Dean's "Conservatives Without Conscience"

[Der_Trihs]

[QUOTE=John Mace]
I think it ranks higer than evolution. We require immigrants to learn something about US History before they can become citizens. We don’t require that they learn evoltution. Why do you think that is?
[/QUOTE]
Mainly, because America is controlled by ignorant Christian fanatics.

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Take a deep breath, and admit that if kids don’t learn about evolution society will go on, but if they don’t learn to read we’re back to hitting antelope with sharp rocks.
[/QUOTE]
Unless we’re killed off by, say, a plague that we could have cured, but that our creationism-corrupted medical science is no longer capable of handling.

[QUOTE=John Mace]
Evolution is not a crucial part of biology at the HS level. But let’s not have that debate again… You can teach all about biology (at the HS level) without once mentioning evolution. That’s usually just one chapter in the book anyway-- you just skip that chapter. Most people don’t remember anything about it anyway.
[/QUOTE]
That’s because American HS biology is crippled, thanks to the creationists. If they aren’t going to teach evolution in biology, they might as well not bother.

[QUOTE=John Mace]
After all, conomic lefties tend to be more authoritarian than economic righties
[/QUOTE]
I disagree, they just push the authortarionism down a level. Communism vests all economic power in the State, under fascism all economic power is in the hands of the corporations/rich. That’s more or less Mussolini’s definition of fascism IIRC; when the corporations merge with the government, you have fascism.

[Sarahfeena]

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
His list was mostly bullshit strawmen. The only thing I’d agree with is maybe helmet laws. The rest of it is either environmental or community necessity (water conservation, pollution standards) or smoking laws which are not a left-right issue (do only conservatives smoke? Do only liberals not like to breathe it?). I’d like to know how the hell carpool lanes have anything to do with liberals or how they’re authoritarian.
[/QUOTE]
OK, we’ll take them one by one:

[QUOTE=John Mace]
They want to tell you what you have to teach your kids
[/QUOTE]
As discussed ad nauseum, liberals do not believe that parents should be in charge of what their children learn, they believe the state should be.

what kind of motorcycle helmet you have to wear

OK, so you concede that one.

how much water your toilet is allowed to have per flush, how much mileage your car can get, how many people you have to have in your car to drive in certain lanes

all of these are environmental regulations which may or may not be “necessary,” as you put it (depending on where you live as well as other factors), and oftentimes cannot even be agreed upon by scientists. But if a leftie thinks these things are good ideas, then of course they believe that everyone must be forced to comply.

where you can smoke even if you’re outside

There is absolutely no reason that there need to be smoking bars & restaurants. The market will dictate whether or not businesses that allow smoking will survive. But, again, if a leftist is around, the restaurant owner is not allowed to make that choice, based on what is best for his business. And this IS a leftie cause, to be sure. Find the smoking bans, and you will find a majority of liberals in government.

whether you can serve water in a restaraunt without the customers asking for it (that’s actually against the law in CA),

Not familiar with this one, but I’m sure it also has to do with some sort of environmental issue.

One more time, you may think that all of these types of laws can be justified because they are “the smart thing to do.” But imposing certain behaviors on everyone because YOU think they are right makes you just as authoritarian as any right-winger who thinks it’s right because of religion. The basis for your belief is IRRELEVANT.

[John_Mace]

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Forced busing was ordered by the courts, not legislated by liberals.
[/QUOTE]

It was legislated by liberal, activist judges-- which is even worse.

My list was spot on-- car pool lanes are a perfect example of do-gooders trying to force behaviors on people. And no, conservatives aren’t the only smokers, but it’s generally the liberals who want to make laws restricting smoking. It’s one thing to outlaw smoking in confined areas, but we’re seeing more and more laws restricting smoking in outdoor areas.

[Common_Tater]

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
WTF was your question?
[/QUOTE]

Who are the non-authoritarian liberals? (again)

We’ll wait.

