(Libs trying to understand us): WHAT MAKES PEOPLE VOTE REPUBLICAN?

(Excerpt 1:)"What makes people vote Republican? Why in particular do working class and rural Americans usually vote for pro-business Republicans when their economic interests would seem better served by Democratic policies? We psychologists have been examining the origins of ideology ever since Hitler sent us Germany's best psychologists, and we long ago reported that strict parenting and a variety of personal insecurities work together to turn people against liberalism, diversity, and progress. But now that we can map the brains, genes, and unconscious attitudes of conservatives, we have refined our diagnosis: conservatism is a partially heritable personality trait that predisposes some people to be cognitively inflexible, fond of hierarchy, and inordinately afraid of uncertainty, change, and death. People vote Republican because Republicans offer "moral clarity"—a simple vision of good and evil that activates deep seated fears in much of the electorate. Democrats, in contrast, appeal to reason with their long-winded explorations of policy options for a complex world."

(Excerpt 2): "But with pleasure comes seduction, and with righteous pleasure comes seduction wearing a halo. Our diagnosis explains away Republican successes while convincing us and our fellow liberals that we hold the moral high ground. Our diagnosis tells us that we have nothing to learn from other ideologies, and it blinds us to what I think is one of the main reasons that so many Americans voted Republican over the last 30 years: they honestly prefer the Republican vision of a moral order to the one offered by Democrats."

And what’s so ironic about this is that modern-day conservatives have become much more “progressive” than today’s liberals. From education to Social Security to civil rights, etc. it is liberals who want to protect the status-quo while Republicans want to make reforms.

Liberals claim Republicans are stuck in the past, yet they are the ones who cling to the 1960’s as if they are still fighting the same problems; their rhetoric hasn’t even changed in 40 years. Every war we fight is Vietnam; every disagreement we have is racist, sexist, bigot, etc. Liberals certainly are not the progressive party as they continue fighting and defending the same old, useless policies.

We psychologists have been examining the origins of ideology ever since Hitler sent us Germany's best psychologists, and we long ago reported that strict parenting and a variety of personal insecurities work together to turn people against liberalism, diversity, and progress. But now that we can map the brains, genes, and unconscious attitudes of conservatives, we have refined our diagnosis: conservatism is a partially heritable personality trait that predisposes some people to be cognitively inflexible, fond of hierarchy, and inordinately afraid of uncertainty, change, and death. People vote Republican because Republicans offer "moral clarity"—a simple vision of good and evil that activates deep seated fears in much of the electorate. Democrats, in contrast, appeal to reason with their long-winded explorations of policy options for a complex world."

This is funny. It ought to have been written as satire.

But I'll play.

#1. I'm a classic liberal. Hayek, Locke, Burke. Those guys.
#2. I love diversity.
#3. Progress is my business; luddites are the bain of my existence.
#4. Inflexible? No. Problem-solvers tend to be very flexible about means but clear about the ends.
#5. I like my hierarchies flat. Its that "limited government" thing. Its why I dislike socialism and socialists, precisely because I don't like hierarchies.
#6. Uncertainty and change are normal in my world. People who fear uncertainty and change like bureaucrats to impose order upon their lives. Thats not me.
#7. And I'm very at ease with my mortality.
And finally:
#8. Yes, I do like that moral clarity thing. It is precisely because we live in a world of gray and compromise and diversity that you have to have your moral compass in good working order or you'll lose your way and maybe your soul if you're not careful. It is precisely because I don't go in for "hierarchies" that moral clarity is so very important. I don't want to take direction from some bureaucratic dweeb; I'll chart my own course, thank you.

I give this guy credit.

Not because he is mainly right in his analysis, which he isn’t (though he brings up some good points), but because he has managed to find a way to transcend some parts of his miseducated world-view. He is a psychologist of a narrow sort, so everything needs to be filtered through his cramped vision.

