What was the last big issue that you changed your position on?

[NightWatcher]

For me it was probably back in college twenty years ago when I went from being pro-death penalty to anti-death penalty during the course of study for my advanced degree in criminal justice. This came about after seeing how it was applied and the unfairness in the system.

I do not want to debate the death penalty, but I am curious as to which was the last big issue that you changed your mind on and about how long ago it was (if you could remember) and why. I'm not being nosy, but this is a Discussion Board, so what say you?

[Spazito]

1. Legalization of marijuana...

I have supported decriminalization for years but, due to reading DUers perspectives and talking to my grown children about it, I came around to supporting legalization a few years ago.

[KamaAina]

2. Physician-assisted suicide

once I learned how the disability community, of which I am a member, views it.

http://dredf.org/public-policy/assisted-suicide/

DREDF, along with numerous other nationally prominent disability organizations, opposes the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Legalization is a serious mistake for many reasons that are not always immediately apparent. Supporters often focus solely on issues of choice and self-determination, but actually, legalization would restrict choice and self-determination.

It is crucial to look deeper. For example, assisted suicide would be a deadly mix with our broken, profit-driven health care system.

It is imperative to distinguish personal wishes from the significant dangers to society of legalizing assisted suicide as public policy. The legalization of assisted suicide has many harmful consequences.

Believe me, I've been on the receiving end of many a DU flamefest on this one!

[Ruby the Liberal]

11. Mine as well

but in the opposite direction.

[ND-Dem]

40. I'm with you.

"It is imperative to distinguish personal wishes from the significant dangers to society of legalizing assisted suicide as public policy."

[boston bean]

3. Well, long time ago here on DU you would have been called a xenophobe

for opposing NAFTA and other trade agreements.

I never supported NAFTA or other trade deals, but take it for what's its worth. Lots of people changed their mind about that.

[dissentient]

4. I'm not such a gun control nut like I used to be

I read a book by a criminology expert, and they talked about all the myths of what would happen if gun control was much more strict, and to sum it up in a nutshell, it would hardly affect the criminal rate at all, nor would it significantly impact all the firearm related deaths we have already.

[Blue_In_AK]

5. I'm pretty set in my ways.

I can't remember the last time I've changed my opinion on a big issue. I've been a Leftie for 50 years.

[hifiguy]

6. Probably NAFTA because I foolishly trusted Clinton

and thought Ross Perot was crazy.

[RiverLover]

15. +1 /nt

[LWolf]

7. Charter schools.

A few decades ago, when I first heard about them, I thought they were a good way to empower schools from the bottom up, and cut through the inevitable bureaucratic inefficiencies that come with large systems. I didn't realize that they were another arrow from the privatization quiver, floated when vouchers weren't catching on. I'd still like to empower schools from the bottom up, but it didn't take me long to figure out that charter schools were not the way to do so.

Most of my issues have to do with economic and social justice; since I want my country to achieve those things, my stances have simply become fiercer over my lifetime.

[ND-Dem]

41. I was once kind of agnostic on charters; now I believe the end game is privatization

and complete dismemberment of public schooling.

Another step in the country going into the shitter.

[immoderate]

8. When I was in college, (60s) I reversed myself on every major issue...

Except maybe marijuana prohibition. I was a Libertarian in high school. At some point I realized that there were no Libertarian solutions for widely observed economic, social, and environmental problems. Apparently, there was not enough time in the universe for the free market to tackle those problems. So I pretty much adjusted all my political views.

Since I arrived at my views by hard, logical introspection, and academic enlightenment, most of them stand. Y'know, so far.

--imm

[joeybee12]

9. Actually, I remember having debates in the 6ht grade about the

death penalty...i was always against that, always on the left side of issues.

[HuckleB]

10. Attacking Afghanistan, Alt Medicine, GMOs/organic food, Bush 2 Wouldn't Do Much Harm, ...

I sort of thought it was "justified" to go into Afghanistan, after 9/11, though I was not happy with how it was done, at all. I certainly don't see it that way now.

I bought into the thought that Bush 2 wouldn't do much harm, because Clinton hadn't done much to move things to the left. I was wrong. I was very wrong.

I used to buy into alternative medicine, as well as anti-GMO shenanigans, and I thought organic food was really better. Evidence has changed my mind on all of these, as well.

There are more going back into the last century, of course.

Oh, and I noticed a poster above mentioned physician assisted suicide. I changed from opposing it, after the suicide of my brother, to supporting it in time.

[Fumesucker]

12. Israel and artificial intelligence

I used to be a strong supporter of Israel and then one day reading the encyclopedia I found out that Menachem Begin was a leader of a terrorist organization before he became PM of Israel.. It took a number of years and a lot more reading of history for my thinking to change completely but that was the original impetus.

At one time I thought AI was a good idea and intelligent machines would be a positive force in the world from the human point of view, I no longer think that.

[NightWatcher]

14. Terminator made me rethink AI as well.

[Katashi_itto]

13. Cannibalism.

[YarnAddict]

17. Are you now

for it, or against it?

