Are conservatives out of touch with reality?

Who gets to decide what reality is?

we all create our own reality.

edit: darnit, azul, you beat me to the punch with the same sentiment

YES

Seems more like a rant than a question. How about you ask a question if you want a response.

[ removed by myself ]

conversely, liberals appear to me to be living also in a dream world, where the lazy are coddled and the industrious are derided.

TL; DR. Yes.

thank you, jholler! i don’t find myself agreeing with you 100% of the time, but i do on this. it’s all quite subjective.

robmandu, what are all the ~s for? is there some pattern that i don’t see

@critter1982
“Seems more like a rant than a question.”
@robmandu
“Oh yah, you sound so open minded.”

Actually I am quite serious. Conservative economic ideology has been thorougly discredited by recent events, and it is about to cost the Republicans an election.

Belittling the question only underscores your inability to answer it, since taking the question seriously would require a modicum of self-examination and critical thinking that you evidently incapable of. That’s fine with me, since the more you reject dialogue, the further out of reality you drift, and the further out of power you will drift also.

This “question” is not phrased in a way to engender meaningful discussion. Conservatives are not a hive or collective with a single train of thought or a single group of ideas.

I see a real us vs. them mentality in this question. It is exactly this kind of polarization that is so bad for our future and our country.

Thank goodness Senator Obama does not share your sentiments. I have hope that if he is elected there will be a real reaching out to all.

Whose reality are we talking about? I think that is the argument most intelligent conservatives would pose to you. What I believe is different than what you believe, and different still from what the next person believes. I am a scientist, and I believe many things should be allowed that many conservatives believe should not be allowed. I would like there to be gay marriage, womens’ right to choose, stem call research, renewable energy, the list goes on and on. Why do I want these things? Because I believe that these things will help us progress as a society, and that the consequences of not installing these laws into our society would be worse than initiating them. But a conservative would disagree with me. Because that is what she believes. I have nothing more to go on than the faith that science will guide us and help us along the way. But a conservative has faith that this is not the path to take.
We are arguing the limit of the human mind. Who came up with religion and morality? Humans. Who came up with science and rational thought? Humans. Who is right and who is wrong? Who has the better “handle” on reality? Well, who created reality? It is impossible to say who is right and who is wrong. These are beliefs and convictions, one cannot be “more right” than the other.

@Zuma: It seems to me you have already made up your mind. Why should I respond to your rant (not a question) only to be criticized further by your predetermined outlook of conservatives or religious fundamentalists for that matter. If you want to have a useful discussion perhaps you should strive to comprehend your adversary’s thoughts prior to bashing them.

Belittling conservatives prior to allowing them to respond only underscores your inability to be open minded in this particular discussion. If you want to take this question seriously then perhaps you should actually ask a question without being so damn cynical,

Reality? Whose reality? What Reality? How much more out of touch can you possibly be? We have an election coming up which is going to be a repudiation of conservatism, how much more real do you need it to be?

I’ve presented you with a critique of conservatism. One of the charges of which was that conservatives seem constitutionally incapable of recognizing a systemic problem, but instead tend to personalize the problem by laying it off on the moral failings of the individual. In this case, instead of addressing this as a problem inherent in conservatism, you try to turn the issue around and try to make it about me, as if my criticism were motivated by some personal moral defect—i.e., close-mindedness, or a need to engage in baseless ranting and “bashing.” And, in so doing, you are effectively proving my point.

It goes in waves.

They seem out of touch because they have been in power and people are hungry for change. Like every failing regime, they cling to the failed policies and refuse to change even if it means going down with the metaphorical ship.

The election will not be a repudiation of conservatism as much as it will be a repudiation of Bush and a failure of McCain to electrify and educate his audiences.

Monty: If you were insinuating that I am out of touch, then there is one liberal who is out of touch. My point was only that you and I and Joe the Conservative (sorry, I had to) have different opinions on the issues at hand. I don’t agree with the conservative mentality, nor do I wish political issues to be guided by religion, but I still don’t think all conservatives are out of touch with reality. You asked a question that we all assumed you wanted our opinions on. Most of us said no, conservatives are not out of touch with reality. They just have a different sense of reality than you or I do. Sheesh, man. Cool your jets.

You see conservatives living in a bubble of faith.
I see liberals living in a victimized world. Ones like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who attack people like Don Imus and then turn their head, to over the top hip hop artists rapping about gang violence, bitches, and hoes.

You see conservatives as people that denounce critical thinking as liberal or unpatriotic.
I see liberals as people who carp on issues which destroy and get nothing done. Liberals hate more truly than anyone they accuse. I’ve believed that racism would die a natural death of old age if liberals didn’t resuscitate it hourly.

