What inspired you to register for the DU forums?

Brazenly copied from a different thread I started, and I must give props to Orleans for asking me this question.

Anyway, the title says it all. My answer (copied from the other thread):

I started reading DU and the forums are Coservative Idiots #3 (was linked from another poster in another forum), but I never felt a need to post--I just read my favorite thread starters.

However, I registered on Oct. 31st when a post in LBN brough up a fatal shooting in Rockville, MD. The shooter was an off-duty cop who chased a teenager down, and made him crash into the side of a store. The cop then ran over, threw open the door of the kid's vehicle and fired into it multiple times, killing the teenager.

The killing happened next to my gym, and my wife and I came out of the door just as the police started containing the situation. We saw the body. We saw the off duty officer sitting in the back of a patrol car. We saw the yellow tape come out.

Unfortunately, by the time my registration was vetted the story had passed from LBN, and I never got to comment on it.

At that point I decided I might as well become a member of the community.

I stumbled across DU in late 2004...

I was looking for someplace where I could find friendship, and like-minded folks...

I didn't fully understand how a message board worked, but after I joined, I discovered how to use the smilies and how to post and all that...

I was very new to computing, and coming here was a revelation!

I spend about a month in the political forums, and then I decided to investigate the Lounge...

The rest is history...

I have grown as a person, and have made many friends who are now real life friends!

:hi:

I was raised in a republican household, but politics never factored much into my family.. My parents were both repubs, but my dad voted for Carter. He then voted for Reagan (twice) and has been a straight Repub since. I think it is mainly for financial reasons. You see, both my parents are pro-choice and very open (pops a doctor.. mom.. she's a stepford-free spirit, if there is such a thing). I was happy to see bush defeat Gore in '00, because I grew up in semi-rural KS and that was the way things were. Not until after the '04 elections (I was a naive frosh in college who got swept up in the swift boat crowd... my apologies)... but by 2006 I was fed up. I'd say that the defining moment in my political mantra, so to speak, was Bush's veto of stem cell research. I had studied up on it a lot, and it really angered me that Dubya vetoed something that could save millions. I heard Obama's speech at the '04 convention (on tv), and it intrigued me... Around '06, I started hanging out with some of the alt crowd... and their philosophies diffused into me (Nietsche, Chomsky, Thoreau-- all Gods). In the fall of '06, I was wrongfully arrested and imprisoned for getting into a 15 second scuffle in a McDonald's parking lot (literally no longer than that, and not a single punch thrown). That really jarred me; I realized that if they could arrest an upscale white guy for no reason, then America was fucked. My hatred for authority, Bush, Christianity grew those seemingly infinite hours, and I became a lefty after that. I heard Obama's speech after the Iowa caucuses, and found my candidate. I started looking for left-leaning websites and came across this. It was another month or so until I started posting. So that in a nutshell is my story. thanks for asking. :)

I can honestly say my family has been Dem since I was born and straight through the generations I've known. Interesting to see what causes the awakenings for people who don't come from that background.

actually I came across it on buzzflash and lurked a while, and then joined. I was a GD'er and an R/T forum poster for a while

then teh lounge caught my eye for many reasons it seemed like the place to be

some place where there were sex threads and online sex parties...

wait, that wasn't here

uhm... I just came to like it

:rofl:

When he swiped the presidency for the first time, I began poking around the Democratic sections of the internet. DU was one of these sites. I was lurking here so much that I decided I might as well sign up.

That was back in 2003 under a different screen name. It's hard to believe I've been posting on this site for five years.

Somebody on Mothering.com occasionally posted links to DU on the politics section there, which is how I found DU.

One day I noticed something- there were real live actual vegans on that thar website! At the time there I didn't know any vegans locally except for my son, who was three and not much of a conversationalist. I figured, if nothing else, signing up might score me a few friends with a similar perspective, or at least some adult conversation.

I had no idea. :rofl:

(i just popped on here for a break--apparently i've been here for over a half hour now. my god, time flies around here)

there have been threads in the past asking how we found DU and from what i remember i think i saw a link from democrats.com or something.

it was late nov. of 2004. i was miserable, as were millions. i was crying every day. i was angry/furious/brokenhearted.

i don't think i was posting anywhere before DU. but i needed to vent. i needed to finally say something to complete/total strangers.

it was a relief. it was like coming home.

It's nice to be in a forum with like minded people (i was on my local newpaper forums for a while, but got tired of continuosly beating back the rednecks and right wing zealots)

I've just never posted in one of those threads, for some reason.

Also, I think one of the great things the internet has given us is the ability to find virtual communities for those with common bonds.

i know what you mean and i agree.

