Since I have come to the conclusion tha America is dying of conservatism...

[Moonbeam]

Excellent response.

This would be a sort of received truth kind of thinking. You accept what he says because it fits your group think. In this thread my intent was to show how typical that is of conservatives. A little self reflection should, I think, have told you that had you not wanted to act out or type, you would have expressed the internal analysis you went through that brought you to your current state of thinking.

 

[monovillage]

This would be a sort of received truth kind of thinking. You accept what he says because it fits your group think. In this thread my intent was to show how typical that is of conservatives. A little self reflection should, I think, have told you that had you not wanted to act out or type, you would have expressed the internal analysis you went through that brought you to your current state of thinking.

I think it works this way with everybody, not just conservatives. We all certainly see this same thinking among the far left part of our family of posters here at ATP&N. I honestly know of no one that isn't affected by confirmation bias, no one. I include myself in that observation.

 

[Moonbeam]

Tripe, nonsense, and FUD.

30 years ago you'd be using the same arguments against blacks. Head on over to Storm Front Moony, you'll fit right in.

Thank you for your deep and self reflective analysis. The part I find troubling, other than the presence of a single thread of intelligent thought, is the absurd assumption you make. Perhaps because you are still somewhat a child in age, or simply as a produce of dysfunctional thinking, you don't seem to realize that I might have been alive 30 years ago and well into my majority, and if not so old today as to have totally lost the ability to remember anything yesterday, much less thirty years ago, I would ACTUALLY KNOW if your self assured statement that I would be using that same argument against blacks is IN FACT or not just YOU FUCKING LYING OUT OF YOUR ASS. So while nobody else can know whether you're a complete dick head to make such a statement as fact, it might be that I can.

 

[Ninjahedge]

Human beings, in general, are scared of change.

We are lazy, unwilling to learn, and pattern critters.

Conservative leanings facilitate this.

Is this a 100% bad thing? Not really. If something works, why change it? The problem comes when something better comes around, or when that original "something" does not quite work as well as it used to.

Conservatism is the old fart that will do things "My way gol-dangit!" and the liberal is the teenage rebel that will screw everything up, but still comes up with the next Widget that changes the Thingamabob industry.

We need a bit of both, but getting a teenager that is a little less disrespectful, and a crumudgen that is a little more willing to listen would be what we should be striving for. Tell Hannity to stick it, and tell MM to stop whining. Stop listening to celebrities on either side in order to determine how you are going to think and treat them like the humans they are.

And most of all, stop drinking Lite Beer. It don't "taste great" and "Less filling" don't matter a rats ass.

 

[cubby1223]

Wow...

My experience is when you corner people and really get down to who we are, there is little difference between conservatives, progressives, independents, men, women, whites, blacks, whatever. We all pretty much want the same thing, the primary difference is, what does each individual possess in life, and what does that individual not possess.

And every now and then you have a "creature" like Moonbeam.

 

[monovillage]

Human beings, in general, are scared of change.

We are lazy, unwilling to learn, and pattern critters.

Conservative leanings facilitate this.

Is this a 100% bad thing? Not really. If something works, why change it? The problem comes when something better comes around, or when that original "something" does not quite work as well as it used to.

Conservatism is the old fart that will do things "My way gol-dangit!" and the liberal is the teenage rebel that will screw everything up, but still comes up with the next Widget that changes the Thingamabob industry.

We need a bit of both, but getting a teenager that is a little less disrespectful, and a crumudgen that is a little more willing to listen would be what we should be striving for. Tell Hannity to stick it, and tell MM to stop whining. Stop listening to celebrities on either side in order to determine how you are going to think and treat them like the humans they are.

And most of all, stop drinking Lite Beer. It don't "taste great" and "Less filling" don't matter a rats ass.

Good post and I agree with just about all of it, especially the part about that abomination against all that is good in this world......light beer. A good post but still ........................Get off my lawn.

 

[Ninjahedge]

/me feels threatened.......

[btw, Clint ref?]

 

[Moonbeam]

I think it works this way with everybody, not just conservatives. We all certainly see this same thinking among the far left part of our family of posters here at ATP&N. I honestly know of no one that isn't affected by confirmation bias, no one. I include myself in that observation.

