Abortion - always considered myself pro choice but never gave the issue much thought. It wasn’t until I experienced pregnancy and childbirth myself and saw how dangerous it can be and what it does to the body that I became staunchly pro choice and think abortion bans are barbaric

Religion - no longer think that being anti-religion/atheist/agnostic is peak intellectualism

Old houses - used to always insist that new houses are cheesy and soulless and dull and I would never live in a house less than 50 years old…still love old houses but they can be such a PITA and I get the appeal of having a new/newer home where everything just…works

Systemic racism is REAL

Not going to kill myself over being environmentally friendly…I recycle, I don’t litter, and I turn the lights off but reusing zip loc bags, turning the shower water off unless actively rinsing, etc…nah. Doesn’t make that much of a dent compared to the impact of corporations

Used to think the only difference between a good school and a bad school was the students…the good schools simply have higher ses students and the bad schools have poor students with trauma, lack of home support, etc. Then taught at a “bad” school and compared it to my “good” school growing up…the teachers, the admin, the organization and systems and structure all so lacking, it wasn’t JUST that the students came from underprivileged backgrounds

Grammar - used to be so superior and judgy about grammar, now I get annoyed with people who are judgmental about grammar. Between learning disabilities, people whose first language is not English, or just people who don’t know the rules very well…it’s such a dumb thing to be elitist about; as long as I can understand what you’re saying, who cares

Capital punishment - never had strong feelings either way, now am staunchly and completely opposed

Used to be so concerned about not doing “touristy” things while traveling and try my hardest not to make myself seem “American”…now…meh. Obviously I still respect the customs of an area and I won’t be the one to be standing still on the left side of an escalator (to use a DC tourist vs. local reference!) but I *am* an American tourist. If the clunky white sneakers are what make me comfortable during a long day of walking around, I’ll wear them…I couldn’t care less if they scream “American.” I will go to “touristy” things if they interest me; there’s a reason they are popular!

College is not the only path to success and we should be promoting those other options just as much as we do college. Similarly, obsessing over college rankings and acting like going to a top rated college is the only path to success or will be one’s ticket to prosperity, success, a good job, etc. is dumb

I have become very anti-pit bull over the years and also find most pit bull owners super annoying. Pit bull apologists are the worst

I used to think it was better for a couple to have two equal careers and split 50/50. Experience has shown me that is unrealistic and stressful as hell to try.

Life is worth living. I tried to kill myself several times when I was younger, and I couldn’t understand why everyone else wanted to live and not escape the way I wanted. Now I finally see.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Abortion - grew up thinking there was nothing wrong with having one, but now I think it's morally wrong except in the most extreme circumstances like incest rape. I think in many circumstances an abortion is one of the most cruel and selfish things a woman can do.

Public health care - I think all people should have access to medical care and used to think we needed a UK-style NHS, but working with the VA made me seriously rethink the US government's role ability to run a single payer system.

Gay rights - even in my liberal 80s home growing up my parents (like most I knew in the era) didn't think very highly about gay people and I was very late to the game to support gay marriage and adoption. I'm now very grateful we have national marriage equality.

Wow, this is the only abortion position I DONT understand! How is it so bad to force a raped woman to gestate that you would murder a baby to keep it from happening, but it’s okay to do it if she just got pregnant by accident and doesn’t want to gestate? And why is incest in there at all? The fetus doesn’t know or care about rape or incest? I just don’t get this. Like if the incest is consensual, why does that woman get to have an elective abortion but not other women?

+1 I've always been staunchly pro choice. But if you believe that abortion is murdering babies, then why would the circumstances of the pregnancy matter?

PP here to add more. This position seems more like punishment for females you deem as sexually promiscuous. So if it they were raped (incest is almost always sexual abuse/rape), then it's not their fault and they can abort. But if they actually wanted the sex, then we must punish them. That's misogyny.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Abortion - grew up thinking there was nothing wrong with having one, but now I think it's morally wrong except in the most extreme circumstances like incest rape. I think in many circumstances an abortion is one of the most cruel and selfish things a woman can do.

