Discussions on Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition. (Split requested by Phi for All)

[Acme]

What do you want me to say ?

I consider myself conservative in some aspects as that makes sense and works for me, and liberal in others for much the same reasons.

Would it make you happy if I said i was insane ?

 

Does other's opinion mean that little to you ?

What would make me 'happy' is for you to declare either that you will or will not read the study and why. Clearly others' opinions matter to me or I would not be here seeking opinions or be reading the study myself.

 

Up to page 14 as I fit my reading into domestic duties. I quote:

Evidence Linking Epistemic, Existential, and Ideological Motives to Political Conservatism

We have reviewed several theories of individual differences, epistemic and existential needs, and individual and collective rationalization to arrive at eight specific hypotheses concerning the motivated socialcognitive bases of political conservatism. In what follows, we consider evidence for and against the hypotheses that political conservatism is significantly associated with (1) mental rigidity and closed-mindedness, including (a) increased dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity, (b) decreased cognitive complexity, © decreased openness to experience, (d) uncertainty avoidance, (e) personal needs for order and structure, and (f) need for cognitive closure; (2) lowered self-esteem; (3) fear, anger, and aggression; (4) pessimism, disgust, and contempt; (5) loss prevention; (6) fear of death; (7) threat arising from social and economic deprivation; and (8) threat to the stability of the social system. We have argued that these motives are in fact related to one another psychologically, and our motivated socialcognitive perspective helps to integrate them. We now offer an integrative, meta-analytic review of research on epistemic, existential, and ideological bases of conservatism.

 

The data for our review come from 38 journal articles, 1 monograph, 7 chapters from books or annual volumes, and 2 conference papers involving 88 different samples studied between 1958 and 2002. ...

[MigL]

Sorry to disappoint.

I don't have time, I'm at work ( don't tell my supervisor ).

[Acme]

Sorry to disappoint.

I don't have time, I'm at work ( don't tell my supervisor ).

That is an inadequate answer. For one thing the study is downloadable as a PDF. Secondly, you have dodged the central implication of my question which is whether or not you have any intellectual interest in actually engaging some science rather than carrying on with opinion.

[Moontanman]

Is Political Conservatism a Mild Form of Insanity? Death Fear (among other unsavory attributes) Predicts Republicanism

 

[bolding mine]

 

 

Further reading on the study: Researchers help define what makes a political conservative @ UC Berkeley

 

 

Mild? I hate labels, labels cannot possibly define something as complex as human behavior. The only label I will willingly accept is Human. My views on subjects as complex as human social behavior and structure are mine and unique to me, any other label is by definition inaccurate...

[Ten oz]

What do you want me to say ?

I consider myself conservative in some aspects as that makes sense and works for me, and liberal in others for much the same reasons.

Would it make you happy if I said i was insane ?

 

Does other's opinion mean that little to you ?

What issues do you consider yourself conservative or liberal about?

[Acme]

Mild? I hate labels, labels cannot possibly define something as complex as human behavior. The only label I will willingly accept is Human. My views on subjects as complex as human social behavior and structure are mine and unique to me, any other label is by definition inaccurate...

I take it then you also refuse to actually read the study. Your loss as you then have nothing to contribute here other than opinion.

 

I have finished reading the study and though 37 pages may seem daunting there are 6 pages of references and several pages of tables. Inasmuch as this study forms the basis of this thread I look forward to -and expect- on-topic responses from others who do the reading as well. (Science forum; remember?)

 

Here is the link to the pdf again: >>Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition

Edited August 2, 2014 by Acme

[Moontanman]

I take it then you also refuse to actually read the study. Your loss as you then have nothing to contribute here other than opinion.

 

I have finished reading the study and though 37 pages may seem daunting there are 6 pages of references and several pages of tables. Inasmuch as this study forms the basis of this thread I look forward to -and expect- on-topic responses from others who do the reading as well. (Science forum; remember?)

 

Here is the link to the pdf again: >>Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition

 

 

And you fail to understand what i am saying, I didn't read it all but i read much of it and skimmed the rest. You or they can label people all they want and so can others but my position on issues of being a human being are too diverse and complex to be labeled by a simple dichotomy... I suspect most peoples are but i can't say what is in anyone else's head...

[Acme]

And you fail to understand what i am saying, I didn't read it all but i read much of it and skimmed the rest. You or they can label people all they want and so can others but my position on issues of being a human being are too diverse and complex to be labeled by a simple dichotomy... I suspect most peoples are but i can't say what is in anyone else's head...

