The Problem with Liberals

[mtnsnake]

lies between our ears. We have brains, and it puts us at a disadvantage. Here's why:

Liberals are naturally smarter and more insightful than conservatives. Anyone knows that. For the most part, we are independent thinkers. This is where the problem arises. It's hard to agree and perform as a single-minded unit of people when we're all such independent thinkers. Not that this in itself is such a bad thing, but in the scheme of things, it can put us at a major disadvantage.

Conservatives, OTOH, are not the brightest lights in the sky. Everyone knows that...but them. They don't have the perception it takes to formulate their own ideas. We see other people doing that for them constantly. They have no ability to be insightful about people. They lack judgment as well as compassion. Therefore, they rely on someone else to make up their minds for them, which is why they are such a unified mass of sheep. When you're as naturally ignorant as they are, it's no problem to unite as a unit with a single purpose behind even a dim-witted chimp. Being dumb is their trump card.

Somehow, we liberals have to put our petty differences aside and find some stronger unity. Then the advantage will truly be ours. We need to focus on the basics and put less emphasis on our petty differences. A good start would be taking the time to identify what's basic to our cause and what's petty, and then agreeing together on the basics. If we ever become as unified as the idiots on the other side, they will not stand a chance.

[EricWhitaker]

1. Survey,

It would be so helpful if I could get at least 20 responses.
Thanks in advance. Your opinion definetely matters.

Opinion Survey

Hello, This is a research project that I’m doing for a College Data Class dealing with public issues.
When doing the survey can you state whether or not you;

(1)Strongly disagree (2) Disagree (3)Neutral (4)Agree (5)Agree Strongly

Just copy the numbers here (and paste) to answer easier. Thank you for answering this survey on public opinion/politics. The findings will be reported in the college newspaper.

1.= 2.= 3.= 4.= 5.= 6.= 7.= 8.= 9.= 10.= 11.= 12.= 13.= 14.= 15.= 16.= 17.= 18.=
19.=

Please State whether you are a; Republican, Democrat, or Independent:

I believe that:
1. The economy is getting better
(1)Strongly disagree (2)Disagree (3)Neutral (4)Agree (5)Agree Strongly
2. I am optimistic in the direction the country is taking

3. I feel safer regarding a terrorist attack now than I did in the months after 9/11

4. Gas prices are too high

5. I blame the White house and Congress for high gas prices

6. I believe that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. I am glad the assault weapons ban expired

7. There needs to be a crackdown on Illegal immigration

8. Race relations in this country have gotten better within the last 5 years.

10. House Speaker Tom Delay should resign

9. The present mainstream media is biased in favor of the Left

10. The present mainstream media is biased in favor of the right

11. Finding Osama Bin Laden is still important

12. The main purpose of going to War with Iraq was Weapons of Mass destruction

13. The main purpose of going to War with Iraq was the liberation of the Iraqi people

14. Things are going badly in Iraq

15. The US is going to war with Iran and/or Syria next

16. The US will be justified in Going to War with Iran

17. The federal deficit is a serious concern and should be addressed

18. Marijuana should be legalized

19. I am better off today than I was 5 years ago

[RPM]

3. why are you dropping this survey all over...

in a rather indiscriminate fashion???

[mtnsnake]

5. EricWhitaker, you've got some friggin nerve

using other people's threads as a vehicle for you own poll.

Wait your damn turn like everyone else has had to do when they joined the forum :mad:

[EricWhitaker]

9. Your Right

And I apologize. This is due Friday, and damned if I didn't wait till the last minute. And damned if I didn't have enough posts to make my own thread (although I read DU like everyday for the past 3 years). So you know, I apologize. Your post was good. I just went with the posts that didn't have many responses so that I wouldn't interrupt the thread.

[RPM]

10. oh - my bad

sorry for alerting on you...

the low post count, the bizarre placement of the posts and the general data harvesting format send my red flag up.

sorry, again...

[mtnsnake]

12. You went with the posts that didn't have many responses??

FYI, the OP was at 9:46 and you waited all of one minute to post your survey at 9:47. How would you expect there to be many responses in less than a minute.

Nice try

[RoyGBiv]

18. You're still spamming ...

Which, last time I checked, is against DU rules.

Regardless, it is exceedingly irritating.

[ProfessorGAC]

6. You're Kidding! Right?

You are posting a poll for a class in data analysis that requires a political and philosophical position to answer each question, ON DU(!), and expect some meaningful result in your analysis?

That's patently ridiculous. If i were your prof, you'd already have failed this assignment. The results of such a poll will clearly be biased in favor of liberal positions, because nearly everyone here is moderate to radically progressive. So, why bother with the poll. Just answer the questions the way you already know progressives and liberals will answer them. The data will just as meaningful as polling a completely non-random distribution of politically active, socially aware, and openly liberal posters.

Sheesh! You need to read the textbook more carefully and have a discussion with your advisor. You might be taking the wrong classes.
The Professor

[EricWhitaker]

11. Well Professor

What makes you think I only posted on DU.
The purpose of my survey is to compare Democratic and Republican positions.

