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2008-09-12 Home Front: Politix

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Posted by tipper 2008-09-12 10:22|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11127 views ] Top

#1 This is the most biased crap I have ever read, I'm amazed they claim to have advanced degrees.

Posted by Bill Claiter9194 2008-09-12 10:50|| 2008-09-12 10:50|| Front Page Top

#2 Hard-working people vote Republican for a variety of reasons. One being they believe they can spend ther hard-earned money better than the government.

Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues 2008-09-12 10:51|| 2008-09-12 10:51|| Front Page Top

#3 What Makes People Vote Republican?

Common Sense!

Posted by Ulinese Poodle2478 2008-09-12 11:51|| 2008-09-12 11:51|| Front Page Top

#4 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.

Ooookay. That's enough of that shit...

Posted by tu3031 2008-09-12 11:51|| 2008-09-12 11:51|| Front Page Top

#5 I think it really gets down to Liberals tend to prefer people stay in there place and be happy milking the rich but a lot of America simply aren't satisfied with that and it feels unfair. They want to be rich (even if the odds are against them) so fleecing the rich doesn't really make sense.

A careful distinction that is rarely made is the idea of taxing wealth creation vs idle wealth. If we were to eliminate the taxes on hard working wealthy folks and up them on the trust-fund babies more Americans would be in favor of that than not. But you'd be defunding a lot of prominent politicians and their donors in the process so it won't happen.

Posted by rjschwarz 2008-09-12 11:53|| 2008-09-12 11:53|| Front Page Top

#6 We psychologists

We soft-scientists

have been examining the origins of ideology ever since Hitler sent us Germany's best psychologists

Freud? He was a vast fraud: in fact there was a research on the people he allegedly cured and in fact none of them had his condition improved. In fact several of them had it worsened after visiting Dr Frud (logic; after a traumatic experince the peole who fare better are those who let it behind them not those who remember it) when
it wasn't simply creted by Freud's proding.

So we have it, a soft scientist, a guy who swallows a fraud bait and hook and, he is a Democrat.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2008-09-12 12:11|| 2008-09-12 12:11|| Front Page Top

#7 In other words voting republican is a mental disorder? Lemme guess where he's going with this.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2008-09-12 12:53|| 2008-09-12 12:53|| Front Page Top

#8 Jim, it's also a genetic disorder. And I bet I know where he's going with this too.

Posted by AlanC 2008-09-12 13:01|| 2008-09-12 13:01|| Front Page Top

#9 This is the first rule of moral psychology: feelings come first and tilt the mental playing field on which reasons and arguments compete. If people want to reach a conclusion, they can usually find a way to do so. The Democrats have historically failed to grasp this rule, choosing uninspiring and aloof candidates who thought that policy arguments were forms of persuasion.

and ...

When Democrats try to explain away these positions using pop psychology they err, they alienate, and they earn the label "elitist." But how can Democrats learn to seelet alone respecta moral order they regard as narrow-minded, racist, and dumb?

not to mention ...

Conservatives think that welfare programs and feminism increase rates of single motherhood and weaken the traditional social structures that compel men to support their own children? Hmm, that may be true, even if there are also many good effects of liberating women from dependence on men.

But then ...

In several large internet surveys, my collaborators Jesse Graham, Brian Nosek and I have found that people who call themselves strongly liberal endorse statements related to the harm/care and fairness/reciprocity foundations, and they largely reject statements related to ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. People who call themselves strongly conservative, in contrast, endorse statements related to all five foundations more or less equally. (You can test yourself at www.YourMorals.org.)

Posted by Bobby 2008-09-12 13:16|| 2008-09-12 13:16|| Front Page Top

#10 Redefine things. Peace is war. Love is hate. Sane is insane. Come on, its newspeak and everyone is doing it.

Posted by rjschwarz 2008-09-12 13:44|| 2008-09-12 13:44|| Front Page Top

#11 I don't know... let's depart from Ideology of anything for a second.
Say Abortion on Demand
Say most of San Fran who votes for Pelosi are non-reproducing drones with conflicted sex sense.
Say as they always insist that it is genetic and a test could determine it before birth.
What Hetro-Sexual breeding couple would want to give birth to a drone?
Say the same thing about chattering classes...
What couple would want to raise perpetually angry self-centered narcissists?

Isn't this eugenics?

....

Now how I started voting Republican....
One word - Carter

Posted by 3dc 2008-09-12 13:49|| 2008-09-12 13:49|| Front Page Top

#12 To answer the original question...maybe because the current crop of prominent Dems (Joe Lieberman being an exception)look like such $%*#ing douches?

