Why there are Always More Conservatives than Liberals?

[Sunstone]

Good point. But, the first thing I thought...when I saw his link was just how far NPR and PBS have descended from their mission of being public broadcasters in the public interest from their founding missions almost half a century ago!

Last year, the PBS documentary series - Independent Lens, pulled funding from a documentary producer who was half way through making a film profiling the Koch Brothers. And if that wasn't bad enough, they cancelled further viewing of an already produced feature called Park Avenue - which was created to profile the people who live along this long street which graduates from superrich to less rich through Manhattan, and across the bridge to the abject poverty of Park Avenue in the Bronx...where interestingly enough, many of the low paid service staff of the hotels and luxury condos on the Manhattan side, have to live. The likely reason why PBS took that movie out of the regular rotation was because it included a segment of the most expensive luxury high rise on Park Avenue where David Koch just happened to have a unit, where he stays when he is in New York on business. An anonymous staffer at the complex declared that he never talks to any staff or leaves any tips...sort of like the royalty of old, I would say.

But what a statement all this makes about what happens to public broadcasting after you take away public funding and make it dependent on donations. Unlike Pacifica and other fringe, struggling public media in the U.S., they went right after the big game wealthy donors, and paid the price - public broadcasters that are propaganda mouthpieces for large corporations and charitable trusts of the billionaires....and that will have something to say about the future of the U.S. political process in the coming years, as these same people buy politicians as freely as they have bought control of public media!

I agree. I quit listening to NPR a long time ago. It's like the Washington Post -- uninformed people regard it as liberal, but it's swung to the right.

 

[work in progress]

Something new that shows more of what should be obvious: high income and wealth inequality leaves the U.S. looking like a third world nation on many social fitness indicators:

Global Rankings Study Depicts an America in Warp Speed Decline


From access to healthcare and education, gender equality, attitudes toward immigrants and minorities, the U.S. looks like a second-rate nation.

While the U.S. enjoys the second highest per capita GDP of $45,336, it ranks in an underperforming 16th place overall. It gets worse. The U.S. ranks 70th in health, 69th in ecosystem sustainability, 39th in basic education, 34th in access to water and sanitation and 31st in personal safety.


More surprising is the fact that despite being the home country of global tech heavyweights Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Oracle, and so on, the U.S. ranks a disappointing 23rd in access to the Internet. “It’s astonishing that for a country that has Silicon Valley, lack of access to information is a red flag,” notes Michael Green, executive director of the Social Progress Imperative, which oversees the index.


If this index is an affront to your jingoistic sensibilities, the U.S. remains in first place for the number of incarcerated citizens per capita, adult onset diabetes and for believing in angels.


New Zealand is ranked in first place in social progress. Interestingly, it ranks only 25th on GDP per capita, which means the island of the long white cloud is doing a far better job than America when it comes to meeting the need of its people. In order, the top 10 is rounded out by Switzerland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Denmark and Australia.


Unsurprisingly these nations all happen to rank highly in the 2013 U.N. World Happiness Report with Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Sweden among the top five.


So, what of the U.S? In terms of happiness, we rank 17th, trailing neighboring Mexico.


We find ourselves languishing for the very fact we have allowed corporate America to hijack the entire Republican Party, and some parts of the Democratic Party. This influence has bought corporations and the rich a rigged tax code that has redistributed wealth from the middle class to the rich over the course of the past three decades. This lack of shared prosperity and opportunity has retarded our social progress.

 

[Mister Emu]

But you certainly should keep to your views. The more staunchly conservatives ignore what's happening, the less relevant conservatism will become to the voters.

I don't particularly care for relevancy, I care about accuracy... I'm an idealist not a pragmatist.

About what? You didn't actually make a point here.

Yes, I do... You provided a broad mischaracterization and overgeneralization of conservatives, saying we have no empathy.

And I'm not sure what the point was here either...

The point was that, while dreadful and obligating sympathy, depression is not an excuse not work or improve your situation.

Some people are ridiculously upbeat and happy all the time, like they are taking drugs already...and I try to avoid those kinds of people...I find them irritating to infuriating

Why?

because modern pop capitalist culture promotes the meme that everyone should be happy all the time, and something is wrong with you if you're not!

That isn't modern pop culture and has nothing to do with capitalism. Happiness > sadness, ideally we are all those "irritating and infuriating" people that are "ridiculously" happy whenever we see them.

So, your friend may consider it more important to be in control of mental states

Hey, you're 100% correct.