The requirement for coming up with a theory to explain the inexplicable (as human psychology is, and sociology even more so) is supplied with an elegant model, which this type of mind wants to do. If its easier to deal with this type of person if he adopts such a less-constricting (though still bogus) model, then all the better.

“This has to be satire?’

Nope, this is a typical academic mind at work. Slightly less narrow minded/tunnel-visioned than some.

“the idea that Democrat ideals are complex is a joke”

Sure it is, on one level. They are endlessly elaborated on in self-referential arguments that are meaningless to people who aren’t players in these intellectual games. The whole philosophical argument over the rationalist basis for morality (and “rights”), for instance, is far, far more involved (and pointless) than scholastic theology ever was. I’ll grant that that deep game-playing is limited to a tiny set of academics, but they serve to justify a lot of others.

This kind of person just won’t hear practical arguments, or indeed anything outside their field of specialization (their own deep game) because thats not the kind of thing they were trained to do. Lots of academics are really idiots-savants, good at certain tricks but hopeless at others. Consider them Bobby Fischers.

Republicans offer "moral clarity"--a simple vision of good and evil that activates deep seated fears in much of the electorate.

How "simplistic." This pseudo-analysis is missing essential details, namely, the very real basis for said "fears."

Subverting the Constitution and transforming this nation into a people's paradise is the kind of utopian thinking which has proven fatal in the 20th century. Confiscatory taxation to support wealth redistribution, gun bans and prohibitions, civilian disarmament, effectively outlawing homeschooling, ..., all goals near and dear to "morality obfuscating" Dems who are the very ones who embrase some of the most simplistic and breath-taking inversions of the good and evil, thereby activating their brown-shirted minions who plot all kinds of mayhem against those with whom they disagree.

Sorry for the late response to this thread, I just wanted to unload on this rubbish somewhere. I saw a post in an apolitical social network to a video link from this man (the difference between Democrat and Republican thinking or some such nonsense) so rather than play the clip, I searched out a transcript and some summaries.

If Democrats really do believe that the whole society should be rated on the lives on those at the bottom, the why do liberals like Ted Kennedy go vacationing in an expensive excusive beachfront? This is a lie.

I saw the comment that Democrats believe that “all men are created equal” and that they should have an equalized opportunity to “climb up” (by whatever means is needed to raise some up). If you climb up, then you are changing this order. If we are all supposed to be equal, then no one should be climbing upward. We should ALL be equal. No Ted Kennedys. No George Soros. No Bill Gates. No Rodney Kings. Everyone gets $35,000 in savings and that’s it.

Also read bullstalin about how Republicans “believe” that we need to have some people at certain levels of society and some at others and no one should be moving between these different elements of society. First I am hearing this crap.

Usual agitprop class warfare CRAP.

But in searching for it on the internet, I found it carried and kicked and bumped along by a lot of Democrats who think it is smart. Just like that antitheistic, 9-11 conspiracy theory documentary that liberals were watching on the internet a couple of years ago.

You want to know why debate has gone out of fashion in this country? Because there is no meeting of the minds. I did not need to read what “Republicans believe”, I wanted to see what someone ELSE said Republicans believe and I disagree with it. But rather than seek out Republicans to FIND what they believe, liberals (including those I know on affore mentioned social networking site) THINK they know what Republicans believe because some pointy headed intellectual TOLD them what Republicans believe (and got it WRONG).

People vote Republican because Republicans offer "moral clarity"—a simple vision of good and evil that activates deep seated fears in much of the electorate. Democrats, in contrast, appeal to reason with their long-winded explorations of policy options for a complex world."

There is the key phrase I needed to read. "Republicans" cling to deep seated fears while Democrats "appeal to reason with their long-winded explorations"...

Short version is this the Republicans are no nothings, and Democrats arrived at the "right" answer because they are smarter, thought it through, and did all the research.

But don't ask them when life begins. They know you can't handle the answer that it is morally superior to kill a baby rather than let it grow up wondering who its parents were.

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