But then there’d be no misconceptions to correct. I want people to say what they think the “opposite” side believes as their fundamental assumptions, and if/when they get it wrong, I want others to chime in and correct them. As I’ve done, and as others have done (including with my own misconceptions).
Oh…well then I interpreted your intent incorrectly. I thought you were trying to get folk’s own assumptions. So to correct someone else’s misconceptions, state one’s own assumptions clearly. My bad then.
It’s okay, I may not have been clear. Both approaches would probably be fine.
So that’s another batch of these differing assumptions we have. In my experience, they are – I grew up upper middle class, and almost everyone I know had made at least one of these mistakes, and most of the folks I knew made several of them multiple times. At least 3/4s of the kids in my (private) high school did illegal drugs at some point (and the vast majority never got in trouble), and about half did illegal drugs multiple times. Probably at least half had unprotected sex at least once through high school and college. Same goes for occasional poor performance in school.
<I haven’t read whole thread, sorry if repeating someone else’s point>
One thing which shocked me a little on my recent visit to the US was how many conservatives and evangelicals have an incredibly low view of humanity. That the majority of people would be out raping, killing, whatever, were it not for the police, army and fear of god’s wrath.
I don’t agree with this assumption.
I think most of us want to think of ourselves as one of the good guys. Or at least: “I’m basically a good guy, I’ve only done one or two minor bad things because <excuses>”
Several have focused on compassion or mercy, the question of whether society should take care of those who, whether due to stupidity, poor upbringing, or bad luck, need material or medical help.
But I think this misses the key point. Conservatives are certainly happy to extend compassion and forgiveness to those in their In-group. (For example, Rubio was happy to help his brother-in-law, the drug smuggler.) Conservative rhetoric is rather clear: People should help their own families.
Liberals recognize that people suffering from poverty or other problems often have no family capable of helping them.
I’m left wondering how one is able to distill “conservative rhetoric” at all, much less distill it to that. Can you show your work? And are you saying that “conservative rhetoric” is rather clear: People should NOT help non-family members? Unless that is also “rather clear”, wouldn’t your statement about “conservative rhetoric” be attributable to pretty much all of humanity?
I think the bigger difference between conservative and liberal points of view regarding “helping others” is that the former think it should be largely voluntary whereas the latter think it should be mandatory.
Many (not all) conservatives frequently say it is the job of family members, not the government, to help the unfortunate. If you’ve not also heard that frequently, John Mace, I have to wonder where you’ve been hiding out. 
I’m not disputing that many conservatives have said something like that. I’m disputing that your distillation of the conservative position is accurate.
I think the conservative position is better characterized as:
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Voluntary help (whether from your family or anyone else) is preferable to government help.
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When government help is needed, it should be limited to the “truly needy”, have a clear end point, and come with some behavioral restrictions (e.g., no drugs, no criminal behavior, etc.).
For instance, Republicans will vote for unemployment benefits, but they want them to be limited in duration and want them even more limited when given to able bodied people with no dependents. You will also often hear about drug testing recipients or requiring that money given for food not be used for other purposes.
Sure, help from family is a key component, but you make it sound like it should be the only component. Originally you used the term “in group”, which would probably be a lot more accurate, although I still think it is unnecessarily limiting. Conservative Church organizations often extend a helping hand to those not in the “in-group”, and often not even in the same country.
My right-wing conservative Christian relatives in Florida regularly volunteer at a food bank which is open to anyone in need.
That goes back to the conflicting views of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Hobbes believed people were fundamentally bad - or at least that their self-interest would generally make them do bad things. So he felt that any government based on popular approval would fail. Hobbes said society needed a strong government that didn’t answer to the people in order to control the people for their own good.
Locke, on the other hand, believed that people were generally rational and good. Not universally but more often than not. So Locke felt you could base a sound system of government on popular approval. While some individuals might be bad or at least wrong, the majority of people would be good and make the correct decisions. So a society based on majoritarian government would function well.
