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Comments: Death Panels 
Comments: Doug... The definition of illogical thinking is religion...enough said there. While the theory of AGCS is incomplete is is based in strong basic science, unlike ALL of religion. The reason that you will find unions and minorities voting in blocks is that they have their self interest in mind, not an interest in controlling others For a common demographic profile, people who vote Democrat are voting their pocket book, people who vote Republican are RWA voting contrary their own interest. Looking at the platforms, rhetoric and policies of the American right that should be self evident. There is NO reason except a need to be subjugated for a miner to vote for some one who will reduce safety regulations, except a pathology that requires domination, this pathology is also met by religion...and a Calvinist tint. The handful of Earthfirsters as certainly RWA, but they are a tiny minority in comparison to the hoards of sheep being led by the Pat Robertsons of the world. I would suggest that you watch "The Politics of Fear" as a primer on the neo-con movement.
Comments: Miguel. For misplaced certainty, Altemeyer would probably call this "illogical thinking". Consider the environmentslist "chicken littles" who define illogical thinking. Do they not believe that the climate has and will evolve? This is a height of hysterical hypocrisy. Consider pro-choice activists who also are anti-death penalty. It's OK to murder in the womb (Obama's science czar had argued for infanticide until the age of 3?!), but not Ok to destroy life after that point, until the death panel rules that you are not worth receiving the highest level of medical care. FUBAR. The racial component is necessary in American politics. As black America votes 90% democratic. Blacks are very much religious evangelical. Mexican, SA, Carribean immigrants are also much more likely to be strict in their religion, exhibit ethnocentricism, etc. All RWA traits. Follow the leader. In the past election, you cannot imagine the literal busloads of voters I saw at the early voting in my county. During one afternoon there were 12-15 buses and they could not all park. There were 4 SEIU buses, 3 from steel unions, 1 carpenter union, 1 UAW, 4-5 church buses (100% black) and 2-3 Spanish (La Raza?) buses. This was in surburban Chicago, 2 weeks before election day during about a 2 hour timeframe. I was handing out Republican literature. Noone from any of these buses would talk to me. They all came off the bus with Democratic literature. More than once a leader came off the bus and physically blocked my access to his or her voters. I was told to shut up more than a few times. Physically threatened twice and had most of my literature stolen all in the course of a few hours. And I bet $1000 that not a single one of the bused in voters voted anything other than straight Democratic. Again I bring up American politics, because altering American politics is the focus of Altemeyer's book.
Comments: Doug... There are other pathologies, as mentioned in the book feminists were a close second to conservative religious types. What differentiates the parties you mention is the misplaced certainty that the religiocons have. Interesting that you bring race in... are you convinced that somehow all brown folks are following some leader? Weird but not surprising considering the paranoid components of the pathology. Note also that you yet again bring American political labels into a conversation where they are mere distractions.
Comments: Miguel. Let's not forget about the militant environmentalists, the racical feminists, union thugs, pro-choice wanne-bes, and assorted radicals on the left who take and follow their leader's orders. And the black population which is dis-proportionately religious and fit many of the RWA demographics and vote predominately Democratic. And Mexican, South American and Caribbean immigrants - RWA demographics and Democrat. And Muslims. Don't get fooled by Altemeyer. He is blinded by the pristine "whiteness" of the Canadian frontier. America is much, much more culturally diverse, and these differences are not captured in Altemeyer's studies. He studies mostly Canadians, and projects these demographics on Americans. He uses Canadian tax dollars to support political hate speech against a foreign country - namely the USA. If he applied his studies directly - on the Canadian conservatives - he could be likely charged with a hate crime in Canada, and with mis-apropriating public funds to create political speech, as he wrote this using public resources.
Comments: Doug... But in the US Authoritarian Followers tend to migrate to the political right and have religious conservative leanings.
Comments: Miguel. My apologies. Authoritarianism is without political distinction.
Comments: Doug... As I pointed out, using American political parties in this discussion in inaccurate. Please read before posting. Also if I wanted to control things, like you do, I would select FOR RWA traits. It would make the populace more tractable. You keep projecting your fears and desires on other people...clear signs of the pathology, which requires you to control those very tendencies you THINK other people have.
