Do Republicans have a ignorant, narrowminded, self serving view of the world?

[Renob]

@Hampshire

They don’t know anybody that has been on welfare, been in jail, had an abortion, etc.

I grew up in a poor rural area that had many people who were on welfare, who were sent to jail (including a lot of my friends from high school and one family member), and who had abortions. I moved to an urban area that has the same. I would say that being around people who do these things only reinforced my view that a lot of people who are on welfare could and should have a job, the people sent to jail deserve to go to jail, and abortion, while it should remain legal, should not be used as a form of simple birth control.

So if your hypothosis is that once people are exposed to these elements they will somehow turn liberal, then I think that’s wrong. In fact, I know a lot of people who have their conservatism reinforced once they are exposed to these elements.

The experience of a couple friends illustrates this – we grew up in a rural area with few minorities. He had no hint of racism when he lived there. He moved to a largely black area in San Francisco after graduation and when I saw him next he was quite racist. Another friend I grew up with was always a bleeding heart liberal. She, too, moved to San Francisco and when I talk to her now she’s quite intolerant of the homeless. She was never that way when we were growing up. So in those two cases, being exposed to new things actually turned my friends more reactionary.

[t-keela]

@Hampshire

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.

I think you’ve got a problem with this statement.

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.

But that doesn’t accurately describe ALL Republicans.

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.

Believe it or not, some Republicans have done this too.

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.

Good for you, you’ve grown.

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

It sounds like they are the ignorant ones in this OP.

Does this seem right?

Not at all.

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?

Some are, some not.
I hate to tell you this but I know a lot of Democrats that are just as ignorant, if not more so.

All that being said. I understand where you are coming from and given the situation you describe I’d say YES (they) are ignorant and self serving. The problem is that there are lots of theys in this world. Hopefully WE aren’t some of them. Keep up the fight Hampshire.

[John_Corrado]

@erislover

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).

No problem.

I am a neo-conservative. I believe that the only war to truly win the War on Terror is to rebuild the Middle East- placing democracies and effective capitalist systems in place of the demagougic kleptocracies that exist. Once people in the Middle East start having better lives in general, there will be far less interest in blowing oneself up for Allah and greater glory. Likewise, once the states are free and stable, they will not need to demagouge against the Great Zionist Conspiracy to stay in power.

Likewise, I believe that we only encourage the terrorists to strike against us when we show ourselves unwilling to commit to the use of force to gain our goals.
Unfortunately, restructuring the Middle East will be a complete mess because we cannot afford to interrupt the supplies of oil coming out of it. Saudi Arabia, therefore, must be tolerated temporarily. Iraq, conversely, had been removed from the main of U.S. oil imports, and could be a starting ground. By bringing freedom and democracy there, we can plant flowers that will hopefully spread throughout the entirety of the Middle East; or, at least, by creating a free democracy there which will supply us with oil, we can then start working on the real problem state of Saudi Arabia because they will have less leverage against us.

Do I think Bush mismanaged the Iraq War, putting his faith in rosy scenarios and not preparing at all for the worst case? Absolutely and completely. Am I disappointed in Bush for his incompetence? Totally. Do I think that John Kerry would make things better? Absolutely not. I believe that the War in Iraq was fought for fundamentally correct reasons, even if they weren’t what the Bush administration advertised; I think that pulling out and declaring the matter “wrong” is incorrect, and that is what Kerry is advertising himself as believing. I feel that the Bush Administration did the right thing in going ahead even if many of our allies felt differently; I do not trust Kerry to be willing to use force when necessary if it means defying ‘world opinon’, and I think showing an unwillingness to use force is only going to embolden our enemies.

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.

Well, it’s more a matter of direction. As Thomas Edison said of Woodrow Wilson, “They say the man has blundered. Perhaps he has, but I notice he usually blunders in the right direction.” I’d rather have an incompetent in office who moves the country in the direction I prefer than a competent who moves the country away from that direction. I’d prefer most of all a competent who moves the country in the direction I want, but Powell and McCain aren’t running this year, so I have to do with what’s been served to me.

[wonky]

I was brought up in a conservative, wealthy, family. Buzzwords in my family had to do with irresponsibility, laziness, greed, and dishonesty. “The X system would be fine, but too many people take advantage of it.” “So many of the people on X simply don’t want to work.” “If we give people money for X, they’ll just waste it.” “If we give people money for X, more people will claim X.” “People need to be responsible for their own X.”

These are all things that I have believed. Actually, these are things that I still do believe, to some extent, but that I’ve decided don’t really matter to me.

