I am a third year architecture student at the University of Texas. Though I have lived in Austin for 3 years, I was born and raised in the panhandle of Texas. This ultra conservative background has done a lot for shaping my political ideology. However, other significant factors have entered my life since moving to this great city that has caused me to readjust and reflect on my true core political values. Firstly, two members of my family have become extremely involved in the political landscape on both a state and national level. My father, a newly converted Democrat, has headed a national organization for farmers and become increasingly involved with lobbying for farm bills and farm practices on both national and state levels. My sister on the other hand is a to the core Republican and works for a law firm that deals exclusively with Congressional hearings in Washington DC. These two vastly differing opinions and out-takes on the political world has greatly impacted my views on politics. Instead of truly taking a staunch stance on either political field, I find my views landing in a moderate position. According to my political ideology survey, I am a steady upbeat, finding contentedness in the business, governmental, and economic situations of the United States. I won’t say that there aren’t things the United States couldn’t improve on or fix entirely, but for the most part, we are an extremely fortunate country. Other things that have greatly impacted my political ideology are the poverty I encountered when I moved to the city, the crime rate, the reality of guns on campus, the vast need for more environmentalism, etc. It was easy to label myself as a conservative when I lived in an environment free from the hard topics that most people face on a day-to-day basis. In small towns, for the most part, everyone lived on an even playing field of economic prosperity. Crime was low except for the occasional drug bust. Guns were a hobby for hunting not anything to be feared. Farming was a way of life so to question its environmentalism was to question thousands of peoples’ livelihoods. However, since moving to the city, these simple topics have taken on a magnitude that was unfathomable three years ago when I initially moved here. Many of these topics still are questions and uncertain not only to me, but to thousands of people, and the focus of many political debates. From this class, I hope to create a better understanding of these topics and more that plague the nation as I expand my own political ideology.
