GOP insanity containment thread 3: more human than strom thurman

Politics & News
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This is long but I think I have a point somewhere in here:

Over the years I’ve done a ton of online surveys as kind of a side hustle. There’s this boilerplate set of questions that pops up from time to time that apparently measures one’s idea of morality, asking you whether item X is relevant to your idea of right or wrong, with a 7-point scale of agreement. I found a summary of the terms they ask about, which is quoted below (The headings and the categories in caps don’t show up on an actual survey, just the phrases themselves in random order):

So I’ve filled out this set of questions about a hundred times over the years so I rarely give much thought to it, but it’s always the same for me: The “Fairness” stuff is always “extremely relevant”, the “Harm” is a notch or two down, and almost everything else is toward the bottom of the scale, some mix of “not at all” or “not very” relevant.

These always felt like very “standard” answers to me, and I never gave a ton of thought to how a more conservative person would answer them–like sure, maybe the Authority and Ingroup stuff would be a bit higher, maybe the God answer would take on much more importance for religious folks (although that doesn’t bother me, because any god I might happen to believe in would sure as hell be big on the Fairness and Harm stuff anyway).

But reading lagtight on here talking about fucking “wickedness” and “perversion” makes me realize that I’m probably just way off, and makes me feel hopeless trying to find any kind of common ground with a person like that. The more I think about it, the more I feel like the average Trump voter probably gives top ranks to the Respect and Traditions questions, all the Purity ones, and something close to the top for Ingroup.

Even the one thing that I would think is a given to sit at the top, the Fairness stuff, I could see easily floating down to the middle for these people, because, well, people being treated differently than others is probably considered a good thing as long as you come out on top, and being denied one’s rights is seen as something some people deserve.

It really makes me feel even more hopeless when it comes to talking about political shit with lagtight types because it’s like we’re speaking two different languages. The stuff we think about when determining good or bad isn’t even on some people’s radar, and vice versa.

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278

No. The most common thread is stupidity an/or ignorance. Most of the fears they have can be allayed by thinking about things critically for a few minutes. Or by learning some easy to discover facts. Fear is quite common also, but I’m putting general idiocy at the top of the “most common” list.

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279

It has become really apparent to me that I have absolutely no idea what’s going on in other peoples’ heads, and there is really no relationship between that and what’s going on in my own head. Sure, there are occasional points of intersection, but my experience is only my own. And if I don’t want to be judged for me having my own experience, I had better not judge other people for theirs. It is a work in progress and I fail literally every day, but that’s where I want to be.

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I’ve been strongly influenced by postmodernism, so the idea of a world where we all speak the same moral “language” seems ludicrous to me.

This is a relevant article

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While there is certainly something to the idea that conservatives and liberals have different moralities, I think framing accounts for a lot of it as well. For example, when I look at the pictures of the Trump boys going hunting in Africa and holding up bits of an elephant for the camera, disgust is the word. It’s not really that they’re hurting the elephant, I handwave away mistreatment of animals on farms on a daily basis. The problem is that these guys are fucking perverts, going down there and slaughtering majestic animals for their own gratification. But if I tried to show photos of the Alaskan wilderness to the “drill baby drill” crowd and explain that this is something sacred, they would be like “no no, see sacredness actually has to do with where you are allowed to stick your weewee”. And then I’d be like “you guys are fucking toddlers”. So it’s not that I don’t understand the emotions of sacredness and the violation of same, it’s that I have very different ideas from conservatives about what ought to inspire these emotions.

And again, while there is something to the idea that leftists struggle with establishing effective authority (as anyone who has witnessed collective governance attempts and internecine squabbling in leftist organizations will know) it also has to do with ideas of what authority ought to look like. The COVID pandemic has been an ongoing attempt by left-liberals to insist that scientists and governments ought to have the authority to tell us what to do and passionate resistance to this idea from conservatives. Conservatives simply have a very limited idea of what authority ought to look like, namely that it ought to be masculine and underpinned ultimately by violence, “the supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived” as Starship Troopers put it.

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https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1754325086725713932?s=20

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Does Biden actually have the ability to just close the border for Asylum seekers?

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I like how bible believers point to 2 or 3 verses in a book of 20,000+ to justify their hate/discrimination. Yet they conveniently ignore others that they deem to be outdated or opposes their worldview.

23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/nnzhu6/twenty_dumb_things_the_bible_says/

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Soyouresayingtheresachance.

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23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Haha I mentioned this passage to heritage not hate during a discussion months ago and he said Jesus didn’t say that :man_shrugging:

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Ackshually that verse totaaaaaally refers to a gate called the “eye of the needle” and camels had to kneel to fit or something because even the most obvious fucking lessons to take away are really parables.

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You CAN talk to these people.

I swear if I had a dollar for every person on the blue side I’ve told to read this book, I’d be rich, and they’d still feel hopeless because they didn’t actually read it…but seriously, go read “Don’t Think of an Elephant” by George Lakoff. Those questions you posted point to the EXACT premise of the book, and also point to the solution.

Yes, conservatives would score the “authority” and “purity” and “ingroup” sections very high because it is their entire philosophy, their worldview, possibly even their biology.

However, if we know this and correctly frame our ideas in ways that trigger positive responses in their brains, we actually can begin to overcome it. Unfortunately, not enough Democrats/Liberals/Progressives have ever bothered to read this kind of theory, so we absolutely suck at it. Not to mention, framing things this way automatically makes the ideas seem less progressive than they are (because progressives are positively triggered by VERY different framing) so people who do so get excoriated by “the left” for not being progressive enough.

Let me give an example:

Progressives say: single-payer health care is the most fair and equitable way to ensure every American has the healthcare they need, it’s a fundamental human right, and it’s the compassionate thing to do!

Thing is, Conservatives who believe in the authority of god, strict parents, USA#1, etc, just do NOT see it that way. To them, compassion is giving people the means to do things themselves, such as pay for their own health care.

So, how do we flip the script? We say: If health care is no longer tied to employment, that means more people will be FREE to start their own businesses, or they’ll be FREE to have a parent quit a bad job to take care of their family, or they’ll be FREE to find a better job that helps them reach the “American Dream.” America, fuck yeah! Land of the FREE and home of the brave.

The real challenge is keeping this type message in the forefront.

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301

I 100% believe you can talk to moderate republicans. You cannot talk to Trumpers.

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Agree with most of your post, but strongly disagree with the bolded.

Conservatives absolutely do not support “giving people the means to do things themselves”. If they did, they wouldn’t be against things like school lunches.

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No you’re right. I should have said “opportunity” not “means”

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We should be tolerant of at least some immoral beliefs and behavior.

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Who knows, maybe we’re the one goldilocks planet in the universe that ended up with a hooplehead god that fucked everything up real bad. I’m open to that viewpoint.

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Just bought and can’t wait to read it! I read the article NotBruceZ linked and came away pretty impressed. Hopefully, this is better

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I thought it was thou shall not wear white after labor day or something like that?

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Fairy tale believers really have unlocked the cheat code. “Other people can’t do these things because it’ll make them wicked so says my sacred book, but its ok for me to do these other things because Jesus died so I could and I believe in HIM!”.

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