Like I said, my family was wealthy and conservative. When I was very young, we were incredibly poor, but things changed when I was nine or ten. My parents learned that it was possible to go from being incredibly poor to being worth millions. They taught their children the same thing. They extrapolated from their own lives to the lives of others. If they could do it, others could do it.

My parents had six children. All six of us are financially fine, some more than fine. So, see? We can do it! Except we tend to discount the reason for our successes–tend to downplay the lack of risk.

So, that was my life. What happened to change my mind? I married someone in poor health. Suddenly, I was thrust into the world of healthcare, disability, social security, credit, collections, refinancing, loans, late payments, bureaucracy, paperwork, emergency rooms, hospitalization, insurance coverage that disappears and reappears, snooty billing departments, worry, despair, and anger.

I, with my education, with my brain, with the financial support of my parents if I needed it, with the love and affection of my dear husband, still couldn’t wade through it all. I still got stumped, and baffled. I still couldn’t always afford everything. I still couldn’t get party A to speak to party B.

My parents set me up with everything. I had every advantage. What happens to those who haven’t had my privileges? How much humiliation was I feeling when I faced someone in a hospital’s billing department who assumed I couldn’t pay? How much greater would it be if it were happening every day? How angry was I becoming? How much angrier would I be if it were my whole life? How frustrated was I? How much more frustrating would it be if I had no security blanket of my parents’ love and money? How often were we stuck going to the ER with things that were a little too urgent to wait but a little too minor for the emergency room? How many more times would it have been if we had no regular doctor because we couldn’t afford one, and ended up at the ER for a sinus infection? How many more hours of waiting in waiting rooms with Nick at Nite playing endless episodes of The Cosby Show and The Facts of Life? How many more questionnaires? How much more pity? How much more contempt? How much more being shunted to the side with an unimportant question or ailment?

And this was just healthcare. It wasn’t a house or a car or food or heat or clothes.

So, at least in my case, I went from ignorance to understanding. I went from “anyone can do everything” to “no one can do some things alone.”

[BrainGlutton]

The truth of it might be just the opposite, Hampshire.

The best and most comprehensive account I’ve yet read of the rise of conservatism in America is The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America, by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (New York: The Penguin Press, 2004). The authors are British, and have the advantage of looking at the whole thing with an outsider’s detachment. Their thesis is that the late conservative ascendancy results partly from America’s uniquely conservative political culture, and partly from a process of conservative organizing, and alliances and synergies between different conservative factions (economic libertarians, traditionalists, religious conservatives, big-business interests, and foreign-policy neoconservatives), which has been going on steadily since Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign.

Yet, the authors are at pains to point out, modern American “conservatism” means something rather different than what earlier generations understood the word to mean. From their introduction:

The exceptionalism of the American Right is partly a matter of its beliefs. The first two definitions of “conservative” offered by the Concise Oxford Dictionary are “adverse to rapid change” and “moderate, avoiding extremes.” Neither of these seems a particularly good description of what is going on in America at the moment. “Conservatism” – no less than its foes “liberalism” or “communitarianism” – has become one of those words that are now as imprecise as they are emotionally charged. Open a newspaper and you can find the word used to describe Jacques Chirac, Trent Lott, the Mullah Omar and Vladimir Putin. Since time immemorial, conservatives have insisted that their deeply pragmatic creed cannot be ideologically pigeonholed.

But, in philosophical terms at least, classical conservatism does mean something. The creed of Edmund Burke, its most eloquent proponent, might be crudely reduced to six principles: a deep suspicion of the power of the state; a preference for liberty over equality; patriotism; a belief in established institutions and hierarchies; skepticism about the idea of progress; and elitism. Winston Churchill happily accepted these principles: he was devoted to nation and empire, disinclined to trust the lower orders with anything, hostile to the welfare state, worried about the diminution of liberty and, as he once remarked ruefully, “preferred the past to the present and the present to the future.”

To simplify a little, the exceptionalism of modern American conservatism lies in its exaggeration of the first three of Burke’s principles and contradiction of the last three. The American Right exhibits a far deeper hostility towards the state than any other modern conservative party. . . . The American right is also more obsessed with personal liberty than any other conservative party, and prepared to tolerate an infinitely higher level of inequality. (One reason why Burke warmed to the American revolutionaries was that, unlike their dangerous French equivalents, the gentlemen rebels concentrated on freedom, not equality.) On patriotism, nobody can deny that conservatives everywhere tend to be a fairly nationalistic bunch. . . . Yet many European conservatives have accepted the idea that their nationality should be diluted in “schemes and speculations” like the European Union, and they are increasingly reconciled to dealing with national security on a multilateral basis. American conservatives clearly are not.

