Rather than ask why, I want to ask how. How were you able to reach your present set of political opinions? Did you hold others values before? If so what made you change?

On my side, I started as (almost) a hardcore separatist (I am originally from Quebec) and socialist. The two (almost) inevitably go hand-in-hand; for 55 years successive governments have filled up the void left by the clergy, which had "moral authority" over most of the French speakers after the Treaty of Paris in 1763 (New France became New England). I remember wanting to protest at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City to protest this (supposed) neoliberal agenda that would "destroy" "our" "public" services.

But thanks to excellent professors, I started to see the light of day. With economics I was able to see that government is the problem rather than the solution. I learned about the benefits of free trade and how so-called sweat shops are actually a blessing for those who work there. Just like our ancestries, their only other options are prostitution, starvation, begging or back-breaking agriculture. And since these businesses offer very generous salaries (compared to local businesses) it is an excellent opportunity for them to improve their situation.

I also read a lot of classical authors like Adam Smith, Frédéric Bastiat, Jean-Baptiste Say and all those geniuses who saw that the human mind (and therefore the betterment of all humans) was best left alone - laissez-faire. From that day one I have become a "hardcore" libertarian whose goal is to awaken people's minds about the evils of government intervention in our lives, as those great minds of the past did for me.

However, I now consider myself more of a "philosophical anarchist" - I agree with the principles of anarchy (no ruler, NOT "no rules") but have a hard time imagining they would function totally in real life. I would therefore agree to ANY step towards reducing the scope and size of government. To those who wonder "who will build the roads", know that this question would have been "who will pick up cotton without slaves." The answer: people will find a way. We can see it all around: air bnb has answered a need to get more affordable short-term renting; Uber has answered a need  to get cheaper rides; Amazon has answered a need to have goods delivered to your house promptly and cheaply, etc. And all these members of the "sharing economy" have internal mechanisms that, while still imperfect, are good enough (and ever-improving) to help improve the user experience.

Finally, as for the separation part: When I realized that 1) the "anglo bastard" do not "hate" us and 2) that this project was merely a transfer of the whip rather than an operation of liberation like the US war of independence, I abandoned the project. 

So, how did you political ideas formed?

Living in a Conservative Catholic home, I was raised as a neoconservative. I used to think Obama was a Muslim, and the world is better when America get's involved militarily, like Iraq and Afghanistan. I used to think gays would be one of the downfalls of America and other garbage like that.

About two years ago, I read an article on reason.org about Libertarianism, I was really interested with the subject, and eventually became a Libertarian. I also watched videos on Youtube about Ron Paul, Gary Johnson and Murray Rothbard.

I am realistically a member of the Libertarian Party, but at heart I'm a anarcho-capitalist.

janus :
FalcoDude :

I like the Libertarian part, since I'm more libertarian than anything, but we need government.  And to answer Janus's who will build the roads? Sure, people will build cow paths between small communities.  Who's putting satellites up for internet?  Who's enforcing property rights, circulating currency, or providing water and other public goods.

Who's going to pay for police?  Who's going to pay for firefighters, or art, or music, or welfare for the poor?

I don't think those things exist in anarchy and, sure, those people die off, but is that for the betterment of our culture?

Anyway, I'm from a middle class house, I was in the military, I traveled, and I learned that there are so many people, opinions, cultures, and belief systems, there's no possible way of a democracy having "a majority rule with respect to the minority."  

And because there are so many different people out there, I let everyone make their own decisions.
I'm a libertarian.

So, how I came to have the political opinions that I do and not what exactly they are?

Well, I used to allow myself to be ruled by emotion a lot more than I do now. I would react emotionally to just about any situation and view it via that emotion rather than distancing myself from the issue and looking at it in a rational and separated way.

