Political Persuasion- how did you get there?

[Alex]

And that is where the honest disagreement is. Generally people don't see themselves as wanting to hurt people. You see it as such, but they honestly don't. And much of what is seen as "good" to progressives is seen as an active harm to "conservatives."

And it is that inability to honestly disagree that causes hatred and extreme divides. When a liberal says that "Republicans want poor people to starve" do they really believe that? When a conservative says "liberals want a welfare state that creates a permanent underclass that will provide them with politcal power" do they really believe that?

Both sides honestly believe that their views would result in a net positive result. And only the most ideological don't recognize that "net positive" includes a fair amount of "gross negative."

That is the honest debate that most people apparently can't have. There is a huge difference between "I think you are wrong about the outcome of your policies and evil ends will result" and "you are intentionally persuing evil ends." Yes, there are evil people, but not nearly so many as we like to pretend.

I think exempting the poor completely from income tax is a net negative, most progressives think it is a net positive. That can be honestly debated. But what happens in modern political debate is that we conflate outcomes with motivations which puts everything within an immediately false framework. Also, it allows us to dismiss out of hand and ad hominem ideas we don't like. "I believe that Politician Y's plan will result in a bad thing. Therefore Politician Y must be aware of that and want it to happen. Therefore Politician Y is a bad person. Therefore everything Politician Y says and does is bad."

This is why blanket hatred confuses me. Clinton did a lot of good things and he did a lot of bad things, but I recognize that regardless of outcome he was likely always trying to do what he thought were good things. Same with Bush, and Polk, and Tyler, and most every other president.

[DreadPirateRoberts]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

This is why blanket hatred confuses me. Clinton did a lot of good things and he did a lot of bad things, but I recognize that regardless of outcome he was likely always trying to do what he thought were good things. Same with Bush, and Polk, and Tyler, and most every other president.

Excellent point. Regardless of whether we agree with them or not, I truly believe they are doing what they think is best.

[Prudence]

I don't think most regular people consider any net result - whether positive or negative. I think most people consider only how certain actions will immediately affect them. Those at the top may, in fact, make decisions based on what they think is best for the whole, but they're put into place by the "what's in it for me?" contingent, and I don't think that provides the best leaders. How can anyone make the toughest of decisions knowing that any immediate drawbacks will mean hell to pay with the constituency, regardless of the net benefit?

That makes political debate even more personal, because if I support something that has any sort of negative impact on you it must be a personal attack. I mean, what kind of person am I that would want to do that to you? If I want to raise or add a tax for some vital service, why, I'm taking medicine from the sick, candy from babies, homes from the elderly. Doesn't matter if the end result would benefit everyone - I'm clearly out to get you.

(Generic you, of course. I assume that folks here are capable of considering consequences further out than the next 5 minutes.)

That's certainly how it looks up here with local issues. Easier/cheaper to fix/replace crumbling infrastructure now, rather than in 10 years? So what? Let the taxpayers 10 years hence pay for that. I want my $30 car tabs!

But altruism is apparently un-American.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

I am the youngest child, and the first liberal, of a family of conservative Catholics. And truthfully, I don't know exactly why I ended up the way I am. Genes? A slightly more free-form childhood? The fact that I'm saddled with extreme empathy? I don't know.

My brother was an Alex P. Keaton in high school, and even supported his then-governor when he ran for president six years ago. He and I had many conversations about why I was choosing to vote Green (my reason, primarily, was that I thought the two-party system was complete bunk.) But soonafter, as we invaded Iraq, I tried to razz him about his boy from Texas, and he'd lost his sense of humor. I know he voted for Kerry in the last election, as did most of my family. As did I. It was Bush's actions that lead me to declare myself a democrat, and to work for the campaign in 2004.

For my parents, and I think my sister as well, it's often a one-issue election. And that issue is abortion. While I understand their sadness and myself believe that abortion is murder (and no, I don't want to debate it with you; we probably have different opinions of when "life" starts and I don't want to talk about it) I spent a long time trying to impress upon my family that the 2004 election was NOT a one-issue election, and in fact, no amount of voting weighted by pro-life intentions was going to make any difference. But voting for Kerry might have affected the lives since lost in Iraq, on both sides of the conflict.

Why am I a liberal? Because I believe that all people deserve as good a life as possible. Because I believe that not everyone is capable of doing that themselves. Because I believe that all people should have equal rights, regardless of race, gender, or sexual preference. Because I am currently blessed with enough money to live comfortably, a direct result of my parents' ability to provide my food, shelter and education. Because I know that other parents cannot easily provide that for their children. Because I would rather have higher taxes and better education for ALL children in ALL cities of this country. Because I support the arts. Because I think war should be the very last resort. Because I think it's every bit as important to be free to burn a flag as it is to be free to raise it. Because I think it's every bit as patriotic to question the president as to praise him.