The unfortunate reality today, is that this world may be doomed by the eternal optimists, while if there were more of us who were pessimists of some degree, we would have done what was necessary to avoid disaster decades ago.

There is also a real problem with Malthusian doomsday prophets on things like overpopulation and resource scarcity.

The reality isn't we're all doomed, nor is it that everything is going to be rainbows. There will be, as there always has been, difficulties and we will trudge on.

And on this point, I part company again.

Of course, you don't believe in responsibility of any kind.

Supposedly, in this fictional account, every child born into an impoverished ghetto of a collapsing rust belt city is potentially a John Galt, just waiting to bust loose and take over the world.

Every... ehhh, maybe not. But many are, yes.

But every one of them has the potential to elevate themselves and their children out of poverty.

when that failure is consciously or subconsciously tied to race, religion or ethnicity, then it is tagged as collective failure of that group,

Not in my story, rampant individualism and all that jazz.

Even if the rags-to-riches story was true, it would still be using an exception to try to prove a rule.

Its not to prove a rule, not many people take such splendid advantage of the opportunities presented themselves after all.

I don't personally plan on such an occurrence, but I do plan to the reasonably attainable: an advanced degree in my field and suitable employment such that any children I have will be in a better position than I.

 

[Sunstone]

I don't particularly care for relevancy, I care about accuracy... I'm an idealist not a pragmatist.

Your view that, since upward socioeconomic mobility has neither increased nor decreased over the past 20 years, it is today possible for anyone who works hard to move up the socioeconomic ladder does not appear to be founded in "accuracy" but in idealism. That's because upward socioeconomic mobility in the US is relatively poor to begin with.

 

[Drolefille]

I agree. I quit listening to NPR a long time ago. It's like the Washington Post -- uninformed people regard it as liberal, but it's swung to the right.

But comparatively it's the best of my options.

 

[work in progress]

Yes, I do... You provided a broad mischaracterization and overgeneralization of conservatives, saying we have no empathy.

Okay then, conservatives have very little empathy! Is that better?

I'll set aside the mundane aspects of party politics-because I don't really connect with liberal political thinking, although I fit the basic framework of someone with a liberal worldview on life; so if we take a look at our basic differences in thinking, we find that they are much deeper than superficial differences of policies on issues. There have been a number of neurological/psychological studies in recent years, which show differences in brain organization and development exist between those with a conservative worldview, and people with a liberal outlook on life. Biology and political orientation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Conservatives have a "me" rather than "we" orientation. Rather than rationality, and empathy, their concerns are tribal...and expressed through nationalism, fear and prejudice against others. And in a time when we live in an overpopulated and interconnected world, conservative emphasis on hierarchy and clan-mentality, means a world ruled by conservatives is a much more dangerous place....especially when conservatives are in control of wealthy nations, and devote the national treasury to guns and empire-building through the use/and threatened use of oversized, unaffordable militaries.

And when it comes to the home front, you need look no further than the rob-the-poor/give-to-the-rich Ryan Budget proposal as an example of conservative empathy at work.

The point was that, while dreadful and obligating sympathy, depression is not an excuse not work or improve your situation.

And once again, you are claiming to be inside the head of someone suffering from severe depression. Your solution is little more than telling them to stop being depressed, get a job, or get back to work. And what if that doesn't work, and they are still in a catatonic state unable to focus or perform even the simplest of tasks?

Why?

Because I am introvert by nature. I am introspective, but have no fear of crowds or strangers etc., I just am happy to have my alone time - something my wife and I had to work out early in our marriage, because her need for company is greater than mine. And in social situations, I avoid people who are loud, too talkative, extra upbeat etc.. I'm even keeled emotionally...I don't swing too far in either direction; so that overjoyed type comes across to me as someone who's trying too hard...that's about it.

That isn't modern pop culture and has nothing to do with capitalism.

Really! Could you explain to me why there are all those drug ads for Zoloft and Abilify etc.? It seems to me that the pop culture meme about happiness began with TV advertizing back in the 50's - when the Madison Ave. marketing firms started hiring psychologists, who guided product marketing away from promoting the product towards creating the unconscious perception in the viewer that they can't be happy without the product. And, after a few generations of neurotic/impulsive consumers who's materialism resembles straight up drug addiction, there are so many unhappy, unfulfilled consumers out there that the pharmaceutical companies can make billions selling mood-altering drugs to the depressed consumer...sort of an example of capitalism creating a disease, and then selling the cure for it!

