Posted on 03/04/2005 7:10:21 AM PST by dukeman
This one from DU speaks for itself. Enjoy:
amjucsc (104 posts) Thu Mar-03-05 10:43 PM
Original message
Why are Americans so damn conservative?
While this obviously dosen't apply to the people on this site, I always wonder why collectively Americans have strayed so much farther to the right than people in other first world countries.
Why exactly is it that people who embrace evangelical Christianity while opposing things like universal healthcare tend to wind up on this side of the pond? History? Demographic trends? National character? Something in the drinking water? (Turns out floridation was a left wing plot after all...)
I'm just curious if anyone has a good explanation for the red states...
Placebo (1000+ posts) Thu Mar-03-05 10:48 PM
Response to Original message
3. It can't be religious-based...
I mean, hell, Europe was ruled by religion for hundreds of years yet somehow it's turned out alright. [BWAHAHAHAHAHA!]
physioex (1000+ posts) Thu Mar-03-05 10:50 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. But that only took a few thousand years....
The people who came to this country came here to have religious freedom. Turn around what do we get, fudamentalists pushing their values on a secular country.
lagged_variable (5 posts) Thu Mar-03-05 10:53 PM
Response to Reply #3
11. Puritanism
Europe may have dealt with similar religious issues, but it wasn't founded by a mass of Puritans. A country founded by the Protestant ethic run amok, plus a strong sense of Rugged Individualism grown by a frontier (cowboy) fantasy, in my opinion, gets us where we are today.
pdurod1 (129 posts) Thu Mar-03-05 10:51 PM
Response to Original message
6. They're not conservative, just scared and ignorant or does that define a
conservative?
hedgehog (164 posts) Fri Mar-04-05 04:38 AM
Response to Reply #6
27. Absolutely, ignorant but not necessarily stupid
I remember one poll indicating a large number of Bush supporters who held views the opposite of his. They would have been Kerry supporters if they had understood which candidate they actually agreed with. This wasn't a case of letting one issue trounce the others; they thought Bush's positions were the opposite of what they were.
One reason for ignorance- when you're working 2 jobs, it's hard to keep track of politics.
solinvictus (1000+ posts) Thu Mar-03-05 10:52 PM
Response to Original message
7. It's a reaction due to Sep. 11 & years of propaganda.
Americans still cling to the Horatio Alger story as a cherished sacrament of our culture despite the fact that the very people proclaiming the glories of the free market are the last ones to believe in it. Unfortunately, the average, Freeper-type conservative has been lulled into believing that hard work, dedication, and competence will result in success. Due to this, the working class Freeper has a sort of political and economic version of Stockholm Syndrome in which they identify more with their captors than the very people who are seeking a bette life for them. Many here look at Freepers with disgust, but to a degree, I pity the ignorant, mean spirited bastards. Think of how many Freepers are working at dead-end **** jobs while professing their love for Big Brother.
physioex (1000+ posts) Thu Mar-03-05 10:58 PM
Response to Reply #7
13. Very well put....
And the less educated less read you are, the more likely you are to believe the lies....
El Supremo (829 posts) Thu Mar-03-05 10:52 PM
Response to Original message
8. Because it is safer for the uninformed.
When you don't know squat, it is easier to fall into line with the most vocal idiots.
BTW, not all evangels are bad. Fundamentalists in any religion are the root of all problems.
Kerrytravelers (408 posts) Thu Mar-03-05 10:52 PM
Response to Original message
9. I think 9/11
* was able to wrap himself in it. People are too lazy and too disinterested to learn what's really going on. Others just can't believe that someone would lie about going to war. It's misplaced national pride. It's no excuse, but this is what is happening. If 9/11 had not happened, I doubt * would still be in the Oval Office (unless, of course, he cheted again. He wouoldn't do that, would he? )
zulchzulu (1000+ posts) Thu Mar-03-05 10:58 PM
Response to Original message
14. It's generally just stupidity, ignorance & about being overwhelmed
Two jobs, two kids, two car garage with a two hour daily commute and being two months away from living on the street make the average American more than willing to watch two hours of mindless TV each night that doesn't have to deal with the hell that their lives are.