[John_Mace]

The no water unless you ask for it is a holdover from the last drought. It was a feel-good, do-nothing measure pushed by the liberals in the state legisalture. You can generally tell whan social laws are inspired by the left-- they take a one size fits all approach and try to force a particular solution on the problem rather than letting people make their own choices. Just look at the toilet issue. If there’s a water shortage, then charge more for water! Let people decide how they want to spend their money.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

[QUOTE=Common Tater]
Who are the non-authoritarian liberals? (again)

We’ll wait.
[/QUOTE]

All of them, like I already told you.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

[QUOTE=John Mace]
The no water unless you ask for it is a holdover from the last drought. It was a feel-good, do-nothing measure pushed by the liberals in the state legisalture. You can generally tell whan social laws are inspired by the left-- they take a one size fits all approach and try to force a particular solution on the problem rather than letting people make their own choices. Just look at the toilet issue. If there’s a water shortage, then charge more for water! Let people decide how they want to spend their money.
[/QUOTE]

Fuck that. Rich people don’t own public water and they don’t have any inherent right to buy more access to it. Buy bottled water, moneybags.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

[QUOTE=John Mace]
It was legislated by liberal, activist judges-- which is even worse.
[/quote]

1. Judges can’t legislate anything.
2. An activist judge is just a judge that conservatives disagree with. The judges in the Schiavo case were hilaroiously called “activist” because they wouldn’t ignore the law.
3. How about a cite that judges who ordered forced busing were liberals?
4. What would have been your own solution to “separate but equal” at the time?
5. Wasn’t segregation the very pinnacle of right wing authoritarianism?

My list was spot on-- car pool lanes are a perfect example of do-gooders trying to force behaviors on people.

What do you mean by this? What behaviors do they force on you?

And no, conservatives aren’t the only smokers, but it’s generally the liberals who want to make laws restricting smoking.

Only because conservative politicians are in the pockets of the tobacco companies. There isn’t any ideological divide on smoking laws, just a mercenary one.

It’s one thing to outlaw smoking in confined areas, but we’re seeing more and more laws restricting smoking in outdoor areas.

Only because non-smokers of all ideological stripes (or none) continually bitch about it. I don’t care if people smoke around me but smoking really isn’t only about the smoker’s imagined rights (show me where the Constutution says you have a right to smoke). The people around them do not have an obligation to breathe it in and it isn’t authoritarian if the state says that unwanted tobacco smoke cannot be blown into my lungs against my will.

Again, this is not an imposition on anyone’s rights. There is no such thing as a right to smoke cigarettes (not that I’m advocationg prohibition).

Does it bother you that conservative authoritarians won’t let people smoke pot at ALL? Not even people that are already dying from cancer or AIDS? What’s more authoritarian, marijuana prohibition or smoking restrictions? What does more damage?

[David_Simmons]

[QUOTE=John Mace]
.. liberal, activist judges …
[/quote]
et tu, John? Busing was perfectly OK when black children were bussed past nearby white schools to be taken to all black schools further away. (Brown v. Board of Education) It’s true in Brown that the little girl in Topeka wasn’t bussed but she had to walk a mile through a railroad yard to the black school with a good public school nearer her home. And there were plenty of cases of black students being bussed past nearby white schools to black schools further away. The objection was never to bussing, it was to mixing of the races in schools paid for by public money. If “lefties” helped end legal segragation of the races, bully for them.

car pool lanes are a perfect example of do-gooders trying to force behaviors on people.

You think car pool lanes are purely an attempt to force a particular behavior just because lefties like car pooling and are not at all connected with an attempt to reduce congestion of freeways?

[Onomatopoeia]

[QUOTE=ambushed]
I’ve just finished John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience,

I encourage you to read the book and discuss.
[/QUOTE]
Wow, this thread has gone on some wild, and somewhat beside the point, meanderings since this morning.

Anyway, ambushed, I bought the book after reading your review today. You’re right. It’s a gripping read…very nicely sourced as well. Finished it late this afternoon. I found it insightful and somewhat unsettling.

That Liddy, among others, is presented as somewhat of a progenitor of the new authoritarian conservative mindset is not too surprising, especially as I recall his almost ubiquitous rants on radio and TV in the early nineties, constantly confirming his blind devotion to the cause. The only thing I could never quite determine is whether Liddy was a true believer or simply an opportunistic media whore.

Thank you very much for the recommendation.

[John_Mace]

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]

1. Judges can’t legislate anything.
   [/quote]

Wrong. They’re rulings become law, just not statutory law.

2. An activist judge is just a judge that conservatives disagree with. The judges in the Schiavo case were hilaroiously called “activist” because they wouldn’t ignore the law.

