I’ve come to the conclusion that the 50% of the country that will vote for Bush live an isolated exsistance in which they only care about preserving their way of life.
Why?
I grew up in the midwest with a Republican father who has lived his whole life within 25 miles of where he was born. My two older sisters and younger brother (all voting for Bush) live in that same city and have never moved more than 25 miles from home. Their travels consist of LasVegas, Orlando, and traveling up north to a cabin. All their friends and coworkers are white and christian in one way or another. This is how they have all lived.
I differed from them and broke the mold. In college two of my best friends were from India and Mexico. My two co-worker friends through college were from Pakistan and Cuba. I moved out of state when I was 20 and have lived in Atlanta, Orlando, Baltimore, and Minneapolis. My first roomate of one year was gay. I’ve met a lot of friends and known a lot of people. I have acquaitnaces that were on welfare, have been in jail, had drug problems, were unemployed, have had to make the difficult decision to have an abortion. I was the first in my family to travel to Europe. One of my friends I made this trip with was Jewish. I now live in a neighborhood of middle class white, black, and asian families.
Since moving away from home 15 years ago I have learned a lot and met a lot of people and have come to discover that I
-Value diversity
-Realise that there are lots of people in the world with different values and different needs.
-Know that people need to cooperate and be tolerant and compromise to satisfy everyone.
My family members on the other hand associate with only people like them. Their neighborhoods are white. They don’t know any gay people except what they’ve seen on tv. Everyone they know is middle class. They don’t know anybody that has been on welfare, been in jail, had an abortion, etc. Because of this they believe
-people in bad situations put themselves in those situtations (welfare,drugs)
-gay people chose to be gay or something is wrong with them
-their way of life is ideal, their values and morals are the right ones to have, and their way of life needs to be protected at all costs
Does this seem right? Do those in favor of Bush have a narrow-minded view of the world because all they know is their way of life? Are they victims of isolation?
Are they ignorant of “real” problems because they haven’t seen the world and personally know people with these “real” problems?
No more so than you being ignorant of “real” Republicans because you assume they’re all like the ones in your family.
I appreciate and desire diversity. I feel that homosexuality is in-borne, not a choice. I believe that many people end up in bad situations because they are born into them, not because of personal flaws.
At the risk of sounding narrow-minded myself, I would have to say: yes. At least as far as “social” conservatives are concerned. I’ve met some worldly libertarians. But as far as I can see social conservatism is mostly just Xtian/white/straight people attempting to preserve their way of life in the face of – gasp! – other viewpoints and ways of life. There’s a reason it’s called “conservatism,” after all.
con·ser·va·tive adj.
Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.
One of the differences that I see between the two parties is that Republicans in general favor pragmatism over idealism and that the reverse is true with Democrats. Also, the futher to either fringe you get, the further away from reality.
I am a liberal-minded person with a long history of social activism but I intend to vote for Bush. I’m not Christian. I’m not in favor of outlawing abortion. I’m not pro-death penalty. I am however opposed to tax-and-spend. I am opposed to changing leadership in the middle of a war too, tho that’s off the subject. But, I am voting republican without fitting your description, which makes me think your description is as was stated a bit of an oversimplification.
I think ignorance in some form is ubiquitous, so let’s disregard that.
Some issues do seem to have a priority over others. That can’t be helped. But it is hard to see how a well-adjusted open-minded person would seek to amend the Constitution in order to marginalize a minority. Similarly, I find it hard to believe that a tax cut is so important that one can overlook the huge deficit that has no signs of letting up. But these are the choices we hear people making, these are the priorities that have been set. It is a compromise to be willing to live with war on false pretenses in order for the chance of overturning Roe v. Wade or blocking new lines of stem cells to open up, and it is apparently a compromise some feel is necessary.
I do question those priorities, but I don’t think they are generally narrowminded.
Actually, Repblicans favor individualism. But that comes with a price. You fall on your own sword, or you succeed via your own willpower. The government should play a smaller role in the success of each individual and a greater role in the success of the whole. Give everyone a fair playing field and let them run.