Public health care - I think all people should have access to medical care and used to think we needed a UK-style NHS, but working with the VA made me seriously rethink the US government's role ability to run a single payer system.

Gay rights - even in my liberal 80s home growing up my parents (like most I knew in the era) didn't think very highly about gay people and I was very late to the game to support gay marriage and adoption. I'm now very grateful we have national marriage equality.

Wow, this is the only abortion position I DONT understand! How is it so bad to force a raped woman to gestate that you would murder a baby to keep it from happening, but it’s okay to do it if she just got pregnant by accident and doesn’t want to gestate? And why is incest in there at all? The fetus doesn’t know or care about rape or incest? I just don’t get this. Like if the incest is consensual, why does that woman get to have an elective abortion but not other women?

+1 I've always been staunchly pro choice. But if you believe that abortion is murdering babies, then why would the circumstances of the pregnancy matter?

Anonymous wrote:Homelessness. Working in a field where the issue was adjacent to what we did, I learned a lot about them. The majority of them don't want "help" and "services" which means giving up their freedom and agency or means having to do something in return for shelter. They don't want job training or drug treatment. They don't want to live in a shelter. We should just give people housing and have some rules with it but there is a certain subset of people who are never going to function in society and there is no cure for it and they need to have a bathroom and bed and be able to sit inside during the day (shelters are only a place to sleep so they spend the day outdoors or prefer their tents). We also need to bring back mental institutions and allow families the ability to commit family members. It is a broken, useless system for most people. For those who do want a leg up and the help provided, more power to them! But it's a minority who do.

I agree about mental institutions but I can't imagine how they would be funded and where the work force would come from.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Abortion - grew up thinking there was nothing wrong with having one, but now I think it's morally wrong except in the most extreme circumstances like incest rape. I think in many circumstances an abortion is one of the most cruel and selfish things a woman can do.

Public health care - I think all people should have access to medical care and used to think we needed a UK-style NHS, but working with the VA made me seriously rethink the US government's role ability to run a single payer system.

Gay rights - even in my liberal 80s home growing up my parents (like most I knew in the era) didn't think very highly about gay people and I was very late to the game to support gay marriage and adoption. I'm now very grateful we have national marriage equality.

Wow, this is the only abortion position I DONT understand! How is it so bad to force a raped woman to gestate that you would murder a baby to keep it from happening, but it’s okay to do it if she just got pregnant by accident and doesn’t want to gestate? And why is incest in there at all? The fetus doesn’t know or care about rape or incest? I just don’t get this. Like if the incest is consensual, why does that woman get to have an elective abortion but not other women?

I agree. Life is life and making abortion policy/law based off of very rare examples as opposed to the vast majority of abortions which are basically a means of birth control from consensual sex is ridiculous.

My post got deleted in the mass deletions from before but I changed my mind completely on abortion. Growing up I was staunchly pro life and have flipped 100%. I don’t think there is anything such as a moral abortion and don’t there anything such as an immoral abortion. There is only the decision to end a pregnancy, in consultation with a medical professional. That’s it.

Anonymous wrote:Donald Trump. Will
be voting for him in November.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Abortion - grew up thinking there was nothing wrong with having one, but now I think it's morally wrong except in the most extreme circumstances like incest rape. I think in many circumstances an abortion is one of the most cruel and selfish things a woman can do.

Public health care - I think all people should have access to medical care and used to think we needed a UK-style NHS, but working with the VA made me seriously rethink the US government's role ability to run a single payer system.

Gay rights - even in my liberal 80s home growing up my parents (like most I knew in the era) didn't think very highly about gay people and I was very late to the game to support gay marriage and adoption. I'm now very grateful we have national marriage equality.

