I spent the weekend with some folks that are very very Conservative. They were ripping Obama and quoting every negative thing that I have ever heard about the man. Of course being me, I tried to question some of the facts regarding these statements and was shot down as being difficult and argumentative.
Then we moved onto Romney, of course they only discussed the positives and I swear they think he could walk on water. Of course being me, I tried to question some of the facts regarding these statements and was shot down as being difficult and argumentative.
What I find interesting is that this seems to align with what I run into on Give2Attain and other blogs. People are adamant that their candidate is excellence personified and that the opponent is the Devil come to earth.
Of course my view is that they are both humans, thus they have strengths, weakness, successes, failures, etc.
Obama is somewhat Socialistic and believes that the successful should pay for the unsuccessful's needs. He has in the past transferred wealth to the unsuccessful in alignment with these beliefs.
Romney is somewhat Capitalistic and thinks that the successful should get to keep more of their gains, and that the unsuccessful had better work harder and get educated. His business dealings have been aligned with this.
So why do people find it so hard to support their candidate without trying to demonize the opponent?
So why do people feel the need to hero worship their candidate?
Good Lord people they are humans and candidates, not Angels and Demons !!!
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I don't think there is anything of the unsuccessful about someone who after working his entire life paying for and expecting to benefit from Medicare, and Social Security, now expects to receive those benefits they are entitled to. I personally don't equate success in life with material wealth. Quite honestly, I don't even know if there is even much of a link.
Mitt Romney is someone who believes that he should keep more of his gains, and in order to do that, believes the rest of us should keep less of ours. I don't know if that's so much capitalistic or socialist so much as it is, human.
I should also note, that there is no relationship between hard work and wealth accumulation. Lots of people work hard and don't get paid very much. Mitt stopped working for a living in 1999, yet earned a salary for a no show job at least three years after that. Since then he has earned roughly 20 million dollars a year living off his investments.
I am critical of Mitt, but I don't demonize him. I do think he is a product of a business which long ago took us down a wrong economic path, one that persuaded us that we could become rich not by working and producing things of value, but through financial manipulation. I think both Republicans and Democrats have taken that path, and members of both parties still do.
I don't do hero worship myself. I have never thought Barack Obama was the Messiah or anything other than a flawed individual. Among other things, I think he is too enamored with the Wall Street wing of the party, with too little awareness of the long term damage it's done to our economy and our country. But at least he isn't committed to making things worse, at least not at the pace Mitt Romney is.
As recently as four years ago, Republican policies nearly destroyed this country. I don't want to return to those policies again.
--Hiram
Since you are open minded, what are the positive things about Romney as President? Just curious.
I think what you are seeing are the effects of having a binary choice at the election. To admit that your favored candidate has flaws, or that there may be something of merit about the opponent, is to narrow the field on which that choice must be made. For most humans, the wider that gap the easier the choice and thus, once made on whatever basis, we widen that gap at every opportunity, to keep our choice simple.
"My mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts" is a common put-down of people such as you found, but I don't know that it is intellectual laziness so much as just conserving intellectual energy for more important things. If government weren't so powerful and intrusive, we COULD reasonably spend time thinking about other things. I intend to vote for candidates who seem to think that same way.
Use me as the perfect example of my premise. I didn't vote for Obama last time, and I said then I would predict that everything he did or said would be wrong. I will say only one good thing about him: he hasn't disappointed me. :-\
J. Ewing
I have no problem admitting Obama has flaws, or that he has made mistakes. Much of what he has done has been disputable or the function of compromise. He adopted an essentially Republican approach to health care in order to secure business support for it, and possibly in the naive expectation that he could get some Republican support in Congress for it. As it turned out, he got the business support he needed, but not the Republican support which it turned out he didn't need.
Obama is far too close to Wall Street. The Democratic Party in general, has too a far greater extent than it should bought into the idea that financial manipulation creates wealth, as opposed to the illusion of wealth.
The facts are clear enough, and not much in dispute. The country is getting older. That means the portion of our population that is becoming more dependent on savings, more in need of health care, is becoming less productive. That doesn't reflect any moral judgments, it's simply a fact. The judgments, ethical, moral and economic come into play when we start determining a policy response to these realities. Mostly in recent decades, our policy response has been to have no policy at all; to pretend that a magical marketplace will cure society's problems.
These things are simple, and you don't have to have gone to Harvard to understand them. What a Harvard education does seem to be good for is teaching strategies for obscuring these problems while passing the burden of them on, unnoticed, to others.
--Hiram
J,
Excellent thoughts regarding human behaviors and beliefs.