I agree that the OP is making a huge overgeneralization, a thousand counterexamples to his/her thesis spring to mind immedietly. It is possible though, that there is some statistical corralation between say, lack of travel and political party (or more likely, I think, vice versa). Somewhere there must be a poll that links political party affiliation to different lifestyles, but my google skills were unable to uncover it.
There have been a few polls recently that show how little party members understand their presidential candidates position, they just assume that their guy agrees with them. It would be interesting to see if we could find something that is a stronger predictor of political party then agreement with the parties platform.
Why? Why is taxation a bigger issue for you than, for example, removing the protection from a woman’s right to chose? It is nice that you think you’ve shown the OP up with your post. I don’t believe so. You’ve made your choice and set your priorities. What motivated that?
Actually, I don’t think it is. Are you more opposed to that than to holding a politician responsible for their actions (i.e., presenting a justification which undeniably was ill-founded)? To me, that’s the choice you’ve made. Given what you said, I hear, “Sticking with my horse in this race is more important than using my vote for holding politicians accountable for their actions.”
Hm. For me, it’s “Holding Bush accountable for his actions would mean passing the government to someone I in no way trust to run the War on Terror or the war in Iraq.”
John, could you briefly outline which priorities you see Bush as having in the WoT or in Iraq that are better than the alternative? That is, can you phrase your objection in a way that clearly explains your priorities in the matter? (I’m really not trying to turn this into another Bush/Kerry thread, just hoping to elucidate the choices we’re making and why).
One thing I think is safe to assume is that you hold “competence” as a higher priority than “accountability”. I don’t intend to argue that, it is your opinion, but I would like to get the matter spoken a little more practically in terms of personal choices and priorities.
Okay, I agree my OP was hugely overgeneralized, it’s probably not that cut and dry.
However, I’m trying to understand where and why my affiliation changed from theirs. Before I left home I also was a young republican, maybe overinfluenced by my father (no, I’m not rebeling against my dad, we have a great relationship), but somewhere my values changed drastically from theirs.
I’ve always felt my eyes were opened after seeing and talking and making friends with people in various crisis situtaions (drug addiction to telling their parents they were gay), with people of varying religions (babtists to atheists), with people of varying wealth (friends in Daytona on welfare to my friend in MN who is VP of a fortune 500 company).
Maybe my political affiliation is wrong, who know’s, I just feel more empowered to have open-minded views when discussing issues with them.
We will get nowhere examining individual repubs or dems except into another Bush v Kerry debate. The OP seems to be asking how certain lifestyles effect party affiliation. We need statistical data.
I was unable to find to much, but [URL=http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/results/index.epolls.htmlhere is a breakdown of exit polling in 2000.
Interestinly, non-college grads vote overwelmingly for Gore, so going to college, anyways, seems to make you more, not less likely to be a repub.
We will get nowhere examining individual repubs or dems except into another Bush v Kerry debate. The OP seems to be asking how certain lifestyles effect party affiliation. We need statistical data.
I was unable to find to much, but here is a breakdown of exit polling in 2000.
Interestinly, non-college grads vote overwelmingly for Gore, so going to college, anyways, seems to make you more, not less likely to be a repub.
I’m sure you’re open minded and tolerant. But you extrapolate from that, and immediately assume that the folks on the opposite side of the aisle must necessarily be closed minded and intolerant.
That just isn’t so. Sorry.
The fact is, in a country with only two large parties, you’ll find people of all kinds on both sides of the aisle.
See, this is the position I simply don’t understand. Why is pay-as-you-go (tax & spend) worse than the Bush policy of borrow & spend with no regard to enormous deficits? Prudent deficits are one thing, but Bush has proven himself to be an incorrigible spendthrift; he quite literally has never seen a spending bill he didn’t like. But instead of raising taxes to pay for his fiscal profligacy, he simply raises the spending limit and puts it all on federal plastic, out of sight, out of mind. How is this more fiscally responsible?