To include yourself in that observation is not a typical conservative reaction although this may be a safe one to consider.

When we speak of science and the growth of its rejection on the right we are talking about a specific kind of consensual thinking. Why did science acquire credence in the first place other than that its whole strength lay in the notion that anybody with the tools and the knowledge could replicate the experiment and get the same results. Science is consensus thinking among scientists that trickles down to the rest of us not so trained or wealthy to buy the experimental equipment required to do our own testing. We simply accept the peer reviewed results as our best present guess at the facts. It is rational consensual thinking based on a tradition of faith in the ability of the human mind to postulate and intuit and recheck information from data. The ability to observe events and infer laws from those events is taken on faith as different folk agree on the accuracy of what is found.

This is totally different than the imbecilic belief that because a book contradicts the evidence before your eyes that the book has to be right and the data wrong because some Deity says so. But there are millions of people who, for the promised salvation of their souls, make asses of themselves in this life. And they are dangerous because they will put you to the stake if you do anything to threaten their delusional salvation.

Please realize that science can say nothing as to the existence of salvation or God, in my own personal and completely individual way I believe in a reality where the essence of both exist, and which for me, of course, means that I don't lose either because religious texts are full of shit.

That means, therefore, that for me the religiously literal, the fundamentalist, are not only insane, but insane without reason. But as soon as your salvation is tied to false notions or the literal meaning of texts you become a psychopath and when your psychopathology operated in politics, you become a danger to sanity. Thus my interest in curing this disease.

 

[monovillage]

/me feels threatened.......

[btw, Clint ref?]

It really, really predates Clint. Hell, it even predates me.

 

[Moonbeam]

Moonbeam is so full of hatred. Such an ugly emotion. I'm not surprised to see it come from someone like him though, he has to identify "enemies" and attack them at every opportunity. It's because of his self-hate that he lashes out at others, it lets him forget how much he hates himself.

What you have done here is not self analysis but focusing on me. Here is my analysis.

I am filled with hate and I hate myself for it. I can't seem to stop this. I struggle and struggle to overcome this because hating bothers my conscious and my ego. I am really fucked because I hate, and I hate because I hate myself and I hate hate. What am I to do. I really am completely fucked. Why am I fucked what is the nature of my trap, what assumption am I making?

Wait, could it be that hate isn't bad, that I'm not bad because I hate but because, feeling that hating is bad, I only feel that I am bad and all of this will go away as soon as I stop hating hate? And in the mean time, while I look for the way to stop hating hate, I relax a bit and enjoy the weather, that I stop this incessant avoidance of pain, that I admit to myself that I feel I'm the worst piece of shit on the planet, but that it's just a feeling. WEEEEEEEEE! I feel much better now but I have a new problem.

As soon as I tell Bobette he hates himself too and doesn't have to buy into that lie, I'm not just going to have my own self hate to deal with, but his hat of me too. Maybe I shouldn't tell him, eh, and let him rot in the hell that used to hold me. But if I did that, it would be me hating him which is just me hating me. Freedom sweet freedom. I can tell him or not, it's all the same to me. If I do it because I hate him or me doesn't matter a wit beaus I'm no longer plagued by the notion that hate is bad.

I couldn't and can't help but hate because I was told I was worthless by folk who were told the same. But the minute I forgive me I'll forgive everybody.

And of course we all know we have been forgiven, do we not?

 

[Matt1970]

I have been doing some research of late on the nature of the conservative brain. Know thy enemy as they say. And as a random choice of references to a book just ready for reading on this topic I randomly selected this from the Daily Kos:


The Conservative Brain

by hannahFollow .

So, Chris Mooney is publishing a book on the conservative brain, linking it with the Republican party and the denial of the theory of global warming. But, as usual, he's looking at results and looking for causes that, from where I sit, are merely correlations.

Well, I think we need to understand three points in order to understand why conservatives act this way. And I will list them here, before going into them in more detail:
1.Conservatism is a Defensive Ideology, and Appeals to People Who Want Certainty and Resist Change.
2. "Morality" Impels Climate Denial -- and in particular, conservative Individualism.

3.Fox News is the Key "Feedback Mechanism" -- whereby people already inclined to believe false things get all the license and affirmation they need.