Microwave the food and flick on the tube after a long day overworked and underpaid and a traffic jam on the way home to pick the kids at daycare for two grand a month.
It's no wonder people believe Chimpy. They're too exhausted and too clueless about what's going on outside their miserable lives.
bob_weaver (358 posts) Thu Mar-03-05 10:59 PM
Response to Original message
15. Because Americans are selfish, and conservatism is selfishness put into a
political ideology
AndyTiedye (1000+ posts) Thu Mar-03-05 10:59 PM
Response to Original message
16. The Right Wing Owns The News & the Fundies Own the Voting Machinez
And once they push through the DRAFT they'll own our bodies too.
That's what Boosh** really means about this "ownership" thing.
The "pendulum" only swings ever further to the right now.
ljm2002 (453 posts) Thu Mar-03-05 11:47 PM
Response to Original message
18. Middle class values...
...I do not say that as a knee-jerk remark, I mean there is within the American personality, a tendency to think in terms of the obvious Goodness of material wealth and also to fantasize about the world around us: we see ourselves with a "homey" kind of vision, where there is this lovely middle class amber glow cast across the USofA, and that is Reality As We See It and we are happy to believe all that is told to us by our beneficient government from whom so many blessings flow, as well as to rally 'round any warmongering that may occur; and finally, we have an oddly strained relationship with the truth where our own immediate self interest and the status quo are concerned: we simplly insist on seeing things from the side that supports our own immediate self interest.
PurityOfEssence (1000+ posts) Fri Mar-04-05 02:23 AM
Response to Original message
20. Independence and selfishness are inculcated as the greatest virtues
Need I say more?
Extreme Christianity is total selfishness: save me and f*** them; they're inferiors anyway. Hell, you can't be picked from the crowd for happyland if the rest of them aren't such rotters.
Think about it.
okieinpain (1000+ posts) Fri Mar-04-05 03:13 AM
Response to Original message
23. easy, black males and crime. 9/11 just the icing on the cake.
Broca (30 posts) Fri Mar-04-05 03:39 AM
Response to Original message
24. Try corroborating this to the areas with the highest levels of Mercury
contamination or other factors that affect the brain's function.
ComerPerro (1000+ posts) Fri Mar-04-05 04:28 AM
Response to Original message
26. They aren't. They just think they are
Most Americans are just so uninterested that they go for whoever tells most, nicest, and most convincing lies. That is why the Republicans have been so successful (and 9/11, of course).
area51 (973 posts) Fri Mar-04-05 07:33 AM
Response to Original message
28. "Why are Americans so damn conservative?"
B/c of our conservative-biased media feeding them propaganda.
sniffa (1000+ posts) Fri Mar-04-05 08:54 AM
Response to Original message
29. americans aren't that conservative
it's smoke and mirrors.
Well, don't you know their baseline is that they hate the US as it was/is, so the further you get from the US, the better?
Think about it in match-ups. If they had to pick between US and Europe, it would be Europe. Between Europe and Africa, their choice would be Africa. Etc, etc, etc. That's ALWAYS how it goes w/these self-hating American flagellators, aka Communists.
Europe may have dealt with similar religious issues, but it wasn't founded by a mass of Puritans. A country founded by the Protestant ethic run amok, plus a strong sense of Rugged Individualism grown by a frontier (cowboy) fantasy, in my opinion, gets us where we are today.
I remember one poll indicating a large number of Bush supporters who held views the opposite of his. They would have been Kerry supporters if they had understood which candidate they actually agreed with.
Due to this, the working class Freeper has a sort of political and economic version of Stockholm Syndrome in which they identify more with their captors than the very people who are seeking a bette life for them.
16. The Right Wing Owns The News & the Fundies Own the Voting Machinez And once they push through the DRAFT they'll own our bodies too.
Enough. I can’t read anymore.
