Conservative Programs

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
.

Members don't see this ad.
 
Whopper you are correct that there are various groups that fall under the umbrella of conservative. The intellectuals of the party tend to be the pro free market (anti socialism) group and tends to be made up of professionals (doctors, attorneys, business people, etc.) You correctly pointed out that most tend to be for a mixed economy. They are not generally for laissez faire capitalism in other words. Conservative (or evangelical) Christians are another important group of conservatives. I know most liberals already know this, but their condescension toward this group does them little good. The hypocrisy of speaking the way the left does about Christians while simultaneously holding views completely opposite when it comes to Muslims is not lost on as many people as they may believe. Uneducated lower SES (“redneck”) people are probably the other largest group in the conservative camp. Their reasons for not liking people like Hillary, Barack, or Kerry are fairly obvious.

Religious conservatives are perhaps the most condescending group of them all. Some literally believe that they are on the side of God. I've heard some call political opponents sinners or immoral.

Christian conservatives have more sway than any other religious group in American. They were the biggest supporters of discrimination against LGBT Americans. Other religious conservatives are of much smaller numbers in the United States and don't have the same amount of damaging political power.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Well hey, IMHO the hypocrisy no matter the political stance is irritating. Trust me on that. I tend to only get bugged with someone of a differing political belief if they're very judgmental in one thing in a very hypocritical manner. E.g. they tell me they think people on government assistance are lazy losers then it turns out they're on Medicaid, are unemployed (but can work). Or if someone's political (or other beliefs) fly in the face of facts. E.g. Nancy Pelosi was likely using her position in the Senate to profiteer off the stock-market in an unethical manner but you tell that to someone on the Left....immediate red-face. Or someone actually believing Alex's Jones's lizardmen BS.

But it's not just the Right. As you said and I completely agree it's all sides. E.g. environmentalists that want to use corn ethanol when it turns out that ethanol actually uses more energy to make than it produces. But you tell some guy wearing hemp clothes, doesn't know science, and they blow up in anger. I remember back when Air America was on they kept airing commercials to shut down the nuclear reactor powering half of NYC without mentioning the CO2 free energy it was producing.

I actually enjoy debating politics--except that so many these days, you disagree with them they blow up in anger. It seems that the type of person who can take in the objective data and then make a decision is the more rare thing, while a person who already has picked a political side as a type of sports team and anything that makes that team look bad even if true is put in the denial-section of the ego defense mechanisms.

Myself-I think I'm a moderate but only say that cause when you dissect my political stances none of them are consistently on one side and I don't think one political group has it all correct.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Myself-I think I'm a moderate but only say that cause when you dissect my political stances none of them are consistently on one side and I don't think one political group has it all correct.

It's especially hard to be a moderate these days, with both parties preferring to run as far to the outside of their positions as they can.
 
It's a problem built into the constitution.

Each party will reach out as far as it can without losing votes. It's not a coincidence that presidential elections are nearly 50/50 and that legislatures at the national level are often near even. It's due to the winner-take-all system.

If you had a proportionate voting system where people who were very passionate about certain topics could vote solely on those issues (like via a Green Party, a Christian Party, etc.), those issues would still be represented, but the winners of those parties would have to work with winners of other parties who have other agendas, such as economic agendas, that the people of the first party might have very heterogeneous views on.

There's no particular reason that someone who wants to criminalize abortion should also be for lowering taxes, but if you only have two parties you have to lump a lot of non-cohesive ideas together for maximal reach.

Proportionate representation would take wedge issues out of the equation to a large degree, and I think you'd find more stability and cohesive economic policy over time. For truly moderate representation, you'd need to take legal bribery out of politics, as well.
 
But it's not just the Right. As you said and I completely agree it's all sides. E.g. environmentalists that want to use corn ethanol when it turns out that ethanol actually uses more energy to make than it produces. But you tell some guy wearing hemp clothes, doesn't know science, and they blow up in anger. I remember back when Air America was on they kept airing commercials to shut down the nuclear reactor powering half of NYC without mentioning the CO2 free energy it was producing.

You're giving me flashbacks to my college research. The guy who ran the microscope room listened to Air America 24/7. Usually I'd work during Franken's show, and he was somehow the least obnoxious, but I'm not sure I could listen to ANYONE talk about politics, even those who I 100% agree with for that long.