Now when I look at issues (especially political ones) I take the emotion out of the situation and view it from a purely best results sort of view point. That's why my political opinions have changed. I no longer allow the emotions of myself or others to sway my political stances. I understand that if my family were in such and such a situation I might feel differently but taht is the point. My feelings shouldn't change what is best for the most people. And what is best for the most people isn't always the best for a minority of them but that doesn't mean that the right course of action is always going to help everyone.

geeogree : Aren't we all at a younger age? Since our reasoning isn't fully developed we react rather than think. Some never grow up out of it and become self-proclaimed social justice warrior. Or member of the NDP.

Granted, even by using reasoning one is bound to emotions. I usually want to universe-palm when I see... fools advocating for economic fallacies like public work or restricting foreign trade.

janus : pretty much.

I also hate the idea that when something negative happens that we must "do something" about it. Just because someone got hurt or died doesn't mean that the way things run currently is bad. Obviously it might be but just because something happened doesn't mean we need to start legislating some rule that there is little to no evidence will actually do anything.

This going to be interesting considering how people from the US typically seem to feel about this but here goes...

Well I come from a working class family, while not everyone in my family is super vocal about it and have never pushed their opinions on me (which I'm thankful for) most or at least my mom and my brothers have all voted for the social democratjc party and while they may not completely agree with our social democrat party anymore it's something that's still very much reflected in their beliefs.

I've grown to not like the idea of political labels much or labels in general as I feel it dumbs things down and creates sort of we vs them thing most of the time halts progress in a discussion. I'd say my political opinions or at least when I started thinking about them, have more largely been influenced by the internet, school (in particular my 7th - 9th grade social studies teacher) and just my environment in general. As those two things are largely what made me develop an interest in social studies and politics in general and made me think about it more. 

If I had to label myself I would say I'm somewhat a right wing social democrat, (right wing as in still wanting to keep a capitalist economy, while left wing social democrats essentially intend on getting rid of it through gradual reforms). This despite for the most part disagreeing with the way our social democrat party handles things (another reason I don't like the labelling). The core reason for that is because I live in a town with a lot of immigrants and the government has not handled the immigrant situation here in the best way. As such there is a lot of segregation with some parts of the city I'm in consisting mostly of ethnical swedes while others mostly consist of people with immigrant background. While I'm not poor I do not come from a rich family either with my family essentially consisting entirely of working class people and I live in a part of the city inhabited by a lot of immigrans. As such I have gone to school with people from all backgrounds in particular many muslims even being half arab myself even if I've never seriously considered myself being much of one.

I fee as it is today our society is very much rigged so while success is not impossible to be achieved by people of a lower social standing, they don't really have the same kind of chances people from the upper social classes do. This is also a big reason along with the internet that I'm a big advocate for religious freedom and freedom of expression, and why I'm very much against racism and islamophobia (the last one in particular because of how present it is in the western world) seeing people of all kinds of backgrounds interact with eachother. (though arguably those last mentioned causes have sometimes been advocated in the wrong way, I still agree with the principle). I feel this more apparent as I've gone to several schools in my vicinity (mostly consisting of students who have immigrant parents) and now go to a school far away from where I live mostly consisting of ethnical swedes. It essentially feels like two different worlds.

I've grown the belief that society and government has a responsibility to adress this social inequality and this is largely why I define myself as a socialist or social democrat as it is a cause that has historically and still is very much championed by social democrats while the other things I mentioned have become issues that play a big part of social democracy in more recent times. Now while I don't think inequality can be entirely gotten rid of, I do think it's a problem that needs to be continiously combatted.

What made me identify as a social democrat in particular is in large part many of the advocates of the ideology in the past, one of my political role models being Olof Palme (if you don't know about him you should read up on him) that also made me look more closely into the definition. For all the problems I have with the way our government has started to handling this and going about doing these things. I do agree with the ideals and I think retaining the swedish model (as it is often called by the outside world) and a right wing social democratic system of government with all the causes the ideology typically stands for should be what to strive for. This while not the only reason is essentially the core reason I identify as a socialist and a social democrat.