Young Republicans are Comedy Gold

[rhoenix]

That's not so helpful when the opposing side isn't willing to even consider challenging their own views, which happens to be a significant number of conservatives. Especially when they fall back on the "well okay, you've got some good points but I still think I'm right" routine. It's even more infuriating when they can't or won't bother to actually explain why they think they're correct.

I will freely admit that the approach I posted above only works when the person in question is actually willing to honestly debate about different topics, instead of "lol thuh librul's mad." So far, this has only worked with two Republicans, and both are friends of mine.

In all other cases, I'm constantly amazed how well using their own tactics against them works.

[Darth Wong]

For the most part, young Republicans are from insular suburban neighborhoors and the only political viewpoint that they have been exposed to is that of their parents.

It's easy to assume that hard work and BOOTSTRAPS will help the poor, if you have never had any kind of hardship. Honestly, most of these people don't realize that people can be less well off for reason other than laziness and a lack of effort.

I don't know about young Republicans in America, but I can tell you that factory workers in my experience buy this kind of thinking hook, line, and sinker. They're not all well-to-do suburban kids. Look at Joe the Plumber; he's the archetypal conservative in my experience.

[Stark]

One can simultaneously understand them and look down on them. As I said above, I've spent years working with people who think exactly like this. I can get along with them. I was pretty conservative myself in my youth. The conservative mindset appeals to something we can all understand if we try, because it's primal: its appeal lies with instincts buried in the psyche of every person.

I don't disagree with this at all - dismissing them doesn't mean you're 'missing' anything. But politically I think Axis is saying that it looks bad to simply ignore them rather than trying to 'convert' them or capture them with your political machine.

The problem is that it doesn't go both ways. Conservatives have serious trouble understanding the liberal mindset, which is why conservative caricatures of liberals are so absurd and cartoonish, and not just among whack-a-loons but even among high-level conservatives with large followings.

It's not simply understanding - after all, not all conservatives are stupid - but acceptance of different or 'us vs them' ideas, but again this could be seen as a political thing where these attitudes COULD be changed not by philosophy or ethics but simply by politcal jiggery-pokery. I'm not saying he's right, just trying to understand what he's getting at.

[General Zod]

Well, how do we know if we didn't change their minds? After all, people who are willingly to change their beliefs and opinions doesn't have to scream 'I've changed my beliefs' to everyone. On the other hand, those that doesn't want to change their beliefs usually have the louder voice in my opinions.

If they actually change their minds on something they generally don't hold to the exact same argument several weeks down the road.

[General Zod]

In all other cases, I'm constantly amazed how well using their own tactics against them works.

That won't necessarily get them to change their minds; the vast majority of the time it doesn't. I really only tend to find that approach useful if it's clear they're not willing to honestly debate something and I feel like riling them up.

[Darth Wong]

One can simultaneously understand them and look down on them. As I said above, I've spent years working with people who think exactly like this. I can get along with them. I was pretty conservative myself in my youth. The conservative mindset appeals to something we can all understand if we try, because it's primal: its appeal lies with instincts buried in the psyche of every person.

I don't disagree with this at all - dismissing them doesn't mean you're 'missing' anything. But politically I think Axis is saying that it looks bad to simply ignore them rather than trying to 'convert' them or capture them with your political machine.

Well of course it looks bad. We're not politicians. If we were, we'd have to try to sell ourselves to them like any politician would. Since we're not politicians, we don't worry about that.

Having said that, I do think people need to understand where this mindset comes from. You don't want to fall into the trap of believing that there's no part of you which sympathizes in any way with this thinking. There's a part of you that does; you just need to understand what that part is, and why you have consciously chosen to reject it.

[Instant Sunrise]

What I don't understand is how Reagan is still so highly thought of when his administration had record deficits, Black Monday, Savings and Loan crisis, and left an economic mess in the hands of Bush Sr. The Clinton administration was the only time in the past 30 years when the Federal Government was in the black, we were actually paying off the national debt, and we had an economic boom.

You know, maybe Obama being similar to Bill Clinton isn't that bad after all.

Oh right, tax and spend.