The Onion had a short-lived video series parodying the Daily Show/Last Week Tonight called "You're Right" that was basically parodying how said shows only exist to reinforce one's own beliefs. It's too bad the execution of it sucked, because the concept was well needed.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
I have been surrounded by political “foes” for 4 years. Not much to learn.

Is it just me or is this somewhat troubling for someone whose work is going to be related to insight about the human condition?

I went a solid 3 years of working with one of my co-residents before I found out she was a creationist.

Yowza. How'd that work out for ya?
 
Religious conservatives are perhaps the most condescending group of them all. Some literally believe that they are on the side of God. I've heard some call political opponents sinners or immoral.

Christian conservatives have more sway than any other religious group in American. They were the biggest supporters of discrimination against LGBT Americans. Other religious conservatives are of much smaller numbers in the United States and don't have the same amount of damaging political power.

I'm not political. I'm for justice and fairness for all. I'm also a data-ist, I look at facts to make conclusions and shun sweeping biased statements. (I dislike the media because they make it near impossible to know the facts.) Now I'm not defending one group or another, but you're statement that "They were the biggest supporters of discrimination against LGBT Americans" is sounding like a very biased CNN news-bite. Can you provide the data?

Insight #1. Sweeping generalizations ignore details, and contribute to the dumbing down of America and stoke unnecessary emotions.
 
I'm not political. I'm for justice and fairness for all. I'm also a data-ist, I look at facts to make conclusions and shun sweeping biased statements. (I dislike the media because they make it near impossible to know the facts.) Now I'm not defending one group or another, but you're statement that "They were the biggest supporters of discrimination against LGBT Americans" is sounding like a very biased CNN news-bite. Can you provide the data?

It could probably be narrowed down to evangelicals. But, for actual data driven stuff, we'd probably have to look at the Mormons, since we can look at them being one of the biggest single funding sources of the old California prop 8 measure vote. I imagine attitudes have changed a good deal overall since 2008, but white evangelicals are still very much opposed to gay marriage and similar policy. Although black churchgoers are also not fans.

Changing Attitudes on Gay Marriage
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
Another thing is IMHO there really is no need for political debate on many of the issues people are so divided on. E.g. when the Elian Gonzalez thing happened, it was supposed to be handled by the Supreme Court. It's how the laws are written. It should've more of a thing where if you disagreed with what happened then you're supposed to enact change to have the laws changed and that's where the debate should've been limited.

Every idiot had to have their 2 cents put into that one, and 99% of them didn't know half of what was going on. The lawmakers didn't have a direct role in that one, the courts did. It was turned into a circus.

I recommend everyone watch HBO's John Adams. All of the Founding Fathers vehemently disagreed on many things with many of them being extremely obstinate, zealous, and full of poison against each other. People making it out like they all got along don't know history. Nor do they know that a reason why Washington was our first President was cause he just tried to get along with everyone and was moderate, polite, and a gentleman in a crowd of angry and disagreeing men. The Constitution was written in a manner to allow all of them to keep disagreeing. Heck you get a group of 15 people it's not like any of them are going to agree on most things unless you picked all 15 out of some type of uniform group-think specific area.

A very good friend of mine is a nurse who despite being very much to the Right and a Trump supporter to a degree I disagree with would've taken a punch to protect me on the forensic unit where we had several violent patients. He's a good man, a good father, a solid nurse, was a great unit leader, and heck to make politics a reason to hate him, well I'd be hating almost everyone if I hated him. Do I disagree with him with today's politics? YES, but I'd want him on my team any day.

One of my favorite scenes, when the disgreement in Washington's cabinet was still cordial (yeah like that lasted long). It quickly degraded to open argument and yelling to the degree that Washington couldn't stand his job as president.
 
Last edited:
Yowza. How'd that work out for ya?

