Why working-class people vote conservative

[Simon_Jester]

To me it has a sort of condescending "I'm smarter than members of both parties put together, let me clearly demonstrate this with my amateur psychoanalysis" approach. What hints there are at political leanings don't suggest anyone all that far to the right of the American center.

What makes me think that is this quote: "Don't the Democrats stand up for the little guy, and try to redistribute the wealth downwards?"

I try not to let one passage decide my idea of how the writer of a long essay thinks. People say a lot of things in a 2000-word essay that, quoted point blank like that, could be juggled around into something damning.

To me, "Redistribute wealth" is also the sort of thing likely to come out of the mouth of the self-identified American centrist, because it is a Republican catch-phrase and you can't feel like both parties are dumber than you are if you can't speak the languages of both parties at will.

But eh. I don't know. Maybe this guy is a secret Republican saboteur out to... something, and he's revealing his true treacherous colors with his word choice.

Infringing on "individual liberties" of gun owners and small businessmen (which are those, anyway - liberty of owning guns irresponsibly or doing business irresponsibly, e.g. torture animals for example or exploit immigrant labour without decent protections? since those are the ones that are even remotely related to children, animals and immigrants) to protect such vulnerable groups as children, animals and immigrants should be the norm rather than the exception.

Not infringing on the "liberty" of exploiting immigrant labour, or exploiting children perhaps, or storing guns casually with children having easy access to them are classified as neglient inaction.

He accuses the left of being quick to act against the "liberties" of small businessmen and gun owners. Neither group seems to fall under the definition of an opressed class or an opressed or threatened minority. Immigrants do. Children are weak and by definition threatened. Animals - same thing.

He's just disgusting with this idea that well-off people like small bourgeois or gun owners have some 'rights' which can't be infringed to protect those who are weak and incapable of defending themselves.

You know, it's interesting. When I see a man write "conservatives value the liberties of gun owners more than the safety of children," I see an unspoken "and that's probably bad, they should not do that." So I don't automatically assume the AUTHOR values the liberties of gun owners more than the safety of children.

Saying "X thinks Y" is not the same as saying "I think Y." Nor is it some kind of special sign that you're a contemptible sociopath that you are even able to express the idea "Y" without smoke pouring out of your ears from the evilness of it all.

[General Zod]

What if a criminal breaks into your home, with the intention of kidnapping your child? (It's happened before- see the Lindbergh kidnapping.) What if his intention is to rape your wife? From a gun owners' POV, the weapons are needed to defend their families and themselves- the "right to self-defense" the NRA regularly claims to defend- NOT to oppress and terrorize their neighbors.

For every Lindbergh there's a Hattori for contrast.

[General Zod]

To me it has a sort of condescending "I'm smarter than members of both parties put together, let me clearly demonstrate this with my amateur psychoanalysis" approach. What hints there are at political leanings don't suggest anyone all that far to the right of the American center.

What makes me think that is this quote: "Don't the Democrats stand up for the little guy, and try to redistribute the wealth downwards?"

I try not to let one passage decide my idea of how the writer of a long essay thinks. People say a lot of things in a 2000-word essay that, quoted point blank like that, could be juggled around into something damning.

To me, "Redistribute wealth" is also the sort of thing likely to come out of the mouth of the self-identified American centrist, because it is a Republican catch-phrase and you can't feel like both parties are dumber than you are if you can't speak the languages of both parties at will.

But eh. I don't know. Maybe this guy is a secret Republican saboteur out to... something, and he's revealing his true treacherous colors with his word choice.

It's not just that one passage though, there's also this:

But on matters relating to group loyalty, respect for authority and sanctity (treating things as sacred and untouchable, not only in the context of religion), it sometimes seems that liberals lack the moral taste buds, or at least, their moral "cuisine" makes less use of them. For example, according to our data, if you want to hire someone to criticise your nation on a radio show in another nation (loyalty), give the finger to his boss (authority), or sign a piece of paper stating one's willingness to sell his soul (sanctity), you can save a lot of money by posting a sign: "Conservatives need not apply."

So basically liberals don't have morals, and criticizing your nation is a bad thing that liberals do. They're also happy to sell their soul. I have a hard time seeing this as anything but pure propaganda.

[Spoonist]

This is just insane to someone outside of such a culture.
Why would I care if someone burns my nation's flag?
Which then follows, only if I show that I care that they burnt it would the act of burning it have an effect, so by not caring I remove the power of the act.

Just out of curiousity, what nation do you consider yourself a citizen of?

You're asking the wrong question.

Spoonist, I think I'd like to ask you this:

Do you have any symbols? Are there any physical, tangible objects that somehow reflect something important to you? Can you first think of any such thing, and then let us have this conversation about people showing contempt for ideas by attacking the symbols of them?

If the answer to this question is "no," it really doesn't matter what country you're from. The conversation goes in a different direction from there.

