[quote=@Kratesis] The parallels here are uncanny. I became political during the Bush years as well and also came from a conservative background. But I became your typical 'college liberal' though that meant something different back in those days. There was a lot less blue hair and Tumblr didn't even exist. I was strongly opposed to the religious right, which had just swept Bush to power a second time. Most of my political activities during that time was largely oriented around fighting for gay marriage. (Victory!) I can't say that I even moved right. I still support all the things I supported when I was young. I just happen to believe in a number of conservative moral and economical principles as well. Somewhere during all of this I encountered a libertarian who became a mentor of mine and convinced me of the truth of a number of the libertarian positions. The recession had a tremendous effect on me and I re-thought a number of my positions and took a much closer look at both globalization and immigration (which I had previously seen as purely a force for good) as well as automation. In some ways I became more liberal (for example I support universal basic income) but in others I abandoned the purely libertarian position and begin to oppose open borders and free trade agreements (though I don't oppose every open border or every trade agreement). In the end I became the Frankenstein monster of politics, both far left and far right simultaneously lol. Anyway, I shall cut this wall of text short but the parallels were interesting. [/quote] I suppose it'd just be normal for our cohort to be effected primarily by the Bush years. A lot of watershed shit happened then. The Obama years were really not that exciting by comparison. I'm glad to see a general rebellion against global capitalism. I've very concerned this rebellion is nationalistic in nature. It inspires that emotion you get watching a horror movie, where the victim finally smarts up and realizes something is wrong so they start running, and you get all excited for them until they lock themselves in a bedroom with no exit. Or in this case, they lock themselves in the first chapter on a book about what causes World Wars. I need to practice saying "nuclear fire" in a dramatic way. Might just become the Homer of the next civilization.