Why are liberals so condescending? [Washington Post article]

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Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
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Conservatives think that everyone should be able to make their own choices, even if they are bad. Liberals think they know what's good for you better than you do, and that it is their job to enforce it.

That's right out of the Republican propaganda handbook. As I have explained, it's trying to demonize the group with the positions in favor of the public interest by portraying them as tyrants.

Menawhile they're trying to demonize the group acting in the public interest because it's a threat to their own agenda not in the public interest, to actually screw the people.
 

DietDrThunder

Platinum Member
Apr 6, 2001
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Which is funny because thats exactly what I thought of the Bush regime and republican controlled congress.
I guess republicans must be all liberals nowadays.

You are right, they are all condescending liberals, both Reps and Dems. I'm more conservative leaning, but as I look back at the JFK and LBJ eras, both were more conservative than any of the Reps or Dems of today. The only thing truely different between a Rep and a Dem in congress today is that the Reps "act" like they feel bad about large government.

They are all a stinking steaming pile of excrement. I'd like to see what changes would take place if candidates from the middle class took control of congress instead of all the elitist (Reps and Dems) that are controlling our country today.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
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You are right, they are all condescending liberals, both Reps and Dems. I'm more conservative leaning, but as I look back at the JFK and LBJ eras, both were more conservative than any of the Reps or Dems of today. The only thing truely different between a Rep and a Dem in congress today is that the Reps "act" like they feel bad about large government.

They are all a stinking steaming pile of excrement. I'd like to see what changes would take place if candidates from the middle class took control of congress instead of all the elitist (Reps and Dems) that are controlling our country today.

There's a lot of Republican revisionism around JFK, but I rarely see LBJ included as 'more conservative than Republicans today':)

The times were different enough that it's partly an apples and oranges comparison. A tax CUT meant to 70% top rate, where a tax INCREASE today is to 39%. JFK campaigned to expand Medicare - his enemy was Ronald Reagan who campaigned nationally against JFK for his 'socialized medicine' position. Today, no official in the two main parties is taking Reagan's position then.

LBJ, under Republican pressure, took the nation to war he didn't think we could win - in Vietnam. Was that 'conservative'? Is that something our Republicans today should emulate?

JFK and LBJ were liberals in another time. JFK was a 'radical' for peace - and a cold warrior leading the US in its most dangerous time of the cold war.

One thing that was different - they were big spending liberals' who had far more 'fiscal responsibility' than Republicans since Reagan, and really but to a lesser degree Nixon.

You appear confused by thie 'elitist' propaganda. That word is nothing but a word to try to get you to not pay attention to the REAL elitists, the rich who corrupt our political system.

JFK was a rich man - who was willing to attack is own class for the public interest. 'Middle class' politicians are often very willing to serve rich masters and attack their own class for their donors' interests.

The deficit today is a travesty. Behind it are a lot of bad policies - failing to protect workers, wall street deregulation, and much more. In JFK and LBJ's presidencies, manufacturing was 40-50% of the economy, union membership was high, while Wall Street was 10-15% of the economy. Today the reverse of all those things is the case.

Underlying why THAT'S the case is understanding that the rich have gotten control of our system - not directly, their numbers are few, but by propagandizing most of the public.

Even many who think they OPPOSE that agenda have really adopted it, by making 'the new left', ''centrist Democrats'. adopt a lot of its positions as the new 'middle' in politics.

Gone are the days when Eisenhower said those who opposed the public-assisting programs were a few radicals. The new 'left' is Clinton deregulating Wall Street saying 'the era of big government is over'.

The rich have a simple strategy for dominating politics: ensure that what only they can give is needed to win.

And they've just been given a gift by the radical right on the Supreme Court to let the rich really dominate from now on.

The people are losing a class war they don't know they're in and are trained to think they should not fight.
 

Thump553

Lifer
Jun 2, 2000
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* * * *I'm more conservative leaning, but as I look back at the JFK and LBJ eras, both were more conservative than any of the Reps or Dems of today.* * * *

What in the world do you base this conclusion on? Our society as a whole was much more liberal back in the sixties than it is today-we were more optimistic (both the WWII generation and us children). No way Bobby Kennedy's exposure of real hunger in America would cause much of stir now, and as far as LBJ's Great Society-an honest, if fatally flawed attempt to lift up the bottom rungs of American society-absolutely no chance today. Heck, even Dick Nixon's (failed) health care reform of the early seventies was far more "liberal" than anything forwarded by either Obama or Clinton.

We have become much more of a me-first society today, with the right cloaking their self-centeredness in distorted perceptions of what the Founding Fathers said.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
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What in the world do you base this conclusion on? Our society as a whole was much more liberal back in the sixties than it is today-we were more optimistic (both the WWII generation and us children). No way Bobby Kennedy's exposure of real hunger in America would cause much of stir now, and as far as LBJ's Great Society-an honest, if fatally flawed

Hardly. It achieved a permanent one-third cut in the percent of Americans below the poverty line.

attempt to lift up the bottom rungs of American society-absolutely no chance today. Heck, even Dick Nixon's (failed) health care reform of the early seventies was far more "liberal" than anything forwarded by either Obama or Clinton.

