1. My family has had the greatest influence on my political stances. However, I think this influence comes in the form of a core set of values, and it is left up to me to decide how to apply them. As far as I can tell, I have had no experiences that dramatically shaped my political views that cannot be traced back to either support or opposing evidence of the validity of my core values. Everything so far seems to have been fine-tuning.
2. I feel that my family's cultural background has had the most influence on me of these choices. I don't really feel that our views were really influenced by any cultural traditions, however. By our background, I refer to the places my parents lived and their experiences. They have passed the lessons they learned from their lives down to me, and I don't feel that my experiences have done much to alter the message of these lessons.
3. I think that as an ideal, free healthcare for all Americans is a good goal. It may be too expensive now, but we should work towards it at whatever pace we can without destroying other areas of concern. I think my opinion comes from my core value that all people should be equal. I have been taught to fix what is broken, and as far as I can tell, the current healthcare system is broken. In my view of the world, all legitimate complaints should stop (the system will be fixed) when everyone has access to some kind of sufficient healthcare. Beyond necessities, I am fine with variations in healthcare coverage. If I have read articles about this, I don't conciously remember them, but considering the type of material that I am likely to read without rejecting, any articles were probably for universal healthcare. I know I have heard others discussing this issue, but I probably treated this conversation like the articles, rejecting arguments against my ideal, or at least mitigating them. Anything less than 100% of the population with access to free healthcare in necessary circumstances seems to be a violation of my value of equality, and as long as this is about hypothetical situations, why not go for an ideal of free healthcare for everyone?