[Katashi_itto]

21. Well, I had to change my position on it.

[Art_from_Ark]

23. You didn't happen to share a lifeboat with these guys, did you?

[Katashi_itto]

24. :)

[Jamastiene]

35. I changed my mind on cannibalism too, but that was before my stance on the death penalty

changed.

[First Speaker]

16. America's entry into World War One

...I know this is going back aways, but the ripples from this decision continue to spread even now. I used to take it for granted that our entry into the war was an unavoidable necessity. Now, I think it was the greatest error in our national history, at least since slavery ended.

[fadedrose]

19. Religion is #1, and Politics #2

MAJOR CHANGE: Went from being fairly fanatical to an agnostic who believes nobody knows anything about God, if there is one, or gods, if there are more.

MINOR: Now I'm wavering between Warren and Biden, and then cali and others stepped in and confused me with Martin O'Malley....(I still like Axelrod even if I'm the only one in the US). Some of have made mistakes, but they were honest mistakes, not the kind stemming from greed..

[hatrack]

20. Death Penalty, like you . . .

Probably about ten years ago.

It's pointless - morally and economically.

[Jamastiene]

36. Exactly.

It doesn't deter crime and it is not "humane" if they do lethal injections as the last few cases have shown. I was later than you in changing my mind. I was raised being told it was good and the only way to get rid of criminals, closure for the victim's family (more like morbid revenge fantasies realized, but whatever), and all the other pro death penalty slogans, blah blah blah. It took actually believing in the innocence of one very hated defendant to wake me up.

[joshcryer]

22. Electric cars.

I thought they were a pipe dream mainly due to the initial use of rare earth elements (there was not a large enough supply at the time). But apparently newer designs don't use rare earth elements at all, so they can scale up enormously.

[A HERETIC I AM]

25. Whether or not Cocoa Crispies makes actual chocolate milk.

New position?

No.

[Major Hogwash]

26. Freedom of expression -- no more rebel battle flags, please.

I'm sick to death about hearing how the confederate battle flag is sacred to some people in this country.
That war ended 150 years ago, get over it, move on, stop promoting hate!!!

[Zorra]

27. Guns. I was raised in the country, and didn't think the gun issue was a big deal.

I felt that way right up to the Newtown massacre. Then reality struck.

There are simply too many dangerous wackos out there, and they should not be allowed to possess firearms.

I now believe that anyone who wants to possess a firearm should be required to undergo a thorough psychiatric evaluation before being allowed to possess a firearm, and there should be other deterrents in place to prevent wackos from getting there hands on weapons.

[Jackpine Radical]

28. Phlogiston theory.

Accepting it, I mean. I'm still clinging to it.

[NanceGreggs]

29. Death penalty as well.

It was the ONE issue my dear hubby and I disagreed on for years. He was anti, I was pro.

Although I still have no ethical qualms with putting certain people to death, I came to realize that too many death penalty cases "fall through the cracks" on an all-too-frequent basis.

So I now go with the "rather ten guilty men/women go free than one innocent man/woman be put to death" idea. That being said, I still have no problem with the "guilty beyond all reasonable doubt" - Timothy McVeigh comes to mind - being expunged from society.

[Xipe Totec]

30. The value of the liberal arts

As a hard core materialist, I used to believe that anything other than science and technology was a waste of time.

I've since moderated my views and come to appreciate, understand, and adore the arts.

[RobertEarl]

31. Nuclear energy

Was on the fence. Thought man could handle it.

Now I know it to be the biggest mistake we ever made.

Ever since Chernobyl, wildlife populations have been declining.

I used to think it would be kinda cool if the grid went down for a week because of a solar EMP, but now know if it does, all the nuke plants will do a Fukushima and life on this little blue ball spinning in the blackness of space will not be the same for millions of years. Even if the grid never goes down, there is that million years worth of pollution just tick-tock-timing away, and hardly anyone gives a crap! Can you say doomed?

[Chan790]

32. Interesting...

if it weren't for a larger more-recent issue...this would be my answer, but in the other direction.

I no longer believe we can survive long enough to switch all the world over to non-polluting renewable sources of energy before global climate change kills us all without an intermediary switch to nuclear. I've gone from being vocally anti-nuclear to considering it not only ethically-necessary but more environmentally-conscious than many "green" proposals.

Of course, I also took enough chemistry and physics to know the people talking about a dead Pacific or effects on the US West Coast as a result of Fukushima are histrionic and stupid, but mostly just demonstrably-wrong. It's truly amazing how many environmentalists and green activists, even prominent ones, are scientifically-illiterate.

[RobertEarl]

34. Hoo-boy

If you meant to start a fight, you have succeeded.

First, nuke plants in quantity enough to power the world would take more money than we ever had and about 50 years to build and then we'd be replacing the ones built 50 years ago. And then we'd have all that waste.

Instead we can have solar and wind supplying all our electricity in 5 years and replaced after 30 with no dangerous waste!

