Help Me Understand conservatives

[BOSSHOG]

I hear them say thay are all for personal liberties and then:

- They want to force their religion on the country via activist judges and codification.
- They want to force their beliefs on public school curriculum.
- They want to decide what I watch on TV and listen to on the radio.
- They want to make my personal medical decisions for me and my family based on their beliefs and their manipulation of activist judges and spineless politicians.
- They want to prevent people who love each other from getting married because they hate those people. (Interesting that they have to amend the constitution to achieve this goal because there exists no such prevention in the Constitution as written).
- They want to establish guidelines on a how a woman can treat her body. And on and on and on, and yet they insist they are all for personal liberties.

On reflection, this old salt doesn't need any help understanding conservatives. Unfortunately for them there are millions like me who understand them all too well and cherish the constitution way too much to allow those liberty lovers to defile it.

[rodeodance]

1. they are part of 'me' mentality--no longer is the US place that cares

for it citizens that can no longer care for themselves.

[shoelace414]

2. The more people learn about consertive policies, the less they like them

[ConcernedNonpartisan]

3. Conservative liberty equals:

You can do anything that WE do. The belief being, if it isn't something that WE would do, it is something you CAN NOT do.

After all, WE are right!

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do" is not a joke...

It's a threat.

[liberal N proud]

4. What happened to the land of the Free?

These people were all raised in the same America we were and I would assume they were given the same love thy neighbor lessons.
What these people want is all for themselves, nothing for thy neighbor.

[zanne]

5. POWER

For some of them, the issue don't matter anymore. They go along because of all the power they've amassed. And they want more.

[lagged_variable]

6. reciprocality

Honestly, I think that except for the gay marriage item on your list, they are posting the exact same questions and asking the same things about us.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. Oh, yeah. We're going to make them get abortions.

We're going to make them sit down and watch dirty movies.

We're going to make them all believe in god as only we see her.

I think the only item that holds us is that we will insist on teaching science in science classes, rather than religion. And even then, we don't insist they believe it. Just that they learn it.

It's a matter of choice. The want to remove choice for other individuals. We want to allow choice for all individuals.

There is no reciprocity.

[lagged_variable]

16. You missed the point

I didn't say we WOULD do that, I said they THINK we'd do that. And their agruments hinge on that fairly stupid assumption.

[RaleighNCDUer]

22. Thanks, You're right -- I didn't parse your post correctly.

And that said, It is unbelievable what sort of things they ascribe to us.

Of course, I'm sure they think it unbelievable that we would think they would bring fascism and theocracy to America. That is, except those among them who are actually doing just that.

[ClassWarrior]

8. Read "Don't Think of an Elephant" by George Lakoff.

It helped me understand many of the WTF moments that the Radical RW creates.

NGU.

[sinkingfeeling]

10. Here's what I've come to believe defines 'conservatives'...

Their motto is 'We trust corporations and those who own them, but cannot trust the individual to make proper decisions.' They want corporations to be unrestricted in all senses....no oversight of how they keep the 'books', where they dump toxic waste, what they do to the environment, who they make deals with, who they overcharge, and of course, they should pay no taxes. To ensure the continued 'growth', we must eliminate any resistance to mergers, off-shoring, and outsourcing, and 'privatize' any thing we can, including education, prisons, and troop support.

On the other hand, the individual must be controlled. As you said, they want to tell us what to see, eat, view, what to say and where we can say it. They will tell us who we can love, what we must do with that fertilized egg, and how long we must be kept alive by machine (so that HMO can take 100's of thousands of dollars from the family's wealth). The individual of course may not challenge the corporations....right to sue, eminent domain, bankruptcy, etc.

I believe that liberals hold the opposite view....people should be free to make their own choices and corporations should be controlled.

[BOSSHOG]

11. And Yet!

While I agree with your entire post, conservatives will look you in the eye and swear their ONLY wish is for all Americans to have personal liberties and they will tell you that can't happen with liberal doctrine. Sad, disgusting, constitution hating human beings. We spend so much time and capitol saving them from themselves. If conservatives had their way, we would no longer have a constitution and they would be just as fucked as us.

[ArkDem]

12. How do you spend capitol?

[BOSSHOG]

13. Please forgive me

That would be capital!

[Igel]

14. One problem is that progressives believe the PR about

conservatives.

If you have an extreme stereotype of what conservatives are and how they think, putting them all into one basket and not trying to understand them on their own terms, you can never figure out how to talk to them or what the real disagreements are.

Treating conservatives as the "Other" is no better than treating Native Americans as the "Other".

[BOSSHOG]

15. My experience indicates its not a problem at all

I know conservatives for what they are, based on my interaction with them, not because of any stereotype. I live in South Mississippi and conservatives here are by and large on the message they are programmed to be on. And I have had no confusion about what the real disagreements are between me and them. I choose to spread the "stereotype" loud and clear to the conservative community hoping it will be disspelled and it never is. The right wing brainwashing machine has been a total success in this part of the country.

