Happy? You're probably a Republican

[shostakovich]

You got a point on "compassion". Whether raising taxes is good or bad is a lesser point. It's necessary (IMHO).
Shos

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Isn't Medicare 3% of everybody's salary? We should be good!

Also, I'm not sure compassion is what we need. It's sort of incompatible with the respect which I would rather have. Compassion rather implies that you think the objects of same need somebody to take care of them, as though they were incompetent or thoughtless.

<small>[ 03-02-2006, 02:26 AM: Message edited by: Selma in Sandy Eggo ]</small>

[piqaboo]

That there stud finder sure worked for me!

Selma, I dont get the same connotations from compassion that you do, at all at all.
I equate compassion and empathy, not sympathy.

"As Abraham Lincoln once said, "Most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be."" - I've certainly found this to be true for myself. "The Power of Positive Thinking", etc.

[barfle]

Originally posted by piqaboo:
That there stud finder sure worked for me!

And we thought OT had an ego before?

[DavidS]

Originally posted by Selma in Sandy Eggo:

Also, I'm not sure compassion is what we need. It's sort of incompatible with the respect which I would rather have. Compassion rather implies that you think the objects of same need somebody to take care of them, as though they were incompetent or thoughtless.

Respect clearly comes first, but such is our world that there are those who objectively are incapable of taking care of themselves. That is where compassion or understanding should kick in, especially on the part of public officials in charge of dispensing the appropriate assistance.

[OperaTenor]

[quote]Originally posted by barfle:
[b] [quote]Originally posted by piqaboo:
[b] That there stud finder sure worked for me!

[Shapley]

New study sheds light on why conservatives are happier than liberals

Individuals with conservative ideologies are happier than liberal-leaners, and new research pinpoints the reason: Conservatives rationalize social and economic inequalities.

Regardless of marital status, income or church attendance, right-wing individuals reported greater life satisfaction and well-being than left-wingers, the new study found.

Conservatives also scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person's tendency to justify, or explain away, inequalities.

The rationalization measure included statements such as: "It is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others," and "This country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are."

From page 1 of this thread:

My own view of this is that Republicans are more willing than Democrats to accept the challenges brought about by changing economic and political climates.

Global warming, for instance, scares Democrats but not Republicans. Why? Democrats fear that global warming will bring about catastrophic changes that may imperil our ability to live on the Earth. Republicans believe that changes due to global warming, if they occur, will occur gradually, allowing people time to adjust to, or resolve, the problems encountered.

Democrats worry too much about other people's problems, as well as other people's good fortune. They see injustice in every aspect of life, and try to find governmental solutions to fix it. Republicans see that there is injustice in many aspects of life, and accept that that is the way of the world. They are willing to allow government to fix such injustice as falls within their jurisdiction, but believe that not everything in life falls within that jurisdiction.

Democrats think they pay too much in taxes, and that everybody else doesn't pay enough in taxes. They spend a lot of time worrying about that. They think that government could do a better job of curing all our ills if everybody else would give enough money to the treasury. Republicans think everybody that pays taxes probably pays too much in taxes, because the government tries to do too much with what it has, and wastes a lot of money in the process of trying to do it.

V/R
Shapley

Them thar researchers could have saved some time and money if they'd just read the Beethoven.com Bulletin Board.... [tooting my own horn icon]

[piqaboo]

pangloss....

[Shapley]

pangloss....

Not entirely. The Conservative approach would be to 'cross that bridge when we come to it', whereas Pangloss would rationlize that the river existed solely for the purpose of keeping us on this side, so we should not cross the bridge at all.

Liberals, on the other hand, would fret and fume about how unfair it is that they are on this side of the river, and how unfair it is that the people on the other side of the river are already there, with so many left on this side of the river. They would argue the need for a wider, safer, bridge so that everyone can cross, regardless of race, creed, colour, or desire to be on the other side, while the people on the other side of the river, who have no desire to cross back over the river, should pay for the new bridge.

V/R
Shapley

[BigJon@Work]

Utopians vs. Realists?

[Haggis@wk]

Utopians vs. Realists?

Exactly, and my (and probably Shapley's) realist take is that I won't get ulcers if Hillary or Obama become president. I might not be overjoyed but I won't succumb to Clinton or Obama Derangement Syndrome, which seems to be the de rigueur response whenever a Republican wins office.

I concede that conservatives and republicans aren’t totally immune to the phenomenon, I’ve commented several times that I believe my father’s unreasonable hatred of Clinton shaved more than a few years off his life, but generally speaking, the embittered vindictive spitefulness seems more a fixture on the Left than on the Right.

