Why you can't reason with a Republican

[lwcon]

Surely you've wondered this: why don't stupid things like facts change rightwingers' minds?

Blogger Digby explains:

...the GOP base is not really concerned with issues or even God, Family, Country. They are about hating liberals. (Many of them are about hating dark or foreign liberals in particular.) We can present a thousand ten point plans and say they should vote for us because their economic interests lie with liberal policies, but it won't make a bit of difference. We can point out their hypocrisy and flip-flops and it means nothing. Republican identity politics transcend such prosaic concerns as policy and political philosophy. It's all about whether you are one of them.

More than anything, as Matt Stoller observes, what they identify with is authoritarianism. Absolutely anything is OK for a Republican, as long as he affects the role of the big, strong, moralizing daddy.

That doesn't mean that he — and, sorry, that inclusive "he or she" doesn't cut it with this crowd — actually needs to make us safer, holier, healthier, or wealthier.

He just needs to speak the tribal code of red-meat 'murkan jingoism.

He has to reassure us that we're superior to anyone who isn't a good, white, Christian, American man.

He needs to feed our paranoia about lily-livered liberals who want to fluoridate our water, impeding the flow of red, white, and blue testosterone.

He has to glorify unbridled power: military, religious, and economic.

He can be thrice-divorced and have OxyContin oozing out his eyeballs. He can be a drunk-driving draft dodger. He can wear magic underwear. He can even (shudder) have once thought women should be allowed control their own bodies.

He must assure "values voters" that he understands there are two kinds of people in this country: good and bad. The good people believe in "our country right or wrong." They hate the government (as long as hate means "investing imperial power in the executive branch... if the right party is in charge.")

The bad people are the dirty hippies, who care so little about American decency and our troops that they want America to be ethical, thoughtful, and responsible. They want to destroy the greatest nation on Earth with sissy shit like education, health care, diplomacy, and military planning.

The dirty hippies are people like Iraq War-opponent Diana Powe:

Apparently, the fringe includes me, a 30-year serving Texas police officer, my oldest brother, Col. Marc B. Powe (USA ret.) who served two tours in Viet Nam, was a military attache in Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war and was in the Pentagon itself on 09/11, my brother, Christopher L. Powe, who was an artilleryman in Viet Nam, and my brother, Stephen F. Powe, who was a distinguished military graduate from Texas A&M University and served as an Army infantry officer in the mid-1970s.

We are widely recognized for being completely out of the mainstream of political and social thought as you can easily imagine.

With commie-pinko, terrorist-lovin' freaks like the Powes, it's easy to understand why god-fearin' people in America's heartland won't listen to the left, and its famously outdated reality-based agenda.

The bottom line is this: matters like truth, ethics, and logic mean no more to a Republican than they do to a Rottweiler.

If that seems unfair, consider how much make-believe you have to play to believe in today's Republicans...

That they value common people more than they cherish Mammon.

That they value peace over the cheap thrills of sending other people's children to kill and die (or that peace and protecting our troops aren't worthy goals, after all).

That they live by Jesus' message of love and charity.

That their word is their bond, that they stand by "compassionate conservatism," "war is the last resort," "era of personal responsibility," "we support our troops," and "no child left behind."

That letting the most powerful corporations and their lobbyists craft federal legislation is in the best interests of every American.

That the best way to protect the environment and have peace in the Middle East is to have petroleum executives run the world's largest consumer of energy.

That the best way to put money in the pockets of average Americans is to give tax cuts to the wealthiest 1%.

That turning a record surplus into a record deficit is prudent financial stewardship.

That the future-tense document "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S" was "an historical document."

That never once convening an anti-terrorism task force and sitting vacantly in a classroom while America was under siege is the highest standard of protecting our nation.

That abandoning a great American city in its time of need is further proof of our security, and of the decency and organizational prowess of our leaders.

That it's better to discard unused fetuses from in vitro fertilization than to use them to cure terrible diseases.

That tilting at WMD windmills in Iraq helped stop North Korea and Iran from advancing nuclear programs, and that everything that happened in the last six years really happened under Clinton.

That the correct response to senseless death is more senseless death, whether it's sacrificing American soldiers so that other ones whose lives we squandered "didn't die in vain," or killing thousands of innocent Iraqis to avenge the thousands of innocent Iraqis that Saddam Hussein killed, back when he was our ally.