And what I'd argue is that the people who have found a home in the Republican party are people who suffer from some sensory deficits. That is, they are lacking most, if not all, of the following:
sense of time
sense of direction
sense of order
sense of connection
sense of surroundings
sense of place
sense of sequence
sense of temperature
sense of rhythm
sense of situation

They exist in the center of the universe, looking out and, if they don't see something, it doesn't exist. So, since they can't see themselves, their sense of self is missing, as well.
Why have these sensorially deprived people found a home in the Republican party? I suspect it's because, being endemically uncertain about their situation and insecure, they appreciate having a leader to tell them what to do and that's what the "re" in the word Republican stands for, a "rex" or leader of and from the public.
=============

Another study in England suggests that the fear part of the brain is larger in conservatives, which all ties in.

It seems clear to me that if the conservative brain is out of whack and irrational, we need to do something to to try to prevent defectives from running the show. The first issue is that because paranoids are control freaks, they are going to invest huge amounts of energy to resist this.

Now just as it's challenging to get a drunk into rehabilitation, it is going to always be preferable that folk go to the doctor themselves.

So how do we inform folk who are defective in their vision to see that themselves? Is there any way we can help them to help themselves?

Some thoughts I have:

Suppose their brains really are defective when it comes to political thinking and they tend to vote paranoid schizophrenic. They are not going to want to see it if we call it as a disease. Denial is going to kick right in. Folk are fearful of having something wrong with them. So surely there are conditions in which it is evolutionary beneficial to be defective and we need to look for them. The paranoid may sometimes maybe function like geese, warning of impending danger. We know also that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean folk aren't out to get you. But we don't want the geese in control of nuclear weapons.

As stated above, one of the characteristics of conservatives is that they don't see themselves. I tell them this all the time and they say they don't see it. Well duh.

So I thought as my theme for this thread I would go with the following idea:

We can ask ourselves how we came to think as we do. My guess is that conservatives won't have given that matter very much thought at all and that what they think is what they have been told to think. But that's a terrible place to be because you could have been told anything. This means that a conservative has no more idea that what he believes isn't as absurd as the garbage some suicide bomber that grew up in a madrassa believes.

So what I thought is that we can ask ourselves how we came to believe what we believe. Are we questioners, self examiners, self critics or have we just always known what we know. Recognizing that you have never really looked at what you believe, torn it apart from within, could begin to indicate to those like that they are blind and don't really know anything.

Did you have to destroy everything you were taught as an inculcated delusion that couldn't hold up under honest self scrutiny? Have you ever been plagued by doubt? Are you still have a literal belief in the religion you grew up in?

Take a look around. Aren't those others out there you fear just like you and isn't it you they are afraid of? Why would anybody want to really be like that, deny reality because you are afraid. This is a well known psychological phenomena. It's called the ostrich with its head in the sand. Wouldn't it make you proud of yourself to grow up past that?

Do not believe what the extreme left prints about the extreme right and vice versa. Anyone who is looking to write a story like that is only going to choose facts that suit their cause. Believing such stories shows a very closed mind.

 

[Ninjahedge]

It really, really predates Clint. Hell, it even predates me.

I know, I just remember it in that one flik, which I can't remember the name of now.

So it is a ref of a ref...

 

[werepossum]

This would be a sort of received truth kind of thinking. You accept what he says because it fits your group think. In this thread my intent was to show how typical that is of conservatives. A little self reflection should, I think, have told you that had you not wanted to act out or type, you would have expressed the internal analysis you went through that brought you to your current state of thinking.

Um, no. I accept what he says because it fits with reality. I cannot explain reality in the time it takes my drawing to load, sorry.

Human beings, in general, are scared of change.

We are lazy, unwilling to learn, and pattern critters.

Conservative leanings facilitate this.

Is this a 100% bad thing? Not really. If something works, why change it? The problem comes when something better comes around, or when that original "something" does not quite work as well as it used to.

Conservatism is the old fart that will do things "My way gol-dangit!" and the liberal is the teenage rebel that will screw everything up, but still comes up with the next Widget that changes the Thingamabob industry.

