Quote:
Originally posted by Shawnski@Sep 2 2005, 05:57 PM
When you are young, or old, you will tend to be more liberal or even socialist in your ideologies. It is human nature. "Help me" is the theme as many in these areas find costs of housing, lack of income and in the cases of students, tuition, to be areas that put significant pressure on their day to day lives. You are the Liberal or NDP voters.
When you become middle aged, and are in your prime earning years, you now feel that the price you are paid for education and on the job experience you have gained should garner you the rewards of your personal investment. You are now a conservative, unless you have chosen a path whereby you are in a career line that is typically labour related, and you determine that regardless of your enhancement of the company you work within, your tenure is more important, whereby seniority is key. You are the NDP voter. For the most part, you have, or will soon, reach your limit, and thus are protectionist of your position. Your only ability to get a higher wage is to push COLA arguments (and job security issues) when you renegotiate company contracts.
Now, for the students out there that make up a HUGE part of this community, you tend to fall into that Liberal/NDP side due to your current circumstances. And who is teaching you? Professors in college/university? Who are THEY? If they were the best in the field, would they not be working for private enterprise for the highest dollar? If they are teaching you economics for say $65K per year, why are they not working in the private industry and making say $150K per year? Or profs that are "experts" in marketing in the similar situation. Or every other prof out there. "Home town discount"? "Teaching for the love of it"? Nada, they are where they are. A few do so because they choose to, the rest do so because that is all they can do.
Seems like many students live and die by what their profs can sometimes brainwash them with, and their personal opinions reflect that UNTIL they actually go out into the real world for a few years, or even a decade or so. THEN all of a sudden, their viewpoint changes. You are now making it, and the taxation target for those that are not.
I have seen the "believe in prof" mentality here quite frequently, and I know over time that those viewpoints will change with your maturation in life. As it will likely change back as you get into your retirement years, especially if you have not succeeded in the middle years as you could have. Been there, done that.
For those younger in life, question all, be passionate in setting your goals and do everything in your power to achieve them. Never stop that cycle. Your ability to become successful will increase astronomically, as will your willingness to give back to community as you see fit, and will be able to do.
When you apply that to Alberta, as if it were you personally, you would understand the backlash about others whom say that we Albertans HAVE to give more. We are in the middle age here. Just starting to be able to get things in order, no longer having to give up luxuries like proper schooling, hospitals, efficient transportation etc like we have over the last decade or more.
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Uhm, when I was a student I was (and often am currently) an NDP voter. Not because I wanted the government to pay my way - I worked two jobs to pay my expenses and borrowed my tuition. That's what the right often assumes. People are leftists because they want the government to give them something. That's completely false reasoning. I make a good sum of money each year and want a government that would take that money and put it to good use for OTHERS. That was certainly the case when I was a student. I was in various environmental groups and human rights causes that I would have liked to have seen addressed. I think students are predominantly NDP/Liberal voters because they are idealistic.
As you get older, you lose those ideals and get caught up with family, a mortgage, a deep desire to have a big screen TV, a better car than your neighbor and you forget all about being a good person and get caught up in ME, ME, ME!! I WANT MORE FOR ME!!!
I don't know what you consider middle-aged, or prime-earning years. I'm just over 30, but I'm making more than I ever expected to at this age. I'll be making 6 figures by the time I'm 40. But I worked VERY hard to get where I am. I put in a lot of hours (most unpaid) and finished a lot of projects on time and on cost. And I'm NOT one that says "I want to be rewarded for my personal investment". I'm one that says "I'm damn lucky to make the money that I do, and I'd like to see that money go to people that need it." I am NOT a conservative and never will be. And I know a lot of people much older than I that think the same way. I've gone knocking door-to-door for the NDP and it's not students that are there volunteering. It's people of all ages. And while it may be true that unions are pro-NDP in the Hamilton area, the gains that were made in the Maritimes, Ottawa and Toronto were NOT from union voters, but from a wide variety of people from various employment backgrounds.
As for the professors in college not being the best in their field, being a computer scientist, I've met some brilliant CS professors that taught me a lot. Why are they not making huge bucks in private industry? BECAUSE THEY ENJOY TEACHING!!!! You toss that off as ridiculous, but I know many people who went into teaching because they love doing it. And they know they are sacrificing money to do it, but they wouldn't have it any other way. They didn't put money as the number one thing in their lives. Which you seem to suggest is the way for all humanity. MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! GREED IS GOOD! My brother has been a professor at St. Mary's university and let me tell you, he's one HELL of a lot smarter than I am when it comes to computers - yet, I'm the one making the big bucks. Believe it or not, some people don't have monetary gain as their prime goal in life.
BTW - you don't get brainwashed by CS professors. To assume that those on the left were mislead by university professors and didn't come up with their opinions on their own, while the right definitely forged their own opinion rather than blindly accepting whatever the Byfields say in the Calgary Sun is ridiculous.
If you apply this to Alberta and Ontario. I'm they guy in the middle of his career, making decent money that WANTS TO HELP OTHER PEOPLE because he can afford it and genuinely cares about other people.