Back home, in whatever city I lived in, I had friends who I could hang out with and bitch about politics over beer or coffee or whatever, and I didn't want to lose that moving over here. I'd read the site for some time before then.... I probably just started reading it more when I moved to Europe, but actually had to register when I saw someone post something that made my blood boil, but I can't actually remember if there was one particular thing. Also, this website (at least it was in the past) seems to be the most open and left wing (that is, generally leftist, and not just Dem party loyalists, no matter what) than similar websites, while not being nothing up dread-locked high-ons blogging about their coming anarchist revolution, from a ski lodge, while on a vacation with their banker parents.

this other site was kind of an experiment, where people were allowed to post WHATEVER they wanted to, as long as it was legal. I.E., no child porn, no werez, ect. But anything else goes. And there was one poster who was always posting interesting progressive stuff, much of it from here.

So I found the site through him, and I don't remember if I registered then, or if I just found the site and then forgot about it.

Either way, my last roommate is The Animator here on DU, and he was always showing me stuff from here. So that's how I found it again. I don't remember if I just remembered my screenname and started logging in, or if I hadn't signed up the last time I found it and signed up then, but either way, that's how I got here.

Nothin' too fancy. But when you go in certain circles, you're bound to run into other people who share your interests.

*edit* Just looked at my profile and his, and he joined before me. So I didn't join until I found the site the second time. :)

I joined up once and hardly ever posted. I forgot my password eventually, so had to reregister. I jumped into the Lounge one night and never looked back.

Astrology, Spirituality & Alternative Healing (I think it was that forum). I lurked for awhile, then decided I would join. Simple and boring.

She also gave me,unintentionally, my screen name!

The three of us had been in an almost constant state of political discussion after the Spoiled Election of 2000. I lurked for a while but registered when I couldn't help but make a post about accusations that Richard Perle was a war profiteer. My argument was that the whole point of undeclared war was to get around laws against war profiteering.

when I did a Google search for Howard Dean back in 2003..I lurked for awhile and then joined in 2004.

I left DKos but not as part of the big boycott or anything, just too many petty hostilities. I also hated the fact that it had turned into a high school-ish popularity contest and I wasn't fond of those back when I WAS in HS.

The popularity thing exists in some forums here, but what keeps me coming back are places such as this forum. I've come to like the DU Lounge Lizards and the selling point of the entire board for me has been the civility of the people who come here.

The other day I got into a posting debate with a guy (who I won't name) and initially he got ugly. On DK that would have been the end of it. (can't change posts there and few apologize) But I got a PM within moments with an apology and a 'toast.' It was a wonderful gesture and now I enjoy meeting up this poster.

I think manners matter and they seem to on this board. Yeah, yeah, some are unmannered for effect but that's part of the fun.

:shrug:

my son being stop lossed. I needed comfort from the freeper storms on other political websites. :(

Those were mean days.

told me about this site that has people complaining about Bush and the Repubs


so I went searching for it, found it and read and lurked for ever....

Finally I felt brave enough to post and I did....

eventually I tried LBN and GD but my threads sank faster than

a lead balloon


thats it

boring story


lost

Back in my freeper days. I wanted to see what the other side was up to. I didn't care what kind of username I had, so I used the brand name of the computer monitor I was using at the time.

Over time I started to see how wrong the right was. This was partly due to what I've read on DU, and partly (mostly) because of the actions of the GOP in the last several years. Made me wonder why I ever leaned that direction. I've always been a pro-gay atheist, so why was I a freeper? I guess the geographical imperatives were so strong. I'm in a very red state, and I've gotten to the point where I cannot talk politics because almost no one shares my views, including my wife.

mainly the Top 10, but after the 2004 election, I was convinced we'd been duped for a number of reasons, and when I started researching I found a lot of good information here, so signed up.

Kidding. I found it via a link from Buzzflash, I think. I lurked for quite some time before I signed up.

Now, you're stuck with me.

Mwahahahaha!

Finally came up with a name I thought was cool enough to be known as and joined up. Actually I lurked for a few years, saw something I just had to respond to on GDP, signed up and haven't even looked at GDP since. The people I want to hang out with are right here in the lounge.

so I signed up and responded

:D

I was at there after (click here) http://www.mafster.co.uk/space/files/audio/LOM2Murderer.mp3
was thrust upon the nation by some activist judges. I needed to find like minded people to converse with since no one seemed as outraged as I was. Still in full outraged after all these years- There you go Paul Simon we need a remake.
Cheers!

9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11.

I owe him that at least. I heard about DU from an acquaintance and, out of curiosity, checked it out. But I might not have if, say, Gore was president.