[RawAlex]

Nothing like a discussion where everyone can get on the same well worn soapboxes as always, and bleat the same sheep-ish comments.

However, getting back to DJ's original question:

Each person grows up in a collection of circumstances, many of them beyond their control. They grow up in a conservative area, a liberal area, a communist area, a one party state, a democracy, or any other flavor in between all of those. Some people live in the city all their lives, others have never visited a place with more than a few thousand people living in it.

When you grow up, you learn to either like or dislike the situation you are in. You are exposed to certain "solution sets" by government and your local "environment" and you are able to see them as good or bad in your eyes based on the results.

In the end, I suspect that political leanings have way more to do with what worked and what didn't during key times of your life. I suspect that a large number of USA conservatives on this board, example, were in their formative years during the Reagan era, which was a high water mark for a very pure brand of conservatism. The negatives of that presidency didn't come out until long after the president was gone. So basically the good impressions of "America in Charge" were instilled.

I was born and raised during a very "liberal" time in Canadian History, the first Prime Minister I can really remember is the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who ran Canada on and off over for maybe 15 years. Canada seemed better when he was there, and the conservative governments that got into power in between seemed never to be quite in tune with what Canada really wanted. When the Conservatives under Brian Mulroney (a good friend of Bush sr) caem to power with a huge majority, they did what they felt was right, and were rewarded with the biggest drop off in Canadian history the next time around, going from ruling party to essentially no longer existing, now down to being nothing more than a third ranking party. The liberal party of Canada is pretty much the only national party at this point.

Am I a "victim" of upbringing? Yes, almost without a doubt. I have lived in a place where conservative policies have "failed", and where the Liberal party and it's policies have ruled the roost for a large part of my lifetime. So far, I have yet to see the process or ideas of conservativism put into action in a way that was beneficial for the people overall in the long run. There was always short term benefits, but the costs of those benefits came back to haunt us all later.

I don't intend to "discuss" this back and forth on the board, I think we all know that there are some people here who enjoy nothing more than destroying a discussion with a stupid name calling back and forth that isn't productive for anyone. I just wanted to add my experiences and you can all take them for what it's worth (and some will think they aren't worth much!).

Alex