No; I think I understand. You have your suspicions and no need of scientific studies whether you can understand their means and methodologies or not. 'They' have a label for you too. Since the subject of the thread is scientific studies there's nothing else for you here.

 

Edit: For whoever is doing the moving about of my topic, it may more properly belong in psychology rather than politics. Your call obviously.

.

We can swing politico with no sweat if that's the will of the people. Given the frequent mention of RWA [Right-Wing Authoritarianism] in the meta-study, it follows to understand that term from the source. This read will take more time than the meta-study, but it's free to download in PDF format. If facts and/or science are not your forte, don't bother. To borrow from Hofstadter borrowing from Huneker, folk of small souls should not attempt it. (The RWA questionnaire is in Chapter 1 for self-administration.) Enjoy.

 

The Authoritarians

...Well, you might be thinking, I dont believe any of this is true. Or maybe, youre thinking, What else is new? I've believed this for years. Why should a conservative, moderate, or liberal bother with this book? Why should any Republican, Independent, or Democrat click the Whole Book link on this page?

 

Because if you do, you'll begin an easy-ride journey through some very relevant scientific studies I have done on authoritarian personalities--one that will take you a heck of a lot less time than the decades it took me. Those studies have a direct bearing on all the topics mentioned above. So if you think the first paragraph is a lot of hokum, or full of half-truths, I invite you to look at the research.

 

For example, take the following statement: Once our government leaders and the authorities condemn the dangerous elements in our society, it will be the duty of every patriotic citizen to help stomp out the rot that is poisoning our country from within. Sounds like something Hitler would say, right? Want to guess how many politicians, how many lawmakers in the United States agreed with it? Want to guess what they had in common? ...

Edited August 3, 2014 by Acme

[Moontanman]

As you wish...

[iNow]

No; I think I understand. You have your suspicions and no need of scientific studies whether you can understand their means and methodologies or not. 'They' have a label for you too. Since the subject of the thread is scientific studies there's nothing else for you here.

Knowing Moontanman as long as I have, reevaluation of this conclusion would serve you well, IMO. It seems clear to me that MTM is making a broader point suggesting that he is a complex being with diverse thoughts and views which themselves vary from topic to topic. He is suggesting that monolithic labels are far too remedial, broad, and one-dimensional to accurately convey his stance and that we must be cautious using them to describe the stances of others. He's telling you to be cautious of splitting the world into false dichotomies of us/them since continued attempts to do so will only lead you farther astray from the truth. We can speak of trends so long as we recognize those trends won't always represent the end all be all of a single individuals worldview.

 

Viewed in this light, I hope you can see how your conclusion / paraphrasing of his position, "since the subject is scientific studies, there's nothing of interest to see here," is both inaccurate and ill-conceived.

[Acme]

It was not my direct choice to be put center stage with this topic but now that I'm here I have every intention of keeping the show on topic and on sound scientific grounds. Arguments over terms are non sequitars and have no place here other than as such terms are directly qualified by authors of bona fide sources presented. Those who bother to actually read these sources would find that such qualifications are given and any quibbles with terms should reference the specific qualifications these authors give.

 

I did some reading in several chapters of Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians before deciding to download the book and begin reading it completely. He does address the issue of terminology and when I run across that again I will cite it. Meantime I will quote items germane to the thread topic as I encounter them. Keep in mind that Altemeyer's work is only one aspect of the meta-study on the psychology of conservative politics and politicians that opens this thread and so it does not answer all the questions regarding the apparent 'mild insanity' of this group and its adherents. Whether in continuation of this thread or for my own edification I will be looking into all of the studies referenced in the meta-study in more depth and I invite you all with a genuine interest to do the same.

 

In respect for forum rules and authors' rights I can-and-will only quote small portions of works. As with any quoting, these quotes reflect my bias for what is important and I expect readers to do due diligence and read the source material before commenting. Context is everything.

 

The following quote from the introduction of The Authoritarians expresses rather well my own interest in the topic and what I hope to gain in exploring it.

 

The Authoritarians

Introduction

...The second reason I can offer for reading what follows is that it is not chock full of opinions, but experimental evidence. Liberals have stereotypes about conservatives, and conservatives have stereotypes about liberals. Moderates have stereotypes about both. Anyone who has watched, or been a liberal arguing with a conservative (or vice versa) knows that personal opinion and rhetoric can be had a penny a pound. But arguing never seems to get anywhere. Whereas if you set up a fair and square experiment in which people can act nobly, fairly, and with integrity, and you find that most of one group does, and most of another group does not, that's a fact, not an opinion. And if you keep finding the same thing experiment after experiment, and other people do too, then thats a body of facts that demands attention.³ Some people, we have seen to our dismay, dont care a hoot what scientific investigation reveals; but most people do. If the data were fairly gathered and we let them do the talking, we should be on a higher plane than the current, "Sez you!"