I mean, like we said. It's one of those things that no one really cares about in the grand scheme of working with them. I care more that this person still thinks that bridging an SSRI with a benzo is a good idea. :nono:

Plus, this person isn't on social media, which helps. I have another former coworker that I mostly only see now on facebook who based on their demonstration of their media literacy, or lack there of, have made me question what the hell is wrong with them. It started with a few posts here and there that made me go "uhh, that's not correct" to seeing her like/share stuff from nutty left wing Seth Rich Conspiracy truthers. Basically in 2016, she started following every possible pro-Bernie Sanders page she could find, including a number of them that have since been shut down for being run by foreign troll farms. I clicked though a few of them back when they were still active, and it's both amazing and sad to see that her entire feed is just a giant deluge of complete unadulterated "anti-establishment" conspiracy bull****. Every once in a while I'll chime in to say something like "uhh, you do know that this author is a conspiracy theorist who's written pieces praising the alt-right, right?" but it's honestly not worth it. Feedback loops are a powerful things.
 
Yowza. How'd that work out for ya?
See that is the condescension that I find irritating and in many cases it is ironic because the person being condescending does not actually understand evolution themselves. I have spoken with many liberal "Christians are ignorant" types who then do not know the simple fact that humans are a great ape species. Many of them do not understand the extremely fundamental fact that the environment directly influences the traits that species evolve. Many, strangely enough, do not understand the simple fact that even members of the same species, humans for example, will evolve different traits if they evolve in quite different environments. To me, a person implying they are superior to religionists because they believe in evolution, but then do not actually understand it at even fundamental levels, is sort of pitiful and should be pointed out when it occurs.
 
See that is the condescension that I find irritating and in many cases it is ironic because the person being condescending does not actually understand evolution themselves. I have spoken with many liberal "Christians are ignorant" types who then do not know the simple fact that humans are a great ape species. Many of them do not understand the extremely fundamental fact that the environment directly influences the traits that species evolve. Many, strangely enough, do not understand the simple fact that even members of the same species, humans for example, will evolve different traits if they evolve in quite different environments. To me, a person implying they are superior to religionists because they believe in evolution, but then do not actually understand it at even fundamental levels, is sort of pitiful and should be pointed out when it occurs.

As long as you don't use your fairy tales to legislate my rights, you can believe whatever you want. ;)
 
Members don't see this ad :)
As long as you don't use your fairy tales to legislate my rights, you can believe whatever you want. ;)
beliefs.jpg

xkcd: Beliefs
 
  • Like
Reactions: 11 users
Re: cartoon
I agree that high level politicians such as US senators should be highly educated. Again that is a problem on both sides unfortunately. The guy currently running against Ted Cruz only has a bachelors degree while Cruz has a law degree from Harvard. I believe it is completely reasonable to expect the people that are running the country to be highly educated.
 
Re: cartoon
I agree that high level politicians such as US senators should be highly educated. Again that is a problem on both sides unfortunately. The guy currently running against Ted Cruz only has a bachelors degree while Cruz has a law degree from Harvard. I believe it is completely reasonable to expect the people that are running the country to be highly educated.

lol. Wut.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Re: cartoon
I agree that high level politicians such as US senators should be highly educated. Again that is a problem on both sides unfortunately. The guy currently running against Ted Cruz only has a bachelors degree while Cruz has a law degree from Harvard. I believe it is completely reasonable to expect the people that are running the country to be highly educated.

I don't think a lack of post-bachelor's education should disqualify someone from a congressional or Senate seat. However, complete scientific illiteracy should disqualify people from certain positions, such as say, serving on the House Science, Space, and Technology subcommittees.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users
lol. Wut.
You can laugh all you want but I have said for years that high level politicians should be highly educated. It’s not a strange position to hold.
 
You can laugh all you want but I have said for years that high level politicians should be highly educated. It’s not a strange position to hold.

That guy went to Columbia, for all that matters.

Your point is neither here nor there (trying to be serious). There are plenty of "highly educated" (i.e got a "high" degree) with awfully wacky beliefs (Ben Carson, anyone?) that, in an ideal world, would disqualify them from running for office. The President, for Christ's sake, called global warming a "Chinese hoax".

In any case, not to derail the thread, the point is that it's not about the degree that you have.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
That guy went to Columbia, for all that matters.

Your point is neither here nor there (trying to be serious). There are plenty of "highly educated" (i.e got a "high" degree) with awfully wacky beliefs (Ben Carson, anyone?) that, in an ideal world, would disqualify them from running for office. The President, for Christ's sake, called global warming a "Chinese hoax".