[rhoenix]

In all other cases, I'm constantly amazed how well using their own tactics against them works.

That won't necessarily get them to change their minds; the vast majority of the time it doesn't. I really only tend to find that approach useful if it's clear they're not willing to honestly debate something and I feel like riling them up.

Unfortunately...that's the thing. If I begin to use their own tactics against them, it is a tacit acceptance on my part that any semblance or possibility of real debate is gone, and that they will not change their minds with intellectual debate. And therefore, the whole reason to me to have a debate is gone.

Truthfully, I've only used their dishonest debate tactics a few times, just because of that. It doesn't make me feel better, it won't help them learn anything, and it won't help me learn anything.

[Darth Wong]

The way to flip a conservative is to get him to empathize with some of the people he's marginalizing as bad guys. It really helps to be face to face: over the Internet, these guys are just as stubborn as creationists, but in real-life, I find that they're much easier to talk to than creationists. Even if you can't change their minds, at least you get a sense that some kind of dialogue has taken place. That's not the case with creationists.

Of course, many conservatives are creationists; that particular type of person is almost impossible to talk to and may as well be an AI chatbot for discussion purposes.

[Instant Sunrise]

For the most part, young Republicans are from insular suburban neighborhoors and the only political viewpoint that they have been exposed to is that of their parents.

It's easy to assume that hard work and BOOTSTRAPS will help the poor, if you have never had any kind of hardship. Honestly, most of these people don't realize that people can be less well off for reason other than laziness and a lack of effort.

I don't know about young Republicans in America, but I can tell you that factory workers in my experience buy this kind of thinking hook, line, and sinker. They're not all well-to-do suburban kids. Look at Joe the Plumber; he's the archetypal conservative in my experience.

The other half of this line of thinking is "I'm not rich YET, but I will be. Therefore I should support things which will benefit the rich. Even though this hurts me in the short term, this is actually good because I will eventually be wealthy."

It's a purely selfish line of thinking, it rewards being wealthy, in the form of tax cuts. Howver, it is at the expense of social programs, which are there so that people who are in bad situations can stay on their feet and not DIE.

[Darth Wong]

That is your personal assumption. I've heard it said many times, and I'm still not sure I buy it. None of the factory workers I worked with had any serious expectations of ever becoming rich.

I think that my assessment is more accurate: they analyze problems by looking for bad guys. They have identified the "bad guy" in the economy and they believe it to be the government. This conviction leads them to the conclusion that the bad guy must be fought, even if it costs them something.

Consider this: in a war, we are willing to sacrifice in order to defeat the enemy, right? Or even to merely harm him? They apply the same mentality to all social issues: they are often willing to take actions which may even harm themselves, if they believe it will harm the "enemy" more.

[Instant Sunrise]

There's definitely different reasons for people to support the GOP.

My assessment is probably closer to the mark for the people quoted in the article. However, you've nailed the Religious Right/"THIS IS ARE COUNTRY" conservatives.

It ties into the inexplicable cult of Ronald Reagan. Even if we spent ourselves into a recession, we "won" the Cold War.

[Zixinus]

What's sad, is that this type of thinking is echoed everywhere else: the local "we're-not-facists-honest-we're-nationalist" party, FIDESZ (Yound Demockrat's Party, which is ironic on many levels) has hired american election campaigners.

The FIDESZ now has their own TV channel and mimic the politics of the GOP.

Guess what they want to campaign for? Yeah, you guessed it, tax cuts (or lowering taxes).

What's sad, that these people think themselves as great, honest people and Obama as some sort of devil. He's black after all, so its an easy conclusion for them.

He added, "I feel dirtier now than I ever did as a plumber."

He never was a plumber, now was he?

"I believe Sarah Palin honestly wants to serve her country." But he hasn't made up his mind.

He's joking, right?

[General Zod]

That is your personal assumption. I've heard it said many times, and I'm still not sure I buy it. None of the factory workers I worked with had any serious expectations of ever becoming rich.