Just because some people incorrecctly use the term “activist”, doesn’t make the term itself wrong. And don’t get me wrong-- there are conservative and liberal activist judges.

3. How about a cite that judges who ordered forced busing were liberals?

You want a cite that someone pushing a liberal cause is a liberal?

4. What would have been your own solution to “separate but equal” at the time

Busing wasn’t a solution to separate but equal.

5. Wasn’t segregation the very pinnacle of right wing authoritarianism?

It certainly was one of the worst acts, yes.

You seem to be assuming that I don’t think righites are authoritarian. I already posted that I believe that tend to be more socially authoritarian than lefties. The only reason I’m concentrating on lefty authoritarianism is that you keep claiming there isn’t any. The source of authoritarianism is a belief that you are right and the other side is wrong, so it;s justified to force people to take your side. If you’re convinced you’re right, then it probably doesn’t seem like authoritarianism. What did you call it earlier-- misdirected compassion? That’s a nifty euphamism, but authoritarianism is measured by the result it has on people, not on the intent of the perpetrators. Righties who want to ban abortion are convinced that they are just being comapssionate to the “unborn”. I don’t think most of the pro-life movement is motivated by trying to keep women barefoot and pregnant. Hell, there are probably just as many women as men in that movement.

The difference between right-wing authoritarians and left-wing authoritarians is usually that the righties want to to prevent you from doing things they think are bad and the lefites want to force you to do things they think are good. The segregation/busing thing is a perfect example. Righties tried to prevent the races from mixing in schools and lefties tried to force them to mix in schools. Righties want to prohibit flag burning and gay marriage, while lefites want to coerce you to carpool or use less water or admit a certain percentage of minorities into your school.

[John_Mace]

[QUOTE=David Simmons]
et tu, John? Busing was perfectly OK when black children were bussed past nearby white schools to be taken to all black schools further away. (Brown v. Board of Education) I
[/quote]

When did I say that was OK? See my post, above, about rightie and leftie authoritarianism wrt school segregation.

You think car pool lanes are purely an attempt to force a particular behavior just because lefties like car pooling and are not at all connected with an attempt to reduce congestion of freeways?

It’s an attempt to fix congestion by forcing one particular solution on the entire population.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

[QUOTE=John Mace]
Wrong. They’re rulings become law, just not statutory law.
[/quote]

Which means they aren’t legislation.

You want a cite that someone pushing a liberal cause is a liberal?

Now who’s being tautological? Your assertion that attempts to desegregate schools via forced busing was an example of liberal authorianism rested on an assertion that it was liberals who mandated it. Now you’re saying the fact that judges ordered it is what makes them liberal. If that’s not a logical circle, I don’t know what is.

Busing wasn’t a solution to separate but equal.

Maybe it wasn’t a successful solution but that WAS the motive. What would have been your alternative?
The difference between right-wing authoritarians and left-wing authoritarians is usually that the righties want to to prevent you from doing things they think are bad and the lefites want to force you to do things they think are good.
[/quote]

What are lefties trying to force you to do that they think are good?

The segregation/busing thing is a perfect example. Righties tried to prevent the races from mixing in schools and lefties tried to force them to mix in schools.

Lefties tried to end unequal segregation. Forced integration was the only remedy to that. There was no alternative. Separate but Equal was ruled unconstutional and the schools were, in fact, not equal. What would have been your own solution?

Righties want to prohibit flag burning and gay marriage, while lefites want to coerce you to carpool

Who’s trying to coerce you to carpool?

or use less water

There’s only so much water to go around, man. I don’t see why you have a problem with limiting access to public water in a time of shortage.

or admit a certain percentage of minorities into your school.

Affirmative Action is a whole other debate unto itself. Suffice it to say that categorizing it as liberal do-gooding is a gross simplification and it isn’t just liberals who supported it or benfited from it. Clarence Thomas and Colin Powell come to mind.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

[QUOTE=John Mace]
It’s an attempt to fix congestion by forcing one particular solution on the entire population.
[/QUOTE]

What does it force them to do?

