I was just looking at this poli sci major-focused buzzfeed gif list and it occurred to me that a lot of people who I know are interested in politics didn't major in political science, and I think that's probably true of the soap box as well. So how did you get interested? What kind of political activities have you done, other than voting of course?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/katieheaney/19-side-effects-of-majoring-in-political-science?s=mobilef

11/23/2013 12:26:43 PM

Well, I've always enjoyed lying, manipulating those around me, and exploiting others for my own financial benefit, so it was a natural progression, really.

My experience includes being the president of the Parent Teacher Association at a school my children do not attend.

11/23/2013 1:05:55 PM

As much as people say otherwise, it's far easier to have a conversation with someone about politics than most other topics.

11/23/2013 1:33:20 PM

When Bush Jr went to Iraq. Then, mostly when some schmuck named Barry Obama came out of nowhere and overran Hillary in the '08 primary. Thought something was fishy then, and still do now.

11/23/2013 2:50:00 PM

Internet religion debates on political sections of message boards starting in 2001-ish.
(I argued on the pro-religion side then-- one if my first tww posts was pro religion).

11/23/2013 5:05:02 PM

That's an interesting answer. Maybe I should have asked what issue or issues did you first become politically active/aware around.

11/23/2013 5:12:44 PM

Fortunately the early years of TWW have been deleted. If you guys could read my earliest soapbox posts I'm afraid you might think I'm an idiot.

11/23/2013 6:53:17 PM

I have a poli sci degree

11/24/2013 10:11:27 AM

I got interested in politics around the time (and largely because) I was about to be old enough to vote; I had been aware about a couple political issues regarding factual matters (anthropogenic global warming and evolution) and some more based on values (phonics, abortion, contraception, comprehensive sex ed, and "political correctness," a.k.a. serious consideration of and respect for perspectives outside our own), but the first one I became aware of since I came to understand the difference between the two major parties, and the meanings of the terms "liberal" and "conservative," was the invasion and occupation of Iraq (which happened a couple months before I understood the aforementioned differences and largely spurred my attempt to understand them).

That was also shortly after the time I decided to look up the word "libertarian" (which I vaguely remembered hearing around the 1996 campaign) and decided it fit me well, and by 2004, when I started regularly posting on message boards, I was a hardcore Libertopian keyboard warrior, unaware that most people who use that self-appellation don't actually care that much about social issues when push came to shove, while I have (and have been on what I would later learn was the "far left" side) ever since I was a teenager.

Now before then, as a pre-teen, I had some rigid ideas for how the world ought to work and how people ought to behave that now sound like social conservatism; if XBL existed in the mid-'90s I probably would have even spammed Leviticus 18:22 or something, even though a few years before that, as soon as I developed the capacity for rational thought, I had become an atheist (like S.E. Cupp later would, I still regarded the Bible as a good source of morality).

Of course, being atheist, and later learning that the GOP was the party of prayer in schools and Bible-based social policy, pretty much ensured I'd end up as a liberal.

[Edited on November 24, 2013 at 11:56 AM. Reason : not a single poli-sci class in college, but I did read an old intro. textbook as a teen

11/24/2013 11:56:15 AM

9/11 (I was 19)

Before then, I regarded all of the cable news channels as the same. The news coverage of that day opened my eyes to two dynamic and polar groups to whom those channels cater to. Fox News was (and still is) principally concerned with peddling fear, hatred and bloodlust, while I saw MSNBC asking mainly why a group of Saudis did what they did.

I suppose I fell into the liberal camp when W. decided that people were growing bored or tired of blowing up dirt huts in Afghanistan and started beating the war drums on Iraq. At first, I didn't have a problem with deposing Saddam, but I wanted a more measured and focused approach that first finished up our business with capturing of killing those responsible for Sept. 11. When I was called "un-American" and a traitor for going against "The President", I knew something was wrong.

Overtime, I discovered more about my passion for the environment and its preservation, so of course I am now branded an enemy of the mainstream Republican/conservative platform.

11/24/2013 9:24:40 PM

My dad was pretty conservative growing up. He listened to Rush Limbaugh in the car, was real big on the "Christian" side of conservatism - i.e. legislation of morality, pro-Israel policies, etc. I was exposed to politics early on, even if it was a biased point of view.

I slacked off too much to become an engineer, so I got a political science degree. Almost pursued a MPA...what a disaster that would have been. Getting really involved with politics during college turned me off to the possibility of pursuing anything related as a career. Partisan politics truly is savage tribalism writ large.