[scaeagles]

I was going to quote ISM but found there was too much to quote. I think JWBear, who somewhere else posted that Republicans act as if they have the moral high ground, needs to read that post by ISM and make a determination as to who believes they have moral high ground. Perhaps I will copy it to a word document and paste it whenever someone claims that Republicans act as if they are good and dems are evil. Apparently there are (gasp!) dems that have that attitude as well.

I don't really know what else to say about it. It would be pointless when I have been defined as supporting evil.

I can't really say why I am conservative. I have conservative leanings, but I consider myself to be a strict constructionist. I suppose Madison was evil when he said, when a small charitable appropriations bill came before him -

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

Does this mean I don't support charity? Not in the least. I support charity from charitable organizations of which the government should not be one.

I have read the Federalist Papers. I love the Constitution for what it was intended to be. Before anyone jumps on me and talks about slavery and women voting and the like, the Constitution was only intended to be a "living, breathing document" in terms of the amendment process. It is what it is and to change it requires not the whim of a legislator or President or judge, but a process, and it has rightly been changed in the past. It is not my goal to open a debate on Constitutional philosophy, but more to describe why I am the way I am.

Like LSPoor above me, I also believe that "all people deserve as good a life as possible". I just think that is done differently than liberals do.

[innerSpaceman]

Just to be clear, I speak for no one in the Democratic Party when I personally take the moral high ground.

And I don't buy Alex's theory that people who do things with evil outcomes rarely have evil intent. Bah on that. Prudence was right about almost all political motivation (and likely most human motivation) ... summed up nicely by "what's in it for me?"

Whether one is too ignorant to look past what's in it for me is no excuse for not immediately recognizing that such a philosophy is likely to cause harm to everyone who isn't you.

Sure, there's a big enough gray zone where many paths leading to evil outcomes did not have evil motives. But I think that zone is relatively slim when compared with the vast realm of political and human motivation.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Whether one is too ignorant to look past what's in it for me is no excuse for not immediately recognizing that such a philosophy is likely to cause harm to everyone who isn't you.

I would say the same thing for supposedly compassionate ideas that are not thought out to their conclusion. As in -

"Whether one is too ignorant to see the unintended consequences of what sounds like a compassionate idea is no excuse to not immediately recognize that such a philosophy is likely to cause harm to those the idea was intended to assist, and most likely to others as well."

For example, right now there is a ballot proposition in AZ to increase the minimum wage. "Evil Republicans!", the cry echoes through the liberal households. "Don't they know that one cannot raise a family on $5.15 an hour?".

It sounds compassionate to raise the minimum wage. However, it is the exact opposite.

I will be quoting an economist named Walter Williams from this article.

The U.S. Department of Labor reports: "According to Current Population Survey estimates for 2004, some 73.9 million American workers were paid at hourly rates, representing 59.8 percent of all wage and salary workers. Of those paid by the hour, 520,000 were reported as earning exactly $5.15."

Workers earning the minimum wage or less tend to be young, single workers between the ages of 16 and 25. Only about two percent of workers over 25 years of age earn minimum wages.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: ..... only 5.3 percent of minimum wage earners are from households below the official poverty line; forty percent of minimum wage earners live in households with incomes $60,000 and higher; and, over 82 percent of minimum wage earners do not have dependents.

So....only 18% of of 520,000 minimum wage earners have dependents, or less than 100,000 workers.

However, what are the negative effects of raising the minimum wage?

Two important surveys of academic economists were reported in two issues of the American Economic Review, May 1979 and May 1992. In one survey, 90 percent, and in the other 80 percent, of economists agreed that increasing the minimum wage causes unemployment among youth and low-skilled workers.

So raising the minimum wage has an affect of increasing unemployment among lower skilled workers, when in fact not many people at all have are trying to raise a family on minimum wage. I would also argue, though not from this article, that a raise in the minimum wage delays raises to established workers. The article itself has much more info than I have quoted.

Nice sounding, compassionate idea to raise the minimum wage. Bad idea to raise the minimum wage, as the unintended consequences are not good at all.

So....what is my point in all of this? That compassion that is not thought through, no matter how good it sounds, is the opposite. I will not subscribe to an idea simply because it sounds compassionate. And I will not be called evil because I investigate and dislike some compassionate sounding ideas.

[Alex]

Never mind, this isn't intended as a debate thread so I won't continue it.

[Not Afraid]

But, you're all making it clear why I don't like current politics.

[€uroMeinke]

Yeah - I'm ever more firmly an anarchist