[Carrie]

Of course how you are raised and what your parents' political affiliations are is going to be a huge factor, but I think the biggest factor in determining someone's political beliefs is experience.

In my experience, sitting in a class talking about the wonders of welfare, free health care, and poor people is quite different than being in the trenches actually counseling those people from week to week and seeing how they do their damndest to use and abuse the system.

Being "poor" and turning around one day to find that you're "comfortable" is an eye-opener as well, especially when you take a look at your check and see how much of it is being ripped away from you to pay for those same system abusers you were counseling a couple of years before.

Experience is what you gain as you grow older, which is why *I* think that most people grow more conservative as they grow older. They lose the ideallic dream of how good society could be "if only"... and experience the truth of how the majority of people are lazy and will cheat at the slightest opportunity, exploit something until it's gone all just for a handout that they don't have to work for.

You start seeing how the people busting their asses day in and day out are being punished, while the people sitting back collecting your tax dollars that you worked for are being rewarded more and more for their refusal to get off of their duffs and take responsibility for themselves.