Huh? The why what how then suchety whatedy now?
What would that have to do with anything related on topic?
Did you miss the yomama analogy?
I could care a lot about my nation to the point of being ultra nationalistic. Whether I react towards someone burning the flag of my nation has no bearance on that, regardless of how proud I am over the nation represented by said flag.
There are plenty of symbols that reflect important stuff to me, but as long as they are just symbols, then someone taking a dump at the symbol wouldn't really relate to the object/concept/theory the symbol represent. Idiots are idiots, them trying to provoke you by misplaced anger projection is not relevant in comparison to other stuff.
Instead it's the how/what/why in the situation that is important.
The reasons why a neo-nazi/communist/black-block/occupy/green/religious/whatever burns a flag is completetely different, so the response they get should be in relation to their purpose. So depending on the purpose I could agree and root for them, or be completely indifferent, or be vehemently against them, or just simply as usual.
If I was a nazi then the skinhead burning the flag is a positive reinforcement while the communist/anarchist doing the same would be provocative. Because the flag in both cases represent different things.
So just reacting violently/hostile towards anyone for flagburning without thinking through the context is insane to me. It's just a flag.

Just like someone trying to pick a barfight with me, them throwing insults is

[Sidewinder]

So basically liberals don't have morals, and criticizing your nation is a bad thing that liberals do. They're also happy to sell their soul. I have a hard time seeing this as anything but pure propaganda.

I think the issue is for WHAT, WHY, and HOW the nation is being criticized. To use the Iraq War as an example, one guy (maybe someone with conservative political views, like myself) might say, "It's wrong for America to invade and put American soldiers in harm's way, for misguided reasons." Another guy might say, "It's wrong for America to invade- to wage a war of aggression, and commit war crimes- all to sate Big Oil's greed." What sounds better to the average American?

[General Zod]

So basically liberals don't have morals, and criticizing your nation is a bad thing that liberals do. They're also happy to sell their soul. I have a hard time seeing this as anything but pure propaganda.

I think the issue is for WHAT, WHY, and HOW the nation is being criticized. To use the Iraq War as an example, one guy (maybe someone with conservative political views, like myself) might say, "It's wrong for America to invade and put American soldiers in harm's way, for misguided reasons." Another guy might say, "It's wrong for America to invade- to wage a war of aggression, and commit war crimes- all to sate Big Oil's greed." What sounds better to the average American?

I didn't get the impression that the author of the article cared about the specifics. "Criticizing authority is disloyal and a bad thing, and that's something liberals do since conservatives value loyalty and respect authority." is the message I'm pulling from it.

[MarshalPurnell]

Yeah. I had Haidt for Psych 101 as an undergraduate at UVa in 2004, and can confirm that he is in fact a very politically conscious liberal, if not an outright socialist. He once said in lecture that he had been unable to stand Republicans before investigating the psychological basis of their beliefs. Haidt is very, very big on cognitive neuropsychology and as such avoids outright condemnatory language but the barely concealed bemusement in the article when he describes conservative politics is pretty obvious. And of course an article pointing out a major failing in the politics he personally favors and elaborating on why the opposition has had such success would detract from its point if he spent a lot of time going "hoo-rah this is why Liberals are right and Conservatives are stupid."

[Ryan Thunder]

What if a criminal breaks into your home, with the intention of kidnapping your child? (It's happened before- see the Lindbergh kidnapping.) What if his intention is to rape your wife? From a gun owners' POV, the weapons are needed to defend their families and themselves- the "right to self-defense" the NRA regularly claims to defend- NOT to oppress and terrorize their neighbors.

Please, tell me more about all the times you've used your firearm(s) in acts of self defense since you purchased it/them?

[K. A. Pital]

When I see a man write "conservatives value the liberties of gun owners more than the safety of children," I see an unspoken "and that's probably bad, they should not do that." So I don't automatically assume the AUTHOR values the liberties of gun owners more than the safety of children.

Um... Simon, did you read the article? He suggests that this is the reason why conservatives get working class to vote for them, a sort of a "moral superiority".

But maybe - I mean, just maybe! - it does not mean that the left has to parrot the moral failings of the right to appeal to a public which is deeply amoral (if it considers the above dilemma a "moral superiority"). So his suggestion that the left should be opportunistic seems quite amoral to me itself.

Bad election results? Drop principles or try to have the public eventually accept a higher moral standard? It is very easy to follow the second path. You know, maybe that's why the difference between "left" and "right" in America is so miniscule.

[Junghalli]

I think this is the same guy I saw on PBS TV a little bit back, talking about the same thing...

I don't think the "moral pallette" point was supposed to mean that liberals don't have morals, but rather that their morality is skewed toward one axis (caring), while conservatives are more balanced between his five moral axis (caring, fairness, liberty, authority, sanctity), and this makes it harder for the left to connect with people because on average people value the other four axis more than liberals do.

It does sound a little to me like maybe he thinks this is a fundamental problem with liberal thought rather than just a presentation problem, if so I'm not sure I'd be on board with that ... but I think either as a fundamental criticism or a criticism of presentation it's an interesting point that may be worth discussing, and may genuinely point to reasons why the left has had problems gaining traction with the voting blocs that, in terms of economic interests, you'd think it should have plenty of traction with.

Honestly I'm personally kind of disappointed (though I can't say surprised) that the discussion so far seems to largely consist of a derail about flag-burning and discussion of whether the article is some kind of partisan hit-piece, because the man's thesis sounds genuinely interesting to me.

[K. A. Pital]

The core point I am raising is whether they should be trying to please the "average voter" and his low moral standards (since empathy is low on his list), or aim to improve his standards.

[General Zod]

I think this is the same guy I saw on PBS TV a little bit back, talking about the same thing...