That ignorance, arrogance, and pigheadness are the same things as vision, statesmanship, and resolve.

That illegal surveillance, legalized torture, and breaking down of the separation of church and state are what our forefathers would have hoped we'd one day achieve.

That Jesus really did tell George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld to open Pandora's Box in the Middle East.

That starting a disastrous war on false and ever-changing pretenses is of little consequence — so long as the party has a cross, a flag, and a picture of Ronald Reagan to wave in our faces.

You can keep arguing until you're blue in the face, because blue ain't the color of their tribal flag, and it never will be.


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[Parisle]

1. Or in somewhat fewer words,......

--- The radical RW core "base" is now,.. and has always been founded upon a "philosophical" triumverate of racism, militarism and anti-intellectualism. From civil rights & McCarthyism in the fifties, to today's diehard Bush fanatics, little has changed, except the window-dressing.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

23. The Southern Democratic racists of the 50's and 60's have joined the GOP

Otherwise, the condensed version is spot on.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

38. Or in even fewer words...

they're a pack of effin' morons.

[BlueManDude]

2. I've ceased discussing politics and policy with right wingers

[tridim]

3. It scares me that so many people now ignore what they see with their own eyes

My parents are deep in denial, I worry about them because some day their faux reality is going to be ripped away. I'm not sure they can handle it.

[patrice]

4. Guilt causes hate and fear.

Those who are servants of Mammon KNOW they DON'T deserve everything that they claim they deserve. That causes hate of those whom they have wronged and, hence, fear.

I saw this happen to my brother-in-law when he hit it big. He had to go into therapy to get his head back on straight.

[unpossibles]

6. I think fear and guilt cause hate

but agree with what you're saying.

the reason I think fear causes hate is because I think when someone acts out violently or hatefully against someone else, it is because that person represents what they fear about themselves. not always, but often.

Like when someone makes fun of someone for dressing funny, I think secretly they wish they had the guts to be a bit more outlandish or creative. Or when people are homophobic (or sexphobic), they are acting on the internal fear that they may have perfectly normal fantasies they cannot come to grips with.

[patrice]

12. Yes I think you are right; I was wondering after I posted that whether I had the

sequence of development right.

Of course it wouldn't be absolutely linear (there'd be these feedback loops in it) but the full valence of one's ability to hate is probably preceded by the full development one's fear.

[Tellurian]

13. Once fostered, the next step..

is easy- Hating for others because you're told, it's the right thing to do.

question: Is there any difference between the Radical Right and the Radical Left?

[lwcon]

14. For one thing...

... the radical left barely exists, and to the extent it does exist, it's on the margins.

The radical right, however, is the base of the GOP.

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[patrice]

18. This is true. In terms of the effect upon the dynamic of the whole

group, the U.S., the LW is so small as to be nearly non-existent.

[unpossibles]

15. I think there is a difference

I think the radical right is a lot more selfish and wants to return to the "good old days" of 1900, give or take 50 years. The radical Left, while sometimes being wrong on things, tends to be more informed and educated and truly wants a more progressive world, even if they maybe have not always thought it out all the way.

Most radical Rightists I know are extremely misinformed and hateful. I know the left gets branded as Bush Haters, but honestly, I tried to give the guy a chance to prove he was not an asshole or a crook, and he failed multiple times. And I say this not liking him from the get go - I could not stand his father or Reagan, but I still tried to give him a chance (even though the 2000 selection pissed me off right away...).

[patrice]

17. I am very interested in the ways that people are more the same

than they assume.

I taught AP Psychology in an upper-middle high school for 4 years. I taught Psychology as Research (not Therapy - which is what teenagers want). So talking about such things off the cuff must always contain the caveats of what "knowledge" is, how it is identified, and what the limitations of any given bit of knowledge are.

But - YES!! RW, LW; Christian Fundie, Islamist Fundie, any polarity - I think we're talking about very similar personality types here, similar personality types that have been conditioned to different sets of situational stimuli. I'm also interested in how, similar to superstitions, mythologies, and things such as astrology, these primitive mindsets have evolved as attempts to explain something in the real world, so even though they may be, and quite often actually are, "nuts", there IS something there, some cognition, that one has to see in order to integrate it appropriately into one's own apprehension of reality. My thinking is highly influenced by C.G. Jung and R.D. Laing on this question.