I think that my assessment is more accurate: they analyze problems by looking for bad guys. They have identified the "bad guy" in the economy and they believe it to be the government. This conviction leads them to the conclusion that the bad guy must be fought, even if it costs them something.

The sheer frequency I seem to run into tards babbling nonsense about how it's not the government that creates jobs on various news blogs seems to back this up somewhat. They honestly think that trickle-down economics really works, for whatever insane reason. So they want to keep the people they perceive as creating their jobs rolling in money and not beholden to the government, who they probably think is trying to take that away.

[Darth Wong]

The sheer frequency I seem to run into tards babbling nonsense about how it's not the government that creates jobs on various news blogs seems to back this up somewhat. They honestly think that trickle-down economics really works, for whatever insane reason. So they want to keep the people they perceive as creating their jobs rolling in money and not beholden to the government, who they probably think is trying to take that away.

See, that's the trick. They don't know if trickle-down economics really works. That's just a smokescreen for their underlying thought process, which is "identify the bad guy". They are angry at the government because they've heard a lot of bad things about it and because there is natural antipathy toward the entity which collects their taxes. It's a visceral reaction, which they back up with anecdotes about waste and corruption. They've got their bad guy, and then they construct their position around that.

That's why it feels like you're banging your head against a brick wall when you try to argue with them about the merits of trickle-down economics: it's a facade and if you tear it down, they just rebuild it. It's not their real motivation for their position, so you can knock it down a hundred times and they'll just rebuild it. Their visceral gut-level anger at the government is the true cause of their position.

The great genius of the conservative political movement has been to take class-warfare anger between the hard-labour and silver-spoon class and redirect it toward the government. We hear every day about things politicians do wrong. Why don't we hear anywhere near as much news about lavish corporate executive behaviour, or incompetence and corruption by corporate executives and boards of directors? We never hear about it except when it intersects with government spending, as was the case with the TARP money or auto executives asking for bailouts. Even during the height of the financial crisis, the lavish spending of bank executives didn't make the news until they did it with TARP money.

[Axis Kast]

So do fundamentalists. In fact, the two overlap.

Yes. That’s correct. And while you’ve been sitting here ringing bells frantically for eight years and wondering why nobody seems to notice this country going to Hell in a handbasket, the supposedly troglodytic demographic -- all those tens of millions –- that dominates American politics by playing to social issues has … perceived itself as equally “under siege.”

In other words, George Bush rampaged at home and abroad, with two appointments to the Supreme Court and unabashed endorsement of pseudo-science, but conservatives everywhere claimed to feel that their values, their politics, their communities were being increasingly undermined by a “progressive agenda” that competed effectively with the prerogatives of parenthood. Many young people of strong faith and conservative values report that they feel uncomfortable admitting to their personal beliefs, for fear of ostracism – or because they’ve already been curtly informed that they’re “stupid, stupid bigots.” I happen to believe, more than most, that opposition to public homosexuality is motivated by pure bigotry, but I’m smart enough not to begin an argument with, “You’re just a close-minded prick. Would you like to have a few minutes to compose your response?”

Do you want evolutionary psych? Moral politics and language? The simple fact of the matter is that their position is not based on reason.

Every time I have an objection to somebody’s politics, it’s due to a perceived flaw in their reasoning.

You may disagree about the validity of faith in the Almighty, but you can surely put on some tinted glasses and engage a fundamentalist or a conservative on his or her own ground. Why can the Bible be relied upon as the perfect record of God’s instruction for humankind? Are you aware of the provenance of the text? How about the contradictions and significant controversies over simple translation? Was Jesus not a social revolutionary? In my experience, people who dash around throwing balloons full of snooty moral revulsion rarely stop to challenge their political opponents with hard-hitting arguments. Many conservatives who believe the Bible is an enriching source of political inspiration are also keen to stand by the letter of the Constitution. How many times have conservatives reminded you that “this is an essentially Christian country,” pointing to the founders, who clearly favored an unobtrusive form of government.

