I had to write a paper on this so voila. For all of you questioning what this all is called, its Political Socialization
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            My
life in politics has been very sheltered. Neither of my parents identifies with
a particular party, but if they were to label themselves, they would consider
themselves more libertarian or republican if it came down to choosing between
the two main parties. I would consider my viewpoints extremely similar to
theirs, identifying myself as a cross between libertarian and republican. My
upbringing and sheltered political life has dictated much of my view on
politics and political issues. 
            Political
issues on the whole are very unimportant to me, but in recent years, their
significance has grown. With the economic collapse and slow recovery, I have
started to pay more attention to the political issues surrounding us today. For
me personally, I feel as if my life will be more affected by economic policies
than social policies. In my eyes, fiscally, my future is more at risk than it
is socially. 
            My
view on government is that each politician has a personal agenda that coincides
with a national agenda. I like to believe that every politician has the
country’s interests at heart, but sometimes may be overridden by their own
personal desires. No human is a perfect being, and politicians are not exempt
from this. Unfortunately, the media has the ability to blow comments, mistakes,
and actions out of proportion to vilify or turn politicians into celebrities.
Because of this, I have tried to shy away from reading, watching, or listening
to anything about political candidates and their personal lives. 
            My
political socialization has been a very unorthodox. My parents and family has
been my most prominent agent, due to living with them for most of my life. They
are at the heart of my lack of political knowledge, for politics do not get
discussed at the dinner table unless one of us kids has a question. However,
indirectly they have influenced us via their actions in certain situations
where it comes to money as well as social issues. My parents are firm believers
in a strong education, regardless of the costs on the family. Grandparents on
both sides of the family, dead and alive, instilled this upon my parents. My
father’s parents were both from well-to-do families who took a very firm stance
on a strong education. My mother’s parents both place a strong emphasis on
education due to their inability to complete theirs until many years after
WWII. This lead to both sides of the family being firm believers that anyone
can do what they want when they put their mind to it and apply themselves. This
in turn, creates their stance on economic issues that are more about freedom
than equality.
            My
education however, was and still is on the other end of the spectrum. In my
early childhood years before high school, I attended a small private day school
in Massachusetts. Many of the teachers originally being from Massachusetts, had
a very strong liberal stance on things. Politics in the later years of Middle
School became a prominent subject as well. In 8th grade we studied
the Massachusetts election and had a debate over which liberal or conservative
policies we believed were better. As I reflect, there was a severe difference
between the amount of conservatives and liberals where the liberals outnumbered
the conservatives 3-1.  In my high
school years, I attended a boarding school in New Hampshire, where the
situation seemed to be opposite to that of earlier years. Again, the teachers
were very liberal, but this time the students seemed to be more on the
conservative side. It was very easy to figure out where students came across
their beliefs. Many of the more affluent, white, Christian students were
conservatives, much like their parents. The liberal students were the less
affluent, minorities (occasionally), and Jewish students, which is not very
different from the way Janda et al write about it. At this age however,
politics became a much more common subject, and occasionally caused friction
between students. This led to me attempting to abandon conversing in it as to
preserve my friendships. 
            Other
methods of socialization have been very scarce in my life. I was not allowed to
watch TV until I was around the age of 12, so I missed out on large portions of
TV for younger children that often have underwritten political issues. My
ability to watch the news as I increased in age declined once I went to
boarding school where the only TV was in the student lounge and often had
Sports Center. I did however, find myself reading more news, but rather than
focus on domestic issues, I found myself reading BBC, due to its ease of access
on my computer and simple navigation. Movies and videogames have been prevalent
in my life, but I never looked at them as any sort of teaching method.  Being a conservative in MA and NH
sometimes worked to my disadvantage when talking politics to friends, so as I
grew older and learned more about the touchiness of the subject, the topic
declined during conversations. 
            I
believe that my parent’s ability to instill the lack of politics in my house
has led to my ability to have room to be able to organize my own ideas on
politics. However, much like them, I have very little interest in following it
due to the nature of conflict it brings about. If a conversation does arise and
I am required to talk about it, I have learned that reading up on subjects is
often in my best interest, and if I am uninformed of a topic, I would prefer
not to talk about it rather than spew secondhand information. 
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