama bin Laden T-shirts: they aren’t liberals; they’re just nutcases.
9/11 didn’t turn me away from liberalism; it just confirmed to me the dangers of extreme conservatism on both the parts of the Islamic fundamentalists (few are more conservative than they are) and the GOP (who used it as an excuse to wage war on an unrelated country and to curb American freedoms).[/quote]
I went there UCSC from 88-90 and it definitely made me more conservative but I also lived in Orange County, Ca and the graveyard of thinking the conservative-psycho-christian zombies created was just as bad. So I gave up on the country and moved.
The far left liberals are really mind-nazis and political correctness was spinning out of control.
So I owned too many guns/ but supported environmentalism/ Was strongly against eco-terrorism (Earth First tried to recruit me) but loved explosives.Hated organized religions/ loved Sufi poetry.
I Got at UCSC shit for being a straight, white, male and working class. Hung out with the Mexican diswashers at the restaurant I worked in while going to school, had two other friends-one was a surfer/stoner classics major the other a 6’6 300 pound Iranian. I hiked, rode bicycles, motorcycles, surfed and stayed away from the crowd.
They gave me crap for my Edward Abbey inspired bumpersticker “REDNECKS FOR PEACE”
I helped kick out some violent ex-cons who crashed a neigbors hippy party early in my stay in UCSC with a replica 9mm Glock water pistol in my jacket pocket. After that I was known as “That guy with the gun” so mostly they left me alone after that.