Liberals Vs. Conservatives

Lets have a poll and crown the smartest Pa member

This poll is just so flawed. Some liberals are stupid, some aren't. Some republicans are stupid, some are smart. You shoudlen't generalise groups like this, especialy groups so big.

Dean wrote: CPicard wrote: Ambient Hurricanes wrote: Dean wrote: ...and that's the problem. I don't think that innate intelligence changes a great deal during a person's lifetime - a valid observation would be that each of us are less smart than some folks and more smart than some other folks - we may move around a little on that scale due to the uncertaintiy of measurement, (today I'm a little smarter than Cedric but tomorrow he could be a little smarter than me because we took a new test and got slightly different results), but we're not going to jump from the third quartile to the upper quartile just by going to college to learn some stuff. Dean, what is it with you and Cedric? Yeah, Dean, I hardly know you, but you think you're smarter than me??? That's not nice! Wait until tomorrow then.       *facepalm*

Okay, it's tomorrow, let's have an IQ match!

(What do you mean, "I'm derailing this thread again"?)

Liberals are only free to choose alternatives they have neither the means or ability to implement successfully (and often use this failure as vindication of their beliefs)

The poll implies that differing gradations and hues of perspective are irrelevant, to which I strenuously object.

That said, I'm a dreamer, so I'm ready to join (John)

thellama73 wrote: Dean wrote: Conservatives have traditionally been drawn from the ranks of the middle and upper classes, (even in an egailtarian classless society class exists - there are those who are born into privilage and those who are not in every country in the world), this is not something you can deny even if you can produce a list of poor people who are conservatives or rich people who are liberal or socialist - if you are born rich the chances of you being a Conservative are far higher than if you were born poor - if you were born rich the chances of you having a better education are far higher than if you were born poorI'm not convinced the first part of this is true, but if it is the second half would seem to undermine the initial claim Slarti made about intelligence. (I realize of course that education is not synonymous with intelligence, but they are related and those with a good education can make better use of their natural gifts.)if you were born rich the chances of you having a well paid job are far higher than if you were born poor - if you were born rich or poor the chances are you will have a political outlook similar to your socioeconomic peers. Those that wish to conserve the status quo are often those that have something to preserve.I would argue that most conservatives are not very big fans of the status quo, the status quo being enormous amounts of government spending, debt and unsustainable entitlements. I think the name "conservative" confuses a lot of people into thinking that conservatives don't want change. We just want change in a different direction than the liberals. I get the sense that these terms have slightly different meanings in British politics than in American, so that may be where the confusion lies.Generalisations and stereotypes are crude caricatures, but that is not to say there isn't some grain of truth in the exaggerated and oversimplified characteristics - the point of a caricature is to highlight a characteristic of the subject beyond the point of absurdity, just as you all do with Liberals, just as I do by deliberately misspelling Librarians (stereotype caricature: book people).

In the UK, the Conservative Party (tories) has historically been comprised of fairly wealthy people, and those from fairly priviliged backgrounds. There will be those wbo say it hasn't, but it depends how you choose to measure wealth and background. Most aspects of political stereotyping are based on generalisations. However, conservative voters have always been a mix of working class and middle class folk, just like Republican supporters are in the US, I guess. For many years some of our best selling tabloid newspapers, clearly aimed at working classes, were ardent supporters of the conservative party. The tories were more synonamous with jingoism and flag waving, and this tends to appeal more to certain groups of people, who may be more inclined to blame those from outside the country, for all it's failings, but again, there is an element of generalisation here.

The British media, covering the GOP contest in the US, tends to portray all republicans, as stetson wearing, tobacco chewing ranchers, conspiracy theorists, or religious maniacs who attack abortion clinics. That's what many of us think republican supporters are, with few or no exceptions, because that's what we're told. We have a broadly liberal media, so you'll rarely hear any actual criticism of Obama. Just as you'll never hear criticism of Putin on Russia Today. You'll never hear the BBC say 'Obama has made a big mistake' You'll hear instead 'Obama has a lot of challenges ahead' You'll rarely hear about the NDAA, or the fact that deaths through drone attacks in Paksitan have increased ten fold since Bush left office. I would actually consider myself liberal, rather than conservative, but it bothers me that many liberals instintively put the blinkers on when their heroes do something they don't like, or try to justify horrific acts of war and support for terrorist groups, on 'humanitarian' grounds.

^^ Yes, that is true.

Although the watertight alliance between Bush and Blair was, in my oipinion, and indicator of either how the Labour party had actually veered right, or evidence should it be needed, that the political left/right paradigm simply doesn't apply when it comes to global geo-political moves on the chessboard. I would like to know more about the background to the run up to the Iraq conflict. The discussions that were held in private between the two men, long before the UN had voted.

Edited by Blacksword - August 29 2012 at 05:37