[Edited on November 24, 2013 at 9:30 PM. Reason : ]

11/24/2013 9:27:47 PM

The moment I realized that other people voting affects my childrens' lives.

11/25/2013 12:36:53 AM

^^^I don't think love for the environment and conservatism have to be mutually exclusive. I consider myself and environmentalist, and yet I am conservative. My conservative side comes out really when we talk about fiscal and social issues.

HockeyRoman's post was interesting. I think a better thread title, or maybe another thread, should be "Have you ever switched sides politically, and if so, why?"

[Edited on November 25, 2013 at 7:14 AM. Reason : asd]

11/25/2013 7:13:40 AM

^^One of the most horrifically ironic things I've ever read.

11/25/2013 10:13:10 AM

I hardly kept up with current events at all until 9/11. It was then that I actually started visiting news websites every day and wanted to learn more.

and politics suck.

11/25/2013 10:43:58 AM

Because politics is the easiest arena to play my favorite game-

Devil's Advocate

11/25/2013 10:46:38 AM

Followed politics as early as I can remember. Parents told me how I would eat my cereal and read the newspaper back in late elementary school. Politics is also a bit of the family business: my grandfather was a journalist, a law professor and a political activist back in the mother country. He inspired me a lot growing up, constantly in his newspapers and books while falling asleep to the BBC.

I loved history as well growing up, and I found modern international politics fascinating as an extension of that history. However, I started taking political science more seriously as a career when I got to NC State and took US Politics with Dr. Taylor.

11/25/2013 11:28:41 AM

I'm not interested in politics. I'm interested in discussion. Politics is just something people argue about a lot.

11/25/2013 11:50:20 AM

I was interested in politics ever since I was a kid, partially due to my rather unusual combination of parents (dad's a Republican atheist, although he probably does recognize Reagan as some sort of deity, and mom's a super-liberal evangelical Christian). I remember being the sole vote for Dukakis (lol) in my first grade class when we had our own little presidential election. I got actively involved in politics as a teenager working for some local and state-wide campaigns, working with people I personally knew and therefore actually believed in. It's been all downhill since then.

11/25/2013 11:55:15 AM

From my experiences as an enlisted Marine before college, I decided to major in Poli Sci. During my enlistment, I tired of being sent to intervene in places that made no sense (Haiti 1994 - While the U.S. claimed the Monroe Doctrine gave us a right to intervene, and Aristede was a democratically elected president, he was a malefactor, which was a cause for the coup, and he was elected on an anti-U.S. platform), and then abstaining in places that did warrant intervention (Croatia 1992 - Systemic rape/genocide committed by Serbs).

[Edited on November 25, 2013 at 1:32 PM. Reason : But I did have some interest even going back to H.S.]

11/25/2013 1:32:20 PM

i grew up with an interest in social issues because of 2 social activist parents and politically active grandparents, although i didn't have an interest in foreign policy issues until researching foreign policy and history while trying to understand motivations for 9/11 and then the invasion of Iraq (was too young to have an opinion about the first gulf war)

11/25/2013 4:28:38 PM

I got a temp job doing general IT with the county board of elections back in jan 2010. Now I'm the lead technician for the county and I am responsible for programming, calibrating and maintaining all of the voting machines and paper ballots for Wake County. Before this job I didn't have much of an interest in politics.

11/25/2013 5:08:11 PM

My immediate family was/is all batsh*t crazy über-liberals, though I was mostly raised by my all-politicians-are-corrupt-and-should-die-right-alongside-corporations grandparents. Led to me developing a very strong libertarian streak that also happened to resonate with the politics of Virginia Beach (both military- and tourism-heavy, so fiscal conservatism was in vogue but most didn't give a sh*t about social issues despite Pat Robertson setting up shop in town). End up volunteering for political campaigns as a teenager and helped a chick set up a Teenage Republicans group at my high school.

My general disdain for government and politicians has only gotten worse as I've gotten older. Years of arguing with Gamecat and Smoker4 in the Soap Box crystallized it.

[Edited on December 1, 2013 at 12:41 AM. Reason : ---]

12/1/2013 12:40:26 AM

Wait were you trying to make that hard to read, or are you just drunk?

12/1/2013 12:49:20 AM

^
I've been averaging 1 post a month, I'm rusty

12/1/2013 1:12:40 AM