 

The last reason why you might be interested in the hereafter is that you might want more than just facts about authoritarians, but understanding and insight into why they act the way they do. Which is often mind-boggling. How can they revere those who gave their lives defending freedom and then support moves to take that freedom away? How can they go on believing things that have been disproved over and over again, and disbelieve things that are well established? How can they think they are the best people in the world, when so much of what they do ought to show them they are not? Why do their leaders so often turn out to be crooks and hypocrites? Why are both the followers and the leaders so aggressive that hostility is practically their trademark? By the time you have finished this book, I think you will understand the reasons. All of this, and much more, fit into place once you see what research has uncovered going on in authoritarian minds. ...

Edit: Fix copy/paste errors. Apostrophes and quote marks do not reproduce across PDF and this format.

Edited August 3, 2014 by Acme

[Acme]

.

No doubt some will say/believe this is about conservative bashing but this is hardly the case from the RWA study perspective. The simple fact is that the chips just fall as they do and that high RWA scores rarely correlate with liberals or moderates.

 

Chapter 1

...

[pg. 15]Chapter 1

...

[pg. 15] In North America people who submit to the established authorities to extraordinary degrees often turn out to be political conservatives, so you can call them "right-wingers" both in my new-fangled psychological sense and in the usual political sense as well. But someone who lived in a country long ruled by Communists and who ardently supported the Communist Party would also be one of my psychological right-wing authoritarians even though we would also say he was a political left-winger. So a right-wing authoritarian follower doesn't necessarily have conservative political views. Instead he's someone who readily submits to the established authorities in society, attacks others in their name, and is highly conventional. It's an aspect of his personality, not a description of his politics. Rightwing authoritarianism is a personality trait, like being characteristically bashful or happy or grumpy or dopey.

 

You could have left-wing authoritarian followers as well, who support a revolutionary leader who wants to overthrow the establishment. I knew a few in the 1970s, Marxist university students who constantly spouted their chosen authorities, Lenin or Trotsky or Chairman Mao. Happily they spent most of their time fighting with each other, as lampooned in Monty Python's Life of Brian where the People's Front of Judea devotes most of its energy to battling, not the Romans, but the Judean People's Front. But the left-wing authoritarians on my campus disappeared long ago. Similarly in America "the Weathermen" blew away in the wind. I'm sure one can find left-wing authoritarians here and there, but they hardly exist in sufficient numbers now to threaten democracy in North America. However I have found bucketfuls of right-wing authoritarians in nearly every sample I have drawn in Canada and the United States for the past three decades. So when I speak of "authoritarian followers" in this book I mean right-wing authoritarian followers, as identified by the RWA scale.

...

[pgs. 17-18] The RWA questionnaire [Acme's note: Answer the questionnaire & find your RWA scale score in the privacy of your own cubicle so you gain an understanding of what the ratings mean in the book and how they are calculated. By all means do not share your score here or ask others for their score.

...

[pg. 47: footnote 9]...By the way, chances are you have relatively unauthoritarian attitudes. You see, authoritarian followers are not likely to be reading this book in the first place, especially if their leaders told them it was full of evil lies, or schluffed it off as "scientific "jibberish." (This is not exactly a book that an authoritarian leader would want his followers to read. Dont expect it to be featured as a prime selection by the Authoritarian Book of the Month Club.) Still, the real test of how authoritarian or unauthoritarian we are comes from how we act in various situations. And that, we shall see at the end of this book, is a whole different ball game than answering a personality test.

[Acme]

While the free 2006 book The Authoritarians is aimed at the general reader, Bob has a for-sale book, The Authoritarian Specter from 1997 that covers more specifics of his studies. Here's a link to Amazon for the book and a short review.

 

The Authoritarian Specter @ Amazon

The bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, the emergence of militias and skinheads, the rise of the religious right, the attacks on Planned Parenthood clinics, the backlash against equal rights movements, the increase in poverty...these, according to Bob Altemeyer, are all versions of one story--the authoritarian personality in action. But aren't authoritarians Nazi types, kooks, the Klan? These are just the extreme examples, he argues. The Authoritarian Specter shows that many ordinary people today are psychologically disposed to embrace antidemocratic, fascist policies.