Comments: Miguel & dougn. It is a fallacy to believe that authoritarians are somehow opposite of being a "democrat". It only proves that Altemeyer is successful is his bigoted terminology of "right-wing" authoritarians. Recall that Altemeyer shows the existence if RWAs but removes himself from the discussion whenever we discuss any relevant left-wing organizations which show authoritarian tendancies. This is deliberate, as Altemeyer's goal is to create oppobrium against the current American political right. Next if authoritarianism is genetic, and you wish to eliminate this trait, then you fall into the typical progressive trap of calling for genocide to create your superior race. Is this your goal? Throughout the 20th century various progressive groups (Canadian and Finnish forced sterilization, Margaret Sanger, Hitler, etc.) all have called for genetic superority programs and have only proven they are the bigots about which they warn us. Just who are you?
Comments: FWIW Why Genes Aren't Enough to Create a Personality
Comments: dougn... There MAY be some validity to the inherited traits of RWA... therefore there MAY also be some validity that acceptance of change and curiosity are inherited as well. Applying US political labels to the question is inaccurate.
Comments: What about the other end of the spectrum? Were some of us born democrats?
Comments: Miguel. TARP cost Bush $500 b. in increased expenses, of which $450 b returned during Obama. Obama's debt would have been much higher without this slush fund. Recall that most of the banks didn't want the money and repaid it quickly. Why? Why? Why? Think of how many foreclosed houses these banks now own. If you own a bunch of properties, how will you profit? You must force prices back up. How? How? How?? Inflation through the Fed? Big banks own the Fed, it is not a government entity. How about the Fed's announcement to pump a few hundred billion into the economy by buying t-bills. The direct effect will be to raise inflation, including all the properties you have foreclosed. And the clueless lemmings cry about the price of a loaf of bread. Obama is also part and parcel to the rape of the middle class. Only when he gets through the banks will have profited to the tune of a few trillion.
Comments: Doug... The pledge for America STILL has NOTHING in it that will increase personal freedom, or reduce the influence of the government in our personal lives. In fact the comments about, faith, life and marriage seem to indicate a ready willingness to insert government into peoples lives.And Clinton is STILL a better conservative than Reagan. FYI TARP will end up costing around 55 Billion, pretty cheap for saving the economy from a Depression. The single largest part of the stimulus was tax cuts...followed by block payments to the states to maintain local services, there was no increase in the size of government. And neither TARP or the Recovery act would have been necessary if it weren't for "The Great Deregulation" and conservative hands off policies in the financial sector... you'd think we would have learned from the S&L crisis if nothing else. Or perhaps we did...perhaps the REALLY BIG folks learned that they could extract trillions of dollars from our economy with impunity.
Comments: Miguel. By claiming Clinton's fiscal surplus, you, by default, agree that the US's debt is public debt. Not the public + intragovernmental transfer debt. It is a sound position, as Soc. Security surpluses are truly nit invested, but are used in the maintenance if general expenditures. By the same standard, King Bush II inherited a $3.3 t debt and increased this to $5.8 t in his term. (Note that I disallow the TARP transfer, as these short term investments were a expense under Bush and a receipt under Obama a few month later. It's more of a slush fund.). So Bush added $2.5 t or about $25 billion per month in deficit spending. Obama has now added about $3.4 t public debt in 22 months or about $125 billion per month. Any way you slice, it Obama is increasing our debt 3 to 5 times faster than King Bush II. By rolling back spending to 2005 levels, before the Democrats regained Congress, we could immediately return to fiscal soundness. In times of financial distress, can you justify Obama spending $200 million per day to travel to India? $2 billion total. 40 jets. 30 warships. Who the heck cares that Obama gets to visit the Gandhi museum except the contractor who is building the 1 kilometer tunnel in the city to increase Obama's security. To finance his trip, 200,000 taxpayers will each need to pay $10,000 in additional taxes. Outrageous. Every taxpayer of the state of N. Dakota would have to pay about 2 months of their income just to pay for this single damn trip. Nero fiddles as Rome burns. |
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