As for Obama, he did sign to renew the Bush tax cuts and has worked to get us out of Iraq/Afganistan. Those must be positives?
Hiram,
Ironic then that they both went Harvard...
"...he did sign to renew the Bush tax cuts and has worked to get us out of Iraq/Afganistan. Those must be positives?"
Nope, no credit. He was the one who wanted the Bush tax cuts killed, so being forced to sign them by the crush of reality is not a positive for him. The Iraq handover had already been negotiated by the Bush administration, so no credit there, either. Obama disliked the Iraq war but said that Afghanistan is the "necessary" war. Once in office, he announces to our enemies that all they have to do is wait until after /his/ surge passes, and then he will withdraw by a date certain. That's folly AND surrender, by most fair interpretations. Not exactly a victory so again not a positive, but a big negative.
Yes, he gave the go-ahead to kill bin Laden, after the Bush policies tracked him down and the military came to him with the plan all worked out. Does he get credit for saying "OK, go ahead"? I think not. However, I suppose you could say that was one thing-- an itty bitty thing-- that he did right. Hurrah. Or is it Harrumph?
J. Ewing
Oh come, he is trying to pass the tax cut extension (minus those for the wealthy) and Bush would have had us still buried in the desert.
We probably would have had troops in Iran also...
Hmmm, yes, the Obama campaign is going to run on exactly that sort of narrative. "Yes, we've screwed up everything we touched, but imagine how much WORSE it would have been if Republicans had been in charge (or are put in charge)."
He is trying to pass the tax cut extension for some, that's true, but doing nothing about the HUGE tax increases caused by Obamacare and other tax policies. In fact, the only reason he's doing anything at all is so he can (lie and) say he is "cutting taxes" when in fact all he's doing is not raising them, in one small area, for some people. Sorry, no credit there, either.
OK, you may have guessed which side of the debate I'm on. I don't think I'm demonizing anybody, but just stating the facts as I see them. Always, they reinforce my previous decision that Obama was and is a disaster and has to go. Again, from a binary perspective, I don't see any single fact that would change that decision. To the contrary, every time I look at one of the facts, I either come to the same conclusion or recognize that the new information is insufficient to alter that conclusion.
J.
It is interesting that ~50% of the citizens will likely vote for Obama and you can not find one redeeming quality. It seems Taibbi and yourself have a lot in common.
However that makes sense since it seems to be a human condition... Especially with humans that are further off to the Left and Right...
Again, perhaps I see no need to find "one redeeming virtue" about Obama, because that would make the choice less clear and, given sufficient of them, make the choice more difficult. I might even have to think about it. :-) I don't think there is much danger, though. Besides, to admit to a good point weakens my persuasive case against him, so why should I?
I'm a bit concerned because you speak about those "further off to the left and right" as if it were some immutable or unavoidable condition, like blue eyes or cancer. I am convinced that you have to reason your way into being a conservative, and you can reason your way into being a classic liberal, at least, though I suspect modern liberals may be different in that regard. I am reminded of Churchill's quote, "If you're not liberal when you're 25 you have no heart. If you're not conservative at 35 you have no brain."
You've been asking for, essentially, reasons why people will make the binary choice that they will on 11/6. I believe 30% will vote R as they always have; 35% will vote D as they always do; 25% will make a decision based on a (usually emotional) reaction to a political ad or a (usually biased) news report, and 10% or less will make a truly reasoned decision based on multiple points and sources of information.
I do NOT include myself in that 10%. I cannot. I did once, but when I realized that I had NEVER found a reason to vote for a Democrat, I joined the GOP and never found a sufficient reason to vote otherwise.
J. Ewing
a"I see no need to find "one redeeming virtue" about Obama, because that would make the choice less clear and, given sufficient of them, make the choice more difficult."
And really doesn't this go to the heart of the problem we are having in our national discourse? What we see here is that the conclusion is dictating the premise of the argument. In order to achieve the goal of clarity, we must decide not to find complicating factors. Such factors might exist, mind you, but they must be dismissed because they might make the conclusion we have already determined, harder to reach.
Do admission of good points weakens the persuasive case? Does the fact I recognize that Mitt Romney is a good and decent man, a patriotic American of extraordinary abilities in any way weaken the arguments that he is not the best choice for president? Isn't there something wrong with a discourse that seeks to ignore obvious facts instead of responding to them? Is ignorance really such an effective persuasion tool?
--Hiram
Of course, people can be in different seats in the theater. G2A The Theater And they usually are.