I don't think the "moral pallette" point was supposed to mean that liberals don't have morals, but rather that their morality is skewed toward one axis (caring), while conservatives are more balanced between his five moral axis (caring, fairness, liberty, authority, sanctity), and this makes it harder for the left to connect with people because on average people value the other four axis more than liberals do.

It does sound a little to me like maybe he thinks this is a fundamental problem with liberal thought rather than just a presentation problem, if so I'm not sure I'd be on board with that ... but I think either as a fundamental criticism or a criticism of presentation it's an interesting point that may be worth discussing, and may genuinely point to reasons why the left has had problems gaining traction with the voting blocs that, in terms of economic interests, you'd think it should have plenty of traction with.

Honestly I'm personally kind of disappointed (though I can't say surprised) that the discussion so far seems to largely consist of a derail about flag-burning and discussion of whether the article is some kind of partisan hit-piece, because the man's thesis sounds genuinely interesting to me.

It seems like a flawed assumption to me regardless. Especially considering how much value conservatives place on flag worship and how they tend to treat any criticism of the flag as blasphemy. Why label conservatives as "balanced" instead of skewed towards a different axis?

[Phantasee]

I'm not reading both pages of this thread because y'all seem to have been talking about flags, which is off the fucking topic.

Anyway, Stephen Carter, the man who won Naheed Nenshi, a Muslim, the mayorship of Calgary, the man who won Alison Redford the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta, the man who helped win the Alberta provincial election for the same PCs, has been doing a series of talks with the aim of writing a book at the end.

One of his key points is the power of myth. People don't vote for policy, people don't even read policy. They can track how many people visit the pages of their candidates websites, and out of the thousands of hits they receive during an election, most look at the summaries. Only tens of people actually read the detailed policies in the full platform; these are usually people who already support one candidate or another (or are working for one of the candidates). People don't look at details.

They buy into the myth of the candidate. Popular perception of a person matters far more than what they stand for. This is hard to understand, to be sure, but then, we're not normal people: we talk about politics regularly, it's a subject that interests us. The vast majority of people do not give a single fuck about politics outside of voting once every few years, and considering low voter turnouts in many places, people don't care then, either.

Nobody cares about ideology anymore, it's which person they like, which myth they want to be a part of.

I kinda agree with Stephen Carter, and the writer of the OP article.

[Junghalli]

The core point I am raising is whether they should be trying to please the "average voter" and his low moral standards (since empathy is low on his list), or aim to improve his standards.

I suspect Haidt would say it's not so much that empathy is low on the list of the average voter as it's dominant in the consideration of liberals. I think this was the guy I saw on PBS a while back, and in that program he had a little visual aid where he graphed how much people cared about his five moral axis from caring to sanctity, liberals cared highly about caring and progressively less about everything else down to sanctity, while conservatives were flat.

Anyway, personally I think yes, just passively accepting the voter's current preferences is problematic, but so is the opposite attitude that basically "we're doing everything right and it's all the fault of the voting populace for being too unenlightened." Being critical of, as you put it, the "low moral standards" of the average voter isn't necessarily mutually exclusive with being critical of the left failing to connect with the average voter, or the idea that maybe sometime it's not the average voter's moral standard that is deficient.

[Sidewinder]

It seems like a flawed assumption to me regardless. Especially considering how much value conservatives place on flag worship and how they tend to treat any criticism of the flag as blasphemy. Why label conservatives as "balanced" instead of skewed towards a different axis?

Sociologically, the nation is an extention of the tribe, which is an extention of the clan, which is an extention of the family (or cult, if you're being cynical)... Certain politicians are savvy enough to exploit this, going "One people, one nation, one big happy family!" to convince voters their interests and the nation's (specifically, the nation's politicians') are one. Less successful politicians come off as elitists, going "I'm smarter than you- one of the elite, and by right, one who should run this country!" and making the voters outsiders to their clique- by consequence, making themselves outsiders to the voters.

[Junghalli]

Especially considering how much value conservatives place on flag worship and how they tend to treat any criticism of the flag as blasphemy. Why label conservatives as "balanced" instead of skewed towards a different axis?

Does the article actually label conservatives as "balanced"? It talks about how they incorporate the five moral axis into their beliefs more evenly than liberals, but I don't remember anything in it saying they actually balance them optimally.

If he's the same guy I saw on that PBS program that graph I mentioned suggested he thinks conservatives evenly balance the five moral axis ... don't know whether he actually considers that a good thing, or how he came to that conclusion.

Anyway, there's nothing inherently contradictory about the idea that liberal morality is skewed toward the 'caring' axis and conservative morality is skewed toward something else.

Like I said, I'm not sure I'd be on board with all his ideas, especially as they might extend to fundamental criticism of liberal thought rather than just the left fundamentally having a presentation problem, but I think they're interesting anyway.

One of his key points is the power of myth. People don't vote for policy, people don't even read policy. They can track how many people visit the pages of their candidates websites, and out of the thousands of hits they receive during an election, most look at the summaries. Only tens of people actually read the detailed policies in the full platform; these are usually people who already support one candidate or another (or are working for one of the candidates). People don't look at details.

They buy into the myth of the candidate. Popular perception of a person matters far more than what they stand for.

Yeah, this does seem to tie in to what I got out of the article, that the left tries too much to entice people with goodies and not enough to build up a compelling vision.