[Igel]

21. Strikes me that I missed the big brainwashing

campaign perpetrated by the RW machine. The Mississippians I've known (and they've been few in number) were fairly conservative a long time ago, before Reagan.

Was it under Nixon?

[BOSSHOG]

26. And Mississipi conservatives, before Reagan

were Democrats who lynched blacks (but remained conservative) through their transformation to loyal republicans, because the republican party was more attractive to them as the 60's became the 80's. They hate homosexuals, they hate Bill Clinton, they hate in the name of Jesus Christ. They don't want big government interfering in their lives even though big government is the reason thousands of Mississippians can put food on the table each day. They "support" the troops even though Army recruiters in the State have missed goal five months in a row; support the troops but don't serve next to them. They hate liberals and hate John Kerry because they are told to do so from the pulpit. It may have started under Nixon but the intensity has increased since then and continues full bore today in Mississippi. They blather on about morals while the divorce rate, incest rate, teen pregnancy rate and spousal abuse rate in the state is very high as is the TV ratings for Desperate Housewives. And the meth labs prosper in the Piney Woods. I am quite comfortable in stating that Mississippi conservatives are content in letting others do their thinking for them. Because it makes them feel good about who they are. I hope this answers your question.

[RaleighNCDUer]

24. Except we're far liklier to be scalped by the conservatives.

OK, that was a little snarky, and used a politically incorrect stereotype of Native Americans to make a bad joke. For that, I apologise.

But I still hang onto my hair in the presence of conservatives.

[mongo]

17. They want to Freedom to shove their views down our throats

After all our country was founded by the Puritans who were seeking the right to religiously oppress people as they saw fit.

[KayLaw]

18. Not all are the same

I can respect the views of many true conservatives and a lot came out of the woodwork to encourage everyone to vote for Kerry.

The ones I detest are the opportunistic propagandists, and there are a ton of those, the suckers who believe them, and then the real wacko's who will accept absolutely any crap as long as the person it's coming from has an R after his or her name.

[BOSSHOG]

19. You are absolutely right, however

based on your post, wouldn't it be most appropriate for "true conservatives" to fight those who would hide behind their identity to promote their agenda instead of me and you? I would be happy to sit back quietly and let "real conservatives" kick some ass but I don't see that happening and I have one hell of a time sitting back quietly.

[mimitabby]

20. religion... sigh

I continually hear from the conservative ends how outrageous it is
that so and so couldnt pray, couldnt worship, that some
poor child somewhere got sent home from school because they wore
a jesus saves teeshirt or some bs like that.
the point is, in their ME-Ness, they still believe that they
are a persecuted minority!
and as long as they all believe that, they're going to attack
us (and THE LIBERAL MEDIA -- there were 3 letters to the editor
today in the seattle times accusing them of just that)
because they believe THEIR liberties are in jeapardy.
meanwhile, they are taking our country over.
I really feel bad for dark skinned muslims in this country. the amount of hate they are receiving is chilling.
The way my family reacts is when we see a "fish" sign on a place
of business, we try NOT to patronize.

[Lexingtonian]

23. oh, it's easy

They want U.S. society to conform to The Divine Order Of Things. The one that they find in traditional Christian misinterpretations of the Bible, anyway.

Their problem is that their God is either getting really weak, or they've grossly misunderstood Him, or something like that in the social realm. They more they squawk and elect 'Christians' to office to coerce the apostate to false purities and create 'traditional' injustices, the more their own young people (the true target of it all) walk away from the foolishness and disprovenness of the scheme. The Bible Belt simply is in moral and 'family values' disintegration because the stupidity/'faith'-based method it relies on, that makes being a good person a trick of willpower rather than a matter of hard work to achieve actual integrity, is inherently defective.

As economic and foreign policy goes, the Republican voting kind have confused their God with their Devil entirely. It has a lot of 'tradition', going back to the murdering of Indians for their land.

[tom_paine]

25. There is no understanding them with understand the propaganda

that created them.

Read Orwell's "1984" "Animal Farm".
Read Bradbury's "Farenheit 451" which most closely mirrors the New Totalitarianism of Imperial Amerika.

Read the "Rise and Fall of Nazi Germany" or another similar book.

They believe in nothing but what THE PARTY tells them, and will turn like a light switch if THE PARTY tells them to.

Example: deficits & debt

They are as danegrous as any malleable, gullible, easily lead people when placed in harness by the Propaganda Program.

And they are innoculated from ever returning to sdanity for part of the Propaganda Program by being made to discount all NON-PARTY-APPROVED information.

The Nazis used to say it was "Jewish propaganda".
The Busheviks say it would be "Liberal propaganda"

But you know and I know that they are both saying the same thing.

[BlueManDude]

27. greed, intolerance and bigotry - any questions?

that's all you need to know.