In any case, not to derail the thread, the point is that it's not about the degree that you have.
Ok, enough with this discussion. It is obvious you are not interested in having any sort of real discussion, just partisan bickering. I guarantee you that if I had originally responded to the inane cartoon with a message reading "high level politicians can be uneducated or mildly educated (bachelors) and that is fine", you would have argued with that too, so there is no winning. We can continue to elect mildly educated candidates but then people need to stop complaining about the quality of our politicians.
 
Re: cartoon
To clarify my position a bit, I just posted the cartoon because it echoed what another poster said. There's an XKCD cartoon for so many scenarios in life, and I like to pull them out when relevant. I've worked hard to know as many of these cartoons as possible so I can find them when needed.
 
I'm not political. I'm for justice and fairness for all. I'm also a data-ist, I look at facts to make conclusions and shun sweeping biased statements. (I dislike the media because they make it near impossible to know the facts.) Now I'm not defending one group or another, but you're statement that "They were the biggest supporters of discrimination against LGBT Americans" is sounding like a very biased CNN news-bite. Can you provide the data?

Take a look at the top donors supporting Prop 8:

Knights of Columbus (a Catholic organization), Fieldstead and Company (a donation vehicle for Howard Ahmanson, a Christian conservative), John Templeton Jr (conservative donor), Alan Ashton (donating from Utah), Claire T Reiss, Focus on the Family (Christian conservative organization), American Family Association (organization promoting fundamentalist Christian views), Elsa Prince (Republican donor and mother of Blackwater founder), Concerned Women for America (socially conservative Christian organization), Hartfold Holdings

The Money Behind the 2008 Same-Sex Partnership Ballot Measures - FollowTheMoney.org

Or take a look at who is writing amicus briefs supporting gay marriage bans when Obergefell v Hodges was being considered. They tended to be conservative and religious groups.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
See that is the condescension that I find irritating and in many cases it is ironic because the person being condescending does not actually understand evolution themselves. I have spoken with many liberal "Christians are ignorant" types who then do not know the simple fact that humans are a great ape species. Many of them do not understand the extremely fundamental fact that the environment directly influences the traits that species evolve. Many, strangely enough, do not understand the simple fact that even members of the same species, humans for example, will evolve different traits if they evolve in quite different environments. To me, a person implying they are superior to religionists because they believe in evolution, but then do not actually understand it at even fundamental levels, is sort of pitiful and should be pointed out when it occurs.

That doesn't come close to the condescension that some religious conservatives exhibit when they say that God is on their side and that they know The Truth.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
That doesn't come close to the condescension that some religious conservatives exhibit when they say that God is on their side and that they know The Truth.
That statement/sentiment right there is what makes the left’s views on and intense defense of Muslims so perplexing. Why does the left save most of their religious disdain for Christians?

Back when I was young and thought it was “smart” to be atheist and against religion, I was much more consistent. I would rail against all of the major religions. That’s part of why I liked Christopher Hitchens and Bill Maher and Sam Harris so much back when I was in my 20s. (I still like reading Christopher Hitchens.)
 
That statement/sentiment right there is what makes the left’s views on and intense defense of Muslims so perplexing. Why does the left save most of their religious disdain for Christians?

Back when I was young and thought it was “smart” to be atheist and against religion, I was much more consistent. I would rail against all of the major religions. That’s part of why I liked Christopher Hitchens and Bill Maher and Sam Harris so much back when I was in my 20s. (I still like reading Christopher Hitchens.)
So you agree that religious conservatives can be the most condescending of all?
 
See that is the condescension that I find irritating and in many cases it is ironic because the person being condescending does not actually understand evolution themselves. I have spoken with many liberal "Christians are ignorant" types who then do not know the simple fact that humans are a great ape species. Many of them do not understand the extremely fundamental fact that the environment directly influences the traits that species evolve. Many, strangely enough, do not understand the simple fact that even members of the same species, humans for example, will evolve different traits if they evolve in quite different environments. To me, a person implying they are superior to religionists because they believe in evolution, but then do not actually understand it at even fundamental levels, is sort of pitiful and should be pointed out when it occurs.

Jeebus, if you thought that was condescending you should go back and look at my posting history.
Then you'd realize that I'm not actually all that condescending, but I'm 100% a smartass.

There, I saved you the trouble. You're welcome.