[lwcon]

33. The important difference...

... is that the extremist fringe philosophy has become mainstream for the right. This simply hasn't happened on the left.

It's fair enough to recognize that no side is without foibles, but that shouldn't render us unable to make value judgements. Today's GOP is overrun with people who will sell this country down the river, will vote for things like torture and extraordinary renditions and the suspension of habeas corpus rights. There is no counterweight tendency of this sort in the Democratic Party.

We should be careful about not falling into the trap of knee-jerk assumptions of equivalency, and we should beware of Overton windows.
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[patrice]

48. Thanks for those links! I have bookmarked VL-WC.

Equivalating is a useful concept. That IS what happens. I think it represents something that is a fundamental cognitive tendency/inertia.

Equivalating appears to be similar to what I experienced teaching AP Psychology to high school seniors who were taking, some of them anyway, a full-load of advance placement classes. Being who they are culturally, when they first entered my classrooms they were already highly pre-disposed to say, when disputing a quiz answer or something like that, "Everything is relative." And, since I always started the semester by laying down the foundations for empirical research and, hence, the nature of "proof" (though as far as the math goes I didn't go much beyond measures of central tendency and standard deviation), I had already yeilded that point, knowledge is contextual, "Everything is relative", but as it turns out, not absolutely so. There's always another context for the contexts, all of the way up to the maximum context, i.e. the phenomenal universe.

Yes, theoretically, for every piece of valid reliable research I produce that says x, you can produce valid, reliable research that says y. But, referring back to the nature of proof, and hence the fact that what Science REALLY produces are statements of probability (because it is not possible to test every factor in the universe that may affect x/y in every combination with every other factor in the universe that may affect x/y), everything may be relative, but not equally probable, AND any probability always implies its own negation.

Peer review is the system that Science has evolved for evaluating the probabilities inherent to knowledge. Because PR processes probabilities, it IS processing the negations of any factoid. I don't think people understand that. I think they think PR is just "cherry picking", when in fact, because it's evaluating affirmations relative to negations, it's much more open ended than just "cherry picking". Through peer review, a scientist gets closer to factoring in all of the factors and relationships that were not tested in her particular research. This improves the probability of peer reviewed science reflecting some portion of ACTUAL reality compared to that of non-peer reviewed Science.

So even when competing scientists come up with relatively equal probabilities for x/y, or even a relatively high degree of probability for x or y, peer review helps establish something closer to the actual probabilities. It helps provide the contexts for the contexts.

Equivalating says "because all knowledge is relative, all knowledge is equal". Aside from the fact that this is inductive reasoning, and, hence, not necessarily true (and peer reviewed Science deals with those problems of probability of truth), it represents the same fallacy in form found in statements like "Everything is relative." (I really enjoyed pointing this one out to my bright little Ayn-Randians sitting out there in those classroom desks . . .) the statement "Everything is relative" is an absolute.

If I were to have the opportunity to engage someone who is Equivalating, I would try, Socratically I hope, to get them to reveal the logical assumption that is the basis for Equivalancing. If all knowledge is equal because everything is relative, then, if everything is relative is a fallacy, all knowledge is not equal. If the statement "all knowledge is relative" is absolute knowledge, then it is a fallacy, and if it is a fallacy, then "all knowledge is equal" is a fallacy.

[lwcon]

54. Do drop me a line if you get a chance to try out your...

... anti-equivalating techniques.

In my experience, Repubs will shamelessly change subjects, and they will escalate not by making more-compelling arguments but by feigning increasing outrage, e.g., accusing you of not supporting our troops or not caring if Manhattan is blown up.

And they will accuse *you* of relativism, because their uniquely moral patriotism -- and all the prejudices and lies they embrace in its name -- is the only truth, so you are indulging in sophistry, treason, etc., etc.

Good luck!