Why your level of anger towards me?

By the way, I've been going back and forth with just forging all the dam answers myself, but then, that would not be ethical. And there is also a posibility that everyone on DU does not feel exactly as you do.

[ProfessorGAC]

16. I'm Not Angry

I'm being derisive. I assume you know the difference. You cannot (let me repeat; CANNOT) develop even a stratified pseudorandom sample by posting the same (or similarly structured) polls on various websites without having actual demographic background to suppport the stratification.

Secondly, i never once even SUGGESTED that everyone on DU feels exactly as i do. When you make an accusation, it would be wise to have a little data or facts to support it. Since i never even loosely implied such a thing, that means you just FORGED the data on this.

Thirdly, one doesn't forge data. One fabricates data. Forgery is a completely different action and has nothing to do with dry labbing.

Back to point 2, YOU are assuming something about democratic positions by asking here, since i KNOW that everyone here is not a Democrat. There are Greens, Independents, Socialists, and even some Liberterians here, so your presumption already pollutes whatever feeble point you were trying to make. I am a many times published expert in the field of statistical analysis and econometric modeling, so i'm actually trying to help you out, before somebody gives you a REAL F. You CANNOT with any mathematical or statistical integrity take your data in this way. The entire dataset becomes worthless and your analysis likewise.

Now; to your accusation. I have been here for nearly the entirety of DU's existence. I think i know a bit more about the generalized ethos of DU than do you. I'm not in school anymore, as are you. I'm a multiply graduate degreed liberal who came here and stayed, BECAUSE THE SENSIBILITY HERE IS LIBERAL! I hardly need a lecture about whether everyone here thinks like me. But, the generalized world view at DU is sympatico with mine, or else i would not be here anymore.

So, get off your high horse for a minute and take some advice from someone who knows a great deal more about this board, about statistics, and about social sciences than you.
The Professor

[RoyGBiv]

22. Applause

:applause:

Well said.

[EricWhitaker]

25. Well Professor

Congradulations. I am not an expert on this particular subject matter as you clearly are. This is a BS class that has nothing to do with my major, and i thought I'd come up with some kind of last minute survey.

BTW, you should be a lawyer.

[H2O Man]

2. Good post.

Very well said.

[kliljedahl]

4. So that's why Fox news does so well.

Was wondering about that.:sarcasm:


Keith’s Barbeque Central

[applegrove]

7. I don't know that it is fair to generalize. For sure we like nuance. But

there are a whole bunch of smart people in the GOP. They just don't have hearts.

I think the authority is the big difference. The fact that we will not let anyone re-work the contents of our hearts. Cause we question authority because we are taught that as Liberals. I don't think you can say that the religious are stupid. Cause they are not. There has just been a movement of sorts in the USA - that got together with the GOP, identified some 'others' to hate and here we are. And many Liberals helped it along by ridiculing religion.

I don't think that it is necessarily unfair to shine a light on abortion and say "let us do this better and rarer". That is a good thing. Actually most Americans want that rather than a total ban on abortion. As long as you allow for female reproductive health to replace abortions with all manner of tools. And allow abortions as a last resort. And fund things that a way. And reduce them that way. And include males in that equation.

There is a discussion that needs to take place between us. And if Liberals are not providing leadership on religion in the 21st Century..well the GOP stepped in. With their hypocrisy. But the Liberals fell for it in the beginning too. It is hard to understand that your life & reality has no meaning when you are used to benevolent government of one sort or another.

We have alot in common with the devout. Including that we should be judging each other on the content of our hearts. That is the measure of a man/woman. And to say that some people are stupid - well I don't know that choosing to belong to a patriotic religion called America is stupid.. if it fills out your life.. they make that choice because of how it feels. Because it makes them happier. Which is why we need to appeal to them on an adult level (the freepers) and ask the question about the hypocrisy and point out the ways in which the Repukes will destroy the things they hold most dear.

Important to remember that neocons think the the religious and the Liberals are equally as stupid. Because we all use emotion in how we view & experience the world. And religious (liberal or not) and non-religious.. we have alot to teach each other.

We are all humans. It is the non-human neocon & Rovbots we need to ditch.

[cprise]

19. Thats a nice sentiment about religion

...if you want social welfare to be based on charity. Plenty of room for compassion there.

But when it comes to practical concerns, religion really is ridiculous. Should liberals feel guilty and put religion on a pedestal of political correctness, when some of those religious forces and ideas are in fact both powerful and beneath contempt?

Asserting the right of everyman (mostly the poor) to exert some democratic control over your economic life goes beyond the meager trappings of pity or compassion. It is scary! In both the conservative and liberal playbook the tradeoff is "anti-freedom". But it boils down to solidarity or social responsibility and they are just as an essential part of our humanity.

[eridani]

20. I'd call it empathy, myself

Natural ethics is based on empathy, "feeling with," being able to in part experience someone else's reality as your own. I haven't noticed that conservatives have less brainpower--maybe less creativity. (Never heard of a fundie, however bright, who ever invented anything.)