Dang... it feels good to be back.
(Kinda)

As long as you don't use your fairy tales to legislate my rights, you can believe whatever you want. ;)

Marry meh plz.

Just so everyone knows. The internet is a series of tubes.

No forreal tho.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
There's of course a wide range, but if you were to pick out the median political profile of the people working around me it would look a lot like that. Even for those who aren't working in government or public settings, if you've trained anywhere with populations of a reasonable amount of acuity, you see first hand how much our mental health infrastructure needs public $$ to function, so hard core economic libertarians tend to be few and far between and social spending is generally favored. Though somewhat paradoxically, you see a more right-looking focus on individual responsibility from even rather left-leaning psychiatrists. Even if you're the type that emphasizes the role of socioeconomic factors on mental illness, the understanding of consequences of individual choices is usually highly emphasized in treatment.

/now of course everyone can chime in to explain why they're an exception to this.[/QUOTE]

OK, I guess I will be a little more specific. I recently went to a PsychSIGN event-which is like the student branch of the APA-and the keynote presentation was on microaggressions. I strained my eyes they rolled so hard. I just DK what is up with social sciences getting so far up in psychiatry. It is like for every time a well thought-out psychiatric study is published (like DBS for treatment resistant depression or something similar) there greater noise for theories that are completely untestable, unrepeatable junk-science. *Old man yells at clouds*
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Is it just me or is this somewhat troubling for someone whose work is going to be related to insight about the human condition?



Yowza. How'd that work out for ya?

Why is that troubling? The majority of people at my school have the same positions as each other, and the majority of those positions are based on faulty or incomplete assumptions. At least I listened to their ideas. I weighed them and modified my stance when appropriate. If everyone brings the same dogma to the table, how is it actually possible for me to learn anything new? That is probably what bothered me the most, the absence of original thought and the complete repudiation of dissenting opinion. I honestly find it more troubling that people so close-minded are going into the field honestly.
 
Why is that troubling? The majority of people at my school have the same positions as each other, and the majority of those positions are based on faulty or incomplete assumptions. At least I listened to their ideas. I weighed them and modified my stance when appropriate. If everyone brings the same dogma to the table, how is it actually possible for me to learn anything new? That is probably what bothered me the most, the absence of original thought and the complete repudiation of dissenting opinion. I honestly find it more troubling that people so close-minded are going into the field honestly.

Oh the irony.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
You roasted me there.

Tshyeah brah. I totes ro@$ted your po@$t.

OK, I guess I will be a little more specific. I recently went to a PsychSIGN event-which is like the student branch of the APA-and the keynote presentation was on microaggressions. I strained my eyes they rolled so hard. I just DK what is up with social sciences getting so far up in psychiatry. It is like for every time a well thought-out psychiatric study is published (like DBS for treatment resistant depression or something similar) there greater noise for theories that are completely untestable, unrepeatable junk-science. *Old man yells at clouds*

You leave DK out of this!

donkey_kong.jpg
 
Haven't ready the entire thread, but it seems like your best bet is in one of the armed services.
 
It's especially hard to be a moderate these days, with both parties preferring to run as far to the outside of their positions as they can.

Despite being against a long established theory:
Hotelling's law - Wikipedia
https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-Hotelling-model

" The model is often applied to two political parties on the left and right both moving towards the center to attract the most votes". The usual complain is about the parties being about all the same

The model now fails because there is also third large party, the non-voters,the disaffected. It's a hard job to make a traditional voter change his party, but if the non-voter party is large you can win there a huge number of voters. About all the votes to the Nazi party came from non-voters, with the turnout skyrocketing. Traditional parties was almost unaffected. It is a shocking and inspiring lesson
How you win this vote? Being anti-establishment and looking "new". This leads in pretty clear direction, the rule of some mad man.
 
.
 
Last edited:
OP maybe aim for solid red states in a community program? Statistically those are places where you are most likely to find colleagues with a more conservative lean.

Honestly I don't think political opinions matter too much. I have no idea what any of my coresidents lean (then again I don't really talk much about politics) and no one ever really tries to shove their views down other people's throats.

This is coming from someone who lives in "The people's commonwealth of Massachusetts" btw :p
 
perfect match = LSU Shreveport, have fun
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Top