I don't find it particularly hard to see myself. Humans are not Homo Economicus and don't find car salesmen ("look at the awesome goodies you'll get if you buy my product vote for me!") particularly compelling at the ballot box.

[Simon_Jester]

Please, tell me more about all the times you've used your firearm(s) in acts of self defense since you purchased it/them?

While he's at it, he can tell you about all the times he accidentally got trigger happy and shot a foreign exchange student by mistake. I suspect that Sidewinder's done both those things the same number of times: zero.

The problem with guns is that if they are used justly, they give you power to protect yourself from enemies. Used unjustly or stupidly, they kill innocent people. So, do you consider yourself to be unjust or stupid? If you do, then obviously you shouldn't trust yourself with a firearm. If you disagree, and think you are a decent, smart person who wouldn't screw up that badly... well then, you will probably not be so averse to the idea of owning a gun. And in fact you might get angry at someone else who says "I think you shouldn't have a gun," because by extension that person is saying "I think you don't have good enough judgment, intelligence, competence, or moral decency, so I don't trust you."

When I see a man write "conservatives value the liberties of gun owners more than the safety of children," I see an unspoken "and that's probably bad, they should not do that." So I don't automatically assume the AUTHOR values the liberties of gun owners more than the safety of children.

Um... Simon, did you read the article? He suggests that this is the reason why conservatives get working class to vote for them, a sort of a "moral superiority".

Uh, no.

He suggests that the reason conservatives get the working class to vote for them is that of the list of multiple moral values which people may care about, conservative rhetoric appeals to more of them than liberals do. Remember his list of values? To paraphrase, 'care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority, and sanctity.'

Now, any of those things are things a person can value. And most people care about all of them to varying degrees.

You might consider yourself anti-authoritarian, with reason. But at the same time, you might be displeased to see a small child being disrespectful and disruptive in a class where the schoolteacher is trying to teach an important lesson. There are many logical reasons for you to be displeased about that. But one of the big ones you find in most people is that most people (rightly) think that (competent) teachers have authority: they are responsible for making sure students learn, and we know that this is practically impossible unless teachers have a measure of power over their students.

You might not consider "sanctity" to be very important- but "sanctity" can mean many things. For example, despite being an atheist (so far as I know), perhaps you are uncomfortable with the idea of things like lobotomies, or with the idea of genetic engineering to create intelligent but subhuman apes for manual labor, or any of a number of other things that just seem... disgusting.

In reality of course, you might not care about these things, I do not know. But I'm sure you can imagine a respectable person who thinks that some authority should be valued and followed. Or that some things are (in some sense of the word) sacred.

So let's just look at this list dispassionately and ask ourselves: very well, these are the things humans value. Not all humans value all of them, and most humans differ in how much they care about them. But if you were to draw up a utility function* for human beings, all these variables would show up; it's just a difference in how they're weighted by each individual.

Suppose my political ideology is based around the idea of fairness above all else. Society should be fair. Everyone should have equal opportunities and equal access to everything, so far as possible. No one should get special privileges or treatment because of their birth, appearance, or profession. And so on.

A decent human being can ask me "What if I want to do something that might disrupt the total equality of the system?"

I might answer "that would be unequal, and therefore wrong, so it is not allowed."

But the other fellow could construct a long list of things that might put him at a disproportionate advantage over others. Such as becoming a practiced public speaker, or putting great effort into becoming strong and dangerous, or creating a web of connections through which others can participate in the economy that grants him a privileged middleman position. All these things would give him some measure of power, and he might honestly enjoy doing them for his own sake- he might even argue that these things are for the greater good.

But if the only value in the universe is fairness, he cannot do any of these things, regardless of whether it would be to public benefit, because it would also be to disproportionate benefit. See Harrison Bergeron for the satirical version of how bad this can get.


A real social system (including, say, communism; I'm not trying to criticize any real social system at this time) will have other values along with fairness. Even a totalitarian dictatorship allows its citizens some measure of liberty in their private lives, even a society whose official laws are ruthless is made up of human beings who care for each other, and so on.

The problem, then, is that if you want to reach all people, you have to make your argument contain more than one note. Not everyone considers "care" to be the most important moral value, or even "fairness." Treating this as a moral failing doesn't work, unless you're simply planning to bayonet everyone who disagrees with you, which is impractical in most of the developed world.

Think about that brilliant and compact slogan of the French Revolution: "Liberty! Equality! Brotherhood!" Or "Peace! Land! Bread!" which when you think about it, contains several of those values listed above, especially when thinking about what land means to a peasant farmer.


In the US, the right has been more effective at making their arguments out of... to stretch the metaphor, out of chords rather than notes. While the left goes "Care care care care!" the right goes "Freedom! Loyalty! Piety!" Is it any wonder the right can appeal efficiently to a huge number of people?

I for one have no intention of bayoneting them all, either- so I must come to terms with this, and hopefully find a way to neutralize the advantage it gives the other side of the debate. Even if you choose not to come to terms with it, the problem cannot safely be neglected by everyone. It's not as if I must act immorally to learn to speak a broader language that more people can understand.

[Ryan Thunder]

Please, tell me more about all the times you've used your firearm(s) in acts of self defense since you purchased it/them?

While he's at it, he can tell you about all the times he accidentally got trigger happy and shot a foreign exchange student by mistake. I suspect that Sidewinder's done both those things the same number of times: zero.