Except wedge issues. They CANNOT be bargained over.[/i]quote]

“Wedge issue,” preferences and fighting over “lumpy goods” and non-divisible principles, are always ordered in a hierarchy. Certain battles are worth conceding if you can satisfice by acquiring superior values. In other cases, “wedge issues” are matters of perception, and hence changeable. Many of the people opposed to gay pride, etc. haven’t been subjected to the “brute fact” that they’re obviously well-aware of the existence of gays, and the possibility of being gay in today’s world, without any discernable threat to their own sexuality. Those who will insist that homosexuality must be suppressed need to answer tough questions about the correctness of demanding that others suffer in order to achieve fulfillment of their worldview – a very unchristian sentiment.

Lets see... reason doesn't work, friendlyness doesn't work, hostility doesn't work, evidence doesn't work...

I don’t think very much of that has been tried at all.

Consider the “Christmas issue.” People get up in arms partly because they don’t feel they are doing wrong in wishing anybody a Merry Christmas. Tiptoeing around is perceived to destroy holiday spirit generally. In other words, a lot of the negative reaction to “Happy Holidays” derives from the idea that it is a form of social cowardice and bowing to sour grapes, not making space for the relative minority of non-Christians in American society, which many Christians never really encounter. I can’t tell you how many Christian friends are stunned to learn that Jews don’t believe in the Trinity, and don’t celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

Seriously, it is not difficult to understand the conservative mindset, because it is tribal and instinctive.

You’ve described the politics of the happily opinionated, not conservatives. There are plenty of articulate Republicans and very intelligent theologians. They do not boil problems down to the dichotomous or black-and-white fallacies that you’ve just taken the time to list. I’m also having trouble understanding where you get your own view of conservatives. Sure, we’ve all heard of people who think liberals are out to be our mothers, but I’ve never heard anybody seriously make the contention that conservatives think that alcoholism and smoking aren’t serious social problems. Heck, AA apparently involves finding God.

The problem is that it doesn't go both ways. Conservatives have serious trouble understanding the liberal mindset, which is why conservative caricatures of liberals are so absurd and cartoonish, and not just among whack-a-loons but even among high-level conservatives with large followings.

People on this forum are routinely linking Republicans to Nazis. You’re telling me that liberals don’t have serious trouble understanding the conservative mindset?

I think that my assessment is more accurate: they analyze problems by looking for bad guys. They have identified the "bad guy" in the economy and they believe it to be the government. This conviction leads them to the conclusion that the bad guy must be fought, even if it costs them something.

Consider this: in a war, we are willing to sacrifice in order to defeat the enemy, right? Or even to merely harm him? They apply the same mentality to all social issues: they are often willing to take actions which may even harm themselves, if they believe it will harm the "enemy" more.

Everybody looks for “bad guys.” Republicans are quick to jump at “those damn terrorists.” A subset of liberals is quick to point up the failure of the United States to live up to its highfalutin’ rhetoric about human rights. Liberals complain that Republicans throw the baby away with the bathwater when they endorse harsh treatment of detainees. Republicans view human rights watchdog groups as ignorant whimps with tunnel vision: if it’s red, white, and blue, it must be a source of oppression; if it’s red and bleeding, it must be a champion of the people and the victim of wrongful abuse.

Identifying singular bad guys – creation of simple dyads – is a function of limited information – the hallmark of a person whose political knowledge is fed through the television speakers during repetitive five-minute run-downs on all the country’s problems. It’s divorced from context, from history, and from exposure to multiple points of view or theories of analysis. Democrats are just as prone as Republicans.

The core of Republican economics is the idea that the government is really just an inefficient bureaucracy that can’t spend money as effectively as either consumers or business. Federal tax cuts sound supremely appealing to families that suffer from state tolls – it’s a problem of oversimplification. It’s funny, too, that nobody ever seems to square the Republican mistrust of social welfare with the general Christian imperative of social service. Compassion isn’t a territory inhabited only by liberals.

[Darth Wong]

You’ve described the politics of the happily opinionated, not conservatives. There are plenty of articulate Republicans and very intelligent theologians.

Since when do "articulate" and "intelligent" mean that they can't be motivated by primal instincts? You don't seem to have made the slightest effort to understand what I'm actually saying.

