The projected worldviews of Liberals and Conservatives

reply to post by wildtimes


But people do starve so there obviously is a reason. To be progressive you would need to come up with an idea not rooted in conservative ideas. What the hell does Sarah McLaughlin have to do with this?

reply to post by NihilistSanta


WATCH THE VIDEO. Then come back and talk to me.

@Skyfloating:
SORRY for derailing. I'm done for today. Carry on, everyone.

I am sorry but if singing is going to solve our problems I will have to support the conservatives. Do you have a video of Bono curing aids laying about?

My real point is you are offering no answers as a progressive /thread


I do have one point of contention with OP though. If liberals are optimistic about the future then how come they always try to scare us with animal extinctions, global warming, and other environmental extremes?

reply to post by NihilistSanta

I am sorry but if singing is going to solve our problems

WATCH IT on MUTE, then!!

The 'suggestion' I offer is in the VIDEO, not the music.

Or don't. Go ahead and keep on with whatever you're doing.
Bashing people and putting words in their mouths. That's helpful.

reply to post by wildtimes


Ok watched the vid, the solution is to take money from working Americans to help people ride bikes on the other side of the world. Sarah is worth MILLIONS of dollars if she liquidated everything think of all the people she could help? She wont ever do that though. She would rather a guy doing a job on a set in Hollywood get paid less so she doesn't have to feel bad about her millions. Hey I got it if we stopped building roads in America (billions of dollars) we could develop whole countries that way but then we would start to resemble their world.

What about the starving kids in America? Surely the third worlders are thinking of ways to help them right? or is it possible they only give a damn about their own problems? Where is that goat sent from Bangladesh to help the starving kids in Detroit?

Originally posted by wildtimes


@Skyfloating:
SORRY for derailing. I'm done for today..

Well, these are the basic liberal vs. conservative talking points; of which millions of variations are discussed every day. It is like two entirely different brains at work.

Send a liberal to a troubled area and they become a little more conservative. Send a conservative to a troubled area and they become a little more liberal and compassionate.

Why? Because their ideological projection falls away. One would see that the world is not a perfect place and cant be forced to be an Utopia no matter how much money and effort is thrown at it. The other would see that those in trouble are human beings just like him and sometimes are not at fault for their difficult circumstances.

It all really depends on how you look at the world and what part of it you look at. Liberals and Conservatives have to force themselves to look at only certain parts and only in certain ways in order to maintain their stances.

It has been my experience that liberals are full of hate and conservatives are full of fear.

Originally posted by Marid Audran
It has been my experience that liberals are full of hate and conservatives are full of fear.

I didnt want to spell it out that bluntly.

Originally posted by Zarniwoop

I do find that both liberals and conservatives think things can or will get better only if their party is in control... which is the really sad thing.

Hit the nail on the head with that one. Just goes to show you how badly the two party system has devolved our society. It's always "us" against "them", bipartisanship is all but dead. Politicians are so concerned about their own re-election that they do things that are ultimately not in America's long term interests. Anything to get re-elected.

Originally posted by Skyfloating

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic


I think conservatives, in general, are more concerned with how things are FOR THEM and not so concerned how things are for other people or groups as regards wealth, access, freedom and equality

Another interesting thing about these sides are of course the polarizing cliches. "Conservatives are selfish", "Liberals are Naive".

I was thinking the same thing.
I was going to do some contributing but I realized my brush wasn't broad enough.

Originally posted by Marid Audran
It has been my experience that liberals are full of hate and conservatives are full of fear.

Well since most people are quite lazy, hate is a good catalyst to bring forward change.

Enough is enough.

A little dose of fear on the other end, brings stability.

Originally posted by theMediator

Well since most people are quite lazy, hate is a good catalyst to bring forward change.

Enough is enough.

A little dose of fear on the other end, brings stability.

Good point. I guess it depends on how much salt and pepper is put on the food. In America it seems too much is put on.