I'm so stupid that it even worked for me. If I had been smarter I could be a failure.
ROTFLMAO!
Well, you know, that could be the crux of this whole Democrat thing.
Too many plain idiots, and too many geniuses - who have no common sense (we see that alot, don't we? Not always, of course....).
If you're a really smart genius, it may be you have no horse sense and can't function properly to succeed.
Tell that to the DUmmies. They can feel insulted and complimented at the same time.
"Most Americans are just so uninterested that they go for whoever tells most, nicest, and most convincing lies. That is why the Republicans have been so successful"
IOW, you acknowledge your guy is lying too! I guess Kerry's lies just weren't as convincing.
It is insane.
Well we are stupid for supporting their sorry butts.
My IQ is over 150. But I could tie my shoes by the time I could walk. Yep at the tender age of 16 I could tie my shoes.
Hence do I say "not always". ;-)
My fiance is 153 (supposedly, and it is believable), and I'm 140. But we have pretty good common sense.
We know things such as it's not a sin to own property, you should be paid for doing work and not paid for doing nothing, nor is it some1 else's fault when a woman gets burnt from spilling coffee on herself.
It is totally beyond my comprehension how these miserable failures fault success as being stupid. And they won't try to succeed because it can't be done.
My motto is, "If you think you can't do it, you're right!"
Well said.
The tinfoil-hat crowd over on DU indeed believes that the mainstream media is conservative. Their logic goes something like this: Corporations are bad and evil. Corporations own the main media outlets. Therefore, the mainstream media is bad and evil. And since conservatism = evil too, then the media is conservative. Simple?
I notice you've posted comments to specific items in the DU thread as you reach them. Entertaining, isn't it? I like lurking on DU because just when I scroll down a thread and think I've really read the penultimate loo-loo post, another one comes along and surpasses the prior one. It definitely is the gift that keeps on giving!
ZombyWoof (1000+ posts) Thu Mar-03-05 11:20 PM
Original message
I tell people who voted for Bush...
Especially the sorry f***ing pinheaded festering pushole loser assclown fascist anal seepages who did so twice: "**** you, you voted for Bush, you have blood on your hands. You should be ashamed. And **** you."
Or if I ain't sayin' it out loud - goddamn workplace rules and the need for food and shelter - I am thinkin' it. It's on the tip of my sweet tongue. Blood on your hands, ****faces!
As HST [the late Hunter S. Thompson] said, "I piss down the throats of these nazis." F***, I am drinking extra water, beer, whiskey, and coffee just so I can keep a steady supply stream ready.
What do you tell people who voted for the coke-addled corporate boytoy? You should screw diplomacy in the ass, and go for the jugular. The Good Doctor would approve. He didn't die in vain.
xray s (1000+ posts) Thu Mar-03-05 11:27 PM
Response to Original message
5. I tell them they are baby killers
and grandma and grandpa killers, and pregnant women killers, and little girl killers, and mommy and daddy killers.
the troops aren't pulling the trigger. the people who voted for Bush are pulling the triggers.
Bouncy Ball (1000+ posts) Thu Mar-03-05 11:35 PM
Response to Original message
14. I don't talk to them, period.
If I KNOW they voted for him.
ZombyWoof (1000+ posts) Thu Mar-03-05 11:45 PM
Response to Reply #14
18. A sound policy, to be sure
I don't know many, and I don't look for them. And as I said, the few at my workplace are protected by those weak-ass rules from my wrath... But if anyone out there should ever confront me because they want to sneer at me for being a "liberal Democrat", I am going to slay them on the spot. They will regret their choice to engage me in a political tete-a-tete. I have enjoyed the results so far. The look of stunned stupidity and impotent snide arrogance combined with clueless frustration is a delight to be savored. Don't deny yourself the pleasure.
Randi_Listener (1000+ posts) Fri Mar-04-05 12:11 AM
Response to Original message
24. I with you.
F*** those ****-eating ******bags.
That is typical talk from liberals. Hate, hate, hate!
They're real sweethearts, aren't they?
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