You see conservatives as people who find government superfluous and antithetical. You note that because of our current financial crisis that capitalism has been discredited.
I see liberals as socialists. I see socialism as disproven since the fall of 1989. I see a socialist government causing communities to retreat, civil society to disintegrate and the ability to control our own destiny in atrophy. I see liberals as people who want something for nothing.

You see conservatives as out of touch with reality because they place ideological purity above intellectual honesty.
I see liberals allowing increased immorality in America. I see Bill Clinton cheating on his wife in the oval office and then lying about it to America on national television. I see immorality breeding through the increasingly tolerant.

You see conservatives as being incapable of systemic analyses.
I see liberal logic to be somewhat of an oxymoron. For example the typical liberal will say if we had fewer guns, there would be fewer crimes. Liberal logic says that competition is bad, therefore we should stop pushing employees to be better and more productive, after all businesses are pushing competition when they ask more of their employees. Liberal logic says negative competition hurts our self esteem. Why would our businesses want to harm their employees self esteem. Perhaps we should just eliminate the words accountability, responsibility, and consequences from the human vernacular as these are all unfair practices.

You see conservatives as dismissing the mainstream media as biased.
I see liberals including Obama dismissing the only conservative media outlet during national debates.

We all have pathetic predetermined outlooks of the opposing political party. Perhaps though we should keep these comments to ourselves. Your argument does little to engage people in a give and take style discussion which can generate meaningful answers. Perhaps the blatant criticism and cynical nature of your argument will only drive people further away from what is truly desired, a government that is capable of stabilizing its citizens rather than taking full reign.

With that said I don’t truly believe the things I said regarding all liberals. In fact if anything I have learned from this site is that people shouldn’t base their particular opinions of opposing party affiliates on pathetic attempts at journalism or highly outspoken partisan commentators. They will only lead this nation further into divergence.

The truth is that it takes a balance of both priorities and that is something that neither side has been willing to offer.

I had to pull this out, critter. Hopefully it is one of the things that you don’t truly believe:
the ability to control our own destiny in atrophy

Do you think we ever had the ability to control our own destiny?

@fire: I believe that my destiny is predetermined by God, but with that said I still believe that I have choices in my destiny to the point where I can do something or not do something I feel led to do.

So long story short, no I don’t fully agree with that statement yet I do agree partially. I feel a socialistic government will tend to eliminate the drive that so many Americans have, which makes America the wonderful opportunisitic nation it is. Yes we can still control our destiny but I don’t believe many people will feel motivated to fulfill that destiny.

It’s late and I’ve wasted way too much time talking to this nonsensical thread.

Yes. Duh.

@Les
The financial meltdown that is going on around us is not just some idle difference of opinion; $8.33 trillion out of $14.175 trillion disappeared out of the securities markets in the past month. This is not just somebody’s opinion; this is not just somebody’s point of view; this is real money gone for good. And the reason that its gone is due to an explicit policy of deregulation of the sub-prime mortgage markets and the secondary markets in real estate-backed securities. This is not somebody’s opinion; this is not some crack smoker’s version of reality; this is the widely agreed upon and undisputed version of what actually happened.

Now, this deregulation didn’t occur by accident; it was deliberate economic policy. In fact, McCain was still bragging at his nomination acceptance speech that the deregulation of financial markets this was one of his proudest achievements. Deregulation, however, is just one leg of a larger conservative economic philosophy known as “trickle down” economics, or “free market fundamentalism” also known to the faithful as “lower taxes through smaller government.”

The tenants of free market fundamentalism are not a matter of opinion
http://www.bidstrup.com/economics.htm
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/reviews/bleakonomics

Ironically, the Bush Administration, for all its lip-service to conservatism, accelerated the growth of government and simply borrowed the money to do it, adding interest costs to a bill which will inevitably come due. And now you have McCain/Palin who are in total denial about it—going so far as to promise lower taxes even though we still haven’t paid for the Iraq War, or the $850 billion Wall Street bailout. This is not an opinion; this is not taking place in some parallel universe where debts don’t apply if you don’t believe in them. The present crisis is about as real as things, even though conservatives are in varying degrees of denial about what happened and why.

@fireside
“The election will not be a repudiation of conservatism as much as it will be a repudiation of Bush and a failure of McCain to electrify and educate his audiences.” In my view, Bush and McCain subscribe to the same economic conservatism. I have another going elsewhere asking people to outline the differences between the two and so far the only one anyone has articulated has been a difference on torture. If Bush is to be repudiated it will be for the excesses of free market fundamentalism. To underscore the depths to which reality has trumped ideology, we have had to resort to socialism—in the form of government ownership of the banks—in order to get through this crisis. The reason McCain can’t educate his base is that he has no new ideas to impart. If you listen to their stump speaches, they don’t deviate from the old Republican buzz words of lower taxes and smaller government.