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[patrice]

56. Will do!

I often say to others here that we shouldn't run the freepers and homophobes off of DU. I WANT them here, so we can talk to those who have the courage to do so. Though I've been around DU about 5 years now, I've never alerted. When I've happened to find a RWer, it's been kind of difficult to engage them, because there are so many members sniping at them and then someone usually alerts. Did have a relatively sustained interaction with someone who was against green policies (What would you call that? a Brownie?) a few months ago, but I didn't get him to the "Everything is relative" piece, before he stopped replying. There really is no way to keep them from running, that is unless you let them score on you a little bit maybe.

See you around . . . .

[patrice]

50. Re: the Overton Windows.

I need to read a little more to get the hang of it, but at first glance it seems related to something someone was saying a few days back in a big thread where Hillary advocates were "debating" Hillary opponents. DU member NobleCynic came along, relatively late in the thread, and pointed out some interesting things about how the "middle" always shifts from wherever any given individual or party locates it, because the audience always assumes the middle is between wherever the two sides are. NC also made other constructive contributions to a thread that consisted mostly of false dichotomies.

[lwcon]

55. Overton windows are a huge advantage for the rightwing

For a variety of reasons (pet theories anyone?), our culture tolerates extreme rightwing talk and behavior far more than it does extreme leftwing advocacy.

That enables an army of Limbaughs, Coulters, Falwells, etc. to infect the public thinking, "legitimizing" extreme positions and dragging the center in their direction, with little ability for, say, Marxists to publicize a counterbalancing extreme.

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[Duppers]

34. not a great fan of Freud but I love this quote

"...devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one."
- Sigmund Freud

}(

[patrice]

49. Yes. I think of that as the fundamental cognitive inertia

I tried to describe in #48.

[unpossibles]

21. yeah, I guess perhaps we're oversimplifying a bit

but the general idea is valid, and I agree that there is a non-linear/feedback element to it for sure. Hell, maybe "hate" is what happens when someone has guilt about their fears that contradicts the fear they have about their guilt? Or maybe guilt is the driver that allows one to be told what to do by someone else who will use fear to create hate?

Seriously though, either way it seems to boil down to the Reptilian Cortex "Fight or Flight" response. They shoud rename it the Republican Cortex....

Reptilian complex or R-complex is a part of the triune brain model proposed by Paul D. MacLean. This theory seeks to explain brain function through the evolution of existing structures of the human brain. The triune brain consists of the R-complex, the Limbic system and neo-cortex, and the brainstem.
The theory, observable through the fossil record, animal phylogeny, as well as during the stages of mammalian and human prenatal development, states that the mammalian brain's evolution depended on and was strengthened in structure and functionality through a series of evolutionary plateaus, which correspond startlingly well with animal groupings on earth.
...
The R-complex is named for the most advanced part of the brain higher mammals shared with reptiles. It is responsible for rage, xenophobia, basic survival fight-or-flight responses, territoriality, social hierarchy, and the desire to follow leaders blindly. Often, this portion of the brain can take over rational brain function and result in unpredictable, animalistic behavior in even the highest of creatures who still bear this evolutionary baggage, humans included. Thankfully, the advanced neo-cortex can monitor R-Complex activity in sentient beings. The Reptilian complex is the most ancient part of a very successful brain scheme, evolutionarily speaking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-complex

[patrice]

51. I love the biology of behavior!

But, I have an appointment. Speaking of feedback loops . . . Looking forward to getting back to this later.

:hi:

[checks-n-balances]

28. There's also a lot of RW projection going on

Projecting their guilt, hatred and paranoid feelings that they can't deal with onto all who don't agree with them, or all who dare to question or think critically (whom they also demonize).

This is a very interesting thread!

(Edited to change post title)

[SharonAnn]

31. Yes, absolutely. Now when I hear some accusation from them, I assume it's projection.

They're doing it (even though we may not know about it) so they accuse us of doing it (because of course that makes people look for problems with us).

Really, I'm finding this more and more.

It's really part of a Karl Rove thing.

That's why I think of the arguments and attacks about Al Gore's electricity use is a classic "Karl Rove" type attack. Accuse your opponent of doing what you're doing. It's even better if you're attacking your opponent's strength so that you can cut down that strength.

[unpossibles]

32. agreed 100 times...

do you know how many times I've had a freep on another board accuse me of marching lock-step along with the "Democrat" party and parroting left-wing talking points? Of course, he also thinks Clinton murdered personally people, that FOX is the only fair media station, that I hate everything Bush for no reason, that Clinton/Kennedy are the reason the world is so messed up, etc.