 

The book presents the latest results from a prize-winning research program on the authoritarian personality--a victory for the scientific method in the struggle to understand the worst aspects of ourselves. It connects for the first time the many ways authoritarianism undermines democracy. Many of our biggest problems, seemingly unrelated, have authoritarian roots. The scientific studies demonstrating this are extensive and thorough; their powerful findings are presented in a conversational, clear manner that engages readers from all backgrounds.

 

This is an important, timely work. It explains a growing movement to submit to a "man on horseback," to attack those who are different, to march in lockstep. Altemeyer reveals that these sentiments are strongly held even by many American lawmakers. These discoveries deserve careful attention in a presidential election year.

Given that we are rolling up on both mid-term and presidential elections in the US, as well as given the numerous threads going on here concerning conservatism in specific and politics in general, this reading is both fascinating and chilling.

 

Chores may keep me from covering a whole chapter today, but don't let that stop you dear tender readers from moving ahead. Below a short quote from a footnote to Chapter 1 on the science of correlation (the footnote goes beyond what I quote) and then a quote from the start of Chapter 2. Happy reading.

The Authoritarians

...

[pg. 51: footnote 12] (As always, reading this note is purely voluntary and in this particular case may even be a sign of madness.) We need to talk about generalizations, don't we. All of the findings I shall be presenting in this book are generalizations-with-exceptions, which means that whatever the issue, some high RWAs acted the way low RWAs typically did, and some lows acted like highs usually did. Thats the stuff that the social sciences crank out, journal article after journal article: general truths, but hardly perfect ones.

 

Some generalizations have so many exceptions that you wonder why they're worth the bother; a lot of gender differences, for example, turn out to be miniscule. Other generalizations have so few exceptions you can almost take them to the bank; I'll show you a connection in Chapter 6 between RWA scale scores and political party affiliation among politicians that will knock your socks off--if youre a social scientist (wearing socks).

 

If you really want to know more about this (and you certainly don't have to; this is going to take a while), let's look at the fact that tall people tend to be heavier than short people. You compute correlations to get a fix on how well two things, like height and weight, go together. A correlation can go from 0.00 (no connection at all) to 1.00 (a perfect association). The correlation between height and weight among North American adults comes in at about .50, which means the two are middlin connected. Thats important if youre wondering how big to make the jackets for tall men. So the generalization is valid, and useful, but we all know some tall, skinny people and my wife knows a Mr. Short and Dumpy very well.

As a generalization about generalizations, the RWA scale correlations I present in this book usually run between .40 and .60. Thus theyre about as solid as the connection between height and weight.

...

 

Chapter 2

The Roots of Authoritarian Aggression, and Authoritarianism Itself

I said in the Introduction that we would dig up the roots of authoritarian aggression. Were going to do that now for authoritarian followers (and we'll take up the hostility that roars so relentlessly from their leaders in a later chapter). After we have exposed the psychological causes of the followers aggression here, we'll wrestle with the issue of how they became authoritarian followers in the first place.

...

 

Edited August 4, 2014 by Acme

[Acme]

Anyone reading the study along with me, or is everyone relying on my most excellent assessment of what is key here?

 

[pg.62]... Authoritarian followers score highly on the Dangerous World scale, and it's not just because some of the items have a religious context. High RWAs are, in general, more afraid than most people are. They got a "2 for 1 Special Deal" on fear somehow. Maybe they've inherited genes that incline them to fret and tremble. Maybe not. But we do know that they were raised by their parents to be afraid of others, because both the parents and their children tell us so.

 

Sometimes it's all rather predictable: authoritarians' parents taught fear of homosexuals, radicals, atheists and pornographers. But they also warned their children, more than most parents did, about kidnappers, reckless drivers, bullies and drunks--bad guys who would seem to threaten everyone's children. So authoritarian followers, when growing up, probably lived in a scarier world than most kids do, with a lot more boogeymen hiding in dark places, and they're still scared as adults. For them, gay marriage is not just unthinkable on religious grounds, and unnerving because it means making the "abnormal" acceptable. It's yet one more sign that perversion is corrupting society from the inside-out, leading to total chaos. Many things, from stem cell research to right-to-die legislation, say to them, "This is the last straw; soon well be plunged into the abyss." So probably did, in earlier times, women's suffrage, the civil rights movement, sex education and Sunday shopping.

 

Thus it turns out in experiments that a person's fear of a dangerous world predicts various kinds of authoritarian aggression better than any other unpleasant feeling I have looked at. As my mentor, Brewster Smith of the University of California at Santa Cruz, said when I told him that fear set off authoritarian aggression more than anything else, "We do have to fear fear itself." And of course fear rose in the United States after 9/11. As Dave Barry put it in a column in November 2004, "Attorney General John Ashcroft has issued one of those vague, yet at the same time, unhelpful federal terrorism warnings that boil down to: 'Be afraid! Be very afraid!'". ...