@critter1982
I applaud you for being engaged enough to attempt a point-by-point refutation of the points I made. However, your “You say Po-TAY-toe, I say Po-TAH-toe” style of argument doesn’t always the address the points I make, nonetheless I will attempt to address the points you raise in order to make this exchange worthwhile for you.

“You see conservatives living in a bubble of faith. I see liberals living in a victimized world.” The “bubble of faith” I am referring to here is the speculative bubble in mortgages and derivative securities that is collapsing now. This bubble was created by the conservative faith in free market fundamentalism, in the false belief that unregulated markets correct themselves.

What I offered was a systemic analysis of the current economic situation, and your response to it was to bring up the putative injustice and hypocrisy of “liberals” censuring Don Imus for calling some black women nappy headed hos, while letting gangsta rappers get off scott free for language you consider even worse—a complete non sequitur. You bring up the subject of victimization as if this were a phony issue foisted off on the world by liberals. If I may be so bold as to deconstruct the logic of this argument (I’ve heard it before), claiming victimhood is an illicit thing to do because it basically asks the rest of society for recompense for succumbing to things that could have been avoided if one had only exercised “personal responsibility.” The working premise of this argument is that there are no real victims in the world, only morally flawed people who bring the situation on themselves, and who deserve what they get.

Well, how does that square with the sub-prime lending crisis and the Wall Street meltdown? The first impulse was to blame the borrowers under the theory that they had fraudulently obtained credit, but that’s not what happened. Most of the people who signed up believed (because they were told) that ever-rising real estate prices would increase the equity in their homes, and this would cover any weakness in their credit. Borrowers had no reason to disbelieve them, since real estate prices had done nothing but go up for the previous 60 years.

In actuality, it was the lenders engaged in predatory practices, doing things like neglecting to tell borrowers that if they made only the minimum payment, they would trigger the maximum payment, which would suddenly come due somewhere down the line. Lenders quietly baited these traps, and then aggressively foreclosed when they sprung. Nobody could foresee that all these foreclosures would depress the entire real estate market, sending a lot more people into foreclosure. The meltdown in mortgage-backed securities occurred due to the unregulated trading in derivatives, which would have been illegal for most of the 20th Century. The rich got vastly richer while the rest of us got stuck got stuck with a whopping $850 billion bill, we are all victims in this now.

“You see conservatives as people that denounce critical thinking as liberal or unpatriotic. I see liberals as people who carp on issues which destroy and get nothing done.” You haven’t really made a case here. What issues might those be?

“Liberals hate more truly than anyone they accuse. I’ve believed that racism would die a natural death of old age if liberals didn’t resuscitate it hourly.” Another accusation that is too vague to answer. I’m dying to know by what contortion of logic you are able to blame liberals for racism.

“You note that because of our current financial crisis that capitalism has been discredited.” No, I hold that conservatism aka market fundamentalism is discredited.

“I see liberals as socialists. I see socialism as disproven since the fall of 1989.” I take it that 1989 refers to the fall of Berlin Wall, in which case its pretty clear that you confuse socialism and liberalism with communism. In fact, these are quite separate things. Naturally, if you equate socialism with communism you probably don’t know what socialism actually is, or the extent to which we already have it in this country. Social security and Medicare, the two most popular and effective governmental programs, are socialist. So is public education. We now have state ownership in the major banks; that’s socialism. And we also have welfare for corporations; that’s socialism too.

“I see a socialist government causing communities to retreat, civil society to disintegrate and the ability to control our own destiny in atrophy.” I’m sure the Swedes, Austrians, Germans, French and Canadians would beg to differ with you.

“I see liberals allowing increased immorality in America. I see Bill Clinton cheating on his wife in the oval office and then lying about it to America on national television. I see immorality breeding through the increasingly tolerant.” Are you serious? You mean you’re still stuck on a blowjob that happened 15 years ago? And somehow George W. Bush lying to the American people on TV about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, to get us into a war that caused nearly a million deaths doesn’t merit a mention? As for tolerance breeding “immorality,” that wouldn’t happen to be our tolerance of kidnapping, torture and holding people without charges in places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, would it? You don’t mean to tell me that lying about a blowjob 15 years ago is more immoral and has a worse impact on the country than torture happening now, do you? If so, then I would call this a conservative disconnect from reality.