People on this forum are routinely linking Republicans to Nazis. You’re telling me that liberals don’t have serious trouble understanding the conservative mindset?

"Linking" is pretty vague, and you know it. You're using that vague term because you know that nobody here seriously thinks modern Republicans are Nazis, never mind national-level political figures saying it. Meanwhile, conservatives honestly think that liberals want to befriend Osama Bin Laden and think murderers should be let off with a slap on the wrist, and they'll say it on national TV. You're desperately trying to create equivalence by fudging the shit out of the situation.

Are you unwilling to admit that conservatives, even at very high levels, routinely create cartoonish caricatures of liberals and seriously promote them as if they are credible?

Everybody looks for “bad guys.” Republicans are quick to jump at “those damn terrorists.” A subset of liberals is quick to point up the failure of the United States to live up to its highfalutin’ rhetoric about human rights. Liberals complain that Republicans throw the baby away with the bathwater when they endorse harsh treatment of detainees. Republicans view human rights watchdog groups as ignorant whimps with tunnel vision: if it’s red, white, and blue, it must be a source of oppression; if it’s red and bleeding, it must be a champion of the people and the victim of wrongful abuse.

You misunderstand. When I say "identify the bad guys", I am talking about identifying an entity which must be harmed in order to solve the problem. Which party do liberals intend to harm by stopping the practice of torture? Nobody will be harmed by this. Which party do liberals intend to harm by advocating due process for detainees? Nobody will be harmed by this. When the conservatives identify "bad guys", they do so with the intention of harming those bad guys in some way, in order to solve the problem.

You are trying to equate both mindsets by simply saying that they both find certain individuals or practices to be bad. That's oversimplifying my point.

Identifying singular bad guys – creation of simple dyads – is a function of limited information – the hallmark of a person whose political knowledge is fed through the television speakers during repetitive five-minute run-downs on all the country’s problems. It’s divorced from context, from history, and from exposure to multiple points of view or theories of analysis. Democrats are just as prone as Republicans.

We were not talking about Democrats vs Republicans. We were talking about liberals vs conservatives. The only liberal politician in America is Ralph Nader.

The core of Republican economics is the idea that the government is really just an inefficient bureaucracy that can’t spend money as effectively as either consumers or business. Federal tax cuts sound supremely appealing to families that suffer from state tolls – it’s a problem of oversimplification. It’s funny, too, that nobody ever seems to square the Republican mistrust of social welfare with the general Christian imperative of social service. Compassion isn’t a territory inhabited only by liberals.

The problem is that conservative compassion is more selective: they want to help others, but they only want to do if they are satisfied that those others are sufficiently "deserving", and they seem to have a longer list of undeserving recipients than liberals do.

[Illuminatus Primus]

For the most part, young Republicans are from insular suburban neighborhoors and the only political viewpoint that they have been exposed to is that of their parents.

It's easy to assume that hard work and BOOTSTRAPS will help the poor, if you have never had any kind of hardship. Honestly, most of these people don't realize that people can be less well off for reason other than laziness and a lack of effort.

I don't know about young Republicans in America, but I can tell you that factory workers in my experience buy this kind of thinking hook, line, and sinker. They're not all well-to-do suburban kids. Look at Joe the Plumber; he's the archetypal conservative in my experience.

Do you think this is partially willful la-la-la I-can't-hear-you disregard and refusal to accept how much their lot in life is out of their control, or how vulnerable (more in the American case) their personal and economic and familial security is? And how powerless they really are in their society? Is it that these truths are so terrible to acknowledge they just ignore them and force them from their minds?

[General Zod]

I happen to believe, more than most, that opposition to public homosexuality is motivated by pure bigotry, but I’m smart enough not to begin an argument with, “You’re just a close-minded prick. Would you like to have a few minutes to compose your response?”

When was the last time you ran into someone opposing homosexuals whose arguments weren't based entirely on lies and outright distortions?