I can't even wrap my brain around the mental gymnastics needed to be in the True Believers club he's in. With a lot of them, not only do I think they project things on us (the left wing is lock-step?!? Please. We're about the most disorganized and varied group there is...), but I also think that a sense of shame prevents them from ever admitting they were fooled by a complete moron. Iraq had WMD and caused 9/11 because Bill Clinton didn't stop them. But it's now all about fighting for Democracy. The latest thing he said (before he got banned for constant sexist and racist remarks, naturally...) was that "the Dems want to leave Iraq because they don't think Persians are capable of self-government" or something similar. WHAT?!? Hello? We're not the ones who are saying we need to stay indefinitely! Moran!

This is the type who will fight as the first resort and never back down or apologize. The very idea that they were fooled pisses them off, and they get all contradictory and call us rich elitist know-it-alls who are somehow poor and ignorant.... Never mind. I can't go on.

Seriesly. :)

[Tansy_Gold]

35. ". . . prevents them from ever admitting. . ."

You nailed it, unpossibles.

From my personal experience, the most frightening people, the most dangerous people, the ones I make the greatest effort to steer clear of whenever possible, are those who simply cannot admit they've made a mistake no matter how much evidence is put in front of them. This includes mistakes of action as well as mistakes of judgment, as in being fooled by a total moran.

booooosh, of course, is a classic example. The guy has failed at EVERYTHING he's ever attempted, but can't think of any mistakes he's made? Are you shitting me? IMHO, this is the kind of person who pathologically believes he can do no wrong, because he believes without a doubt that he never has. Is this a sociopath? Narcissistic personal disorder? :shrug: I dunno because I'm not a psychologist. But I've worked with, worked for, and hung around enough of these wackos to know they are dangerous and NEVER to be trusted. NEVER NEVER NEVER -- and I'm a firm believer in Jane Fonda's warning: "Never say never, because you just never know. . . ."

The measure of their dangerousness -- dangerocity index?? -- is relative to their power, and we all know RWers want power, if not individually then at least power for their in-group, the group that, like war, gives them meaning. It is the nature of the beast to then consolidate power, which they can do because it's the nature of the LW beast (as manifested in current US politics anyway) NOT to consolidate power nor even to impose its own restrictions on power-gathering on others.

Watch them -- everyone from boooosh and cheney to rice and libby and abramoff and now this fox asshole who's been nominated to be ambassador to Belgium to the stalwart gooper sitting next to you at the bar -- and they will always always always do everything they can (or think they can) to avoid admitting a mistake. "I don't recall" or "I was busy with other things" or "It wasn't my fault" or "My secretary/wife/assistant/dog did it when I wasn't paying attention" or "I trusted the experts." They're so afraid of being human, they're so afraid of SIN, they're just so AFRAID, that they can't admit to a single error, a single flaw, lest they be found to be exactly what they fear.

There ought to be another twelve-step program for these people -- Mistakers Anonymous. Or maybe the Roman Catholics had it right (pun intended) from the beginning: confession really IS good for the soul.

Tansy Gold, not a catholic

[lwcon]

41. Cheney is the Grand Champeen of deniers

How ironic is it that, in his own warped and twisted way, Dick Cheney is the country's biggest Pollyana?

Nothing that's happened on Bush and his watch has been anything short of wonderful: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/02/23/BL2007022300990_pf.html

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[unpossibles]

5. agreed and what's more, I have noticed they seem to project their worst faults on everyone else

they claim that anyone who speaks up (like Cindy Sheehan) is under the sway of left-wing media and just parroting talking points.

they claim that people who actually care about their fellow humans are just trying to "look cool" or score points or are brainwashed by liberal professors, yet they parrot the crap spewed by people like Rush and Hannity.

they claim to respect hard work and "meritocratic" ideals and say Liberals are lazy and want free handouts, but worship a man who has not only not earned anything in his life, but who has squandered everything given to him.

They claim that liberals want a big government to control everything, but the Repubs do nothing but make it bigger/more intrusive/less efficient.

I could go on, but it makes me sick. My only guess is that deep inside they know how they operate - that they are under the sway of propaganda and full of shit - and assume that everyone else is the same. Kind of like how people who always lie tend to not trust anyone else....