Given the extremely high death rate from casual violence among tribal societies everywhere in the world, their views seem to be correct. That doesn’t mean those ideas control the structure of government, but we should acknowledge that humanity has always been built on rivalry and competition, with violence simply one expression of it. Social control, whether internal or external, seems to be a necessary whether we like it or not.
Also, speaking to Little Nemo’s point, you would probably find that conservatives in general prefer Locke to Hobbes in terms of philosophy, provided they’ve read either. But they wouldn’t agree with Locke about the supposed innate-goodness of human nature. Also, conservative thinkers in general seem to loathe Rousseau to the extent to which they give him and his writings the time of day. In fact, the right and left intellectuals in general seem to be deeply split about philosophy, to the point where even religious examples of both have quite different faiths.
There are many differences between the modern world and tribal societies. I’m arguing against the point that if you take away the police force / army or whatever, then the majority of people will rape, murder etc.
I wouldn’t. And generally-speaking, if everyone committed whatever immoral act they thought they could get away with at any given moment, chaos would result very quickly.
So the 56% who fall into poverty, and ascend out of it in less than a year, are in the 0.001% of some skill? Could you show your math?
What are the circumstances beyond their control that causes them to have children out of wedlock they can’t support?
And do those circumstances not apply to the vast majority of the American public?
Regards,
Shodan
No, probably not. I was referring to people born into poverty.
It’s not that circumstances cause them to do so, but circumstances make it less likely that they won’t. With less access to abortion, birth control, safe sex education, and the like, then even with the same discipline/motivation/hard-work/etc. as middle and upper class folks, they’re less likely to not have children out of wedlock.
I don’t think it’s particularly useful to ascribe assumptions to groups of people in general. This is because I don’t find the major party platforms to be internally consistent. Instead, I think it’s more informative to examine particular issues and the underlying assumptions that each side of that issue holds. A few examples:
Minimum wage
People against increasing the minimum wage beyond an inflation adjustment typically assume that the costs to the business environment, inflationary pressure, unemployment, are greater than the benefit to those earning minimum wage. Everyone shouldn’t have to pay some incrementally higher amount as a result of higher prices, lower dollar value, or increased costs of social safety net just to fund a targeted benefit. This is an example of targeted benefits and diffused costs.
I often think those in favor of increasing minimum wage beyond inflation adjustment don’t even consider there is a cost to such an action. I hear “an owner can afford to pay a few pennies more”. I find the argument in favor or raising the rate to be emotional and rarely pragmatic.
Some Racial issues
I personally find anything that relies on disparate impact analysis to by highly suspect. In general I assume this approach is bullshit. I think folks on the other side think this is a wonderful way to assess a given issue.
Taxation
People for increasing taxes on the rich typically think that the rich can afford it so because their marginal utility for each additional dollar is less, or the marginal cost for higher rates of taxation is less, then increasing taxes on this group is okay. I find that argument to be bullshit.
**
On social services being cheaper than some undesirable alternative**
Things like saying a social service program is cheaper and the alternative is that people will have no outlet so will commit crimes or some other bad action. I think people in favor of these services think this is a good argument, one of efficiency. I find this argument to be shitty. If it’s a good thing to do, then so be it. But as a carrot to reduce bad behavior…no. I’m fine with simply building more prisons. It may be more expensive - that’s perfectly fine with me.
I think we are talking about apples and oranges, here. Occasional poor performance in school is not the same thing as failing to graduate. The latter has consequences for the next 60+ years of one’s life.
Yes, but the same poor performance for a middle or upper class kid is less likely to result in failing to graduate, since they’ll have better access to tutors and extra help, parents with more time and skills to help, teachers with more time to focus on each student, etc., on average. So a poor kid is probably, on average, less likely to graduate than a middle or upper class kid with the exact same ability and effort.
The poor kid, on average, will have to work harder than the effort required for a middle or upper class kid to graduate.
Most students don’t need tutors to graduate highschool, regardless of their parents income level.
Some do, and many do need extra help from parents and teachers (and maybe even classmates), and middle and upper class kids are probably more likely, on average, to get extra help from their parents and teachers (and classmates) than poor kids.