Posted by Sgt. Mom">Sgt. Mom 2008-09-12 14:18|| http://www.celiahayes.com]">[http://www.celiahayes.com] 2008-09-12 14:18|| Front Page Top

#13 "large internet surveys"

And what scientist relies on INTERNET surveys for drawing his conclusion about non-network issues?

What a bunch of douchebags.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-09-12 14:53|| 2008-09-12 14:53|| Front Page Top

#14 In the psychological community, where almost all of us are politically liberal, our diagnosis of conservatism gives us the additional pleasure of shared righteous anger. We can explain how Republicans exploit frames, phrases, and fears to trick Americans into supporting policies (such as the "war on terror" and repeal of the "death tax") that damage the national interest for partisan advantage.

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. To see what Democrats have been missing, it helps to take off the halo, step back for a moment, and think about what morality really is.

To me this is the key bit of the paper. He's saying that as long as Progressives ignore the key cultural concerns of what is functionally another culture within the U.S., they will continue losing elections... and finding themselves in conversations with others who become inexplicably furious at them. Something like what those with Asperger's Syndrome experience.

The second conclusion was that the moral domain varies across cultures. [M]orality being about justice, rights, and human welfare worked perfectly for the college students I interviewed at Penn, but it simply did not capture the moral concerns of the less elite groups... [T]he second rule of moral psychology is that morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way.

When Republicans say that Democrats "just don't get it," this is the "it" to which they refer. When Democrats try to explain away these positions using pop psychology they err, they alienate, and they earn the label "elitist."

And here's the other key bit, his conclusion from his mugged-by-reality excursion into Indian society:

On Turiel's definition of morality ("justice, rights, and welfare"), Christian and Hindu communities don't look good. They restrict people's rights (especially sexual rights), encourage hierarchy and conformity to gender roles, and make people spend extraordinary amounts of time in prayer and ritual practices that seem to have nothing to do with "real" morality. But isn't it unfair to impose on all cultures a definition of morality drawn from the European Enlightenment tradition? Might we do better with an approach that defines moral systems by what they do rather than by what they value?

Here's my alternative definition: morality is any system of interlocking values, practices, institutions, and psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfishness and make social life possible. It turns out that human societies have found several radically different approaches to suppressing selfishness, two of which are most relevant for understanding what Democrats don't understand about morality.

the author then goes on to expand the point, hoping to help Democrats understand what they must do (address the sacred, not merely the consumerist profane) in order to win over those who they think ought not be voting Republican. It's actually a good paper, if one reads it dispassionately.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-09-12 15:05|| 2008-09-12 15:05|| Front Page Top

#15 Sorry. The first two paragraphs are quoted from the paper, and should be italicized. Paragraph three is mine.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-09-12 15:06|| 2008-09-12 15:06|| Front Page Top

#16 What makes people vote Republican?

I, for one, lived in San Francisco for 20 years. That pretty much did it.

Posted by Secret Master 2008-09-12 15:45|| 2008-09-12 15:45|| Front Page Top

#17 Eric Hoffer was a far better psychologist than Freud.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2008-09-12 15:47|| 2008-09-12 15:47|| Front Page Top

#18 From http://www.drsanity.blogspot.com

Severe Acquired Leftist Anencephalic Dementia (SALAD).

"I wish I could tell you that the political left in this country was out of its friggin' mind...but I can't, because it is increasingly clear that if you could put all the combined synapses of all the the above bloggers together you would not get a single logical or coherent thought about the war that is being waged against the West by the religion of peace.

These bloggers and many of their readers are on a mission to go where no human has gone before. They are beyond mere denial and delusion; beyond psychosis even. I regularly treat schizophrenics who have more respect for reality.

Sadly, they suffer from a totally debilitating disorder: Severe Acquired Leftist Anencephalic Dementia (SALAD). Their minds are simply not there any more! The cognitive dissonance of believing so many bizarre and contradictory fantasies; the mental contortions and fits necessary for them to retain their ideological myths has caused their minds to softly and silently vanish away (that's what happens when the snark is a boojum, you see).

It's a terrible and agonizing affliction. And I feel for them--a mind is a terrible thing to waste, after all; but we can rejoice because I am certain they haven't noticed and therfore feel no pain whatsoever."

