I’ll look for other polls too, but with that large a disparity I think it’s reasonable to suspect that more conservatives morally disapprove of it than liberals.
So, what you are saying, is that this 23% of conservatives is not racist, they just believe that society, their friends and neighbors and other family members are racist enough that they will cuase problems for the otherwise happy couple?
Just out of curiosity, why do you think that democrats have a more optimistic view of humanity?
Yes, that’s probably a safe assumption – I doubt only the scope of the problem, not its existence. It’s absolutely fair to say that more open racists identify as conservative than as liberal.
There’s no foundation for the compound predicates you offer up here. “Society?” Yes. “Their friends and neighbors and other family members?” No. Nothing I said can be fairly read to imply I was discussing anything other than society at large.
Now, that said: do you think society continues to exhibit racist attributes?
I think you do, based on things you’ve said previously (I welcome correction if I’m wrong about that conclusion.)
It seems that you’d agree that an interracial couple could face difficulties that a homogenous-race would not. Do you?
I’m not sure I agree they do. In fact, when the subject is the latent racism still extant in society, I’d say that Democrats have a more pessimistic view than Republicans.
Here, though, the subject is: “Should a couple get married based on their love, and not worry about society’s racism creating obstacles for their marriage?” Democrats are absolutely more optimistic in answering this question.
Now that I think about it, maybe the question isn’t even that. Maybe it’s, “Even if I harbor concerns about the effect of racism on a potential marriage, I would never express those concerns by saying I was ‘unhappy’ at the prospect of such a union in my family.”
Which is, frankly, good advice.
No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that many of the 23% are not racist but those that remain might cause problems for racially mixed couples. And contrary to popular belief, such racism does not lie solely with conservatives. For example, a good friend of mine is liberal through and through, and so are most of her family. But she’s a good-looking woman and a few years ago took to dating a black body-builder and I couldn’t believe the criticism she drew from her family for going with a black guy. (He and I became good friends, btw. :D) And yet all these people are died-in-the-wool democrats and Obama supporters and have been fully supportive every major liberal trend since the 60s. I’ll point out also that racism exists quite strongly among blacks themselves and blacks who marry whites are often considered disloyal or ‘acting white’. The concept of and criticism toward acting white is fully racist on its own.
I think the exact opposite. Democrats/liberals are forever battling humanity and doing everything in their power to force it to submit to their idea of what it ought to be. If they were truly optimistic about humanity they’d be content to let nature take its course, relying on humans’ innate goodness to rule the day. We’ve seen what happens when liberalism achieves most of its goals and becomes communism. Fear, intimidation, repression and punishment for disagreement are the order of the day. Locating anyone with an optimistic outlook anywhere in the Soviet Union or Mao’s China would be quite the rare occurrence I’m sure.
So, you say that the difference is that liberals interpret it differently than conservatives?
Dems hear, “Would this union make you unhappy?”
Conservatives hear, “Do you think that there are potential society biases that may cause difficulties in the marriage being accepted?”
I think these conservatives are overthinking things.
My parents would be happily part of the 23%, they threw a massive fit when my sister was asked to a school dance by a black guy. Now, they did use the “excuse” that it wasn’t that they were against her dating a black guy, but that they were worried about what “others” would think. That people may treat them poorly because they were on a date together. (This was 1992, BTW, not the 70’s)
To be honest, I didn’t believe that excuse from my parents, and, as much respect as I have for your legal knowledge, I have nearly as much difficulty believing it from you.
You are unhappy with a family member entering an interracial marriage because you are not happy with a family member entering an interracial marriage. [“You” referring, of course, to the 23% who answered that they would be unhappy, not you, you you.]
How about the fact that twice as many Republicans as Democrats find interracial marriage to be a “bad” thing, and almost twice as many Democrats as Republicans find it to be a “good” thing?
http://americablog.com/2017/05/republicans-twice-likely-find-interracial-marriage-bad.html
Does that bother you?
Agreed. And I find your argument that liberals behave worse than conservatives to be bullshit, and based on nothing more than anecdotes.
Since when has humans’ innate goodness done anything positive, if no one actually did anything?
If humans have an innate goodness, it is represented by the progressives who are trying to improve humanity’s lot, not by the conservatives who consider the current situation the most optimal.
That’s not a refutation. Merely saying you don’t believe it doesn’t refute the argument.
In my own experience, there are people from whom I’d believe it and people who, if they offered it up, I’d be certain it was a tame excuse. But I’m absolutely unwilling to say it’s per se incredible.
The numbers are: 12% of Republicans found it a bad thing, while 6% of Democrats felt the same.
The worst numbers, the highest “bad” numbers, were among blacks: 18%.
Does that make you regard blacks less kindly, as you seem to be suggesting it makes you regard Republicans?
It surprises me, but it doesn’t make me regard anyone less kindly (including Republicans).
My mistake, then. I took your question to Starving Artist (“Does that bother you?”) to suggest that it should bother him; that he should regard the disparity as a flaw in the Republicans or as evidence of a certain superiority in the minds of Democrats on the issue, a general sense I tried to summarize as “less kindly.”
But that was only my inference.
What was the point of your “Does that bother you” question?
Trying to improve humanity’s lot is not the same as improving it. Conservatives recognize that much of what liberals favor only creates more and worse problems than the status quo. They also know that liberals don’t care a whit what consequences arise from whatever it is that they’re reflexively reacting to, they just want what they want and consequences be damned. One only has to look at the nonsensical state this country is in today to see evidence of that.
They also know that liberals are never satisfied and never stop finding new ways to agitate. To take just one example, 50 years ago liberals were all about integration. In the meantime they’ve done everything they can to heighten tension, anger and resentment between the two races and are now beginning to demand new kinds of segregation, only this time based on the premise that these new kinds of integration are intended to protect black people and black culture. How the hell are the two races ever to achieve harmony and a lack of bias when they’re constantly being pitted against one another?
The politics of liberals is the politics of division, villainization, anger, hate and intolerance, and 50 years of its dominant social influence has brought the country to the state it’s in now. Good job, liberals!
It bothers me that it’s non-zero (or very close to zero) with any group, including liberals/Democrats. It means there are long-standing problems in our society and culture that haven’t yet gone away.
But chiefly, I was trying to prick Starving Artist’s very annoying (and utterly ridiculous) bubble that all or nearly all of the problems in America are due to liberals/Democrats, and none or nearly none are due to conservatives/Republicans.
You “know” an awful lot about liberals, don’t you.
He’s projecting.
No kidding - and his argument about how liberals “agitate” boils down to “them uppity blacks should know their place!”
Posts like yours make wonder why I even bother with this place. Seriously.
What’s the problem - you think that there’s any other non-deranged explanation for how the party of civil rights has “done everything they can to heighten tension, anger and resentment between the two races”? Because unless you’re talking about how pesky liberals have consistently been shoving the existence of black people and their pesky desire to be treated fairly and not be shot and so forth, I can’t imagine what the hell insane delusional reality you’re imagining. What, you think the KKK are liberals? You think white supremacists are liberals? You think the recent spurt of nazis and Trump supporters are liberals?
NM