[InvisibleTouch]

7. It's like trying to reason with an insane person.

Quite literally.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. there was a caller on Stephanie Miller today

who was a conservative and jumped from one issue to another, never making sense and saying again and again that he hated liberals because liberals were elitists. Funny, doesn't Dick Cheney have a house in a gated county in Wyoming?

[lwcon]

10. Perhaps the cherry on top of rightwing hypocrisy...

... is a book that actually praises rightwing hypocrisy: http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Hypocrisy-Picking-Sides-Virtue/dp/1595550526


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[Fresh_Start]

9. stanford/berkeley/UMD research paper

The avoidance of uncertainty as well as the striving for certainty, are particularly tied to one key dimension of conservative thought - the resistance to change or hanging onto the status quo.

This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_politics.shtml
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~hannahk/bulletin.pdf

[Tansy_Gold]

36. I recommended that paper last week on DU when someone else

posted the link to Bob Altemeyer's online book The Authoritarians, which deserves another promotion.

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey

Free to anyone who can download pdf files.

Ultimately, it all goes back to fear. Fear of being not in the in group. Fear of not being safe. Fear of fear.

Years ago, a friend gave me a self-help book titled "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway," by a Dr. Susan Jeffers. I found the beginning sections of the book quite interesting, in the way Jeffers described the fears that keep people from taking charge of their lives. Things like getting so afraid of financial difficulties that one doesn't open the mail for fear it's another bill: Jeffers explains that the fear has nothing to do with the reality, because the bill is there or it isn't, and so one might as well open it and thus get over the fear of what hasn't happened yet. We can only fear the future, never the past -- which, of course, is one reason why RWers are so nostalgic for the past. So the sooner we put the thing we fear in the past and get it out of the future, the less fear we experience and the better able we are to deal with the actual issues, whether it's finding a way to pay the bills or telling the abusive spouse we want a divorce or telling the boss to take the job and shove it.

The rest of the Jeffers book went into strategies for avoiding dealing with the fear, and I pretty much gave up on it, but the beginning analysis has always made some sense. After reading Altemeyer, I haven't changed that opinion.

TG

[Dammit Ann]

11. Best thing I've read in a while.

Dead on.

[Arugula Latte]

16. There is a certain percentage for which this is true (28 percent?)

But, there is also a not insignificant portion of more moderate Republicans that can eventually realize they are being screwed over by their party. That happened to some extent in '06.

[lwcon]

19. The key question is will they over-ride their old affiliations? n/t

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[patrice]

20. Exactly, everyone is WAY too dependent upon stereotypes.

And everyone means all of them, all of us.

[raccoon]

22. My Republican Congressman, Bob Inglis, voted in favor of the

non-binding resolution against the troop escalation, I mean surge.

On local news last night, at an event where Inglis meets with his constituents,an elderly man complained to Inglis that he was like Jane Fonda, not supporting our president in time of war.

Pure black-and-white thinking. :puke: Don't question authority. :puke: Bush rules by Divine Right. :puke: And he's always right. :puke:

You can't reason with people like that. Save your breath to cool your soup.

[zbdent]

24. You blast them with 10000 facts, they won't accept it because of

"emotional" reasons ... you hit them with emotion, they demand facts ...

Then, of course, they "believe" everything ... That Bush is a Christian, and that Liberals stab God in the heart and want to kill babies (wonder why conservative Republicans aren't protecting the health of post-born children ...)

[lwcon]

25. I recently looked back at an old e-mail exchange with a Republican friend...

... from the month or so before the war. I kept sending him five questions about the war plan.

He's a great guy and all, but he'd never vote for a Democrat because he is culturally identified with the Republicans. Anyway, he always found a way of dodging the questions. He even had misgivings about the war, but he could never wake up and say these guys are rotten, and decide his allegiance to them has got to stop.

Mostly it was because he hates some imaginary anti-ideal of what Democrats and liberals stand for -- snotty, weak-ass fools who tax and regulate you to death and give away the store.

I don't think Democrats are perfect, and I know there have been some decent Republicans. But in the last few decades, the party has become increasingly valueless, corrupt, and incompetent, and it's beyond me how a decent person can feel today's GOP represents them in any but the most unflattering of ways.