"And, as a parallel, there is something terribly wrong with the political left and anyone who is able to continue to pretend that terrorism is just some vast right wing conspiracy promulgated by the Bu$hies and Big Business to oppress the masses. They can rationalize, minimize, distort, deny, ignore, and delude themselves all they want; they can add some mixed-up Greens to the SALAD and scream about global warming; but it is very hard not to laugh--and they really do suffer from a debilitating and crippling cognitive malfunction."

Posted by USMC6743 2008-09-12 15:56|| 2008-09-12 15:56|| Front Page Top

#19 In the old Soviet system people were sent to 'professional care' institutes who disagreed with the dialectic of the party. They were obviously mentally ill because they didn't grasp the fundamental perfection of the socialist dogma. Any surprise the left remains the left even in the 21st Century?

Concepts like human free will are an anathema to their basic constructs of their preconceived universe. Where as those towards the right believe man is unique above the animals and able to make cognizant choices, the left treats the whole as just another social organism inhabiting the planet. That's why the left believes and acts upon the concept of a territorial hierarchical arrangement of the rulers [them - the inner party] and the ruled [everyone else - the outer party]. When Americans make decisions that don't conform to the secularist/socialist non-unique world construct, they see it as a neurosis while the other group simply looks upon it as natural 'human' behavior.

Posted by Procopius2k 2008-09-12 16:38|| 2008-09-12 16:38|| Front Page Top

#20 Whiskey
Sexy
Liberty

Posted by .5MT 2008-09-12 17:16|| www.cybernations.net]">[www.cybernations.net] 2008-09-12 17:16|| Front Page Top

#21 "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?"

-you mean like the socialist policy of taking money away from other honest hard working Americans? My grandparents were rural based hard workers and they didn't want a hand out from anyone. Or is he referring to the open borders or giving illegals a road to citizenship? (honestly a dem & mccain policy) Yeah, that really helps rural Americans or even dem Union voters. By flooding the country w/other cheap labor competition you essentially hurt those you claim to want to help. This guy's an idiot. I caught it in the first paragraph but I guess even a blind squirrel gets a nut as I tend to vote GOP.

Posted by Broadhead6 2008-09-12 17:24|| 2008-09-12 17:24|| Front Page Top

#22 Ever note the story lines that run the fantasy that the hero/heroine is defeats the bad guy and all in the land acknowledge them as ruler. Perhaps the primary mindset of a liberal that he is the nobility and all others should be subservient to the greater knowledge and moral authority he/she exhibits.

Posted by tipover 2008-09-12 18:45|| 2008-09-12 18:45|| Front Page Top

#23 "~~Perhaps~~ the primary mindset of a liberal that he is the nobility and all others should be subservient to the greater knowledge and moral authority he/she exhibits."

Fixed that for ya', tipper.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2008-09-12 19:28|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/] 2008-09-12 19:28|| Front Page Top

#24 I found this on a left-wing-nut site which referenced this article, which I thought was interesting.
Palin Power isnt just about making hockey moms feel important. Its not just about giving abortion rights opponents their due. Its also, in obscure ways, about making yearnings come true deep, inchoate desires about respect and service, hierarchy and family that have somehow been successfully projected onto the figure of this unlikely woman and have stuck.

For those of us who cant tap into those yearnings, it seems the Palin faithful are blind to the contradictions between her stated positions and the truth of the policies she espouses, to the contradictions between her ideology and their interests. But Jonathan Haidt, an associate professor of moral psychology at the University of Virginia, argues in an essay this month, What Makes People Vote Republican?, that its liberals, in fact, who are dangerously blind.

Haidt has conducted research in which liberals and conservatives were asked to project themselves into the minds of their opponents and answer questions about their moral reasoning. Conservatives, he said, prove quite adept at thinking like liberals, but liberals are consistently incapable of understanding the conservative point of view. Liberals feel contempt for the conservative moral view, and that is very, very angering. Republicans are good at exploiting that anger, he told me in a phone interview.

Perhaps thats why the conservatives can so successfully get under liberals skin. And why liberals need to start working harder at breaking through the empathy barrier.

Bingo!
As Sun Tzu would say:
It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.

Posted by tipper 2008-09-12 21:01|| 2008-09-12 21:01|| Front Page Top

#25 "And why liberals need to start working harder at breaking through the empathy barrier."

Ain't gonna happen.

As many greater than I have said, they just can't help themselves.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2008-09-12 21:07|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/] 2008-09-12 21:07|| Front Page Top

#26 Liberals are not adults.

Posted by 3dc 2008-09-12 21:32|| 2008-09-12 21:32|| Front Page Top

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