We have become much more of a me-first society today, with the right cloaking their self-centeredness in distorted perceptions of what the Founding Fathers said.
 

Panciro Giaco

Banned
Feb 7, 2010
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Sums up my thoughts about the lib posters here. A nasty crowd of villainy and scum the likes of which the internet has never seen before.

Very well said.

It used to be differing views all looking to preserve the Constitution.

It's different now. Liberals seek to blend America in to a world that hates Liberty.

It's us against them just like it was in the Civil War.
 

werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
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This is why Conservatives support decriminalization of drugs, Gay marriage, legalized prostitution, etc...

Unfortunately conservatives have followed liberals into falling in love with using the power of government to force people to behave as they wish.
 

Tab

Lifer
Sep 15, 2002
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God, has anyone even read this article? Fuck. I can't even believe this guy gets to have professor in front of his name.
 

werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
463
126
God, has anyone even read this article? Fuck. I can't even believe this guy gets to have professor in front of his name.

Yeah whatever happened to our beloved liberal litmus test for professors? Someone obviously had too much opium when they let him in the club.
 

woolfe9999

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2005
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Yeah whatever happened to our beloved liberal litmus test for professors? Someone obviously had too much opium when they let him in the club.

The article is awfully one-sided for someone pretending to be an academic. It maligns liberal criticisms of conservatives, while treating the lack of merit of those criticisms as an assumed premise. And it short shrifts conservative criticisms of liberals as supposedly being relegated to a few freaks like Glenn Beck. However liberal biased many academics are, most can at least manage a non-neligible amount of objectivety when they write on serious issues.

The article is, in short, a piece of shit, at least if it is posed as an objective and thoughtful piece rather than an ideological screed. There are a couple of valid points in there, like liberals overplaying the race card, but on balance it's shit.

- wolf
 

Deudalus

Golden Member
Jan 16, 2005
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He's a joke. See woolfe9999's post.

So is what you are saying is that anyone who is politically biased is not allowed to be a professor in this country?

Doesn't that pretty much mean Noam Chomsky should be fired? You do realize pretty much every Mass Communications department in this nation shuts down if that is the case right?

I don't care what any professor teaches as long as it isn't directly contrary to history or fact.

Like if there is a history professor who teaches the holocaust did not happen, that teacher should be fired because that is factually incorrect.

But if an economist professor teaches that supply side economics works or doesn't work, I've had both that think both, I don't mind if they spout their views as long as they can back them up.

What's wrong with that as long as you aren't punished for not thinking the same way as the professor, which by the way is what you are advocating and its pretty Orwellian.

What you are basically saying is that person committed a crime because they think a certain way and are actually willing to stand up and speak it. You are one step away from punishing thought crimes.

Do you believe the Constitution would back you up on this Tab? Do you care?
 
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Tab

Lifer
Sep 15, 2002
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What he is talking about in the article is factually incorrect. I've never advocated such a thing. You might wanna step down from the pedestal son.
 

Deudalus

Golden Member
Jan 16, 2005
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What he is talking about in the article is factually incorrect. I've never advocated such a thing. You might wanna step down from the pedestal son.

Well son, what did he say that was provably factually incorrect?

You are so narcissistic that you cannot differentiate between "what I think" and "what is absolute fact" and that is a problem.

What's more when you are challenged on this you say things like "son" to make you feel big and powerful.

What that professor put into his article was his opinion which until you run the country he is entitled to. What about that can you not understand?
 
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Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
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Conservatives spend decades making 'liberal' into a dirty word and then claim liberals are condescending. Wow... just. wow.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,422
14,337
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Well son, what did he say that was provably factually incorrect?

You are so narcissistic that you cannot differentiate between "what I think" and "what is absolute fact" and that is a problem.

What's more when you are challenged on this you say things like "son" to make you feel big and powerful.

What that professor put into his article was his opinion which until you run the country he is entitled to. What about that can you not understand?

And other people are entitled to their own opinion that the professor's opinion is whack. What about that can you not understand?

This thread reminds me of when Ann Coulter said that liberals were incapable of enjoying sex. While I believe that it must be amazing to be capable of making such incredibly sweeping and bizarre generalizations, I find it pathetic that anyone would be stupid and partisan enough to defend them.
 

Robor

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Conservatives think that everyone should be able to make their own choices, even if they are bad. Liberals think they know what's good for you better than you do, and that it is their job to enforce it.

You forgot to mention conservatives love freedom. :rolleyes:
 

Deudalus

Golden Member
Jan 16, 2005
1,090
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And other people are entitled to their own opinion that the professor's opinion is whack. What about that can you not understand?

My problem was this:

God, has anyone even read this article? Fuck. I can't even believe this guy gets to have professor in front of his name.

That sounds to me like someone saying "this person should not be allowed to think this way and be a professor" which is bullshit. If that isn't what he was saying then I apologize but it sure is what it sounds like.

People are entitled to their opinions.
 

Robor

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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I'm socially liberal and fiscally conservative.

That said I wouldn't call myself a Republican right now though I do identify more and vote with Republicans than Democrats.

Based on what you said above - Fixed.