I think empathy exists in a continuum. We have to be able to suppress empathy sometimes in order to survive (stabilize the vital signs, put the fire out first, and only afterwards relate to the victims as fellow humans). With self-defense, you have to temporarily dehumanize in order to survive. So, given that empathy is a normal human trait that it is sometimes necessary to suppress, it follow that in any statistically significant population, at least a few people will be entirely too good at it. We call them sociopaths. On the other end of the spectrum is feeling the pain of others to a degree that it comes close to incapacitating you.

The continuum: sociopaths--->soldiers--->emergency workers--->neurotypical--->more nurturing than average--->hearts bleeding all over everything.

When conservatives say that people are born bad and need rigid rules in order to exist socially, they are talking about themselves. When liberals say that people are mostly good, and will do the right thing by others without being browbeaten into it, they are talking about themselves.

[mtnsnake]

21. That's an interesting analysis

And if I'm reading it right, I agree to the extent that we need to find some middle ground first that we can all agree on, blot out the "extremes" (but only temporarily), and then once we get to where we wanna go, we can take care of any worthy extremes or in-betweens we deem necessary.

[applegrove]

24. Neocons would reverse that continuum and call it the continuum of

being real or practicality.

[Zorra]

8. But it is not the liberals that are breaking ranks. It is the moderates

and the conservatives.

Ask a liberal if we should pull out of Iraq tomorrow, and the liberal will say, "Hell yeah, let's do it."

Ask a moderate or conservative, and they'll give you all kinds of reasons why we can't.

It may be argued that the liberal is being idealistic, and that this could never happen. And the moderate/conservative or practical, because we are not going to pull out of Iraq tomorrow.

But then again, it is moderates and conservatives that got us into Iraq, and not liberals. Because, unfortunately, there are very few genuine liberals in office. John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich are two that I can think of offhand.

It's not liberals that vote for all the anti-democratic, corporate enriching, liberty crushing legislation that is killing our country, it is the moderates and conservatives that propose it and pass it.

[mtnsnake]

15. Iraq aside, I think we have to find a way

to accentuate the positives and de-prioritize our differences. It won't be easy. Other than the war issue, I'm not sure if we really know our true identity right now, and that in itself leads to some divisiveness.

[EricWhitaker]

13. Well honestly

I agree and disagree with your post (my twopence).

If the media simply reported things as they are without bias, then I the republicans would not be holding any of the levers of power right now. The bigger issue is voter fraud.

Second, it is the democrats that have the mandate, yet they are unable to realize it. They'd rather continue to cowtow as if this country still approves Bush at 90%, instead of 40-45%.

There are two many Chamberlains in the dem party as far as I'm concerned.

[cprise]

17. I agree and disagree with you

You named media and voting as amoung our two biggest obstacles. That is right-on.

However saying that the media just isn't doing their job is wide of the mark. The US has a commercial media system... ALL of it falls under the influence of commercial interest even falsely-named PBS. These corps are doing what they should to advance the interests of private shareholders (i.e. they are compelled to promote right-wing economics). We have no populist-funded media like the BBC to look after populist interests. But the commercial media are indeed doing their job... they just get rather detached from reality when there is no competing (non-commercial) voice.

[cprise]

14. Seems that humility is a problem too

...doesn't it?

I agree that liberals (myself included) are good independant thinkers. Just not good enough to realize that our M.O. has been around for a long time now and is being 'gamed' by conservatives. They have learned to count on our shallow understanding of (and lack of committment to) collectivism... to the point where we will even outlaw socialism for them (if/when it surges in popularity). That means liberals and Democrats have been willing to turn people into POLITICAL OUTLAWS for supporting an alernative to capitalism. You get ONE system with two brands, instead of multiple competing systems living together.

Liberals want to take the end-products of socialist movements in other countries (W. Europe, Japan, Australia, you name it) and graft these policies (universal healthcare, et al) into our own culture simply by sayin' the majic words (writing laws). And then pretend that socialism is this extreme, obscure, outmoded thing that has nothing to do with the Left that is in power in the rest of the developed world today.

In American liberlaism there is a certain kind of intelligence that goes with its considerable stupidity. The liberal imagination in the US has no room for 'society', much less any compulsion for establishing a smart give-and-take relationship between it and the individual... mostly because our liberals don't have the guts to really defend anything that "takes away freedom" esp. when it comes to the wealthy.

QUESTION: Who saved universal healthcare in Canada during the last election?

a) Liberals (oh, wait.. they wanted to privatize it. never mind.)
b) Conservatives (definately not)
c) the NDP (socialists)


Do ANY of the Democratic supporters here see something missing? I think actually they do: Most of the idiots here think we're missing the liberal version of Fox News. They want a private megacorporation of their own to, er, uh... attack megacorpoations? Hmmm... doesn't make sense but keep on dreamin.

[lonestarnot]

23. No fucking problem with libs...cons on the other hand...