[Sarahfeena]

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
What are lefties trying to force you to do that they think are good?
[/QUOTE]
Didn’t we cover this? Quit smoking. Give up your handgun. Wear a seatbelt. Wear a helmet. Always drive with at least 2 people in the car. Conserve water. Etc. etc. etc.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
Didn’t we cover this? Quit smoking.
[/quote]

Nope. No one’s trying to force you to do that.

Give up your handgun.

There’s nothing that says you have a right to own a handgun.

Wear a seatbelt. Wear a helmet.

Seatbelt and helmet laws I’ve already conceded, but it’s pretty weak evidence of authoritarianism, and the laws exist not for your personal good but to save the taxpayers from paying your medical bills.

Always drive with at least 2 people in the car.

Nope. there is no such legislation.

Conserve water.

I’ve already answered this. Sometimes public resources have to be rationed in times of shortage. Why on earth is that either “liberal” or authoritarian?

[John_Mace]

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Which means they aren’t legislation.
[/quote]

Semantics. It’s law. What’s the operative diffrence?

Now who’s being tautological? Your assertion that attempts to desegregate schools via forced busing was an example of liberal authorianism rested on an assertion that it was liberals who mandated it. Now you’re saying the fact that judges ordered it is what makes them liberal. If that’s not a logical circle, I don’t know what is.

No, I said it was liberal judges who mandated it because it was a liberal cause. If it makes you feel better, just say they were acting as liberals in that action. Some people are liberal about certain things and conservative about other things. You can really only judge their politics on case-by-case basis anyway.

Maybe it wasn’t a successful solution but that WAS the motive. What would have been your alternative?
What are lefties trying to force you to do that they think are good?
Lefties tried to end unequal segregation. Forced integration was the only remedy to that. There was no alternative. Separate but Equal was ruled unconstutional and the schools were, in fact, not equal. What would have been your own solution?

Man, you just keep making my case for me over and over again. Busing was failed attempt to reverse the effects segregated neighborhoods. In some instances there was tampering of school district lines to re-segregate the schools, but that would have been easily fixed by just drawing the school districts more rationally. And of course this was a miserable failure, beccause it caused white flight and resegragation all over, in which case more busing was proposed until the SCOTUS finally found most busing itself to be unconstitutional in Milliken v Bradley. The left didn’t want to stop at just ending legalized segregation, they wanted to force integration. SCOTUS rightly said no can do just as they rightly said that forced segregation was a no-no. But you see “no alternative” to the “problem” that sometimes people just self-segregate. You’re doing good, so it’s OK to be authoritarian.

Who’s trying to coerce you to carpool?

The carpool lane advocates. Out here in CA is pretty much a Dem/Pub issue with the Dems in favor.

There’s only so much water to go around, man. I don’t see why you have a problem with limiting access to public water in a time of shortage.

But there is no longer a shortage. And there wouldn’t have been one earlier if prices weren’t kept artificially low. Actually, this a perfect example of rightie and leftie authoritarianism playing off each other. We only go thru these periodic shortages because the righties have reserved most of the water for agri-business.

Affirmative Action is a whole other debate unto itself. Suffice it to say that categorizing it as liberal do-gooding is a gross simplification and it isn’t just liberals who supported it or benfited from it. Clarence Thomas and Colin Powell come to mind.

Well, it’s a liberal cause, and if a few conservatives support it, then they’re being liberal in that instance. It’s always an oversimplification to call someone a “liberal” or a “conservative” in the first place. And it doesn’t matter if it benefits conservatives-- it’s a liberal cause whomever it benefits.

[ambushed]

One of the extreme Right Wing Authoritarians here in this thread who hasn’t bothered to read the book he keeps constantly thrashing anyway (!) and keeps constantly thrashing the social science he hasn’t read anyway (!!) listed some of the attributes of that subset of conservatives known as RWAs from my OP and cried in extreme ignorance:
[QUOTE=Age Quod Agis]
So this is not a “vitriolic attack on conservatives in the line of Coulter’s attacks on liberals”?
[/QUOTE]
Which it most obviously was not. They were a list of some key attributes that RWAs self-identify with in social science tests. I replied:
[QUOTE=ambushed]
No, it’s social science; I’m sorry you can’t tell the difference. Right Wing Authoritarians (followers) and Social Dominating Orientation individuals (leaders) are a sub-category (albeit a very large one) of the conservative spectrum.
[/QUOTE]

To which the extreme RWA replied:
[QUOTE=Age Quod Agis]
Oh, I have a feeling I know a little bit about social sciences. Shall we compare?
[/QUOTE]
Then threw and wallowed in an authoritarian little self-award party. One of the things I found so funny about his pompous patting himself on the back was that he affirmed he had studied psychology, yet he had previously affirmed he studied it badly by both asserting stupidly that the only tool of social science is “polling” and further that he feels completely free to attack scientific studies he has no knowledge of (let alone books he’s never read)! Boy, is that ever SCIENTIFIC!