We need a bit of both, but getting a teenager that is a little less disrespectful, and a crumudgen that is a little more willing to listen would be what we should be striving for. Tell Hannity to stick it, and tell MM to stop whining. Stop listening to celebrities on either side in order to determine how you are going to think and treat them like the humans they are.

And most of all, stop drinking Lite Beer. It don't "taste great" and "Less filling" don't matter a rats ass.

Another excellent post. The gist of conservatism is that this country is great and therefore change may screw it up. The gist of liberalism is that this country is not great, or at the least not as great as it could be, and therefore needs to be changed. In reality this is a pretty great country, but it can be better, and ultimately change is inevitable. Both sides are essential, and both sides have good points and bad points.

I have no opinion on light beer; to me all beer tastes like skunk piss. (Well, to be accurate, the taste I assume for skunk piss.)

 

[Ninjahedge]

wp... you need to try some different skunks then!!

 

[IGBT]

when the US breaks up into numerous sovereign entities just think how much fun you'll have being a supreme being dictator of your own independent entity. You can even design your own military uniform..wear mirror sun glasses and ride a horse. You can even make everybody call you Colonel!!

 

[cubby1223]

We are all driven by self interest.

Take for example a 80 year old person with no children, go up to him and say you want $10k of his savings and in return, in 100 years time the global temperature will be 1 degree cooler.

Moonbeam, if you truly believe this person's refusal to hand over his money is from a defective brain, then there is no hope for you and we all should stop feeding the troll.

It is in this person's best self interest to keep his own money.

Now take a 20-year old who has decided to devote his life to being a climate activist, he pushes forward because through his actions he receives personal support from the people around him who support his cause.

 

[Moonbeam]

Do not believe what the extreme left prints about the extreme right and vice versa. Anyone who is looking to write a story like that is only going to choose facts that suit their cause. Believing such stories shows a very closed mind.

No, that's not the point. The point is the real one you just made, that a conservative mind is incapable of even considering the possibilities the thesis suggests, that the defect in the conservative mind is that it can't be defective and no self analysis is required, just like you just did.

 

[hal2kilo]

wp... you need to try some different skunks then!!

Definately avoid Corona. Beer in clear glass

 

[werepossum]

What you have done here is not self analysis but focusing on me. Here is my analysis.

I am filled with hate and I hate myself for it. I can't seem to stop this. I struggle and struggle to overcome this because hating bothers my conscious and my ego. I am really fucked because I hate, and I hate because I hate myself and I hate hate. What am I to do. I really am completely fucked. Why am I fucked what is the nature of my trap, what assumption am I making?

Wait, could it be that hate isn't bad, that I'm not bad because I hate but because, feeling that hating is bad, I only feel that I am bad and all of this will go away as soon as I stop hating hate? And in the mean time, while I look for the way to stop hating hate, I relax a bit and enjoy the weather, that I stop this incessant avoidance of pain, that I admit to myself that I feel I'm the worst piece of shit on the planet, but that it's just a feeling. WEEEEEEEEE! I feel much better now but I have a new problem.

As soon as I tell Bobette he hates himself too and doesn't have to buy into that lie, I'm not just going to have my own self hate to deal with, but his hat of me too. Maybe I shouldn't tell him, eh, and let him rot in the hell that used to hold me. But if I did that, it would be me hating him which is just me hating me. Freedom sweet freedom. I can tell him or not, it's all the same to me. If I do it because I hate him or me doesn't matter a wit beaus I'm no longer plagued by the notion that hate is bad.

I couldn't and can't help but hate because I was told I was worthless by folk who were told the same. But the minute I forgive me I'll forgive everybody.

And of course we all know we have been forgiven, do we not?

I understand none of that. One's value is set by G-d, not what value people set with their flawed perceptions. Someone who tells you that you are worthless is saying only that you are worthless to him/her, and no one is put here to be of value to everyone. For myself, I hate no one, including myself. How could I hate myself given that I have the unique power to change myself? I hate some few specific things I have done, but I am much more than those few things, and I always have the power to not repeat them. There are no others whom I hate either. There are certainly a very few people I think need to be removed from this world, but as none of them have any power over me, nor I them, I have no need to hate them. Since I do not know G-d's plan for them and thus cannot know (although I can certainly suspect) whether they are acting in accordance with it, I have no right to hate them. And in any case, I have the freedom to choose not to allow them that power over me.