The problem with guns is that if they are used justly, they give you power to protect yourself from enemies. Used unjustly or stupidly, they kill innocent people. So, do you consider yourself to be unjust or stupid? If you do, then obviously you shouldn't trust yourself with a firearm. If you disagree, and think you are a decent, smart person who wouldn't screw up that badly... well then, you will probably not be so averse to the idea of owning a gun. And in fact you might get angry at someone else who says "I think you shouldn't have a gun," because by extension that person is saying "I think you don't have good enough judgment, intelligence, competence, or moral decency, so I don't trust you."

I don't mind if he has a gun (or several) for his own amusement or whatever. Pretending its necessary for survival or something just strikes me as silly.

[amigocabal]

Makes sense. Hopefully, more politicians and political activists will take note of the lessons here, and protect otherwise noble goals from their own missteps. Instead of "Saving the environment is morally right, and more important than the timber industry! (And if you work for the timber industry, SCREW YOU!)" it should be "Saving the environment is in YOUR BEST INTEREST, and will help you SAVE MONEY you'd otherwise need to treat medical problems related to pollution." Likewise, a national healthcare program should appeal to people's wallets, e.g., "National healthcare will raise taxes, but will help you SAVE MONEY in the long term, by reducing the cost of medical care YOU WILL NEED in the future."

Concerning national healthcare, you should also note concerns about who will run the thing. As Christopher Morton pointed out.

When you put the
government in charge of health care, you put them in charge of who
will be treated, and that worked SO "well" in the Tuskegee
experiments, didn't it?

Pretending its necessary for survival or something just strikes me as silly.

If it is silly to pretend that guns are necessary for survival, the NYPD does not need them.

He suggests that the reason conservatives get the working class to vote for them is that of the list of multiple moral values which people may care about, conservative rhetoric appeals to more of them than liberals do. Remember his list of values? To paraphrase, 'care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority, and sanctity.

What I must wonder if why so many liberals outside of Sen. Ruben Diaz (D-NY) are opposed to the values of working class people?

The core point I am raising is whether they should be trying to please the "average voter" and his low moral standards (since empathy is low on his list), or aim to improve his standards.

What low moral standards do the average voter have (well, aside from tolerance of lying, cheating, stealing, etc.) ?

Well the left can't appeal to small businessmen saying "we'll let you hire cheap immigrant labour for the sake of your business' survival". It just can't.

Or rather, it can, but in the process it will self-destruct and stop being "the left".

They can however, oppose illegal immigration on the grounds that businesses exploit illegal aliens, and also make arguments equating illegal immigration with human trafficking.

Infringing on "individual liberties" of gun owners and small businessmen (which are those, anyway - liberty of owning guns irresponsibly or doing business irresponsibly, e.g. torture animals for example or exploit immigrant labour without decent protections? since those are the ones that are even remotely related to children, animals and immigrants) to protect such vulnerable groups as children, animals and immigrants should be the norm rather than the exception.

This begs the question.

Who sets the standards of responsibility?

Few people would argue they include gun owners not using guns to commit murder and businesses abiding by contracts. And many people argue that businesses have to make a good faith effort that their employees have a right to work in the country where they are working.

(I do concede that under federal judicial precedent, infringements on the rights of gun owners are held to a stricter level of scrutiny than infringements on the right to do business)

I'll just leave that here. Whoever wrote this is a shitsack. A fucking shitsack. He's a fucking shitsack, end of story. Interests of gun owners and small businessmen>> those of children and immigrants? Fuck him, fucking fuck him.

What makes children and immigrants more important categorically than gun owners and businessmen? Granted, I will concede that an teenage immigrant's interest in not being raped exceeds a business's interest in renting out her vagina against her will (or even with her "will") to perverts who have a thing for forcing young girls, and the only people who would disagree would be the aforementioned perverts and those who would rent out young girls' vaginas to them.

But what about guns? A gun owner possessing a gun does not harm the interests of children. It is not as if the gun is going to shoot itself. And if a particular infringementis needed to protect children, why not subject the police and the Secret Service to that same infringement?

Or speech. I can understand an elementary school library's refusal to stock Mein Kampf or Penthouse. But what about allowing bookstores to stock them? Or people to possess them? Do the children's interests have enough weight to stop anyone from having a copy of Mein Kampf or Penthouse?

That's a bad idea. Because real people, almost without exception, don't actually come out and say "the interests of small businessmen are sacred, let the children suffer." Except for low-functioning sociopaths and people who get off on shock value, no one says "let the children suffer." They say "blah blah blah tough standards in schools blah freedom is good for families blah blah" and let a comforting blanket of buzzwords cover up the unpleasant reality of "the policy I am proposing hurts children." They rationalize, they kid themselves, they fool themselves, and they fool others this way. Because in their own brain they're not thinking "it is my aim to promote a policy which harms children."

What most people argue is that the interests must be appropriately balanced. In my example above, I bring up the examples of Mein Kampf and Penthouse.

If someone opposes a general ban on Mein Kampf or Penthouse, a ban that would keep such harmful materials from children, would that someone be effectively saying, "the interests of[free speech] are sacred, let the children suffer"?