Wow, this is the only abortion position I DONT understand! How is it so bad to force a raped woman to gestate that you would murder a baby to keep it from happening, but it’s okay to do it if she just got pregnant by accident and doesn’t want to gestate? And why is incest in there at all? The fetus doesn’t know or care about rape or incest? I just don’t get this. Like if the incest is consensual, why does that woman get to have an elective abortion but not other women?

I agree. Life is life and making abortion policy/law based off of very rare examples as opposed to the vast majority of abortions which are basically a means of birth control from consensual sex is ridiculous.

Donald Trump. Will be voting for him in November.

Anonymous wrote:Abortion - grew up thinking there was nothing wrong with having one, but now I think it's morally wrong except in the most extreme circumstances like incest rape. I think in many circumstances an abortion is one of the most cruel and selfish things a woman can do.

Public health care - I think all people should have access to medical care and used to think we needed a UK-style NHS, but working with the VA made me seriously rethink the US government's role ability to run a single payer system.

Gay rights - even in my liberal 80s home growing up my parents (like most I knew in the era) didn't think very highly about gay people and I was very late to the game to support gay marriage and adoption. I'm now very grateful we have national marriage equality.

Wow, this is the only abortion position I DONT understand! How is it so bad to force a raped woman to gestate that you would murder a baby to keep it from happening, but it’s okay to do it if she just got pregnant by accident and doesn’t want to gestate? And why is incest in there at all? The fetus doesn’t know or care about rape or incest? I just don’t get this. Like if the incest is consensual, why does that woman get to have an elective abortion but not other women?

For so many years I only owned black footwear, but now I pretty much go with brown unless we’re talking about a flip flop or a pair of sneakers.

SAHMs, hands down.

I'm grew up in a minority family/community where it was rare. SAHMs were blasted for being lazy women who didn't want to work.

As I've matured and learned more about the world, I realize I was just seeing really, really bad SAHMs. Women who stayed home not because they wanted to invest deeply in their children and community, but because they felt a paid job was beneath them. Kids were eating poorly, failing out of school, house was never clean, etc. Mom sort of did the bare minimum and popped out another kid if the husband wanted her to go back to work. (Please no flames - this is my personal experience only.)

My 20s and 30s have introduced me to some phenomenal SAHMs! Women who take their jobs as SAHM/COO of the home as seriously as any other job. I see women who put tons of thought and effort into sleep schedules, nutrition, enriching activities, volunteering at schools, and investing in their communities. They run their homes beautifully. Truly, I can't begrudge these women for their choice or for their standing Tuesday tennis match. Let her enjoy the fruits of her labor, I say.

I recognize not every SAHM #2 above, but truly, it was a wonder to see once I did. I personally will always be a WAH/WOHM mother, but I do tip my hat to those women who do it well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Covid vaccination. I've had every shot they recommend, 6 to date and I was very down on people who refused to get the shot in that first year. I wasn't sympathetic to the medical workers and others who got fired for their refusal. Now I am very sympathetic and respect anyone's choice. I still think they are wrong but in the beginning, we were told the shot will keep you from getting the virus and end Covid just as we were able to wipe out polio and so many other diseases with vaccination. I've had Covid twice now and we now know it doesn't work at all to prevent it, but probably makes the symptoms less severe if you do come down with Covid. The many people in my life who never got the shot don't seem to prove that out. Most of them have never had Covid, or maybe only once with symptoms no worse than mine. So yes, I've completely changed my mind about other people's personal choices where at first I blamed them for it not going away.

Your opinion of how well something prevents death or serious illness doesn't make vaccination more or less of a personal choice. Vaccinations aren't a personal choice, it's part of living in society. Grow up.

I changed my mind on vaccines in large part because of attitudes like this. I simply don’t believe that anybody owes anything to “society” just because they happened to be born in a specific place. To be clear, I want everyone to safely and voluntarily participate in vaccines. But you can’t push that on to someone.