Even the Usama bin Ladins among us shouldn't be hated, merely put down like rabid dogs. Hate is always bad; it is corrosive. To hate another is to give them power over oneself, and while it is sometimes overpowering it is always to be fought. To hate another is oneself is worse - it is to spite G-d.

That transcendental enough for ya Moonie?

 

[Moonbeam]

werepossum: Um, no. I accept what he says because it fits with reality. I cannot explain reality in the time it takes my drawing to load, sorry.

M: The problem with this, of course, is that it mirrors conservative thinking, the assumption that reality needs no analysis because the conservative already knows what it is. Thus any attempt to deflect from that just makes more suspicious I'm hearing assumption filled thinking, the assumption that what you think reality is reality. You give me no reason to believe that here.

w: Another excellent post. The gist of conservatism is that this country is great and therefore change may screw it up. The gist of liberalism is that this country is not great, or at the least not as great as it could be, and therefore needs to be changed. In reality this is a pretty great country, but it can be better, and ultimately change is inevitable. Both sides are essential, and both sides have good points and bad points.

M: Which is why I am neither liberal or conservative but some third way, the integration of opposites via insight into their essential identity.

W: I have no opinion on light beer; to me all beer tastes like skunk piss. (Well, to be accurate, the taste I assume for skunk piss.)

M: This is an example of self analysis and the refinement of understanding. We do this more when the conclusions are safe. Where they upend sacred cows, not so much. Your salvation, for example, does not rest on your belief in what skunk piss tastes like. In fact, there was some ego boosting to be obtained by a plea of ignorance. Let me hasten to add that I don't know what it tastes like either.

 

[Ninjahedge]

I avoid it mainly from the commercials.

1. I am not some dumb ass that will be drinking brewskis while sunbathing.

2. The (rumor) is that lime/lemon was used to kill the germs on the bottles the beer was in, not to add flavor to the pisswater. If you want candy/tangy/fruity flavor have a whiskey sour or a mojito. (Or whatever they are calling "cosmo's" these days).

3. I am not PAYING for their commercials. The beer costs squat to produce and distribute, I am not paying $10 more a case for it because they have hotties in bikinis (or big horses pulling sleds, or men running around yelling about stuff looking athletic while "drinking responsibly").

Cubby, you are right about the 80yo, but your qualification (no children) puts him in the minority. It is also a fallacy as he will most likely not be paying much, if any taxes, if they were to implement this (why take what you may need to reimburse because he lives "too long"?). If he IS one of the few that is sitting on a nest egg that could choke Rosanne Barr, then WTFGAS, pay up scrooge!

 

[BoberFett]

Did I miss a hidden conversation about beer???

 

[Atomic Playboy]

This thread is apparently now about beer. To that end, I had one of these a couple weeks ago that was delicious; a far cry from the piss-water lagers that are so prevalent in this country.

 

[Ninjahedge]

Did I miss a hidden conversation about beer???

Politics and Booze.

Can't separate 'em, don't wanna try.

 

[Moonbeam]

I understand none of that. One's value is set by G-d, not what value people set with their flawed perceptions. Someone who tells you that you are worthless is saying only that you are worthless to him/her, and no one is put here to be of value to everyone. For myself, I hate no one, including myself. How could I hate myself given that I have the unique power to change myself? I hate some few specific things I have done, but I am much more than those few things, and I always have the power to not repeat them. There are no others whom I hate either. There are certainly a very few people I think need to be removed from this world, but as none of them have any power over me, nor I them, I have no need to hate them. Since I do not know G-d's plan for them and thus cannot know (although I can certainly suspect) whether they are acting in accordance with it, I have no right to hate them. And in any case, I have the freedom to choose not to allow them that power over me.

Even the Usama bin Ladins among us shouldn't be hated, merely put down like rabid dogs. Hate is always bad; it is corrosive. To hate another is to give them power over oneself, and while it is sometimes overpowering it is always to be fought. To hate another is oneself is worse - it is to spite G-d.

That transcendental enough for ya Moonie?

Yes, very nice. This, I would say, is transcendence through the mind or Yoga. Do you know by chance if you are an INFJ?