[amigocabal]

I disagree. Environmentalists often preach about how sinful it is to pollute, but fail to appeal to the working class' sensibilities. "I got a family to feed! How the hell does saving the trees help save my family from bankruptcy?" "The Environmental Protection Agency? It's a government agency, it runs on taxes- money taken from us taxpayers! Aren't we paying enough?" "Censure X Company for polluting? I work for X Company! I got a family to feed, rent to pay! How is punishing X Company supposed to help me, when I'll likely be laid off if X Company has trouble paying the fine?" are concerns I expect to hear if I preach to the working class about the environment's importance.

I rarely hear the environmentalists- by extension, political parties that support them- address these concerns.

There is a reason why environmentalism is not getting traction in many places.

For one, the campaign for cleaner air and water became an -ism. That campaign had connected with a lot of people back when many of them could smell choking smog, see trash-strewn streams and rivers. Now when the issue is oil drilling or overfishing in some out of the way place, it does not connect. It is like a Muslim fundamentalist trying to convince an atheist to convert to Islam. A Muslim might be able to sell alms-giving, but getting an atheist to pray five times a day to God would be like an environmentalist trying to convert someone who sees clean air and water all around. The common mindset is just not there, and those who oppose environmental regulations can point to real world consequences, such as businesses leaving California for Texas.

[Simon_Jester]

I can point to consequences too, like the damn ice caps melting...

More generally:

Pretending its necessary for survival or something just strikes me as silly.

If it is silly to pretend that guns are necessary for survival, the NYPD does not need them.

By that argument, everyone ought to carry chainsaws all the time because lumberjacks need them. There are a lot of jobs that require tools normal people don't normally need to use.

He suggests that the reason conservatives get the working class to vote for them is that of the list of multiple moral values which people may care about, conservative rhetoric appeals to more of them than liberals do. Remember his list of values? To paraphrase, 'care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority, and sanctity.

What I must wonder if why so many liberals outside of Sen. Ruben Diaz (D-NY) are opposed to the values of working class people?

Wait, what? I don't understand. Could you explain?

That's a bad idea. Because real people, almost without exception, don't actually come out and say "the interests of small businessmen are sacred, let the children suffer." Except for low-functioning sociopaths and people who get off on shock value, no one says "let the children suffer." They say "blah blah blah tough standards in schools blah freedom is good for families blah blah" and let a comforting blanket of buzzwords cover up the unpleasant reality of "the policy I am proposing hurts children." They rationalize, they kid themselves, they fool themselves, and they fool others this way. Because in their own brain they're not thinking "it is my aim to promote a policy which harms children."

What most people argue is that the interests must be appropriately balanced. In my example above, I bring up the examples of Mein Kampf and Penthouse.

If someone opposes a general ban on Mein Kampf or Penthouse, a ban that would keep such harmful materials from children, would that someone be effectively saying, "the interests of[free speech] are sacred, let the children suffer"?

Nonsense.

I can show how not paying for schools because you're not willing to pay taxes causes children to suffer.

Can you show how selling copies of Mein Kampf causes children to suffer? Naziism is dead; the book is harmless except for historical interest. Can you show how selling copies of Playboy to adults causes children to suffer?

[amigocabal]

I can point to consequences too, like the damn ice caps melting...

More generally:

Pretending its necessary for survival or something just strikes me as silly.

If it is silly to pretend that guns are necessary for survival, the NYPD does not need them.

By that argument, everyone ought to carry chainsaws all the time because lumberjacks need them. There are a lot of jobs that require tools normal people don't normally need to use.

He suggests that the reason conservatives get the working class to vote for them is that of the list of multiple moral values which people may care about, conservative rhetoric appeals to more of them than liberals do. Remember his list of values? To paraphrase, 'care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority, and sanctity.

What I must wonder if why so many liberals outside of Sen. Ruben Diaz (D-NY) are opposed to the values of working class people?

Wait, what? I don't understand. Could you explain?

That's a bad idea. Because real people, almost without exception, don't actually come out and say "the interests of small businessmen are sacred, let the children suffer." Except for low-functioning sociopaths and people who get off on shock value, no one says "let the children suffer." They say "blah blah blah tough standards in schools blah freedom is good for families blah blah" and let a comforting blanket of buzzwords cover up the unpleasant reality of "the policy I am proposing hurts children." They rationalize, they kid themselves, they fool themselves, and they fool others this way. Because in their own brain they're not thinking "it is my aim to promote a policy which harms children."

What most people argue is that the interests must be appropriately balanced. In my example above, I bring up the examples of Mein Kampf and Penthouse.

If someone opposes a general ban on Mein Kampf or Penthouse, a ban that would keep such harmful materials from children, would that someone be effectively saying, "the interests of[free speech] are sacred, let the children suffer"?

Nonsense.

I can show how not paying for schools because you're not willing to pay taxes causes children to suffer.

And some people can show that paying for schools causes children to suffer, what with zero-tolerance policies, sexual predators as teachers, etc.

Can you show how selling copies of Mein Kampf causes children to suffer? Naziism is dead; the book is harmless except for historical interest. Can you show how selling copies of Playboy to adults causes children to suffer?

People can argue that if those books are not banned, impressionable children might read them. And just because Naziism is dead does not mean that it can not make a comeback; genocidal Jew hatred still exists in some parts of the world like the Gaza Strip.