“I see liberal logic to be somewhat of an oxymoron.” Well, dude, if yours is indication of conservative logic, then you’re no one to talk.

“For example the typical liberal will say if we had fewer guns, there would be fewer crimes.” That is a factual question, not a logical one.

“Liberal logic says that competition is bad, therefore we should stop pushing employees to be better and more productive, after all businesses are pushing competition when they ask more of their employees.” Neither liberals nor logic say any such thing.

“Liberal logic says negative competition hurts our self esteem. Why would our businesses want to harm their employees self esteem. Perhaps we should just eliminate the words accountability, responsibility, and consequences from the human vernacular as these are all unfair practices.” Again liberals don’t say or believe these things, and I can’t think of anyone who does.

“Your argument does little to engage people in a give and take style discussion which can generate meaningful answers.”
I think this exchange proves otherwise.

“Perhaps the blatant criticism and cynical nature of your argument will only drive people further away from what is truly desired, a government that is capable of stabilizing its citizens rather than taking full reign.” No, I think you have it exactly backward. The function of the government is not to “stabilize” its citizens, it is up to the citizens to engage in dialogue and come to a consensus that will stabilize the government. In a democracy it is the citizens that run the government.

I think the conversation improves when you engage the actual argument at hand, rather than speaking to some wierd stereotype you have about what “liberals” think or believe.

The sun’s coming up, so that’s all for now.

@Monty: You must have me confused with someone else. My comments were not intended to be a point-by-point refutation, nor a serious argument on how I feel about liberals. My point was that you place conservatives in this “generality” that you feel is irrefutable. Your generality of conservatives and faith in the market is the typical bullsh!t banter that I hear from liberals all day long.

If you want to talk politics stick to the issues without condemning the thought process of conservatives. For example we can talk about the market. Take a look at history though, markets generate bubbles because of highly deceitful and greedy people, but they always bounce back. I for one realize the necessity for specific markets to have an increase in regulations (btw this decrease in regulation was brought on by the Bill Clinton era from the gramm-leach-bliley act and had veto proof majorities in both houses, that’s right both houses it’s not a partisan issue). I for one though don’t think it is necessary for our government to bail out lenders who don’t give a damn about the public. Government and corporate politics are filled with greedy douchebags and if you think Obama is going to turn that all around you are sadly mistaken.

I will go point to point with you if you want to discuss the issues at hand regarding partisan ideologies, but if you want to continue your oversimplification and sweeping arguments about conservatives then I will stay out. You shouldn’t take this as a sign of me being “incapable of recognizing a systemic problem”, but rather me not willing to go down to the level of me questioning your right to have an opinion.

I can’t throw every conservative into that pigeonhole. However, “conservative” now isn’t what it used to be, say, in Eisenhower’s time. I listen to these people and I don’t always disagree with what they have to say. I disagree with them on principle if, as you say, they subscribe to an ideology and cannot stray far from it in their analysis of the world around them. A lot of what pass for conservatives today fall into this category. There are, however, those on the Left who are just as hidebound in their thinking. It’s not whether you’re Right or Left so much as how far you are Right or Left.

Ronald Reagan was the most entertaining president I can remember (not that I supported most of his policies). I can remember one speech he gave in which he held out his left hand, looked to the left, and said, simply, “Stalin.” He then held out his right hand, looked to the right, and said “Hitler.” I’m sorta with the Gipper on that one. It’s the extreme views we must guard against.

A free society depends on the free interchange of ideas. I don’t align with conservatives, but I believe we would be missing something if they all simply went away.

@critter1982
The way you quoted the points in my question sure made it look like point-by-point response, but I probably should have realized, from your loosely connected logic penchant for zingers, that it was actually something else. The reason I asked this question was not to discover what you believe, but how you arrive at your beliefs. I’m not really interested in discussing Clinton’s turn to the Right as “liberal” complicity in deregulation. The Democrat’s attempts to out-Republican the Republicans disgust me.

@IchtheosaursuRex
You are quite right, “conservatism” no longer means what it used to mean. In Eisenhower’s time conservatives were more informed by people like Edmond Burke, who were concerned with the pace of change (which liberals were accelerating with the implementation of civil rights and the welfare state). The idea was to “conserve” people’s sense of tradition rootedness in their communities by slowing down the pace of social change. Indeed, 19th and early 20th Century conservatives were environmentalists. In the late ‘60s, conservatives jettisoned environmentalism if favor of a pro-corporate “business radicalism” or “let ‘er rip capitalism.” This coincided with the rise of the more personalized and moralistic politics of the Religious Right and its preoccupations with “culture wars” and other forms of cultural confrontation.

[removed by myself] I typed it in the wrong thread :)