Personal Political Attitudes

The purpose of this research is to examine political attitudes in light of the chapter on public opinion in Wilson and Dilulio's American Government. The plan of the research will be to set forth the background and context in which personal political attitudes have emerged, and then to discuss being a liberal versus being a conservative, the areas of life that have influenced formation of these attitudes, and the degree to which ideology has influenced political thinking.

It is somewhat ironic that certain immigrants are asked to declare one's personal political attitudes in light of a discussion of the role of public opinion in America. That is because I grew up in the Soviet Union while the Cold War was in force. As Armenian, I had a certain second-class status, both formally and informally. In 1987 my parents and I emigrated to the U.S. This was before the fall of the Soviet system. And thus America, where public opinion is a natural part of political culture, was vastly different from Armenia. There, political culture was independent of public opinion.

According to the chart on page 133 of American Government, my views are mainly liberal. This does not mean that I agree fully with every little detail of liberal beliefs. For example, consider the issue of aid to Russia: It should be increased only if the Russian government guarantees the rights of the people. As someone who grew up under a Russian government that did not guarantee these rights, I consider it very important

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tes in the country. But in the U.S., this tension comes out in individual and group relations. It is not a matter of government policies of discrimination against all who are not white. Compare this to the USSR, where Russians were given preference over all other ethnic groups. That is partly why ethnic areas broke off from the USSR after the fall of communism. In other words, the role of the government should not be to give preference but rather to guarantee equality. That is consistent with the liberal preference for government's role in equality, for "strong federal action to desegregate schools, to increase hiring opportunities . . . and to enforce civil rights laws strictly" (135). In other words, government should include, not exclude. That is a big difference between the U.S. and USSR official policies. Along the same lines, government should not impose itself on individual lives. In the Soviet Union, government regulation of individual thought, job choice, and so on was intense. In the U.S., there is not this regulation. On the other hand, according to Wilson and Dilulio, conservatives want government to regulate very personal behavior, such as abortion choice or sexuality. This kind of regulation seems to go against the v

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