You claim you have the inside scoop on what is happening to the Pacific sea life dieing off in an unprecedented manner. Please do let us in on that secret, because the marine scientists are "Baffled".

Science is nothing more than seeing changes and describing those changes and making theories about what is behind the changes. So, fire up your science literacy, and tell the world what's going on with the sea stars and sea lions and sardines. We await your wisdom!

[Jamastiene]

33. The death penalty, but not for the reasons most people might think.

I won't bring it up again, because I don't want the same shitstorm to hit me again on DU. Let's just say I took a very unpopular opinion about a high profile court case and got my ass chewed out for it. It changed my view of the death penalty though. I am now definitely against it. Before that, I wanted it for everyone from rapists and child molesters to people I just plain did not like because they gave me the creeps or just pissed me off with a smug look on their faces. Now, I don't want the government killing them even if I can't stand them, because I also don't want such an imperfect system killing me either. It could happen to anyone for some in recent years, that whole pretense of "humane" lethal injections has been dropped because of facts about how badly it has gone on several occasions. Nah, I can't be for it for those reasons and many more.

I don't know why the Sheriff of my county sends me jury duty notices every 6 months. As long as my aunt is alive, I can't do it, but when the time comes and I am able to, no lawyer will want me anywhere near a position that decides the fate of their client, whether it be the DA or the defense attorney. I have very unorthodox views and do not belong in a jury. I already know that much. I can't pretend I think the war on drugs, illegal prostitution, or how fucking long it has taken to finally see a couple states legalize marriage for gay people is legit. It's just not legit. Something is wrong with this country and I can't pretend to believe otherwise. None of that should have been illegal in the first damn place. Drugs are given to us by nature, women should have a right to our own bodies if we want to charge for it, and gay people should have the same damn rights as straights without any special wording calling it something else to separate it for the pro divorce but still obsessed with "sanctity of marriage" (as long as divorce is still legal) bunch.

[tularetom]

37. I've never changed my position about anything ever in my entire life

Only wimps change their positions, not real Americans.

Any opinion I have, I was born with it and I've never changed it and I never will.

The world would be a better place if everybody in it was just like me. It's no wonder things are so screwed up, what with all these position-changers running around.

[closeupready]

38. Gosh that's hard. Hmmm... Maybe my regard for Mormonism -

from positive to negative, in light of the organized work to pass Prop 8 and also in reading about Mitt Romney and the ties that his church has with the GOP and the support they give to the GOP's agenda.

I wasn't raised to really have ANY views about Mormons, and indeed, I remember enjoying opening my Saturday morning cartoons with "Davey and Goliath", watching Donnie and Marie, and that's was basically all I knew about Mormons. And obviously, this is a generalization - there are unquestionably many good Mormons, just like there are plenty of bad NON-Mormons, but in GENERAL, my 'position' or view of their church has become quite dim and suspicious.

[Art_from_Ark]

39. Actually, Davey and Goliath was a Luthern Church production

Last edited Tue Mar 24, 2015, 02:57 AM - Edit history (1)

Its theme song was "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God", written originally by Martin Luther and later adapted in musical compositions by J.S.Bach and Felix Mendelssohn.

[Wella]

42. Yoga pants

I now think they should be banned in parking garages.

[whatthehey]

43. Gun control probably

I used to blame the tool not the user.

[moondust]

44. Israel/Palestine

Used to be kind of ambivalent/neutral. Still do not approve of Hamas' destructive attitudes or methods but less sympathetic towards Israel after recent destruction of Gaza, more settlements, and Bibi's cynical manipulations.

[The2ndWheel]

45. Objective morality

Good, bad, right, wrong, these are things dependent on time and place, who you are, how many people believe whatever it is, etc.

When? Slowly over time I suppose. Why? Take a look around.

[Xyzse]

46. Guns, before that MJ.

MJ, to me, I was taught was a destructive influence that makes people stupid and was supposedly worse than Alcy and Ciggy.

After learning more about the issue, I found that the other two, particularly Alcy was far more destructive and has created more problems.

So, I decided that decriminalization was for the best, if not actual legalization and taxation.

In regards to guns, I was more in to controlling them before. It is one of the reasons friends called me a sword snob. That guns are cowardly in comparison to face to face combat. Actually, I still consider guns cowardly in comparison to face to face combat, it just makes things too damn easy. As such, people who have no business using them get them and think they have bigger balls than they do, and empowers them to act when the best thing to do is to actually do nothing. It is why some morons out there get far more hot-headed thinking they are big enough to attack someone physically, when they really shouldn't. The problem I have with guns is that due to the ease of it, people get more aggressive and think of physical solutions to things they really should settle by talk.

Stating that, due to the laws and such, I have conceded that it is best not to limit the sale of guns, and they should be able to buy whatever they want, provided that they 1 - Get training on use, etiquette and civics, and they have to have a re-certification every few years. 2 - Insurance, since they really should pay for possible damages and so forth. 3 - Proper storage and maintenance. 4 - Brandishing them as a means of intimidation should be an incarcerationable offense(I think this is the case, but too many open carry advocates still do this).