Changing your mind

[Sheilbh]

Idea from Sam Freedman, what is a political opinion you've completely changed your mind on over the past decade and why? About an issue not individuals or a party.

Off the top of my head I've moved from pretty dubious on the anti-tuition fee case to thinking it's very strong (this may be a difference between fees for me v late millenials/Gen Z). I think I used to be far more convinced on a liberal/rights-based model, whereas I think I'm now far less convinced they're actually effective protections v politics. Similarly I used to think that with the right incentives and tax structures we could do what was necessary on climate - I now basically disagree and think it requires large state intervention/restrictions. Used to be more keen on targeted welfare, now generally behind universalism and just give people cash.

I'm sure there's more.

[Grey Fox]

I went from wanting a property tax freeze to Property taxes should never be frozen.

[Admiral Yi]

Gerrymandering:  from all's fair in love in war to subversion of democracy.

Israel: from sure they fight dirty, but they live in a tough neighborhood to they're a bunch of dicks.  Except for a couple thousand surfers in Tel Aviv, all dicks.

Christianity, specifically American Protestantism: from, yeah it's all fake but loving your neighbor is a nice thing to it's poison.

[garbon]

I used to think it was a good idea to have the two parties balanced so would vote for a mix of Dems and Republicans at each election.

[celedhring]

Last decade. Mmmm...

- Expansion of the EU. I was in the "bring in everybody!" camp, but right now I feel we probably shouldn't accept new members in a generation or two, and consolidate instead. Some of the Eastern members are a bit... challenging (but I still believe it's better to have them in the EU than out there with Russia).
- Then Catalan nationalism has soured me on a lot of Catalan-centric policies than I used to support (like increased devolution). I.e. the Catalan-language public TV channel is the best funded public TV in Spain (in terms of budget per capita), and I used to support that (and watch it), because it was an important tool to promote the language. But it's turned into a shameless propaganda tool and they could shut the whole thing down for all I care. Same with rules making it hard for non-Catalan speakers to become public servants, and many others.

[Josquius]

Pretty sure when I was a teenager I was lightly euroskeptic. Then I actually got out and experienced the EU for myself and read stuff other than tabloid headlines.

Though going back over a decade then.

Hmm....

I guess I lost all faith in the idea of social media as a positive thing and how democracy would become so much better thanks to facts being available to everyone. Does it count?

[Zanza]

I used to be much more libertarian free market in my political views. I thought markets can be used to organize many areas of societies besides the typically mainstream economy.

I am much more sceptical about this these days and see a string role for democratic institutions to regulate or outright organize stuff like healthcare, education, networks for transport, energy or data, etc. These should not be organized by markets, at least not alone. This necessitates a strong state that is not just beholden to capitalist interests.

[Berkut]

I've gone from an optimistic Humanist to a pessimistic humanity is pretty much doomed curmudgeon.

[Grey Fox]

I guess I lost all faith in the idea of social media as a positive thing and how democracy would become so much better thanks to facts being available to everyone. Does it count?

Oh that's a good one. I used to believe in the web 2.0.

[Zanza]

I used to think that a) people are broadly rational and believe in science and that b) our state institutions are reasonably capable to organize complex disaster relief.

The pandemic showed that our societies have many more idiots and our states are much less capable than thought.

[Eddie Teach]

Well, I voted for Brexit in the Languish poll. Now, I think it was a mistake.

I've lost what little respect I had for most Republican politicians, and quite a few of their voters. Not ready to man the barricades though.

[grumbler]

I used to believe that educated people had better political judgement.  Now I believe that pretty much the only real education that occurs is the reinforcement of existing beliefs.

[Threviel]

I used to be a right wing conservative believing in the market and open and free borders.

Nowadays I think that letting in the great immigration wave in 2014 and later was a huge mistake and that we should have closed up tight. Everything points to this mistake costing my kids, for their entire lives, and their kids also, for most of theirs, upwards of a 100€ each month in taxes. And that's money that would have been spent on schools and health care probably... This is a viewpoint that has changed for almost everyone I interact with.

And on the free market thingy everything points to the seemingly fact that it's not the absolute wealth of a society that makes it happy, but rather the re-distribution of wealth and relative wealth equality. In our rich western societies at least.

[Zanza]

What does that estimate of 100€/month entail, Threviel?

[Iormlund]

Twenty years back I thought I had a low opinion of my fellow man. Boy was I wrong.

Major milestones on my spiral towards cynicism:

• The general reaction to the Snowden revelations.
• The disastrous handling of the EU debt crisis.
• Working for a major publicly traded company and seeing first hand how it's politics and not the market that drive decisions also in the private sector.
• Brexit and Trump.
• The pandemic.