Do you think your current outlook, political or otherwise will change significantly with age?

I’m sure they will, if for no other reason than I’ve watched them evolve to this point, but the core concepts I don’t feel are likely to change. They have been pretty ingrained and resistant to this point, though I’m always on the look out for new and interesting concepts and I do try to keep something of an open mind so you never know.

I think it was Churchill that said, “if youre not liberal by the time youre 20, you have no heart. If youre not conservative by the time youre 40, you have no brain.”

Yes, As you grow up your opinions will start to sway. New situations will arise and positions will change all around. I used to think I was a Republican, but now i see that i dont have a political affiliation.

I mean, the KKK was first made of Democrats… Now we ask, what is Obama?

I won’t say never, because one thing of learned in my life so far is that it is sheer hubris to imagine that we know what we will think in twenty years. That said, I expect some change, but like @wonderingwhy, I think my core values will remain. I have come to where I am politically and otherwise through a process of examination of myself and the world around me. I don’t think anything like I did when I was 20 (I was a conservative then), but I think that I’ve found a more authentic viewpoint for myself that better reflects my values and the world I live in, so I expect it is a bit more permanent. Plus I’m getting old enough that change happens much slower now.

@chris6137 well Churchill will always be an enigma, his brain and his heart were often at war.

@Shield_of_Achilles i think contemporary American politics is worst than the KKK, at least the KKK had principles, at least they had an ideology, granted a pretty rabid one, other than greed.

Yes. I keep moving further and further from the so called right. I’m not even a part of that paradigm anymore.

@mammal Very true. I was just trying to point out how vast the changes in American politics can be.

My political views have not changed much since I reached adulthood.

Yes, probably get more passionate about my views with age (though less active!). That’s been my trend. But then, I can always blame it on world affairs and just my reaction to it :)

@mammal

Couldnt the same be said for both the republicans and democrats?

@chris6137 with regards to what?

It hasn’t; I’ve been a lefty since I was in utero. The only thing that changed was how angry I was from 2000–2009; my husband could barely stand to hear my rants.

@janbb the skill is to try and keep the rants varied, engaging and humorous.

Age? Absolutely not.
Knowledge? Perhaps.

I am certain that I will not change my opinion on social issues.
My opinion on economic issues? About bureaucracy? about all of the rest of shat shit? Who knows, maybe if I understand it more, my opinion will change.

Strangely I seem to have moved further left as I age, it seems that most people tend to move right. There are a few issues, like firearms rights, that I will not budge on.

If my outlook changes, I hope it’s for the right reasons. Learning something I didn’t know before, or finding a new source of empathy.

Not because, for example, I’ll have more money than I do now and I want a political outlook that justifies my greed.

It depends. I do not think my opinions on social issues will change. At least, the social issues that I am most passionate about. Seeing as how I’m still going to be gay when I’m 50, I don’t think I’m going to suddenly oppose gay marriage because it’s the “mature conservative view” to have. Seeing as how I wouldn’t want my kids to be drafted, I don’t think I’m going to suddenly stop being vehemently opposed to the draft. My parents are liberal and they’re in their 50s; they were like that when they were teens too.

Perhaps my opinions on technology, economics, and such may change, but I doubt the issues I feel most strongly about will.

As I expressed in another question, there are few I’m concerned about because I fear they will change. I’m very actively opposed to ageism in regards to teenagers and I worry that when I grow up, I will cease to care about it and turn into another cliched “kids these days” adult, like all adults since the dawn of time.

I don’t think my opinions about corporal punishment will change. If my parents didn’t use it, then why couldn’t I? Additionally, my mom was opposed to it since she was a teen and is still opposed to it today.

I kind of want to save this response and look back on it in 30 years or so.

My interests and general ‘life aspirations’ change every 3–6 months. Seems quite normal to me.

Nope!

They have been kicked and punched and probed so often and regularly by me.

And offered out to others to do the same. Without being dented.
But I do still maintain a the opportunity of being convinced otherwise.

I started out as a raving liberal convinced that Bush was deadset on declaring martial law and rounding up all us peaceful folks and putting us in deathcamps. Then I turned 17 and became relatively conservative. Now, at 20, I’m more or less an individualist libertarian/anti-authoritarian that believes that my right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins and vice versa.

In summation, I am:
pro gay rights
pro women’s rights
pro choice
pro gun ownership
pro military
pro free-ish market
secular (but I’m not going to stomp on religious people’s rights)
...basically a “do what thou wilt” mentality and I don’t think I’ll change from here, but who knows?

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard There’s hardly a hairsbreadth difference in our views. It just took me 33 years longer to get there. +GA

@stranger_in_a_strange_land
You know what they say about great minds… ;-)

I don’t think I will change too much, but you never know. I would be willing to change my party affiliation depending on how the parties change.

@Shield_of_Achilles as an aside to your comment, a friend of mine down here in the midsouth says that the racist southerners are still democrats.

I don’t think that I will change what I believe in too radically but I’m pretty sure that I won’t always hold the belief that we can still fix things.

@benjaminlevi KEEP HOLD!!

Churchill was right, @chris6137. By the time I was approaching forty, I had learned that the Civil Service Regulations, onerous and even downright peculiar some of them were, served a very important part of governance. At the same time I came to realize that these regulations were crafted by people very like me and my peers. Conservatism, I think, comes when you learn that one’s influence on the environment – physical, social, etc. – is greater than you think and very different from what you imagined when you were twenty.

@lloydbird amen to that

I’ve been a caring, cynical, liberal, curmudgeon for my entire adult life. I don’t see it changing much.