You may disagree about the validity of faith in the Almighty, but you can surely put on some tinted glasses and engage a fundamentalist or a conservative on his or her own ground. Why can the Bible be relied upon as the perfect record of God’s instruction for humankind? Are you aware of the provenance of the text? How about the contradictions and significant controversies over simple translation? Was Jesus not a social revolutionary? In my experience, people who dash around throwing balloons full of snooty moral revulsion rarely stop to challenge their political opponents with hard-hitting arguments. Many conservatives who believe the Bible is an enriching source of political inspiration are also keen to stand by the letter of the Constitution. How many times have conservatives reminded you that “this is an essentially Christian country,” pointing to the founders, who clearly favored an unobtrusive form of government.

The problem is you're pretending that we haven't tried this before, except to constantly run into the same dishonest tactics and bullshit thousands of times over. What's the point in trying to argue with them when they all inevitably use the same arguments and pretend that nobody's ever heard them before?

I don’t think very much of that has been tried at all.

Then clearly you've haven't paid much attention.

Consider the “Christmas issue.” People get up in arms partly because they don’t feel they are doing wrong in wishing anybody a Merry Christmas. Tiptoeing around is perceived to destroy holiday spirit generally. In other words, a lot of the negative reaction to “Happy Holidays” derives from the idea that it is a form of social cowardice and bowing to sour grapes, not making space for the relative minority of non-Christians in American society, which many Christians never really encounter. I can’t tell you how many Christian friends are stunned to learn that Jews don’t believe in the Trinity, and don’t celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

What Christmas issue? I've never seen anyone whining about Christmas except Christians who somehow feel they're being persecuted. As far as I know "happy holidays" is a marketing ploy by Hallmark to appeal to non Christians in order to get them to buy their holiday cards.

The core of Republican economics is the idea that the government is really just an inefficient bureaucracy that can’t spend money as effectively as either consumers or business. Federal tax cuts sound supremely appealing to families that suffer from state tolls – it’s a problem of oversimplification. It’s funny, too, that nobody ever seems to square the Republican mistrust of social welfare with the general Christian imperative of social service. Compassion isn’t a territory inhabited only by liberals.

Generally a lot of these social welfares have the agenda of trying to convert to their particular flavor of Christianity you while providing charity. It's not as if their motives are completely one of beneficent giving.

[Darth Wong]

I don't know about young Republicans in America, but I can tell you that factory workers in my experience buy this kind of thinking hook, line, and sinker. They're not all well-to-do suburban kids. Look at Joe the Plumber; he's the archetypal conservative in my experience.

Do you think this is partially willful la-la-la I-can't-hear-you disregard and refusal to accept how much their lot in life is out of their control, or how vulnerable (more in the American case) their personal and economic and familial security is? And how powerless they really are in their society? Is it that these truths are so terrible to acknowledge they just ignore them and force them from their minds?

Not really. It's tempting to think that something really psychologically twisted like that is going on, but I think that's overlayering things. It's much simpler than that: they see money being taken off their paycheque by the government, so they get angry at it. Once they have a target for their anger, they funnel blame for all kinds of problems onto that target. And the problem is that the economy is so complicated that the number on the paycheque is a pretty poor representation of what's really happening, but the number on the paycheque is staring them in the face and all that other stuff is just noise as far as they're concerned.

PS. I also found that factory workers were highly susceptible to conspiracy theories, UFOlogy, creationism, and the notion that the risks of smoking are seriously exaggerated. In general, they seem to have a real chip on their shoulders about scientists and university-educated experts, and this latent hostility toward that entire class quickly comes to the surface when they are told that the experts disagree with them.

[Axis Kast]

You misunderstand. When I say "identify the bad guys", I am talking about identifying an entity which must be harmed in order to solve the problem. Which party do liberals intend to harm by stopping the practice of torture? Nobody will be harmed by this. Which party do liberals intend to harm by advocating due process for detainees? Nobody will be harmed by this. When the conservatives identify "bad guys", they do so with the intention of harming those bad guys in some way, in order to solve the problem.

I take issue with your suggestion that conservative political solutions are inherently about finding a target and applying punitive action. The point of tax cuts, for example, is not to harm the government, but to (theoretically) prevent waste. You will obviously have recognized that the theory of "trickle-down" is captivating: it makes intuitive sense that this will happen, which reminds me of the old retort that Communism never failed -- it was just "never done correctly."

