In this thread , I asked why people were Republicans. I asked in IMHO, since I was curious about how real people, not hardened dogmatic GDers, would respond. So the mods eventually kicked it into GD anyways, and everyone’s favorite pit-magnet, december, felt moved to share his great wisdom on this point with the world.
Given the passion of his posts, I was expecting a well-thought-out position, even though he often plays the stooge of the right-wing radio morons when posting.
It turns out I was wrong-- I was seeing the passion of the convert. Herewith some comments on the deep motives of december:
So, at the bottom, this is a reaction, not a reasoned decision. In fact, he says he’s pro-choice, but has presumbably voted for every anti-choice candidate since 1975: each candidate intent on appointing judges who will overthrow the right to abortion ASAP. This is therefore ultimately a self-defeating notion, and shows a lack of knowledge of the political system he believes he commands.
Translation: I am a reactionary and so limited in my moral vision that I see only black and white, no shades of gray. “If you oppose my government, you oppose my form of government,” he believes.
Translation: “I want to cut out every program with social benefit, because no one deserves my help. It’s not like I ever benefitted from public support… oh, except for that whole thing when the good taxpayers of California subsidized UC Berkeley for me. Whoops! I must be a hypocrite!”
Translation: “I prefer lies about foreign policy, like Nixon on Vietnam and Reagan on Iran, than efforts towards peace, like Carter on the mideast and Clinton on N. Ireland. I choose to ignore these ideas because I find them threatening to my hollow worldview.”
Translation: “I believe that plaintiff’s attorneys have much more influence on public policy than corporate lobbyists. Despite the fact that probably the latter contribute 100 times the dollars to candidates.”
Translation: “I believe that poor people deserve to be screwed. Why should anyone who’s poor have the right to refuse religious education? They should be happy for what they get.”
Translation: “I rely on right-wing media to do my thinking for me. I refuse to reason through why I feel that affirmative action is wrong, and will instead allow myself to substitute the shorthand that my brainwashers have suggested to me.”
Translation: "I do not read the news. Instead, I read only conservative commentaries on the news.
Translation: “I do not know how the budget-writing process works. Even though there have only been two years of the last twenty that the GOP has not had control of either the presidency or at least one house of congress, I belive the GOP is not complicit in all the government waste I see.”
Translation: “I am a hypocrite. I was a Democrat-hater before the latest campaign finance reform ever came up, but now that I can make myself believe they no longer stand for the things I know are right, I will clutch at it. I will ignore the flag-burning amendment, prayer in schools, etc., and pretend that they are less compromising to freedom of speech than needed campaign finance reform.”
In short, december is little more or less than a hypocritical simpleton. He has no more ideas than he can receive from right-wing agitators and no positive conviction that his espoused party is right. All his energy is negative, all his ideas are opaque, and all his intellect is void.