.

 

Note this is a 'new' post and if it's appended to my last we have only the software to blame.

 

Anyway, I'm still reading along and have some musings along the lines of how to use all this information. There is a chapter I think on 'What do we do?' and maybe when I get there it will shed some light on my thinking here.

 

To start, a personal anecdote. A long long time ago and far far away I was living with a policeman who was training to become a detective. (Talk about an authority! ) So he'd come home every night and tell us all about what he was learning and one of the courses was on how to conduct interrogations. He really enjoyed the learning as well as doing the interrogating and I learned a fair amount myself.

 

Some months after I had moved away I was in the outback cutting wood and after finishing the work went up a hill overlooking my truck for a smoke. Up pulls a car and out get 2 cops, one a uniformed ranger and the other a plain-clothes federal game agent. When it became apparent they were waiting for me I went down and walked up behind them (maybe not smart) and said "Hi!". Well, a long story a little longer they began to interrogate me as they were out there looking for poachers. After some of that I told them 'hey; I recognize your interrogation techniques. Next your going to ask me ABC'. Well, they did a full stop and pulled themselves back for a palaver. They then tried some hemming and hawing but I told them either arrest me or let me go 'cause it's getting dark. They let me go but followed me all the way to town.

 

So, segue to the authoritarian conservatives and I was thinking that it might be useful/workable -if not entertaining- for a politician publically debating a conservative to tell his opponent 'Hey; I recognize your RWA tendencies and next your going to say ABC because of your XYZ as laid out by BOB.' Well...just a musing as I said.

[Acme]

"Is Political Conservatism a mild form of Insanity?"

Define "mild"

Once it starts leading to perfectly predictable deaths, I don't think you can call it "mild" any more.

I think it should lead to them being kept away from circumstances where they can harm themselves or others.

...

My increasy sense is telling me that we should define "mild" as "extreme". Strongly Agree on keeping them [that are high RWAs] away from matches and shoe polish.

 

 

Chapter Three

How Authoritarian Followers Think

We meet again. If you are keeping track of my promises, as we roll along together on the internet, I said in the Introduction that we would figure out why authoritarian followers think in the bizarre and perplexing way they so often do. The key to the puzzle springs from Chapter 2's observation that, first and foremost, followers have mainly copied the beliefs of the authorities in their lives. They have not developed and thought through their ideas as much as most people have. Thus almost anything can be found in their heads if their authorities put it there, even stuff that contradicts other stuff. A filing cabinet or a computer can store quite inconsistent notions and never lose a minute of sleep over their contradiction. Similarly a high RWA can have all sorts of illogical, self-contradictory, and widely refuted ideas rattling around in various boxes in his brain, and never notice it.

 

So can everybody, of course, and my wife loves to catch inconsistencies in my reasoning when we're having a friendly discussion about one of my personal failures. But research reveals that authoritarian followers drive through life under the influence of impaired thinking a lot more than most people do, exhibiting sloppy reasoning, highly compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy, self-blindness, a profound ethnocentrism, and--to top it all off--a ferocious dogmatism that makes it unlikely anyone could ever change their minds with evidence or logic. These seven deadly shortfalls of authoritarian thinking eminently qualify them to follow a wouldbe dictator. As Hitler is reported to have said,"What good fortune for those in power that people do not think". ...

 

[MigL]

Sorry I took so long to get back to you Ten oz.

I don't know what political conservatism is but I consider myself fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

 

Although as someone has stated, being socially liberal is fine when it applies to yourself or others; not so much when applied to your daughter ( I don't have a daughter, just a niece, but I see his point ).

[Acme]

Sorry I took so long to get back to you Ten oz.

I don't know what political conservatism is but I consider myself fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

 

Although as someone has stated, being socially liberal is fine when it applies to yourself or others; not so much when applied to your daughter ( I don't have a daughter, just a niece, but I see his point ).

On the one hand you say you don't know what political conservatism is, and on the other you declare yourself a [presumably politically] fiscal conservative. What political fiscal conservative policies do you espouse? Please be specific inasmuch as your general wash informs us of nothing.

[MigL]

Same policies as apply to your household.

Live within your means !

Don't live large and saddle your kids with debt.

Edited August 7, 2014 by MigL

[iNow]

Same policies as apply to your household.