Happiness > sadness, ideally we are all those "irritating and infuriating" people that are "ridiculously" happy whenever we see them.

So, you're saying that this constant "ridiculously" happy state is the ideal? Seems exhausting and manic to me...I'll pass!

Hey, you're 100% correct.

That's good. As long as your friend is able to function and cope with life. I would still be willing to bet - if you asked him, that at least part of his sense that he is seriously depressed may be from that attitude that everyone should take a pill for depression, rather than deal with it on their own terms.

There is also a real problem with Malthusian doomsday prophets on things like overpopulation and resource scarcity.

The reality isn't we're all doomed, nor is it that everything is going to be rainbows. There will be, as there always has been, difficulties and we will trudge on.

Well, first off, I was referencing some recent stories of the proposal by a couple of psychologists that a new mood category be added to the usual optimist/pessimist options - the depressive realist. Reason being that, while psychologists have generally categorized pessimism as an irrational negative bias, some researchers have started to notice that being pessimistic to some degree, makes the person more accurate in assessing their own abilities, and the likely trustworthiness and intentions of others, than the optimists are. Depressive realism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On the big state-of-the-world issues today, I've been baffled by the disconnect I have seen between the evidence and future projections on climate change, overpopulation, resource scarcity, and toxicity in the environment and the food supply, when I took a look at the proposals for dealing with these serious issues by the vast majority of scientists and environmental activists. It's only been in the last year or so that I seem to have come across a few depressive realists who believe extinction is all but certain without a successful strategy of geoengineering in the short term, and the complete overhaul or destruction of industrial consumer capitalism in the long term.

Some of the green activists who have been claiming that the fix will be easy (Al Gore), are either motivated by hoping to profit financially from a green economic transition, or their inability to connect the dots between their climate forecasts and what would be needed to actually meet carbon emissions cuts, is an example of irrational optimism. So, on these big issues, I see both conservative optimists and liberal optimists leading us to extinction!

Of course, you don't believe in responsibility of any kind.

What was that you were saying earlier about mischaracterization and overgeneralization?

Every... ehhh, maybe not. But many are, yes.

But every one of them has the potential to elevate themselves and their children out of poverty.

No, I don't think they ever did have that chance before, even though social mobility was much greater than today. But the real question is: what about those who fall through the cracks? I am always fascinated by how different groups reinvent their religions. When it comes to the Social Gospel of both Old and New Testaments, I think today's right wing Christians have completely created a new religion by selectively cherrypicking the Bible, and ignoring vast expanses of the teachings of Jesus and the prophets of the Old Testament included.

Not in my story, rampant individualism and all that jazz.

Worth noting that racism works more effectively at an unconscious/rather than a conscious level. So dog whistle politics really took off when Ronald Reagan started talking about "welfare queens" and "young bucks" collecting food stamps. What image was he...or perhaps his speech writers...trying to put in the average voter's head with those terms? A "young buck" in particular, was a term taken right from the days of slavery in America, so they had to change the language on that one to something a little more neutral, but when it came to the welfare queen, having her children while on welfare and raising the next generation of welfare queens to add to the tax burden of the average, hard-working American taxpayer etc., is there any doubt what colors come to mind to the audience that was hearing these stump speeches at the time?

No doubt, the typical white audience would picture a black woman as the welfare queen and a white man as that abused taxpayer. So, yes, this mythology that everyone can succeed in America, means that the community living in the abandoned cities where all the manufacturing has been outsourced to China, are collectively judged, rather than the society that started applying social darwinism as economic policy 30 years ago.

 

[work in progress]

But comparatively it's the best of my options.

Well, we were talking about PBS and NPR's inability to deal honestly and openly with many economic and political issues, because of the power of certain corporate sponsors. Quick example being the PBS science show - NOVA, covers every science issue except climate change...no doubt in large part because of that Koch Foundation we hear about at the start of the program.

There are NPR shows that I collect podcasts from....but none of them are news and current affairs shows....I don't need the aggravation!

 

[Drolefille]

Well, we were talking about PBS and NPR's inability to deal honestly and openly with many economic and political issues, because of the power of certain corporate sponsors. Quick example being the PBS science show - NOVA, covers every science issue except climate change...no doubt in large part because of that Koch Foundation we hear about at the start of the program.

There are NPR shows that I collect podcasts from....but none of them are news and current affairs shows....I don't need the aggravation!

I understand that, but if I want news, my local npr station and the BBC shows I get on it are better than any other radio option. Because the rest is loony.