[Rinksterk]

Is it like the "cool" thing to be liberal in college? I met some of my sister's friends and we some how got into talking about politics and they are all fucking liberal as hell.

Wait, I'm not sure if "liberal" is the right word though. They all share the same opinions and most of them seem liberal. They're for gay marriage, they hate Bush, against the war, etc. Regardless of their position on the political spectrum, they all have the SAME values!
I'm pretty conservative, and when I said I don't agree with gay marriage, they looked at me like I'm some kind of evil motherfucker. Like how could I dare do such a thing. Is it somehow evil to have different beliefs now?

It's the same thing at my school. I didn't think much about it because I thought it was just my school that's like this but apparently not. In one of my classes, we talked about people who refuse to vote but actively voice their opinions on politics. THe professor wanted to know what we thought about people like that. I was the only one who said people have the right not vote as well as the right to vote. All the other kids looked at me like an outcast. They began ranting about how it's so fucking important to excercise your right blah blah blah.

It's the same shit with everything else. It's like not "acceptable" to hold an opinion that's different from rest of the school or some shit. I'm starting to think that college kids, or young people in general, have the political values they do only because it's what's accepted by their peers. I guess it's "cool" to be rebellious against the government and their conservative parents or whatever.

[Zarathustra]

I do think that social acceptance has something to do with it, but I also feel that it is a somewhat natural reaction to the circumstances of a person going from a more controlled environment (at home) to a less controlled environment (at school.)

[Ultrashogun]

In my fucking university everybody is a fucking communist.

[Cojofl]

I've found quite a balance between left and right wing among people I know in college. Like me a lot of them are doing economics and politics, which may be an atypical sample. That said I've found most people in college to be apathetic towards politics.

[Rinksterk]

Originally Posted by Ultrashogun

In my fucking university everybody is a fucking communist.

My school has some kids running around with the damn sickle and hammer on their bags. I highly doubt most of these wannabe commies really believe what they believe. I'm guessing they'll grow out of it.

[Daka]

i think it depends on where you go. Oxford and Cambridge for example, Generally Cambridge is seen as having a large left-wing community, Oxford the opposite.

I think what happens is when someone goes to College because they are being exposed to other values in life, other influences. Their information comes from people other than parents and school teachers who are just putting factual information in their head, rather than opinion.

I think those and other factors makes people become more politically active.

However, in a University environment where you are constantly around other people, often eating the same thing doing the same thing and more often than not you can't afford expensive possesions etc you start to look at the world. You can often side with poor people etc and consequently take left wing values.

Once the same person comes into a business/has a family etc and they realise they are lucky enough to live in a country where money isnt hard to come by, they start to want the best for themselves and their family and perhaps take a more rightwing approach.

This is all off the top of my head by the way, just what i think may be a reason

[Daka]

The thing is, communism could (in theory) be the most beautiful way to live (with everyone as an equal all contributing to their own society, all recieving the benefits of their own society).

The trouble is individuals don't let it work because they become greedy etc.

I think students recognise it as thus and use it as a protest to government policies to perhaps show there are other ways and get people thinking.

Students are targeted by political groups as well, as they recognise them as the future; which is another reason they become politically active

[Clint07]

Originally Posted by Cojofl

I've found quite a balance between left and right wing among people I know in college. Like me a lot of them are doing economics and politics, which may be an atypical sample. That said I've found most people in college to be apathetic towards politics.

I agree I know people on both ends but most of the are Political Science or Social Science majors. Everyone else just believes what other people tell them to believe because they don't care enough to make their own opinion.

[MadFistWilly]

I don't really see political views being 'cool' one way or the other. I'm a liberal college student, but my roomates are all conservative. We all get along fine, mostly because we believe in what we say and we respect each other for doing the same.

But I don't go around preaching to random people on the street, because I hate when people push their beliefs at me, regardless of whether I agree with them or not. I do think that there are several organizations, political and religious, on many college campuses that are straight-up telling people what to think, and I find that absurd. College is a great time to figure our what your beliefs and values really are, and simply adopting what someone else thinks is just plain stupid.

[Ultrashogun]

Originally Posted by Daka

The thing is, communism could (in theory) be the most beautiful way to live (with everyone as an equal all contributing to their own society, all recieving the benefits of their own society).

The trouble is individuals don't let it work because they become greedy etc.

I think students recognise it as thus and use it as a protest to government policies to perhaps show there are other ways and get people thinking.

Students are targeted by political groups as well, as they recognise them as the future; which is another reason they become politically active

I think communism is beautiful also. Im pretty sure that in our quest to better life on this planet one day we will reach a simular utopia, but not now.

What just really ticks me off about most people who consider themselves communists is that theyre actually just a group of infantile hedonists.