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[SemperEadem]

26. well, to them, as long as gays can't marry...

they don't care if the thugs are lying through their teeth to them.

[lwcon]

27. Honestly, I don't think they really care about that issue

In a few years, gay marriage will be legal, and the issue du jour will be to get rid of car inspections or to have the right to own private nukes or something. They just crave symbolic issues that let them go tut-tut about the terrible hippie liberals.

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[Bryn]

29. TV Preachers are the biggest factor

of getting the South go over to GOP and how they worship Bush as "Man of God". Nasty!

[rhett o rick]

30. They like things very simple. Good, bad as defined for them like by Hannity. nm

[PVnRT]

37. Not Republicans, but rather the right-wing moonbat base

It's that base that's determined to feed everyone disinformation, lies and propaganda, and in the absence of a media that actually presents both sides of an issue, the flock begin to believe it.

[lwcon]

44. With the GOP so debased...

... is there any difference at this point? Who would not run away -- as fast as their little legs will carry them -- from a party so deeply festering with immorality and incompetence?

That said, I agree with you about the role the media plays, as it fails to call bullshit on these guys.

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[PVnRT]

46. If you're saying that the Republicans = Right-Wing Extremists

How is that any different than when they say that Democrats = Left-Wing Extremists? We all know that one isn't even remotely true. The truth is that the moonbat portion of the right-wing is much, much louder than anyone else, and people are starting to desert their party. The moderates, at this point, are an audience that is open to new ideas, and engaging with them constructively will win more to our side. Saying that they're no different from Pat Robertson instantly makes them antagonistic.

[lwcon]

47. No, no, no!

The Republicans who are in office pushed us into an unnecessary war, voted to gut the Constitution, and they're raping the treasury and environmental regulations. Further, they treat the Limbaughs and Coulters as honored guests at mainstream events.

It's natural that we seek to see symmetry in things, but sometimes it ain't there.

Equivalation and Overton windows take advantage of our tendency to assume everything evens out, and all the while the GOP and MSM tilt the playing field ever more, and we don't notice just like Al Gore's frog.

(edited to fix formatting)

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[MadHound]

39. LOL, sorry, but that is just another excuse for not trying

I live in a very red county, hell we didn't rejoin the Union until ten years ago we're that conservative. Yet these people are no fools, and many of them are pissed as hell at Bush and the Republicans. Sure, you have to approach them differently, but they can be talked to and persuaded. This is what worked in the last election as my county, and many other counties in the rural part of the state went blue.

Sure, you're not going to get them on every single issue, but you can get them on enough issues that they will for Democratic. You're also not going to persuade every conservative, there's a small percentage that simply won't listen. But most of these people will give you a chance if you talk to them, in their own language, and don't try to shove anything down their throat, let them approach it in their own way and time. Sure, it's a long term project, but it is well worth it come election time.

[lwcon]

42. Sure, we need to fight the good fight

But it helps to know when you're arguing with a crazy or brainwashed person, and anyone who still loves Bush and his war surely qualifies as one or both.

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[arendt]

40. Niall Ferguson has called the 20th century "The Age of Hatred"...

In his book "The War of the World", he blames modern genocide on
the scientifically false concept of racism, which mutated into hating
any other culture.

When conditions are right (economic volatility, targeted cultural group having
insufficient political and/or military power), you get genocide. The
target group doesn't have to be poor. They can be merchants
(Armenians, Chinese, Jews). What matters is that the target be
hated.

America is being pushed into such a condition. The economy is
deliberately being wrecked. Liberals are being demonized.

And, as you point out, the meme of "racism" is being thrown
at the liberal culture.

Very bad times are here.

arendt

[lwcon]

43. Chris Hedges describes how the religious right is exploiting these factors

http://vastleft.blogspot.com/2007/02/son-of-preacher-man.html

He also quotes... Hannah Arendt.

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[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

45. "Truth, ethics, and logic mean no more to a Republican than they do to a Rottweiler." A gem.

I hereby rename the Republican Party the Rottweiler Party! :thumbsup:

[patrice]

52. K&R

:kick:

[KansDem]

53. Visual here...

Here's you:

Here's you talking to a wall:

Any questions?