Conservatives simply don't understand why liberals lose sleep over the activities at Guantanamo. They otherwise spend very little time debating what's going on. Precisely because they have no sympathy, and since they "trust" government on issues of defense, there's no perception of a problem requiring solution. These are, by and large, "bad" folk who were caught, often under arms, on battlefields. The issue of extending them certain rights seems to be a reward for their behavior. A few more sophisticated conservative rebuttals focus on the difficulty of releasing these people back into a society from which imprisonment will have alienated them completely, and of the problem of collecting definitive legal evidence on the battlefield. Somebody with some brains will tell you that we may need to establish special legal competency for terrorism cases, on the French model, and accept that those courts will have different rules and standards of evidence than civil and criminal arenas. Do you think conservatives wouldn't accept that? As I see it, the argument now has mostly to do with posturing; it's heavily linked to the 9/11 families and the idea that somebody is still doing "something" about the problem rather than shedding tears for a hated group of people. Republicans will almost never talk about those who might have been wrongly-accused, and will feel that liberals want to free five hundred to spare one person -- who is suspicious merely for having been caught. Remember, also, that when it comes to defense, conservatives are much less worried that our troops will have made a mistake, or that the men in suits will have railroaded somebody just to fill a jail cell.

We were not talking about Democrats vs Republicans. We were talking about liberals vs conservatives. The only liberal politician in America is Ralph Nader.

Liberals in Europe are no less prone to NBC News Neuroses. You've referred to a level of political aptitude, not a political movement.

Sophisticated conservatives will be able to command as much information as sophisticated liberals. Uneducated conservatives will be able to make only strawmen and red herrings, just like their liberal counterparts. A lot of hemming and hawing about the relevance of that one big human interest piece, probably.

The problem is that conservative compassion is more selective: they want to help others, but they only want to do if they are satisfied that those others are sufficiently "deserving", and they seem to have a longer list of undeserving recipients than liberals do.

I don't see it that way. Churches regularly minister to drug addicts and those with criminal records. Conservatives simply don't trust government to find those most at need and link them with resources.

Let me be clear, too, that my posting here has to do with trying to encourage people who feel sincerely about the issues, and who want to make a difference, to try to get some working knowledge of "the other side." Not so you can better evaluate your own stances, per se, but so that you can better challenge theirs. I just think it's ridiculous to hear both sides talk past each other, and then feel bitter alienation. I've never felt half as alienated from anybody in my life as some people on this forum seem to be from members of "that other party." I've had plenty of arguments that make people think. I've also had plenty in which it boils down to, "You make me feel uncomfortable, and I'm not going to change, so let's stop talking." But I find that most people never really get as far as the latter consensus, and just stop before ever getting into the intellectual car.

When was the last time you ran into someone opposing homosexuals whose arguments weren't based entirely on lies and outright distortions?

When was the last time you ran into someone opposing anything you firmly believed in whose arguments weren't based, at least in part, on outright distortions from what you knew, or felt, to be true?

And since when are lies and outright distortions to be allowed to go unopposed?

I've debated homosexuality and gay rights up and down. When a friend says, "I oppose it because it is one of the few acts labeled 'an abomination' in the Bible, which is God's word," I make them defend their trust in Scripture, then ask (honestly) if they believe in witches and enjoy shellfish. When a friend says, "I oppose it because it's just disgusting," I force them to admit that they have no valid political argument. When a friend says, "I oppose it because it's not socially beneficial," I force them to admit that the logical conclusion of such an argument is a formal mating program, run by government -- something they're never actually in favor of.

The problem is you're pretending that we haven't tried this before, except to constantly run into the same dishonest tactics and bullshit thousands of times over. What's the point in trying to argue with them when they all inevitably use the same arguments and pretend that nobody's ever heard them before?

To be honest, I don't get the sense that many people have. And I myself don't tire of having arguments. If people get offended, or saddened, that I don't live "Biblically," they're going to walk away. At least I challenged them. It sticks.