Live within your means !

The problem is that a household budget is not an accurate analogy or model when dealing with the US economy (nor how it interacts with the global economy as a whole), and the treatment of both must differ for some very core reasons. It might make for some quickly accessible bumper-sticker wisdom for the under-informed among us, but it's based on a deeply flawed understanding of the system and should be discarded from use.

 

http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/federal-budget-not-household-budget-here-s-why

Whenever a demagogue wants to whip up hysteria about federal budget deficits, he or she invariably begins with an analogy to a households budget: No household can continually spend more than its income, and neither can the federal government. On the surface that, might appear sensible; dig deeper and it makes no sense at all. A sovereign government bears no obvious resemblance to a household. Let us enumerate some relevant differences. <continue reading>

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/opinion/krugman-nobody-understands-debt.html

This is, however, a really bad analogy in at least two ways.

 

First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments dont all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base. The debt from World War II was never repaid; it just became increasingly irrelevant as the U.S. economy grew, and with it the income subject to taxation.

 

Second and this is the point almost nobody seems to get an over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; U.S. debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves.

 

This was clearly true of the debt incurred to win World War II. Taxpayers were on the hook for a debt that was significantly bigger, as a percentage of G.D.P., than debt today; but that debt was also owned by taxpayers, such as all the people who bought savings bonds. So the debt didnt make postwar America poorer. In particular, the debt didnt prevent the postwar generation from experiencing the biggest rise in incomes and living standards in our nations history.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/14/running-government-like-a-business-or-family/

Ive spent a lot of time trying to knock down the bad analogy between governments and individuals, and the line that the government should act like an individual family or business, and cut back when times are tough. The key point is realizing interdependence: your spending is my income, my spending is your income, and if we all try to slash spending at the same time the result is a depression. Somebody needs to step up and spend when others wont and the government can and should be that somebody.

 

That said, the funny thing is that real individuals and businesses dont behave the way the balanced-budget scolds claim. Businesses often borrow and spend when borrowing is cheap or they see high payoffs to investing; so do families.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/why-government-family-budgets-arent-th

Given how common this sentiment is, its worth taking a moment from time to time to occasionally reemphasize why this analogy is so very wrong.

 

At first blush, I can appreciate its appeal the argument has a certain down-home, common-sense sort of quality to it. If American families and American businesses cant run massive deficits and borrow billions from China, the argument goes, why does the American government?

 

The point that generally gets lost is the detail that matters: families and businesses borrow money and run deficits all the time. This is a positive, not a negative, development.

 

When a family goes to buy a home, for example, its members dont simply write a check; they take out a mortgage. Almost no one can afford to simply and literally buy a home outright, so we take out very large loans, and make payments, with interest.

 

The same is true when a family wants a car, tackles college tuition, or thinks about starting a small business. American families, in other words, take on debts, some of them huge relative to their incomes, all the time. Theres nothing wrong with any of this these are just routine examples of people investing in themselves, as they should.

 

Businesses to do this, too, borrowing money to make capital improvements, expand locations, buy smaller companies, etc. Companies generally create jobs this way, and do so with the blessing of investors.

 

The governments debts arent identical, but officials take on debts to invest in things they consider worthwhile, too. A family that relies on student loans to pay for college should be able to relate to a government that relies on loans to pay for public services. The family thinks itll be worth living in the red for a while, so long as it can make the payments and afford the interest, because theyll be better off in the long run and the government believes the exact same thing.

 

And theyre both correct.

 

Romney probably understands this perfectly well, but is working under the assumption that voters are easily fooled. Its a cynical game, and its wrong.

 

Indeed, maybe the Romney campaign could answer a straightforward follow-up question: If Mr. and Ms. America take on debts they can afford to improve their position in life, why is it outrageous for their government to do the same thing?

 

The answer from Republicans, I suspect, is that our current debt is simply too large and we can no longer afford it. (They werent thinking this way when they inherited a national debt that was $5 trillion and shrinking, and turned into a debt that was $10 trillion and growing, but lets put that aside.) But we can afford it; thats the point. Like a family making its monthly payments, the government is doing the same. Indeed, were doing so well on this front that others keep loaning us money at low interest rates, confident that were good for it.

tldr? Here's the same rebuttal through easily accessible analogy (since analogies are what brought this up): http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/11/what-if-a-typical-family-spent-like-the-federal-government-itd-be-a-very-weird-family/

[Walter]

It is a perfect analogy. It was about 1962 when I went with my father to cash a check at a local store. The owner told Dad he was no longer cashing checks. Dad asked why and the owner simply said “Magothy Woods”. My father nodded in understanding and it was my first lesson in the consequences of living beyond one’s means. That subdivision was made up of 2-car garages (can you imagine?). Probably half of these new homeowners could not figure out what was going to happen when moving out of their small houses in and around Baltimore.