I'm nether republican or democrat. The state I live in is so blue talking to people about politics has become frustrating.A lot of Liberals carry irrational hate towards anything resembling a republican point of view. I consider both sides relevant when they both aren't trying to screw us working folk. But only with liberals do i sense a real disconnect with reality. unemployment is at an all time high, the country is in debt past its eyeballs yet lets tax small businesses to fund the unemployed huh while they give tax breaks to major corporations wtf. lets make health care a mandatory requirement in this country because its costing the country billions in its current health care system. But lets completely ignore the millions of people who shouldn't be receiving healthcare because A: they work under the table B: they are not citizens C: never plan on paying anything back so lets give amnesty to these people wtf =disaster in the making. I would understand mandatory identification/ closing the border down and opening a pathway to citizenship. anyone found without identification or pursuing their legal status within this country get deported.

A shame this thread has not had more interest. A quote from G.K. Chesterton come to mind when reading this thread.

“If you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will have no answer except slanging or silence.” – Chapter 3, What’s Wrong With The World, 1910

reply to post by Skyfloating


In a world where the federal government is ran and controlled by the banking cartel. Progression will only help the banksters because they run the place.

That's why I'm more conservative because I know any progression coming from DC is only going to make things worst.

The government is a corporation. Everything they do is to help the shareholders who are the banks.

Now maybe if Angels ran the government I would be a liberal, but not in this world we live in.

Winston Churchill once said-
“Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains.”

I do find that people often tend to get more conservative with age... so looking back at the past as good old days could make sense for those who have become blasé. Just as looking forward with hope in future would make sense in terms of the young and idealistic.

reply to post by Skyfloating

A right-winger is generally optimistic about the past/present and pessimistic about the future, a liberal is generally optimistic about the future and pessimistic about the past/present.

I guess that's true in a general sense, but there are plenty of exceptions to the rule. For example, I am positive about the present AND the future, and there are many influential thinkers - Steven Pinker, Jaron Lanier, off the top of my head (there are many more...it's late) - who appreciate some conservative talking points, like the value of capitalism and protection of liberties, while also embracing general liberal values: improve society through mild government intervention.

I believe it works 8 times out of 10.

My general view is neither liberals nor conservatives have it right. Both are extreme expressions of dogmatic positions. In reality, however, life is far more non-partison. The best way for a society to work seems to embrace both sides of the political spectrum: liberty is incredibly important, but it's going too far to think that government should have no place in the national economy.

As for conspiracy theorists. You are on the dot. I discovered this in myself - I was thinking about this years ago. I eventually outgrew the conspiracy ideas I used to champion back in 2005. It was all related to my own quest for truth: keep questioning, deny ignorance! as the sites motto goes. If you keep this attitude, and you retain an intellectual humility, everyone should be led to the middle ground, the place of compromise and dialogue. Where I give a little and you give a little, and together, we learn to live peacefully despite personal or other types of divisions.

reply to post by Skyfloating


I feel the same tension. Unlike most people, I enjoy reading BOTH sides. I therefore understand both opinions and as a result feel the tension.

These cliches are wrong and unhelpful to any promising dialogue. It seems to be a rehashing of the same crap between atheists and theists. Atheists engage in low brow attacks on a God believers intelligence, while a God believer denies the fact that an atheist is just as able to live an ethical and moral life. Again, only the mature people on either side are able to denounce the pigheaded dogma of their beliefs and consider the opinions of the other in a more realistic and conscious way.

So someone says: conservatives are selfish. Ive read the writings of plenty of conservatives, and it's not that they're selfish, but their emphasis is on productivity. Capitalists, for example, emphasize the positive sum game nature of their system. This is a paradox (an irrefutable one at that). Similarly, protecting personal liberties - like the right to own a gun - protects against the very plausible possibility that in some future time a huxleian type tyrant might come into power, and with a defenseless populous, can pass all sorts of laws that suit the position of just one particular aspect of the population. This isn't how a democracy should function.

It's also important not to get our sense of cause and effect and correlation is not causation mixed up. Guns don't kill people - people kill people. This is a conservative position I agree with. On the other hand, drug abuse isn't necessarily the cause of familial breakdown. There are far more complicated social processes going on before alcohol or crack coc aine enter the picture. Therefore, I find drug laws to be absurd and even racist, since they seem to affect black and other minorities more than whites.

Originally posted by NihilistSanta
A shame this thread has not had more interest.

Its expected and OK. The masses get a lot of juice out of their antagonism. Taking that the juice away through reasoning makes them thirsty and they go elsewhere.