Below is a randomly chosen diagram that paints the picture pretty clearly. Now the battle revolves around what is the best balance point on the continuum to maximize the USA's long term success.
Nathan Kleffman Nolan Diagram
Nathan Kleffman Thoughts
Pure socialism leads to waste, demotivation, etc and pure capitalism also yields waste, demotivation, etc. Somewhere in between is a sweet spot where the successful stay motivated, and the "not yet successful" have the support systems to enable their hope and motivation.
The American system is a pretty fascinating system. If the majority feel successful, they will likely vote for less support/taxes. If the majority feel unsuccessful, they will vote for more support/taxes. It will be interesting to see which they vote for in Nov.
By the way, I agree with Hiram that a wise man sees both sides of the discussion or person. Often most people will respect them and their thoughts more for it.
Can I disagree with Nolan? I can't imagine that Personal liberty and personal security are opposites, nor moreso that economic security and liberty are opposed. Socialism produces an equal sharing of misery, while capitalism produces an unequal sharing of great wealth. It is obvious. Likewise, when the State is supreme, you are secure from outside influences of all kinds, but the state may do away with you at will-- that's not security.
I should say in my own defense that I am aware of the flaws in my chosen candidate, as I am aware when the opposing candidate gets something right, but I see no reason to discuss those things because they are NEVER sufficient to change my mind, or even to question my choices. In the limited time or space I have to persuade someone to my side of the argument I omit the complications.
I have found, for example, that the voting records of MN legislators is such that the "worst" Republican is better than the "best" DFLer. And there is almost 70 points difference in the average score of the two party cauci.
J. Ewing
about "If the majority feel successful, they will likely vote for less support/taxes. If the majority feel unsuccessful, they will vote for more support/taxes."
I see it differently. It seems to me maybe 50% believe in a strong govt safety net. In 2010 some of these people sat out the election, allowing the GOP to make big gains in congress and in state legislatures.
I think the biggest problem for dems is all the people who benefit from safety net programs who never vote. I also think that there are many low income GOP voters who vote against their interest.
As I understand it a Romney/Ryan victory will increase the number of uninsured by 20-30 million. Do average voters know this, do they care? I think many who will be affected will not even vote.
There are so many programs whose funding is on the line in this election, even ones that help the middle class, such as the $2500 tuition tax credit.
Lastly, I see Obama as having a couple of significant short comings, such as being too close to wall street and having a poor record on civil liberties (continuing Bush policies.) Also, Romney might have been a decent candidate back in the 90's, in the age of a more moderate GOP (that had leaders such as A. Carlson and D. Durenburger.)
I am pretty certain that the author of the particular version added his own descriptions. I just liked how he tried to place the different governmental systems on the diagram. The point being that different people at different times have supported different balances of Community vs Personal freedoms/economics.
In fact, I would propose that a static government would be doomed to failure. Because it would not balance the needs of all in a manner that optimizes engagement, peace, finances, etc. (ie the system would become unstable and topple or implode)
Nolan's apparently labelled them slightly different. Maybe you will like these better. Wiki Nolan Chart Image
Wiki Nolan Chart Defined I am happy to hear that you can see the good and bad in the each human.
The reason I see the system as a big balance scale is because I think many many people vote their wallet. And if the majority feel that the "safety net" is going to cost them more than it will save them, then they will vote against it. Where as if the majority see more benefits at less personal expense, then they will vote for the "safety net". The problem of course is that all this DEBT is clouding the consequences of our decisions and dampening the scales effectiveness.
And yes I agree that there are true believers that vote their beliefs and not their wallet. Many Conservatives simply don't want their tax dollars subsidizing everyone's education, healthcare, etc. They don't see that as Govt's job.
Remember 2 of my favorite quotes by Ben Franklin:
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
"There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people mroe easily and more frequently fall than that of defrauding the government."
You should look at a book sometime called "The Myth of the Rational Voter." http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Bryan-Caplan/dp/1937264351/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346938525&sr=1-2&keywords=myth+of+the+rational+voter
I believe that voter motivations are pretty much as I have outlined them. Those who "vote their wallets" are most likely those working for government, not those receiving the benefits. Those receiving benefits have been told they are "entitled" to them, so don't worry that they will be taken away and don't vote. And even government employees sometimes realize that their jobs and benefits are unsustainable and vote to make them more so. All in all, that leaves about 95% of the populace in the "irrational" category as I have described.
J.
Those who "vote their wallets" are most likely those working for government, not those receiving the benefits.