 

In 1984, my wife and I, being horrible Americans, made a down payment of $25000 on our $75000 house (What the hell?). With our current house, we lowered the down payment to 25% and took out a mortgage which was 36% of the bank’s pre-approval amount. Can you think of anything more anti-American?

 

I could link to a bunch of articles by Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, but would it serve any purpose? Instead, I will leave you with these thoughts.

 

 

Today we ask whether the noble American experiment in freedom is dissolving into a new tyranny, in which omnipotent government engulfs us all in a smothering embrace with ceaseless murmurs about what is good for us.

Seventy million taxpayers in the productive sector of the economy are compelled to support government payments of one sort or another to 80 million recipients. Some 44 percent of the federal budget is allocated for grants to individuals. The federal government in the 1976 fiscal year spent approximately $80 billion more than its revenues, borrowing and printing cheap money to cover the deficit. The value of the dollar has declined 25 percent in the past three years. Our national debt has exceeded $600 billion, and interest payments alone cost us more than $100 million a day. Our children and grandchildren will be paying for today’s extravagance. (1)

(1) The Case Against the Reckless Congress, Marjorie Holt (1976).

[Acme]

 

On the one hand you say you don't know what political conservatism is, and on the other you declare yourself a [presumably politically] fiscal conservative. What political fiscal conservative policies do you espouse? Please be specific inasmuch as your general wash informs us of nothing.

Same policies as apply to your household.

Live within your means !

Don't live large and saddle your kids with debt.

 

That doesn't answer my question, as I'm sure you well know. My household doesn't have to maintain an army, inspect food, build roads, or umpteen other functions that government does for all of us. Yet another strawman dodge from you I must say.

 

...

tldr? Here's the same rebuttal through easily accessible analogy (since analogies are what brought this up): http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/11/what-if-a-typical-family-spent-like-the-federal-government-itd-be-a-very-weird-family/

I suspect from what I've seen so far in this thread that the answer is yes; any rebuttal is Too Long To Read. Why read something you know you'll disagree with and/or not understand the reasoning for?

 

It is a perfect analogy. ...

 

I could link to a bunch of articles by Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, but would it serve any purpose? Instead, I will leave you with these thoughts. ...

Yes; it would serve the purpose of the forum rules which ask that we all support our assertions with references.

 

Today we ask whether the noble American experiment in freedom is dissolving into a new tyranny, in which omnipotent government engulfs us all in a smothering embrace with ceaseless murmurs about what is good for us. ...

Who exactly is the 'we' that is asking that? Could it be, oh I don't know.... conservatives?

 

I note how similar in structure the question is to questions used in the RWA questionnaire. Note the terms 'smothering', 'dissolving', 'tyranny', 'omnipotent', 'engulfs', and 'ceaseless'. Of course no right-wing authoritarian conservative will have any truck with such scientific too-long-to-read nonsense as I have been referencing this past week that puts the spotlight on just why these terms have so much importance to them and why these terms are so meaningless.

[Walter]

I should have left out the sentence containing emotion, including my own emotional description of my spending habits as anti-American. It was uncalled for, but the 1970s were emotional times. Do you have any thoughts about my spending habits? I think it is interesting that in the 1960s, we had professionals purchasing homes they had no business purchasing and then going to a small corner store to bounce checks. And that was when there were rules for obtaining home loans. Do you find that information just a little bit interesting? And this was 45 years before the recent real estate collapse.

 

What do you think of the fact that I severely limit my mortgage interest deduction and hurt the bank’s profitability?

 

Do you have any comment on Holt’s 2^nd paragraph? The current debt is 28 times what it was in 1976. I could ask you what I recently asked my sister - at what debt level would you and I come to common ground? $20 trillion? $25 trillion? I got no answer. Why is that? There has to be common ground at some dollar figure. However, we can easily agree on a maximum for renting an Ocean City condo. And there, surprise (or not), is the answer. She is paying part of that rent in a private transaction. She is writing a personal check to me which she knows better be good. Her withheld federal tax is somehow an entirely different thing.

 

This might not the best analogy, but I like it. That money withheld by her employer must be a different species, similar to the fundamentalist who sees the human as totally different from the monkey. They have no similarity at all. The tax money, like the monkey, is of a different kind.