Then clearly you've haven't paid much attention.

On this board? Where it's become acceptable to tar Middle America, to insist that everyone in Texas is a troll -- we have board members who happily post, "I lived there! I should know!" -- and where Republicans are just Nazis in clever disguise?

There's so much vitriol. I can't help but assume that most people here don't address people "on the other side of the fence" because they never got past the, "You're a bad, bad person" approach.

What Christmas issue? I've never seen anyone whining about Christmas except Christians who somehow feel they're being persecuted. As far as I know "happy holidays" is a marketing ploy by Hallmark to appeal to non Christians in order to get them to buy their holiday cards.

And understanding why they feel persecuted is an important step to addressing the problem. Christians don't know "what all the fuss is about." And frankly, even as somebody who is disappointed when receiving a Merry Christmas card from people I expect to be more considerate, I can't blame the general idea that the season isn't enriched when we have to hear from people who take "Merry Christmas" as a form of religious warfare.

Generally a lot of these social welfares have the agenda of trying to convert to their particular flavor of Christianity you while providing charity. It's not as if their motives are completely one of beneficent giving.

Some do; some don't. But arguing that conservatives are, as a group, not very service-minded is a distortion.

[Darth Wong]

This is getting really long, so let me just take aim at one key point:

Conservatives simply don't understand why liberals lose sleep over the activities at Guantanamo.

This is a perfect encapsulation of the problem I'm talking about. Do you think liberals honestly don't understand why conservatives like the idea of Guantanamo? We "get" them, but they don't "get" us. We understand that they are afraid of these characters and sincerely believe that they can protect the free world by treating them the way they do. But they, on the other hand, make up absurd caricatures like "they apparently want to be friends with terrorists", even at the level of national TV and political figures.

PS. One more thing:

Sophisticated conservatives will be able to command as much information as sophisticated liberals.

And yet, there are more creationists among conservatives than among liberals. You seem unwilling to admit that there may be any difference: your arguments repeatedly state total equivalence a priori, substantiated only by pointing out that certain individual cases exist. When speaking of correlations between large groups, that doesn't work and you know it.

[Kanastrous]

It’s funny, too, that nobody ever seems to square the Republican mistrust of social welfare with the general Christian imperative of social service.

It appears to me that broadly speaking Conservative Christians' idea of 'social service' is the construction of gigantic wasteful ugly-ass mega-churches, funding of television and radio stations and expenditure of money to buy political influence in the pursuit of 'serving' society by forcing their concept of Christian Principles down everyone's throat using the power of government, to do it.

PS. I also found that factory workers were highly susceptible to conspiracy theories, UFOlogy, creationism, and the notion that the risks of smoking are seriously exaggerated. In general, they seem to have a real chip on their shoulders about scientists and university-educated experts, and this latent hostility toward that entire class quickly comes to the surface when they are told that the experts disagree with them.

Did you ever ask them to account for the fact that they were receiving paychecks because they were working with tools, equipment, principles and processes discovered, created and refined by those durned scientists and university-educated types? Did they think they could handle the metallurgy and cross-discipline engineering to make even the simplest of their tools, themselves?

[Darth Wong]

PS. I also found that factory workers were highly susceptible to conspiracy theories, UFOlogy, creationism, and the notion that the risks of smoking are seriously exaggerated. In general, they seem to have a real chip on their shoulders about scientists and university-educated experts, and this latent hostility toward that entire class quickly comes to the surface when they are told that the experts disagree with them.

Did you ever ask them to account for the fact that they were receiving paychecks because they were working with tools, equipment, principles and processes discovered, created and refined by those durned scientists and university-educated types? Did they think they could handle the metallurgy and cross-discipline engineering to make even the simplest of their tools, themselves?

Of course. They simply respond that those guys are the "useful" experts, but all the other experts are useless wankers. In essence, they treat experts the way they treat bacteria: generally assumed to be harmful, except for a small class of beneficial types. Their approach toward experts is to assume they are bad until proven good, and by "proven good", they mean "they help make something I can personally use."

[Kanastrous]

Wow. Well, blinkers aren't just for horses.