Someone commented once that the difference between a Liberal and a Conservative seems to be that the Conservative thinks the Liberal is wrong while the Liberal thinks the Conservative is evil.

I think there are more Americans who are more center right than there are who are center left.

Regardless, I have a health respect for the American electorate to do the right thing.

Which, on reflection of how the Democrats choose their nominees, is not a reciprocal respect shared by the leaders of the Democrat Party.

[Shapley]

Besides, how can you be unhappy with so much liberal entertainment to keep you smiling.

The women's anti-war group has told ralliers to come equipped with spells and pointy hats Friday for "Witches, clowns and sirens day," the last of the group's weeklong homage to Mother's Day.

"Women are coming to cast spells and do rituals and to impart wisdom to figure out how we're going to end war," Zanne Sam Joi of Bay Area Code Pink told FOXNews.com.

The group's week of themed protests, which included days to galvanize grannies and bring-your-daughter-to-protest, appears to have done little to boost its flagging numbers.

[piqaboo]

IME,
"conservatives" like things the way they are. They've gotten comfortable under the existing conditions, and change might threaten that in some way. Conservation of the status quo works for them. Everyone else is expected to function under the same rules that 'worked for me'. Its rare to consider that some of what 'worked for me' might not be a good general state of affairs (pollution controls cost money - why change what works so well now?).

"liberals" dont have as much personal comfort to protect, and might think that change will help them reach a higher comfort level, and also have this desire to give everyone an approximately equal shot at life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Unfortunately, it can be hard for them to draw the line between sane change (making publically funded sidewalks useable for folks on crutches and in wheel chairs or publically funded childhood vaccinations and adult boosters), vs over-control (requiring privately owned shops to be handicapped accessible, requiring people to buy health insurance).

I suspect that there are correlations between liberal/conservative and low/higher net worth, and with younger/older. Also, probably between know lots of people who are not like me / mostly stayed home and/or bknow mostly people like me

[Shapley]

IMHO,

Conservatives accept change, but they don't like to force it, nor have it forced upon them. Also, like ents, they don'd like to be 'hasty' about enacting change, except in crisis situations. Most things, they realize, aren't crises.

Liberals seem to see a crisis in everything, as I mentioned earlier about the Clintons. Oftentimes, it seems to me, liberals guage everything within the scope of their own limited experience. The economy is the "worst its ever been" under President Bush. The economy was "the best its ever been" under Bill Clinton. Race relations are "at their worst" under the current administration. America's relations with other countries is "the worst it's ever been". etc., etc. I don't know if they actually believe it, or if they say it because it suits their cause.

Perhaps the biggest problem for liberals is that they place all their hopes in big government-sized solutions, which sets them up for big government-sized disappointment. Conservatives believe in imposing laws at the lowest lever for which they are needed. If crime is a problem in your neighborhood, get your neighborhood to fix it. Failing that, get your city, county, or State government to fix it, or move to safer neighborhood. Federal government should be the last resort. There are also many issues are simply beneath the scope of the Federal government, unless you're a liberal. We used to have a saying: "You don't have to make a Federal case out of it", meaning that some things are to trivial for Federal attention. Liberals don't use that phrase.

Liberals believe in passing Federal laws for local problems. They think that if there is a problem in their neighborhood, then it must be a problem in every neighborhood. If it's not a problem in your neighborhood, you can petition the Federal government for an exemption to the law. They blow everything out of proportion, because they perceive all of their problems to be everyone's problem, so their solution must be everyone's solution. They believe in the collective, not the individual.

At least, that is my take on things.

[barfle]

"Conservative" used to mean that the Constitution was held in high regard and that anything that went contrary to it would require an amendment to the Constitution. "Liberal" used to mean that a loose reading of the Constitution was sufficient, and as long as no blatant offense was made, it was OK.

Nowadays, it seems as though "Conservative" is understood to mean old time values from a time that never was. Unfortunately, they also feel that those imaginary values should be enforced against those who feel liberty is their right.

[Haggis@wk]

Surely it says something about a group that wants to empower courts to make social changes that couldn't be enacted otherwise. Other than, "a minority" of course.

[Shapley]

BTW, Here's an update on a link I posted yesterday about Code Pink protesting in Berkeley:

Witches, Crones, & Siren's Day

Yesterday's link had mistakenly referred to it as "Witches, Clowns, & Sirens Day".

Come to think of it, yesterday's link probably wasn't mistaken....

[Serenity]

Shap, aren't you afraid that you are highlighting what you don't want in your life?

[Shapley]

Not at all. There is great humour in such things, even though liberals, such as Code Pink, think they're serious.

[Serenity]

Where's the beer wench?