Being an American, freedom of the press heavily outweighs the interests of children when it comes to a general ban on Mein Kampf or Playboy. The mere refusal of an elementary school library to refuse to stock either publication has little effect on freedom of the press, so I find such a decision uncontroversial.

[amigocabal]

I can point to consequences too, like the damn ice caps melting...

And I can point to predictions that failed.

Miami Herald - July 5, 1989 - 2E SCIENCE

GREENHOUSE WARMING NATIONS MAY VANISH, U.N. SAYS
A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of "eco-refugees," threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the United Nations U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the...

It can also be pointed out that global warming would delay the next Ice Age, meaning that civilization in most parts of the world will get to continue for decades or even centuries longer.

Of course, if it is more important to deal with the melting of ice caps in the here and now than it is to extend the lifespan of human civilization in the temperate zones, there are a myriad of solutions available, not the least among them the solution stumbled upon by Carl Sagan and four others in the TTAPS study.

More generally:

Pretending its necessary for survival or something just strikes me as silly.

If it is silly to pretend that guns are necessary for survival, the NYPD does not need them.

By that argument, everyone ought to carry chainsaws all the time because lumberjacks need them. There are a lot of jobs that require tools normal people don't normally need to use.

If police need guns to survive encounters with criminals, then consider this.

Do criminals prefer to rob banks or police stations?

Do mugger prefer to target policemen?

Do rapists prefer to target policewomen?

[Simon_Jester]

Amigo, I note that you totally ignored several things I said. One of the ignorings, I find kind of insulting:

He suggests that the reason conservatives get the working class to vote for them is that of the list of multiple moral values which people may care about, conservative rhetoric appeals to more of them than liberals do. Remember his list of values? To paraphrase, 'care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority, and sanctity.

What I must wonder if why so many liberals outside of Sen. Ruben Diaz (D-NY) are opposed to the values of working class people?

Wait, what? I don't understand. Could you explain?

So you see, you basically just said "why do liberals oppose the values of working class people?" And I want to know what you mean by that. Because I can't tell whether you're calling me evil, or something else, and I don't like being called evil.

So that makes me unhappy. Could you please explain?

And some people can show that paying for schools causes children to suffer, what with zero-tolerance policies, sexual predators as teachers, etc.

Okay. So then- your position is that schools are actively harmful, and that it would be better if the state did not run schools?

I want to be clear on what you're saying here. If you aren't going to answer this question I just asked, I ask you to explain why.

Can you show how selling copies of Mein Kampf causes children to suffer? Naziism is dead; the book is harmless except for historical interest. Can you show how selling copies of Playboy to adults causes children to suffer?

People can argue that if those books are not banned, impressionable children might read them. And just because Naziism is dead does not mean that it can not make a comeback; genocidal Jew hatred still exists in some parts of the world like the Gaza Strip.

Being an American, freedom of the press heavily outweighs the interests of children when it comes to a general ban on Mein Kampf or Playboy. The mere refusal of an elementary school library to refuse to stock either publication has little effect on freedom of the press, so I find such a decision uncontroversial.

Elementary school libraries refuse to stock all manner of things- mostly things that are above the reading level of a bright elementary school student.

Mein Kampf is not a magic cursed book that infects everyone who reads it with Jew-hatred. It's the rantings of a madman, whose madness happened to be in keeping with the spirit of the times among the militant right in 1930s Germany. The only reason it's of interest is historical, and small children don't know the history. That's the reason not to hand them the book, not the fear that they will be corrupted somehow by seeing it. Fear of corruption doesn't have anything to do with it.

Honestly, I don't see where you're coming from with all this. We can look at size of harm rationally, like intelligent adults; we shouldn't just say "oh well, I have a right to X, so any amount of harm that comes from X is all right." That would be a horrible attitude, because it makes a mockery of the idea of "right;" it turns rights into wrongs, or excuses for wrongs.

What was your point here? Are you trying to argue that low taxes are good no matter what the consequences they have for children? Because of... something? I'm sorry, but I don't understand- you seem to be working on the assumption that I already know and agree with your views, and that you can just use very short code-phrases to tell me what you mean and I'll go "uh-huh" and accept.

Please explain your reasoning to me.

I can point to consequences too, like the damn ice caps melting...

And I can point to predictions that failed.

Miami Herald - July 5, 1989 - 2E SCIENCE

GREENHOUSE WARMING NATIONS MAY VANISH, U.N. SAYS
A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of "eco-refugees," threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the United Nations U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the...

Actually, how do you know he wasn't telling the truth? The global warming trend wasn't reversed by the year 2000. Nations getting flooded out would happen in the future. He did not say "if we don't reverse global warming in ten years, suddenly in January 2001 sea levels will rise by ten feet and whole island chains will go under the sea." He said "if we don't reverse it, something bad will happen and it will be too late to prevent it."

Suppose I light the fuse on a stick of dynamite, and you say "you idiot, you lit the fuse, it's burning out of your reach, now put it out in the next minute or you're a dead man!"

The fuse burns for a minute and I don't do anything. And I say "hah, you crazy person, I didn't put out the fuse and nothing happened!"