There are many examples to the contrary. I have frequently come across people who are highly dependent on government without seeming to realize it. Clearly enough, those who voted for George Bush twice, may very well have thought they were voting in their own economic interests, but the results proved rather decisively otherwise.
==Hiram
What are you talking about? Democrats surely rely on and encourage the young and disenfranchised to vote their wallet. (Ie dependent / entitled) Remember the Voter ID fight and ACORN... That is a large chunk of their base.
And Lord knows the Republicans rely on people to vote for lower taxes. (Ie their wallet) A wealthier friend of mine goes on and on about the additional $18,000/yr in taxes he'll pay if Obama gets elected.
OK, I see your point, John. People are "voting their wallet" by voting Democrat or Republican, but my point is that they aren't using their wallet as their primary motivation in any given election. Having decided that their economic interests are best served by one or the other party [the Democrats are the party for the "little people" and the Republicans are "for the rich" even though both assumptions are false] they vote for that party in every election, ignoring any new or "real" information. In other words, you can assume they are voting their pocketbook because of who they are and who they vote for, but you are accepting the Myth of the Rational Voter to do so.
Let me put it another way. If every voter had rationally considered his (lack of) qualifications and (lack of positive) agenda, would Obama have been elected 4 years ago? If anyone looks objectively at his performance in office, can they rationally support his re-election? I can't imagine it.
J. Ewing
BTW, who is Taibbi??
J.
By the Republican's own charges, there are many who would rationally vote for Obama. They include:
- Pro-Choicers (goes w/o saying)
- The folks on TANF & those that support the programs
- The Public schools that he waived NCLB for.
- The young law breaking border hoppers that he gave immunity to. Those against the AZ immigration laws.
- Those that benefit from or support socialized healthcare
- The vast majority that would benefit if he passed the Bush tax cut continuation for the 95% of us
Seems rational that he is meeting their needs pretty well. Whether it is best for America is a totally different discussion.
Taibbi is the biased author of the Rolling Stones articles that were linked to in the previous post. He would argue that it is terrible irrational to elect Romney. The one who made his fortune by incurring debt, pocketing the cash and leaving others to pick up the mess / deal with the consequences.
CATO Myth Summary
Wiki Myth Summary
I will try to read them later.
"By the Republican's own charges, there are many who would rationally vote for Obama."
Republicans would cite these folks as reason to vote against Democrats, of course, for "right thinking" people, but again, I would argue that many of these groups would vote for Democrats regardless of any real or even promised actions on their behalf.
Any incumbent election usually hinges on whether the incumbent's reality-- their record-- can compete with the challenger's promises. Unless the incumbent is a Democrat, in which case they can make promises regardless of their record, and many voters will vote Democrat having heard no promise at all except that "Republicans are worse." I still believe it's mostly a belief system, not a rational choice, for most people.
J.
I don't think Democrat and Republican voters are that different.
I keep hearing the Republicans say that they are fiscally responsible, yet it looks like Reagan, Bush and Bush have highest percentage of national debt gains in recent history. Zfacts National Debt And I am foolishly planning to vote for them again. Definitely irrational...
Of course the other key "rational/irrational" topic is ProChoice/ProLife (ie antichoice) topic.
In which the Democrats want people to have the freedom to choose if they want to abort the fetus. And would have Government / Society help raise the child if they choose life.
And the Republicans want to force Parents to grow every fetus and turn them into young children. Yet they don't want Government / Society to help raise the precious little lives that they demanded be delivered.
It sounds like you are correct. Citizens are irrational in many ways. But I don't think it varies by party affiliation.
I think we're starting to agree. Citizens tend to vote in "irrational" ways, but it stems, IMHO, from my original premise that most people settle on a position (or candidate or a party) and then don't entertain any intellectual conflict. The other problem is that it is far too simplistic to blame Reagan and Bush for increasing the debt when Democrats controlled the Congress for at least part of that time, and entitlements drove up the budget with no oversight at all. If people won't even entertain the least information, they certainly aren't going to get down in the weeds of policy that not even the politicians have tackled.
The reason I see a difference between party affiliations is because it is easier to be a liberal. All you have to do is "feel" that something "should be" a certain way and, certain that /I/ don't want to do it, dump it off on government. Conservatives, for the most part, must at some point find reasons for something that seems contradictory to their own interest, like having to earn one's own way rather than drawing welfare. I also know too many Republicans who find fault with a Republican candidate for being "imperfect" and then won't vote Republican. I've never known a Democrat that would entertain any such notion. The liberal mind is perfectly happy with such contradictions. Notice I said "35% always vote D, and 30% R"? I think that's roughly the difference.
J.
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