Political Persuasion- how did you get there?

[innerSpaceman]

Believe it or not, I was a staunch conservative in college.




It was a phase.


Before and since, I've been a liberal progressive, which politically puts me in the voting camp for the Democrats, unless a particularly interesting green or libertarian or independent candidate comes along.

For the same reasons given much more eloquently by Strangler Lewis, I have never been able to support the Republican Party or the Conservative movement or the Christian ideologists. My family was democratic, but hardly politically active. Yet the way I was raised and the very nature of my intrinsic soul have determined my political leanings. I tend to be very absolutist about certain things, so I'll just come right out and say it ...

Good vs. Evil.

Which political direction is compassionate, which is hateful? Which is based on greed, which on generosity?

I know many good people who claim to be conservatives, but I believe they are rationalizing things and/or deluding themselves. While I'm all for pulling one's self up by one's bootstraps, I draw the line at the every-man-for-himself philosophy that is perhaps the best thing that can be said about the conservative impulse.

I think the widespread economic prosperity that took hold in the latter half of 20th-Century America has been the pinnacle of human civilization, and thus the height of goodness for eons and time and hundreds of light years around. I am certainly not interested in supporting the forces that want to turn back that achievement. I cannot support poverty or discrimination or hatred or violence or war or greed.

Good vs. Evil. It's a choice. One you can make at any time, and have to make often regardless of how you've chosen before.


Heheh, it's not too late, you conservatives and republicans and christian ideologists. Look it up in the dictionary. "Good." Check out what Jesus the Christ had to say about it, if that suits you. Ask your mother, if she's still around. Or consult with Jiminy Cricket. And, without lying to yourself, look inside to find out if what you're doing is Good or not, whether it's based on fear or based in love.




sorry to get all preachy. but unlike Alex, I think good people coming to differently reasonable points of view works only to a certain point ... after which, I simply can't abide people who want to hurt other people.

[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.