Am I right? Or is the fuse still burning, and going to keep burning where I can't get at it, until it explodes and blows me to pieces? That article is saying "we have ten years to put out the fuse." We didn't put out the fuse. That doesn't mean the explosion hasn't happened yet- the fuse is still burning, the world is in fact still getting warmer. You can check this. In places where once there were mountains of ice, there is now no ice, because it melted- a sign of things getting warmer. But you never see places where there never used to be ice, and now there is- so there are no places where it's getting colder.

So in many places where it used to be cold, it's getting warm. Common sense. Ice melts in heat. And in places where it used to be warm, it's still warm, or even hotter. Therefore, things are warming up. Common sense.

Believe it or not, this is not something scientists made up to trick you into buying cars that get better gas mileage. It really is out there. The way people like you wave it off as a big fake is scaring the crap out of almost everyone who studies the problem, because the longer our country (and other countries) let the fuse burn, the more danger we're all in.

I don't understand why this doesn't concern you more.

It can also be pointed out that global warming would delay the next Ice Age, meaning that civilization in most parts of the world will get to continue for decades or even centuries longer.

What ice age? What are you talking about? No one has expected an ice age soon since the 1970s, and that was based on mistakes that were wrong, and those people now look at their own work and realize they made mistakes. We checked; there is no ice age coming. Instead there is merely heat. Lots of heat. And bad weather. And melting ice. And floods.

I'm serious; like 99% of people who have done any research on this at all predict that it is going to suck, and the longer we ignore it, the worse it'll get. They're not joking. Seriously, go to a university with a research department. Go to NOAA. Ask these scientists in person to talk about this, and listen to them. They'll tell you, and it will be obvious: the more you know about global warming, the more worried you are.

Of course, if it is more important to deal with the melting of ice caps in the here and now than it is to extend the lifespan of human civilization in the temperate zones, there are a myriad of solutions available, not the least among them the solution stumbled upon by Carl Sagan and four others in the TTAPS study.

How are those mutually exclusive? It's not like we have to make a choice between "less global warming" and "civilization staying alive."

That's like saying I have to make a choice between "putting out the burning fuse" and "being happy." Sure, I might have to work a bit to put out the fuse, but it's not like it'd break my back to do it. I'd be unhappy for a moment- but how much worse would it be, to just ignore the burning fuse and wait for it to explode? That could ruin my whole day.

If it is silly to pretend that guns are necessary for survival, the NYPD does not need them.

By that argument, everyone ought to carry chainsaws all the time because lumberjacks need them. There are a lot of jobs that require tools normal people don't normally need to use.

If police need guns to survive encounters with criminals, then consider this.

Do criminals prefer to rob banks or police stations?

Do mugger prefer to target policemen?

Do rapists prefer to target policewomen?[/quote]That doesn't make sense. The reason police need weapons is that they spend lots of time in contact with violent criminals.

Do you spend that much time in contact with violent criminals? If you do, then sure, you have an urgent need for weapons. But if you're like me, you haven't been the target of a violent crime in years- you are at much, much less risk of dying or being injured by violence than a policeman. Your need for weapons is a lot weaker.

[shrugs]

Eh. I don't really care. Well, I might care in your case, you specifically, because the idea of you having weapons worries me because you keep getting these funny ideas I can't figure out bubbling out of your head. I'd be kind of jittery around an armed person who talked and thought the way you seem to, because I wouldn't be too sure what they were thinking when they looked at me.

[madd0ct0r]

I'm not sure if amigocabal is trolling or acting as a devils advocate.

This is my summary of amigocabal's position, again always keeping to the 'working class conservative point of view' that this thread is about.
And trying to avoid quote spaghetti.

1) Enviromentalism - Working class conservatives were for it, when it was the environment around them that was shit. Now most of the environmental movement's targets are relatively distant (eg overfishing, ice caps melting) there is no perceived connection to their own environment, while the costs (eg 'the company i work for getting hassle') remain easily perceptible. A conservative opposing such actions might point to various flaws in 'the evidence' which members of the board might accept as standard scientific procedure (we're not certain) or stupid sensationalist journalism. The average working class conservative american will not be so tolerant.

2) Gun control - Since criminals are often armed, by extension people who have to deal with criminals (police) or are frequent targets of criminals (population, with high perceived crime rates) should also be armed for self defense.

3) On the list of 'moral values' 'care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity, lefties tend to score higher then conservatives on the importance of 'care' and lower then conservatives on the importance of the other values. From a conservative viewpoint, shifting resources to boost 'care' at the cost of 'liberty' or 'fairness' is immoral. They don't value the boost in 'care' as much as the loss in the other values, leading to a net moral reduction = immoral action.
(I'm using lefty because liberal has multiple meanings)

4) General arguments regarding balancing of different moral values - this disintegrated into nitpicking specific examples which is not very interesting, although good flame bait. Besides I think the board agrees about the concept of balance and trade offs, it's just deciding where the balance line should be, which is why we are discussing conservative value systems and how to fit lefty ideas into them.

5) Healthcare - Working class conservatives also mistrust the government (interesting interplay between liberty and authority here). They do not trust it to have their best interests at heart (fairness, care).

6) Contrary to Stas Bush's argument - in order to enact policy change in a democratic nation, you FIRST have to appeal to the voters, not simply wait for their moral values to come into line with yours. Nor should you have to reject your own moral values, but simply find areas where the two coincide.
(the example given is confusing - I'm not sure Amigocabal and Stas Bush are arguing for the same policy on immigration)

is this a fair summary?