If the American Right was merely a more vigorous form of conservatism, then it would be a lot more predictable. In fact, the American Right takes a resolutely liberal approach to Burke’s last three principles: hierarchy, pessimism and elitism. The heroes of modern American conservatism are not paternalist squires but rugged individualists who don’t know their place: entrepeneurs who build mighty businesses out of nothing, settlers who move out West, and, of course, the cowboy. There is a frontier spirit to the Right – unsurprisingly, since so much of its heartland is made up of new towns of one sort of another.

The geography of conservatism also helps to explain its optimism rather than pessimism. In the war between the Dynamo and the Virgin, as Henry Adams characterized the battle between progress and tradition, most American conservatives are on the side of the Dynamo. They think that the world offers all sorts of wonderful possibilities. And they feel that the only thing that is preventing people from attaining these possibilities is the dead liberal hand of the past. By contrast, Burke has been described flatteringly by European conservatives as a “prophet of the past.” Spend any time with a group of Republicans, and their enthusiasm for the future can be positively exhausting.

As for elitism, rather than dreaming about creating an educated “clerisy” of clever rulers (as Coleridge and T.S. Eliot did), the Republicans ever since the 1960s have played the populist card. Richard Nixon saw himself as the champion of the “silent majority.” In 1988 the aristocratic George H.W. Bush presented himself as a defender of all-American values against the Harvard Yard liberalism of Michael Dukakis. In 2000, George W. Bush, a president’s son who was educated at Andover, Yale and Harvard Business School, played up his role as a down-to-earth Texan taking on the might of Washington. As a result, modern American conservatism has flourished not just in country clubs and boardrooms, but at the grass roots – on talk radio and at precinct meetings, and in revolts against high taxes, the regulation of firearms and other invidious attempts by liberal do-gooders to force honest Americans into some predetermined mold.

By this analysis modern American conservatism is, perhaps, narrow-minded and selfish – but also forward-looking rather than nostalgic. Newt Gingrich, not William F. Buckley.

[rjung]

Short answer: The modern platform and philosophy of the Republican Party can be boiled down to, “I’ve got mine, so screw you, and everyone should agree to my way of doing things.”

All this talk about “more pragmatic” or “personal responsibility” are all buzzwords to cloud the real heart of the Republican ideology, which is to whittle government down to a point where it doesn’t interfer with their personal hoarding (or, as Grover Norquist put it, “My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”). Conservatives who harp on about making people personally accountable have no problems with giving massive tax breaks to their corporate interests, or giving farm subsidies to their constituents. And the whole debacle in Iraq puts a stake in the whole “we’re pragmatic realists” lie.

Now, to be fair, liberals aren’t perfect either, and it doesn’t take much effort to imagine a scenario where idealistic dreams of boundless optimism and social aid balloons into a a bloated mess. But (a) we’re nowhere near that point in the United States right now, and (b) I’d rather err on the side of caution than the side of callousness.

And remember, Jesus was a liberal.

[Wesley_Clark]

That has been my view. To be fair there are offensive generalizations that can be made about liberals too (they are emotionally knee jerk, they are inexperienced in life like college kids, etc).

But in my experience the vast majority of hardline republicans had some kind of financial safety net that the majority of the public do not have. They had either wealthy parents, a wealthy spouse or wealthy businessmen who made them their proteges. I’m sure there are exceptions but of the handful of extreme republicans I know they are all protected from the truly viscious (financial) aspects of life in some way.

As for cultural isolation, I have seen that too but in my view its the financial safety net that seperates them from most people.

[Wesley_Clark]

@Malodorous

Coding fix:

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.

Yes and no. People with no high school vote Gore. People with Some college and who are college graduates vote Bush. After a person gets a Post-Graduate Degree (which may mean graduate degree, I guess) they are more likely to vote for Gore again. So its a mix of the uneducated and the highly educated who vote for Gore. The median educated vote Bush. But evenso the percentages are only different in minor ways.

[Renob]

All this argument comes down to, really, is liberals saying, “if you don’t agree with me, it must be because you’re ignorant.” That, I think, is one of the most ignorant propositions there is.

To be fair, of course, I’ve heard many conservatives and libertarians say the same thing.

[msmith537]

@Wesley Clark

But in my experience the vast majority of hardline republicans had some kind of financial safety net that the majority of the public do not have. They had either wealthy parents, a wealthy spouse or wealthy businessmen who made them their proteges. I’m sure there are exceptions but of the handful of extreme republicans I know they are all protected from the truly viscious (financial) aspects of life in some way.

Yeah, not like those Kennedys. Or John Kerry and his wife.
Maybe a better way of characterizing the parties would be:
Republicans are selfish imbeciles. Democrats TREAT everyone like selfish imbeciles.

