# Are Republicans more tolerant of bullies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 14, 2012, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905 "2012-05-14T16:57:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/21 "2012-05-14T20:20:51Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > There is in my opinion a definite feeling that the Republicans favor the strong over the weak, and to favor the stick over the carrot. My impression is that the Republican would recommend that the proper response to bullying is for the bullied to fight back, and if they can’t then its their fault for not being strong enough. > > The liberal response to Bullying would be more along attempting the resolve the conflict peaceably or failing that, appealing to a higher authority for intervention. It’s an interesting opinion, and might even be correct. But if you offer no facts to back up that opinion, it’s worthless in GD. n.b.: As I said in my first post, this is almost certainly one of those assertions that is impossible to prove one way or the other. But it does give each side a good opportunity to bash the other! ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/22 "2012-05-14T20:34:42Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > As for the OP, “bullying” is just a term that is also called “natural selection.” You are sort of on the right track here, but you are definitely using the wrong word. Bullying lies at the extreme end of the many ways in which kids are socialized and learn how they’re expected to behave in the larger herd and not just from their immediate family. It has nothing to do with natural selection unless you mean the kids are so outcast they never to reproduce or they are killed. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/23 "2012-05-14T21:01:43Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > It has nothing to do with natural selection unless you mean the kids are so outcast they never to reproduce or they are killed. I’ll split it with you. In today’s society, it seems there is always someone who will breed with anyone, and the offspring will usually make it to breeding age without starving to death–beg, steal, borrow, welfare, etc. But judging how the rest of nature puts a lot of stress on individuals that don’t fit in, I have to imagine that 50,000+ years ago humans also placed stress on misfits in such a way that favored reproduction and clan-survival. Now sometimes humans will tolerate persecution and sometimes they don’t, but with relatively few exceptions, they _always_ do what they’re told. We’re bred to fit into whatever social order the Gandhis, Hitlers, Georges, Popes, etc. tell us we are to fit into. If you don’t fit in, you fight. If you fight, you get your ass kicked or you become the next leader. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/24 "2012-05-14T21:19:32Z")
John Mace, perhaps you were thinking of “begging the question”? There is a contributory factor towards condoning bullying and conservatism (as well as espousing support for Social Darwinism), namely holding the “Just World Hypothesis”: essentially, that people tend to get what they deserve bar artificial constraints. Thus a kid that looks unusual because of his long hair has some flak coming to him. The designer of a better mousetrap deserves all the money rolling in from the factory where workers are subject to inhumane conditions. > [@Inigo Montoya](#): > > the other considers it cruel to punish hard work/skillful money management by forcing the well-off to pay for the have-nots. The fundamental difference lies in an economic analysis of the nature of wealth. Conclude that wealth is the valorisation into material of labour and differences in wealth are expressed by relations to the means of production and one will conclude that the “money management” discussed leads to wealth accumulation due to rent and extraction of surplus labour. If wealth is just a monetary expression of a person’s worth to society though, then this position is essentially correct. > [@Chomsky](#): > > Thomas Jefferson, the leading Enlightenment figure in the United States, along with Benjamin Franklin, who took exactly the same view, argued that dependence will lead to “subservience and venality”, and will “suffocate the germs of virtue”. And remember, by dependence he meant wage labor, which was considered an abomination under classical liberal principles. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/25 "2012-05-14T21:32:42Z")
I don’t think Republicans are more tolerant of bullies especially, they’re just better (in general) at ignoring facts that don’t support their beliefs. Romney is good, therefore he can’t be a bully. No I don’t have a cite, it’s my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/26 "2012-05-14T21:45:39Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > The fundamental difference lies in an economic analysis of the nature of wealth. Conclude that wealth is the valorisation into material of labour and differences in wealth are expressed by relations to the means of production and one will conclude that the “money management” discussed leads to wealth accumulation due to rent and extraction of surplus labour. If wealth is just a monetary expression of a person’s worth to society though, then this position is essentially correct. This can be neatly summed with what is, IMO, a key point made by Ronald Reagan in 1975: [QUOTE=Ronald Reagan] Roughly 94 percent of the people in capitalist America make their living from wage or salary. Only 6 percent are true capitalists in the sense of deriving income from ownership of the means of production…We can win the argument once and for all by simply making more of our people Capitalists. [/quote] Economic conditions in the 1970’s–stagflation, the oil crisis, rise of globalization and the increasingly organized lobbying of the business community–caused American public policy to orient away from wages and toward assets. Wage growth was dangerous because it led to inflation and (so it was thought) uncompetitiveness with foreign labor. The difference was made up in part by “making more Americans capitalists”–converting their guaranteed pension to 401K’s, giving broader access to credit cards, incentivizing home ownership, etc. In a sense we’re all accumulating wealth from rent and extraction of surplus labor–we just don’t call it that. Personal financial assets constitute a much higher percentage of the wealth an American requires to remain in the middle class than it was 40 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/27 "2012-05-14T22:06:30Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > I’ll split it with you. I think most of that is too oversimplified to be accurate. But to get back a little closer to your original point, I would not be surprised if Republicans were more likely than Democrats to treat this kind of behavior as part of the socialization process and typical of something everybody goes through in childhood (which it is to some extent) and not something that should be turned into an enormous deal. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/28 "2012-05-14T22:13:16Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > John Mace, perhaps you were thinking of “begging the question”? Yes, that’s it. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/29 "2012-05-14T22:37:48Z")