Then the extreme RWA goes on to blither thusly:
[QUOTE=Age Quod Agis]
You: read one book by the guy the FBI called the “master manipulator” behind the Watergate cover-up. And you lied about its contents. (How fitting.)
[/QUOTE]
I did not lie. If anyone lied, you did. And I love your RWA-ian “logic” wherein you use insults to fallaciously repudiate a book you didn’t even bother to read before attacking!

[QUOTE=Age Quod Agis]
Did Barry Goldwater co-author on this book? Let’s go to Publisher’s Weekly, shall we? So I guess in addition to being the “master manipulator” behind the Watergate cover-up, Dean can also communicate with the dead?

No, I’m sure that must have just been an honest mistake. After all, it’s conservatives who are the dishonest ones, right? And that’s SCIENCE, baby!
[/QUOTE]
I’m not at all surprised that you ultra-authoritarians have a recklessness disregard for the facts. After all, it’s what you are. Some conservatives respect reality and the truth, but as you quite clearly make manifest, the right wing authoritarians and their dominating leaders will lie and lie to achieve their ends. I never said that Goldwater was a “co-author” using that term. That’s your lie. That’s your attempt to discredit me with your own self-invented, dishonest rhetoric. I said that the two authors worked together on this book until Goldwater died, and it is a fact that they did. Your worship of the comically extreme pan by a particular writer at Publisher’s Weekly is just what I would expect of your ultra-authoritarian self-slavery.

[QUOTE=Age Quod Agis]
So let me get this straight – You think nearly everyone in your life is “narrow-minded,” “intolerant,” “dogmatic,” “aggressive,” and lacking in “self-awareness,” but Ann Coulter is the one with mental issues?
[/QUOTE]
Thank you for calling me insane. That’s very nice. How proud you must be.

[David_Simmons]

[QUOTE=John Mace]
When did I say that was OK? See my post, above, about rightie and leftie authoritarianism wrt school segregation.
[/quote]
So do you think anything should have been done about legal segregation by race? If so how, by whom, and when?

It’s an attempt to fix congestion by forcing one particular solution on the entire population.

I think you’re reaching. The car pool lanes require two people in the car. I don’t see that as particularly onerous. Another solution is to add a couple of lanes in both directions. That’s forcing everyone to pay added taxes to pay for the construction cost. Another solution would be to stop all oncoming traffic when the freeway is full. Even if the implementation could be worked out, that’s forcing some people to use surface streets sometimes through residential areas which forces the residents to put up with excess traffic. No matter what solution you propose, someone is forced to contribute to it irrespective of their wishes.

[ambushed]

[QUOTE=bup]
This is an issue. Debates here need responses within a day - at most two days, or they’re dead. I understand your frustration with people criticizing a book they haven’t read, but honestly, did you reasonably expect many people would have already read it, or that they’d read it and respond within hours, as though you had linked an article?
[/QUOTE]
I recognize that many threads become significantly slower after a few days, but on the other hand I’ve seen threads near the top of their respective boards for two weeks or more. It would help if people didn’t get criticised for posting to say, a month-old thread, like I have been.

However, I can’t reconcile the two conflicting demands. It seems to me that there can be no valid grounds for attacking a legitimate (i.e., non-hack) book one hasn’t read. Discussing it’s contents based on what’s in the thread and what one has learned elsewhere, sure, but attacking it? Especially attacking it for things it does not say, like Age Quod Agis keeps repeatedly and ignorantly doing? I just can’t accept that. I can’t think of any excuse to justify that!

[QUOTE=bup]
Would anybody be willing to agree to read political books, then, say, two weeks after that, start a debate on it?

ambushed, if you start this thread again in two weeks, you’ll have at least one other person who’s read the book.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, to both.