I also changed my mind on military service. Went from my experience leading me to believe everyone should serve because of the tremendous benefits (mandatory conscription) to now thinking the draft should be abolished. If the country cannot raise a volunteer military force during time of war then the people are telling you the country is not worth fighting for.

So you also are against measles vaccines? Or just the highly politicized vaccines?

And you do owe society - if you want to live with us and reap the benefits, economically, socially, emotionally, you need to agree to the basic health standards. Are you going to stop using public sewer systems or a zoning approved septic system because you think you don’t owe society a cholera free world? Cmon

I am against all vaccine mandates. To be clear, I want full, voluntary vaccination. But society shouldn’t allocate risk via mandate on the theory that it will benefit the majority at the cost of an extremely small minority.

And nobody owes society their body by virtue of simply being born somewhere.

We accept far more onerous mandates for far less benefit all the time. You’re espousing a view point that turns back progress 100 years. It’s so sad and I’m so sorry people have led you so far astray.

Not that involve one’s body and personal autonomy. In what way have I been led astray?

DP but I think the amount of risk we’ve been able to eliminate from modern life is a luxury that people don’t appreciate because it’s all they know.

You think of vax mandates in the context of covid (which is somewhat infectious and of unclear danger) and think the balance should be in favor personal autonomy and that’s a plausible position.

But those mandates were designed for much more dangerous and infectious diseases like measles and polio, where universal vax is really necessary to avoid epidemics. Measles is crazy infectious and the idea that someone has the right to endanger the entire community because RFK jr told them nonsense is jusf terrible.

If my kid died in a measles epidemic because you decided your bodily autonomy was too important for a measles vax, but you still went out in public I would do whatever I could to make your life as miserable as mine would be.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Covid vaccination. I've had every shot they recommend, 6 to date and I was very down on people who refused to get the shot in that first year. I wasn't sympathetic to the medical workers and others who got fired for their refusal. Now I am very sympathetic and respect anyone's choice. I still think they are wrong but in the beginning, we were told the shot will keep you from getting the virus and end Covid just as we were able to wipe out polio and so many other diseases with vaccination. I've had Covid twice now and we now know it doesn't work at all to prevent it, but probably makes the symptoms less severe if you do come down with Covid. The many people in my life who never got the shot don't seem to prove that out. Most of them have never had Covid, or maybe only once with symptoms no worse than mine. So yes, I've completely changed my mind about other people's personal choices where at first I blamed them for it not going away.

Your opinion of how well something prevents death or serious illness doesn't make vaccination more or less of a personal choice. Vaccinations aren't a personal choice, it's part of living in society. Grow up.

I changed my mind on vaccines in large part because of attitudes like this. I simply don’t believe that anybody owes anything to “society” just because they happened to be born in a specific place. To be clear, I want everyone to safely and voluntarily participate in vaccines. But you can’t push that on to someone.

I also changed my mind on military service. Went from my experience leading me to believe everyone should serve because of the tremendous benefits (mandatory conscription) to now thinking the draft should be abolished. If the country cannot raise a volunteer military force during time of war then the people are telling you the country is not worth fighting for.

So you also are against measles vaccines? Or just the highly politicized vaccines?

And you do owe society - if you want to live with us and reap the benefits, economically, socially, emotionally, you need to agree to the basic health standards. Are you going to stop using public sewer systems or a zoning approved septic system because you think you don’t owe society a cholera free world? Cmon

I am against all vaccine mandates. To be clear, I want full, voluntary vaccination. But society shouldn’t allocate risk via mandate on the theory that it will benefit the majority at the cost of an extremely small minority.

And nobody owes society their body by virtue of simply being born somewhere.

We accept far more onerous mandates for far less benefit all the time. You’re espousing a view point that turns back progress 100 years. It’s so sad and I’m so sorry people have led you so far astray.

Not that involve one’s body and personal autonomy. In what way have I been led astray?