 

I did not intend to violate forum rules. I give readers of atheist and science forums a little credit. Searching “Thomas Sowell” and “Walter Williams” takes a few seconds, like searching “Richard Dawkins” or “Christopher Hitchens”. Reading some of their work is what takes time. If you still need links, I will find a couple for you.

[Acme]

I should have left out the sentence containing emotion, including my own emotional description of my spending habits as anti-American. It was uncalled for, but the 1970s were emotional times.

The cat's out of the bag. You responded from the heart and that is exactly the issue I am getting at here; the psychology of conservatism. (Presuming here that you are 'conservative', though if you're not I can't imagine what is driving your impassioned defense of that group.)

 

Do you have any thoughts about my spending habits?

Only that they seem driven by fear.

 

What do you think of the fact that I severely limit my mortgage interest deduction and hurt the banks profitability?

I think you want to severely punish people that you see as deserving of punishment.

 

Do you have any comment on Holts 2^nd paragraph?

I had to re-read several times to understand what you were referring to. It would be helpful if you would use the quote function when quoting from someone directly. Otherwise it appears that we are reading your words.

 

So yes, I have a comment. Heaven forbid a government should do anything to help individuals.

 

I did not intend to violate forum rules. I give readers of atheist and science forums a little credit. Searching Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams takes a few seconds, like searching Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens. Reading some of their work is what takes time. If you still need links, I will find a couple for you.

We need not only links but specific quotes from those sources that directly address points you are trying to make.

----------------------------

Continuing with some quotes from Bob. (Note that the page numbers I am using are PDF page numbers and not the page numbers printed in the PDF.)

 

The Authoritarians

Chapter Three

Illogical Thinking

...

[pg.82 ]Intrigued, I gave the inferences test that Mary Wegmann had used to two large samples of students at my university. In both studies high RWAs went down in flames more than others did. They particularly had trouble figuring out that an inference or deduction was wrong. To illustrate, suppose they had gotten the following syllogism:

 

All fish live in the sea.

Sharks live in the sea..

Therefore, sharks are fish.

 

The conclusion does not follow, but high RWAs would be more likely to say the reasoning is correct than most people would. If you ask them why it seems right, they would likely tell you, "Because sharks are fish." In other words, they thought the reasoning was sound because they agreed with the last statement. If the conclusion is right, they figure, then the reasoning must have been right. Or to put it another way, they dont "get it" that the reasoning matters--especially on a reasoning test. ...

[Phi for All]

Although as someone has stated, being socially liberal is fine when it applies to yourself or others; not so much when applied to your daughter ( I don't have a daughter, just a niece, but I see his point ).

 

How my daughter dresses, and the stance I take on the issue, is perhaps not the greatest example of political social conservatism, but it's an area where I feel a more traditional value, e.g. clothing that covers valuable territory instead of flaunting it, is appropriate. In my defense, I feel that way about clothing in general, for both genders. I don't favor clothes on anyone that reveals too much; if you want to be sexy, I've learned over the years that, for me, it's sexier imagining what's under the clothes rather than everyone seeing it on display. There may be a psychological factor at work here as well. I don't think dressing like a hooker is a good self-image.

 

But how people dress is hardly something I could, or would want to control. While I might think it's a good thing for everyone to dress modestly, or at least less skimpily and see-though-ily, I don't want legislation about that. But I think it would affect the way I feel about regulation in the entertainment industry.

 

I'm liberal about sex and sex education though. This is an area where social conservatism historically messes everything up. From circumcisions for preventing masturbation to public school abstinence-only programs, conservatives have been scientifically in the Dark Ages with regards to sex. Repression and senseless control are just about the last things our sexual education needs.

Today we ask whether the noble American experiment in freedom is dissolving into a new tyranny, in which omnipotent government engulfs us all in a smothering embrace with ceaseless murmurs about what is good for us.

 

Actually, I'm asking why you think the government is to blame, when it's the corporations that have bought legislation that favors them, allows them to hide their profits offshore, and control all the media that's supposed to inform you of what's really important, instead of making it look like it's the government's fault.

[MigL]

As I said I understand where you're coming from Phi for All and agree.

 

And sure a household budjet is vastly different from a national economy, iNow, and its understandable that sometimes exceptions have to be made. However when you are in trouble with your spending you don't ask for a higher limit on your credit card !

The examples of nations who haven't learned this lesson are plentiful...

Argentina, Greece , Portugal, Spain, Italy etc. How are thir economies doing ?

The US has raised its borrowing limit to avoid defaulting

My own province, Ontario, has a higher debt than California