[John_Corrado]

@rjung

Now, to be fair, liberals aren’t perfect either, and it doesn’t take much effort to imagine a scenario where idealistic dreams of boundless optimism and social aid balloons into a a bloated mess. But (a) we’re nowhere near that point in the United States right now, and (b) I’d rather err on the side of caution than the side of callousness.

But I feel I’m erring on the side of caution as well.

Government programs are absolutely easier to implement than to remove, or even to cut. Only one President in the last forty-five years has presided over a net cut in social spending. Only one major social program- Welfare- in the last sixty years has ever been dismantled.

So, those who want to dismantle the entire government have an intensely tough job which is easy to fix. Those who want to spend more and don’t care about the eventual boondoggle scenario have an easy job which is intensely tought to fix. So, by supporting those who want to reduce government size, I’m erring on the side of caution.

[BrainGlutton]

@msmith537

Maybe a better way of characterizing the parties would be:
Republicans are selfish imbeciles. Democrats TREAT everyone like selfish imbeciles.

[grease]

We go together!
Like rama-lama-lama
Gi-dinky-gi-dinky-dong!

[/grease]

[dropzone]

@Renob

All this argument comes down to, really, is liberals saying, “if you don’t agree with me, it must be because you’re ignorant.”

Not really. I came from a background similar to jsgoddess and was active in the local Republican Party in the district that gave us Don Rumsfeld and Phil Crane. While I worked with some intelligent and cosmopolitan people the vast majority were ignorant, insular, and, I hate to say, idiotic. Completely selfish, self-centered, and greedy. They had never seen or understood anything beyond their Suburban Chicago ghetto. Barely intelligent enough to tie their own shoes. Parroting Nixonian talking points because the butterflies were so crowded in their heads there was no room for anything else.

Good Lord, it was a transforming experience. :eek: Out of it came a dropzone shaking his head in bewilderment that people could be that shallow, stupid, and vindictive. When the party took its big turn to the right and left the moderate and liberal members to become Democrats I was already gone. I wanted nothing to do with those people.

[Blackacre]

Answer is no, you fool.

BA

[John_Mace]

Do Republicans have a ignorant, narrowminded, self serving view of the world?

No one noticed the irony in that sentence?

[Jackmannii]

@Hampshire

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.

*"Oh I’ve been to Nice and the isle of Greece
Where I sipped champagne on a yacht
I moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo and showed 'em what I’ve got
I’ve been undressed by kings and I’ve seen some things
That a woman ain’t s’posed to see
I’ve been to paradise, but I’ve never been to me…

Sometimes I’ve been to cryin’ for unborn children
That might have made me complete
But I, I took the sweet life and never knew I’d be bitter from the sweet
I spent my life exploring the subtle whoring that cost too much to be free
Hey lady, I’ve been to paradise, but I’ve never been to me." *

[dropzone]

Yeesh, Jack! That’s a BANNING offense!

[yosemite]

Actually, I have known a lot of knee-jerk Democrats who were ignorant, poorly educated, never had travelled anywhere, racist (ragingly racist), have no appreciation for the arts and culture, but by damn, they were Democrats!

I’ve also known many very well-educated Republicans who are well-traveled, well-read, appreciate culture, non-racist (one Republican I know is black, by the way), and yet—they’re Republicans!

I’ve never really seen big connection between Democrats and ignorance, and Republicans and well-educated. Or vice-versa. Usually, I meet people who are Republican and well-traveled but a little racist, appreciate culture but not well-read, or I meet people who are Democrat but not well-traveled, appreciate culture but . . . (and so forth and so on).

It’s very ignorant, in my view, to pigeohole people like this. Many people are a mixture of many things.

To just assume that if they belong to one party they are probably ignorant and selfish? How rude. How short-sighted. It sort of reminds me of those smug religious folks who decide that all atheists are “immoral.” It ruffles my feathers in exactly the same way.

[rjung]

Assuming things about individuals based on political affiliation is silly – you can find jerkish behavior in any socio-economic group.

Better, instead, to focus on what the parties themselves endorse, both through their platforms (what they say they believe in) and their acts (what they actually do believe in).

[yosemite]

@rjung

Assuming things about individuals based on political affiliation is silly – you can find jerkish behavior in any socio-economic group.

The OP title talks about Republicans, not the Republican Party. The OP is making assumptions and judgments about the majority of individuals who belong to both parties.

I’ve never seen a big connection between religious people and “goodness,” and I’ve never seen a big connection between atheists and “immorality,” but if you talk to some people, they’ve got their minds made up about both sets of individuals based on what side of the aisle they’re on. Same thing going on here, for the most part. It ruffles my feathers.