> [@CJJ\*](#): > > In a sense we’re all accumulating wealth from rent and extraction of surplus labor Yes, but the financialisation of the economy has led that accumulation to be concentrated in fewer hands. So while more people have a stake in the land, fewer people can actually dictate production on it. That exponential acquisition has real world ramifications in the finite resources available to society. The complaints about the poor disproportionately benefiting from welfare are a direct consequence of this fact. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/30 "2012-05-14T23:29:10Z")
I wish this thread was somewhere else so that we can really pontificate! I have noticed that social conservatives (pick your political party of choice) tend to lean away from political correctness. They also uphold conformist values. If you choose to wear a hoodie and baggie jeans instead of a cardigan and khakis, prepare to be killed. If you would just change your name from Laqwanda to Lucy and learn to speak proper English, you could get out of the projects and move into the middle class. If you would just go to church and pray enough, you would stop being gay. Everything that happens to you is the inevitable and foreseeable outcome of a cascade of life choices. Everyone must be held accountable for these choices. God don’t make mistakes, you know! I don’t think conservatives advocate bullying, but it doesn’t register as a major problem to them because they believe victims of bullies should be held accountable for what happens to them. All the whining about bullying is yet another attempt by liberals to skirt responsibility and blame the other guy. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/31 "2012-05-15T12:01:48Z")
I think we’re still more tolerant of alot of things that occured 40+ years ago that would be frowned upon now. Things like riding your bike without a helmet or driving down the road with your dog on top of the car. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/32 "2012-05-15T13:56:10Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > I think we’re still more tolerant of alot of things that occured 40+ years ago that would be frowned upon now. Things like riding your bike without a helmet or driving down the road with your dog on top of the car. And bullying. The question becomes, is being tolerant of these things the most moral viewpoint? ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/33 "2012-05-15T14:00:20Z")
Depends on which moral code you’re using. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/34 "2012-05-15T15:54:01Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I wish this thread was somewhere else so that we can really pontificate! Feel free to open a new thread in the pontificating forum. 😛 As long as every fifth or sixth post actually provides some useful information, I will tolerate the silly partisan stuff that is at the heart of this sort of thread. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/35 "2012-05-15T16:08:12Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > pretty much anything goes as long as you get to control the resources and get the babes, and if you can’t convince others to give you the resources and the babes, your line ends. I think this is a good way at viewing the problem I’m describing with a minimum of ideology attached. Republicans tend to view natural selection (inasfar as they’re willing to validate it) as virtuous: the weak die off, the strong survive, which is as it should be, and all right’s with the world, while liberal thinking tends to sand the rough edges off of hard-core “Darwinist” thinking, with the aim of civilizing humanity as far as possible. IOW, Republicans tend to posit that this a tough world, you’re never going to change human nature, which is kill-or-be-killed, me-vs.-you, dog-eat-dog, and liberals want to ameliorate the effects of such thinking. To such an extent, bullying is okay with Republicans–it’s just a small part of the process that they endorse overall. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/36 "2012-05-15T16:31:55Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > Republicans tend to view natural selection (inasfar as they’re willing to validate it) as virtuous: the weak die off, the strong survive, which is as it should be, and all right’s with the world, while liberal thinking tends to sand the rough edges off of hard-core “Darwinist” thinking, with the aim of civilizing humanity as far as possible. IOW, Republicans tend to posit that this a tough world, you’re never going to change human nature, which is kill-or-be-killed, me-vs.-you, dog-eat-dog, and liberals want to ameliorate the effects of such thinking. To such an extent, bullying is okay with Republicans–it’s just a small part of the process that they endorse overall. I guess this wasn’t the fifth or sixth post. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/37 "2012-05-15T19:35:30Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I guess this wasn’t the fifth or sixth post. > > Regards, > Shodan Well, 35/5 = 7. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/38 "2012-05-15T21:10:49Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > Yes, but the financialisation of the economy has led that accumulation to be concentrated in fewer hands. So while more people have a stake in the land, fewer people can actually dictate production on it. That exponential acquisition has real world ramifications in the finite resources available to society. The complaints about the poor disproportionately benefiting from welfare are a direct consequence of this fact. I agree with this. My point is that the broadening of financialization to the middle class has been used to make up for the lack of comparable wage growth over the same period. At the same time, the liberalization of rules that allowed this also gave the upper class (which has more capital and wherewithal to exploit it) a much larger benefit. Another problem with making our economy more asset based is that its now much more threatened by speculative bubbles. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/39 "2012-05-15T21:49:50Z")
They are being partisan not tolerant of bullies. Go bully their kids and see if they tell their kids to just suck it up and stand up for themselves. They merely want to minimize the bullying incident and in the process go a step too far. Its like when they compared torture to college hazing. Disclaimer: I support torturing terrorists. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905/40 "2012-05-16T01:55:44Z")
Truly, this is a great debate. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-republicans-more-tolerant-of-bullies/621905.md?page=3)